Last weekend, while going out to eat, I noticed how much unnecessary stuff gets dumped on restaurant food.
It’s been a habit of mine now to ask for any sauces or dressings on the side if they’re able to accommodate that. Why? Most sauces and dressings add a ton of calories, fat, sugar, and sodium to whatever you order, even salads. In fact if you take a gander at the salads at TGI Friday’s, they’re all over 1200 calories and it’s in part thanks to the dressing.
If the flavor of the food can be enhanced by something, I just dribble it on myself or dip it in the little container. But I’m finding more and more often that the sauce/dressing is totally superfluous. It unnecessarily masks the food, which usually tastes just fine without the gunk.
We’ve been brought up to loathe how things taste naturally and to drown them, especially “healthy” foods, in sauce. As a co-worker told me once, “I like a little salad with my dressing.” But if you want to be healthier, you need to learn how to balance out sauces and dressings with whatever you’re eating. Restaurant food is generally cooked with salt, butter, olive oil, and vegetable oil; it doesn’t need any more “favors.” At home, you can do some low-calorie tricks to make food tastier without drowning it.
When you go out:
1. Pay attention to the menu description. If it’s barbecued, mesquite-grilled, sautéed in butter or olive oil, cooked with sea salt, blackened, etc., that’s where the flavor is going to come in. It won’t need very much more than that.
2. Ask for any sauces or dressings on the side. Use judiciously and or as a dip.
3. If you’re ordering a salad, ask for what’s the lowest calorie/fat dressing and order it. Still get it on the side. Lightly drizzle the dressing or use it as a dip. Watch out for “vinaigrettes.” Sometimes they’re very fatty because they use regular oil. Or, order without a dressing and ask for olive oil instead. Drizzle no more than two tablespoons over the salad.
4. Request low fat sour cream if you must, and order it on the side. Use very judiciously, no more than a spoonful.
At home:
1. Flavor your food with a little rice vinegar, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lemon salt, and sea salt or kosher salt. That way you won’t have to go nuts with anything else.
2. If you have to have your ranch or blue cheese, buy a low fat version and don’t use any more than a tablespoon (pay close attention to the caloric info on the label). Otherwise, I like the commercial spray-on dressings. Or just put olive oil, balsamic vinegar, or rice vinegar as your dressing. Add a spoonful of crumbled blue cheese, feta, goat cheese, etc.. Tastes yummy.
3. Prepare sauces yourself if you can. Chances are you can come up with something far lower in the bad stuff than some commercial enterprise.
4. Use low fat sour cream instead of the real stuff. Better yet, use regular unflavored Greek yogurt. It tastes just like sour cream and you can use it for all kinds of recipes.
Sauces that are always good (provided it’s low in sodium):
A) Hot sauce
Tabasco, sriracha, chipotle, etc. sauces have no little to no calories. Usually it’s the chili along with water and maybe some tomato. It adds flavor and I’ve found that heat actually decreases appetite.
B) Salsa
As long as it’s just chopped up tomatoes, cilantro (coriander), onions, and peppers, it’s harmless. Beware of “creamy” salsas. I love the smoked chipotle salsa from Chevy’s but I also think it’s pretty salty.
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