You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you.
Leslie of The Weighting Game (who makes me laugh so hard that I actually count it as a mini-workout) got me thinking today about restaurant food. This has typically be an area fraught with anxiety for me. Seriously, you’ve never seen overthinking unless you’ve watched me study a restaurant menu. It’s painful and I’m not talking about paper cuts.
She posted a partial list from Men’s Health Magazine about the 20 Worst Foods in America. These fat bombs give you twice your daily calories and up to six times your daily alottment of fat – in one single dish. Not to mention enough carbs and simple sugars to fuel three ultramarathoners and I’m pretty sure the average diner at Chilis isn’t meeting up with Dean Karnazes after their awesome blossom and chocolate chip pie for a little 100-mile jog.
They Are Trying To Kill You
Chefs apparently want you dead. I don’t know if they are mean people in general (I can’t believe that after reading Hungry Waif’s blog!) or if they just don’t realize the potential problems associated with giving their customer base heart attacks and diabetes. According to Restaurant Shockers on E-Diets, chefs go out of their way to sabotage your “healthy” food.
My top favorite way? They butter your steamed vegetables. Kathleen Daelemeans, a West Bloomfield, Mich., chef and author of Getting Thin and Loving Food, reports “I recently ordered steamed vegetable from room service at New York City hotel. Sure, they steamed them. But then they tossed them in so much butter and olive oil that I would have been better off ordering a banana split.” And I always wondered why veggies at restuarants taste so much better than when I cook them at home.
My second favorite (??) shocker: marinara sauce is not healthy. Again, it’s the massive amounts of oil they use. Fat sells. Unless you’re in marketing. And then you’d be better off with an anemic, chain-smoking, top heavy piece of broccoli with size 0 legs and puffy cheeks.
To find out the rest of the shockers and ways to combat them at your favorite restaurant, check out the whole article. It’s an eye opener.
Yep, I go to a french culinary school so maybe we do things differently (i.e. mount ALL our suaces with goops of butter). I dont think chef want to kill their customers but they fear serving substitutes because they fear it ill not taste as good and that their repuration will be at stake. I promise if I open a resturant, i’ll serve me customers healthier food and try to limit the heart-attacks on a plate.
You know what bugs me? That it’s really the OTHER people to whom they are catering that are sabotaging my healthy eating when I go out. I mean, they do it because fat sells. Because most people want their steamed vegetables with two pats of butter in there. Well, guess what? I don’t! If I order steamed vegetables, I want STEAMED VEGETABLES. There are some people who actually *gasp* like the way it’s supposed to taste.
Just last week I was out to dinner and I ordered some grilled seasonal vegetables (most everything else was sauteed, which at a restaurant I know means more fat than you can shake a stick at). Waiter brought them out. Was seated at a really dark table, so I couldn’t see very well. Took a bite… Covered. In. Oil. Sigh. To be honest, I don’t want to get a salad with the dressing on the side every time I go out. But that’s mostly what I end up doing, precisely for this reason.
Also, am somewhat paranoid that my Starbucks doesn’t always use skim milk. Hmm…
Re. ordering steamed veggies – Alex, I totally have had this exact experience. A quick recap (at Ruby Tuesdays, for the article which Charlotte mentioned): Me: “I’ll have steamed broccoli on the side. Waitress: “OK!” 10 minutes later, my broclli arrives glistening in butter. Me: “Is this steamed?” Waitress: “Oh, you wanted it steamed, no butter?”
DUH.
I get paranoid about Starbux skim, too 🙂
btw, heres the article about the nutritional info from the famous “French Laundry” in napa.
Hey Waif – if you posted a link, it didn’t come through. You can e-mail it to me though at chariander@gmail.com or I’ll check your blog in case you posted it there. Thanks!
Ha ha – glad to see that I’m not the only one that watches the Starbucks barrister like a hawk!
silly me! http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119749653079524635.html?mod=blog
Perhaps it would be helpful to take more control at restaurants. Tell them how you want things and order “on the side” with sauces. Just a thought.
Dr. J