City of Laredo Texas Health Tip
Eating out: Use a DASH of common sense What if a pleasant dinner out could help lower your blood pressure? It can, provided you order the right kinds of foods and combine the occasional restaurant meal with a healthy eating plan at home. The eating plan called Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) can help you stay on track even when you're dining out. The DASH way The DASH plan outlines what types of foods to emphasize in your overall diet, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy products, and how many servings to have each day. Although the portions are often larger and the temptations greater when you dine out, you can make the same healthy food choices you do at home when you follow the DASH eating plan. All it takes to put the DASH principles into action when you're eating out is reading menus closely and asking questions about how dishes are made. Some restaurants, for example, use icons on menus to identify low-fat items or they list heart-healthy fare in a special section. Many restaurants will also honor requests to prepare a dish with less fat and sodium. Even if you choose a dish lower in fat and sodium, you risk being sabotaged by portion sizes. Restaurant meals are often much larger than suggested servings under DASH. To avoid that pitfall, ask if you can have the lunch portion, even if you're eating dinner. Or, substitute an appetizer for an entree, split a meal with a companion, or put half the meal in a takeout container even before you start eating. Made to order From appetizer to dessert, the DASH eating plan can point you to healthy choices. Here are some tips to make eating out both enjoyable and healthy: „h Appetizer. Choose appetizers with vegetables, fruits or fish, such as chopped, raw vegetables, fresh-fruit compote or shrimp cocktail (use lemon juice instead of higher-sodium cocktail sauce). „h Soup. You're often better off avoiding soup and choosing fruit or salad. Broth- or tomato-based soups are often high in sodium. Chowders, creamed or pureed soups, as well as some fruit soups, may contain high-fat heavy cream and high-cholesterol egg yolks. Clear soups can be allowed. Examples, caldo de rez or caldo de pollo. „h Salad. Order lettuce or spinach salad with dressing on the side and limit yourself to one soupspoon of dressing. Caesar, Greek and taco salads are higher in fat and calories. Chef salads are usually high in fat, cholesterol and calories because of the large amounts of cheese, eggs and meat. „h Bread. If you're offered a bread basket, take one piece and ask your server to remove the basket. Choose a whole-grain bread, roll or breadstick. Muffins, garlic toast and croissants have more calories and fat, and crackers can be high in both sodium and fat. „h Entree. Choose a baked, broiled (without added butter), grilled, poached, roasted or steamed entree. Meats and vegetables that have been sauteed or stir-fried in a small amount of oil, broth or water are usually lower in fat as well. Entrees to avoid include anything fried, fricasseed, creamed, sauteed or stir-fried in heavy oil. Also steer clear of broasted, stuffed, buttered, breaded or basted entrees. If the name of an entree contains the term au gratin, a la king, alfredo or parmigiana, choose something else. Always ask for sauce to be served on the side. „h Side dish. Choose a baked potato, boiled new potatoes, steamed vegetables, rice or fresh fruit instead of french fries, potato chips, onion rings or mayonnaise-based salads, such as potato salad. Ask the chef to skip the butter, margarine or salt when preparing a vegetable or rice dish. „h Condiments. Choose items like fresh tomato, cucumber and lettuce for sandwiches. Avoid olives, pickles and sauerkraut because of their high sodium content. Use ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise sparingly and substitute pepper or lemon juice for salt. „h Dessert. Wait before ordering dessert to let the main course settle. It takes a while for a feeling of fullness to register in your brain. If you just can't resist dessert, though, choose fresh fruit, poached spiced fruit, plain cake with fruit puree, sorbet or sherbet. „h Alcohol. Wine, beer and hard liquor may have more calories than you think, an important fact for people who are trying to lose weight. A 12-ounce serving of beer, whether regular or light, has 150 calories. A 5-ounce glass of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof whiskey contains 100 calories. What's more, excessive alcohol consumption can raise your blood pressure. If you choose to drink, limit yourself to one drink a day if you're a woman and one or two drinks a day if you're a man. Going ethnic: Healthy dishes for every culinary style As with American foods, the trick is to sidestep excess fat and sodium ¡X not always easy with some international cuisines. Frequently, though, excess fat and sodium find their way into ethnic foods only when they're prepared for American tastes. Here's what you should know when heading out to your favorite ethnic restaurants: „h Chinese. Many Chinese dishes contain low-fat ingredients such as vegetables and grains. Maintain these healthy pluses by ordering wisely. Look for stir-fried (request little or no oil) or steamed dishes with lots of vegetables, steamed rice, poached fish, or entrees that contain chicken, seafood or just vegetables. Learning some Chinese can also help you make the right choices. Order items that contain the word Jum (poached), Chu (boiled) or Kow (roasted). Avoid fried items such as crispy wonton appetizers, egg or spring rolls, fried rice and shrimp toast. To limit sodium, ask that your food be prepared without salt, monosodium glutamate (MSG) or soy sauce. Request other salty sauces on the side. „h Italian. The foundation of many Italian dishes is low-fat pasta. The key is not to cover it with a rich sauce. Look for red or clam sauces and fresh tomato-based sauces like marinara, which may also help you meet your daily vegetable requirements. Also choose simply prepared fish or chicken dishes. Good choices include chicken in wine sauce, grilled fish or shrimp marinara. Avoid items that contain cream or butter sauces, such as fettuccine alfredo or pasta stuffed with cheese or fatty meat. Also avoid items with pancetta or prosciutto ¡X Italian bacon and ham ¡X which are high in salt. When ordering pizza, ask for more vegetables and less meat and cheese. „h Mexican. Many Mexican restaurants north of the border feature items high in fat, but you can find a healthy dish if you choose wisely. Look for dishes without the typical add-ons, such as cheese, sour cream or guacamole, and concentrate on items that are baked, not fried. Your best choices include fajitas, burritos or soft tacos. Fajitas are an especially good choice because you choose which ingredients go in the flour tortilla. Pile on the grilled vegetables and limit the sour cream and guacamole. Avoid refried beans, which are often cooked in lard, and Mexican rice, which may be high in sodium. Choose black beans and plain rice instead. Also skip the fried chips usually served before the meal. Instead, ask for plain tortillas to dip into salsa. „h Japanese. Although many Japanese dishes contain mainly fish, rice and vegetables ¡X foods high in nutrients ¡X the cuisine can also be extremely salty. Stay away from dishes containing soy and other salty sauces. If you're not sure how an item is prepared, ask. Look for steamed rice, soba or udon noodles, yaki soba (stir-fried noodles), yakitori (chicken teriyaki), shumai (steamed dumplings), tofu, sukiyaki and kayaku goban (vegetables and rice). Avoid shrimp or vegetable tempura, chicken katsu, tonkatsu (fried pork), shrimp agemono and fried tofu (bean curd). „h New American or Californian. Featuring Mediterranean, Pacific Rim or American Southwest cooking, these restaurants generally offer a variety of healthy choices. Look for seafood broiled with lemon and herbs to bring out flavor. Or choose pan-roasted meats, which are browned quickly over high heat to seal in juices. Items rubbed with herbs also tend to be flavorful and contain less fat and salt. Avoid dishes made with cheese, fatty meats, cream or butter. Outsmarting the fast-food trap Many major fast-food franchises have at least a few lighter fare items, such as salads and grilled chicken. Many have also switched from animal to vegetable cooking fats, which lower saturated fat and cholesterol. Despite these beneficial changes, some of the healthier choices are still too high in fat and calories. "Be choosy" should always be your bottom line when dining out at a fast-food restaurant. Look at the wide range of fat, calorie and sodium levels, for example, in these typical fast-food items:
Fast-food nutrition sampler
Menu item
Fat (grams)
Calories
Sodium (milligrams) McDonald's Big Mac
33
580
1,050

McDonald's Chicken McGrill
17
400
890

McDonald's Caesar salad (plain)
4
90
170

McDonald's Caesar salad (with chicken or dressing)
7
210
680

Subway 6-inch Meatball Sub
26
540
1,300

Subway 6-inch Cold Turkey Breast Sub (without cheese or mayonnaise)
4.5
280
1,010

Subway 6-inch Cold Veggie Delite Sub (without cheese or mayonnaise)
3
230
510

If you regularly eat fast food, here are some ordering strategies that will help you get the healthiest bang for your buck:
„h Order small portions ¡X for example, a single small hamburger instead of a double, or a small order of fries instead of a large one.
„h Choose unbreaded poultry items, such as broiled or grilled chicken. Even better, order a veggie sandwich or garden salad without cheese and eggs, and ask for low-fat or fat-free dressing.
„h To control sodium, cut back on ketchup, mustard, sauces and pickles. Also skip the salted french fries, chips, ham, sausage, bacon and cheese.
„h Skip milk shakes and dessert items such as pies and sundaes with syrups. Instead, order orange juice or a flavored coffee with skim milk.
Putting it all in perspective If all of the suggestions for healthy eating seem a bit overwhelming, remember that eating well isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. Not every food you eat has to be an excellent source of nutrients or fiber. It's OK to have high-fat or salty foods ¡X on occasion. Even with the DASH eating plan, meals out aren't taboo. The key to lowering your blood pressure, though, is to eat the healthier foods of the DASH plan more often than their less healthy counterparts. Over time, this smarter approach to eating will become a habit, and good habits can be as difficult to break as bad ones.

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Information above provided by Mayo Clinic