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Eat Out, Eat Right: - The Guide to Healthier Restaurant Eating
Author: Hope Warshaw, MMSc, RD, CDE
We caught up with Hope S. Warshaw, MMSc, RD, CDE, nationally recognized diabetes, weight and nutrition expert to talk about her book, Eat Out, Eat Right: The Guide to Healthier Restaurant Eating (Surrey Books, 2008), and to interview her on healthy eating, diabetes prevention, and feeding your kids.
In her book, Hope describes her straight-forward and realistic approach to dining out. You’ll get the low-down on which ingredients, food preparations and food items are redflags and greenflags for a wide array of cuisines - from ethnic fare to elegant cuisine and fast food. These helpful tips enable you to make quick choices on-the-go with ease.
Whether you’re dining out for pleasure, business or for quick family meals, eating out healthfully presents challenges if you don’t have the right skills. This book offers the skills you and your family need to navigate menu boards and menus laden with calorie-filled items served in huge portions towards healthier options served in smaller portions.
This book will help you:
- Recognize the ways in which fat creeps unexpectedly into appetizers and entrees.
- Learn how to make reasonable deletions or additions to your family’s favorite menu selections.
- Understand just how much is too much by learning the proper portions.
- Learn skills to help your children eat more healthfully at restaurants.
- Make educated guesses about nutrient counts of menu items when information is limited.
- Plan and strategize before dining out.
- Enjoy eating out while you eat healthier.
As you read Eat Out, Eat Right, you’ll discover a new healthy mindset and a can-do attitude that allows you to eat out without throwing healthy guidelines by the wayside.
We asked Hope to talk about the messages she tries to deliver in her book as well as her vast knowledge on what it takes to raise healthy children, prevent diabetes (a growing epidemic in kids) and live a more healthful lifestyle.
What are your three most important nutrition tips for parents who are working on creating healthier eating habits for their children?
- Actions speak louder than words. “Monkey see monkey do!”
- Take advantage of opportunities that allow you to bring healthy foods into an eating environment (e.g. to the soccer field, Girl Scout meeting or PTA event).
- Widen kids’ palates. There’s a big assumption that kids won’t eat certain foods. This has been translated into serving kids only certain “kid foods” like mac n’ cheese, pizza, or burgers and fries; in the home, in restaurants and even in schools. Start young and expand your child’s food selections and eating experiences.
Making healthy food choices away from the home can be challenging. How can your book Eat Out, Eat Right be used by families as a helpful tool for making healthy choices when eating out?
It is highly likely that our children, as they grow and age, will eat restaurant meals more often than we even do. Whether good or bad, this simply seems to be the reality of how we are getting the job of eating done in our fast-food, convenience-driven world. With this in mind, it becomes important for parents to teach children healthy restaurant eating survival skills…and I suggest you get started early! Again the theory of “monkey see, monkey do” works well.
I have a chapter dedicated to the topic of eating out with children in my book Eat Out, Eat Right. Here are a few tips which have been tested out with my family for nearly 13 years:
- Avoid kids’ meals and kids’ menus as long and often as possible. (Exception: kids’ meals in fast food restaurants do provide smaller size servings and have begun to provide healthier options.) Don’t let wait people hand these to your children. Foods on these menus are typically not so healthy and nearly always include French fries. They also narrow scope our children’s palates. So it’s helpful not to reinforce this further.
- Broaden your children’s palate by taking them to a wide gamut of ethnic restaurants. Japanese, Thai, Middle Eastern and more. Yes, children will eat these foods! They’ll also get exposed to traditions and people of countries all over the world at the same time.
- Order from the “adult” menu. Order a few menu items that everyone will enjoy and share them up family style. This works particularly well with ethnic fare - Asian, Mexican and Italian food. Put entrees in the middle of the table, request extra plates and divide up portions.
- Your kids may enjoy smaller portions by ordering one, two or more small dishes, from soups, salads, appetizers and/ or side dishes. Encourage them to mix and match and put together healthier meals creatively.
- Teach them to practice portion control by splitting and sharing portions. For example, order a large French fries and split it among the family rather than an order for each diner. Order one sandwich or entrée and split it. Many times, portions are most often big enough for two! Split dessert. If you’re going out for ice cream, look for the kiddie or junior portion.
- Limit (better yet avoid!) regularly sweetened beverages. Encourage them to order low fat milk, water, or 100% fruit juice.
- Check in on the frequency with which you are eating out. It’s simply easier to prepare, choose and eat healthier meals at home.
- Teach your children to cook and participate in food and meal preparation. It’s important for them to learn basic cooking skills and have a repertoire of recipes they’re comfortable fixing. Keep in mind you are teaching them survival skills for life!
Do you think that it is becoming easier or more difficult to eat restaurant meals more healthfully as a family?
In all honesty, my answer is both yes and no for different reasons. From the standpoint of portions and types of foods available at restaurants, eating healthfully is still a challenge that one needs to be able and willing to deal with. It takes willpower, creativity and pure perseverance! I provide many skills and strategies in my book Eat Out Eat Right.
You can make healthy restaurant eating easier by choosing restaurants for yourself and your family which make this less arduous and minimize your battles with children. For example: choose Subway rather than a fast food burger place; choose ethnic fare over American fare restaurants. It is much more of a challenge to eat healthfully in American fare restaurants due to the types of foods served and the huge portions.
However, healthier restaurant eating is becoming a bit easier in a growing group of restaurants. Nowadays, you can find more places which offer healthier items, allow you to split and share, offer half portions, provide vegetables as a side order, have light salad dressing and low fat milk, healthier side items are available in kid’s fast food meals, and more.
Bottom-line: consumer demand motivates marketers. The more of us that demand healthier restaurant foods, the sooner we’ll see them lining restaurant menus and menu boards. Remember: you have the power as the consumer! Don’t be shy about asking, speak up! They want you to be a repeat customer (dollars)!
Since you’re a nationally recognized diabetes expert, can you describe what diabetes is for our readers?
Diabetes is actually several conditions with one general name. In general, diabetes is group of diseases in which the common denominator is blood glucose levels that are higher than normal. The major explanation for the high blood glucose levels has to do with either insufficient amounts of insulin being produced by the pancreas and/or the inability to properly use the insulin made by the pancreas due to the phenomenon of insulin resistance and inflammation. Type 1 diabetes is usually (but not always) diagnosed during childhood or young adulthood. It is an auto-immune condition in which the body destroys the insulin-making beta cells in the pancreas. Type 2 diabetes is most often a combination of insulin resistance and relative shortage of insulin. Most people with type 2 eventually need to take blood glucose-lowering medication which may include medication taken in pill form or injected. It’s very common for people with type 2 to also have high blood pressure and abnormal lipid levels.
Why are we seeing so much more pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes now?
We are seeing an epidemic of pre-diabetes (57 million in U.S.) and type 2 diabetes (about 17 million in U.S.) due to our obesity epidemic. Unfortunately they go hand in hand - where there’s obesity, there’s type 2 diabetes!
We are also seeing more type 2 in the U.S. because 1) people are living longer and are more likely to develop it, and 2) a growing number of people from specific ethnic populations have a higher occurrence of type 2 - Hispanic Americans, African-Americans and Native Americans (particularly certain tribes). According to a depressing CDC statistic, one in three children born since 2000 will develop type 2 diabetes in their lifetime and the statistic is one in two children for African American and Hispanic American children. And if you as a parent have type 2 yourself, or you have a first-degree relative with it, your children’s risk is even greater. You can learn more about diabetes prevention and management in my book Real Life Guide to Diabetes (American Diabetes Association, 2009).
As a parent, suggest activities which include physical activity instead of sedentary activities. Together we can make a difference and reverse the statistics and trends!
What can we, as parents, do to help our children prevent these developing health problems in the near or distant future?
We can reverse this rise in the incidence of type 2 by feeding our children healthfully from day one and by helping our children get and stay physically active throughout their lives. As parents, we need to do rather than just say: “live a healthy lifestyle.” This role modeling will greatly help our children follow in our footsteps. Children will be much more likely to follow your example rather than just your words. Also, consider becoming an agent for change in your community - in schools, your house of worship, and your children’s activities. Suggest that healthier foods be served or no food at all.
Read Hope’s Article: Health Problems Associated with Sweetened Beverages.
Hope Warshaw MMSc, RD, CDE is a nationally recognized and respected nutrition and diabetes expert who applies more than 30 years of expertise to communicate practical solutions for diabetes meal planning and healthier eating, whether for one person or millions. You can learn more about Hope and purchase her books at www.hopewarshaw.com or any major book retailer.
