Best place for brunch? My favorite cities top a new list

Did you know April is national brunch month? Me either, who comes up with these things?

*A great egg-white omelette should be part of any first-rate brunch offering.*

I recently received a press release, from Lawnstarter.com of all places, rating the best brunch cities in the country. No surprise that the top three — New York, San Francisco and Chicago — are three of my favorite U.S. cities, maybe my three most favorite.

I don’t go to brunches much anymore because to me the best are all-you-can eat and that’s not very heart healthy. Casinos in the Chicago-area where I live once had massive buffets, but those closed during Covid and have not come back. Not exactly brunches, but in my mind they tend to blend together.

The survey lists 200 cities and includes fun little subgroups like Most Brunch Vendors per Square Mile (Miami wins) and Most Brunch Clubs (New York). You can click through to get details on various cities too.

I write about some pretty serious food issues here, so it’s nice to take a break once and a while and write about fun things like brunch. Enjoy your next weekend brunch but try to eat healthy in the process.

March 29, 2023 0

Zupas: a tasty salad place worth a visit

Since Chicago-area McDonald’s decided to drop salads this year, I’ve been searching for alternatives that are both tasty and well-priced. My quest took me to a northern Chicago suburb, Deerfield, and a place called Cafe Zupas.

Zupas apparently is a chain, you can check its website for locations. Like other national salad places, it offers a range of pre-determined salads or you can create your own, which is what I did.

*Cafe Zupas in Deerfield, Il. It was very clean and everyone was helpful in preparing my salad*.

The create-your-own comes with a protein (I picked chicken) and five toppings. The assortment was such that I got two helpings of tomatoes, there wasn’t a lot else that appealed to me. I also got cucumbers, cranberries and strawberries.

The place also didn’t have plain oil and vinegar, surprising and a little disappointing. It does have some low-salt dressing options, check its nutrition page before you go.

The size of the salad was larger than other salad places and the price, a little over $10, was in line with what two McDonald salads would cost me.

While I’d like to see oil and vinegar and more topping choices, I still give Zupas a thumbs up. One especially nice feature, a free chocolate-covered strawberry comes with every meal.

March 7, 2023 0

Foods cardiologists won’t eat — most of which I love

Sometimes it’s really not difficult to understand why I’ve had two stents in the past 111 years. The foods I always loved the most are the worst for heart health. I started this blog to find other things to eat, but when I see pieces like this, Cardiologists Share The 1 Food They Never (Or Rarely) Eat, I tend to feel very, very hungry.

*Fried chicken is on my no-eat list again, after splurging on it during Covid.*

The list includes donuts, big, fatty steaks, bacon, bologna and fried chicken! Indeed the only two things on the list that do not make my mouth water are breakfast sausages and margarine.

I grew up taking bologna sandwiches to school almost every day. In college, we would fry it, thinking that meant we were becoming chefs!

During the pandemic, I tended to leave my heart-healthy diet behind, thinking Covid would kill me before heart disease would. I ate a lot more cake and donuts, not to mention fried chicken, which a local supermarket has on special every Monday.

Eating healthy is tough. But it’s time for me to get back to it. My blood pressure rose to unacceptable levels during Covid as I gained weight. I need to drop pounds and get it under control again. Bye, bye fried chicken!!!

February 22, 2023 0

Sugar, salt limits coming for school lunches

Somehow making school lunches healthier became a political issue in recent years. The Obama administration pushed for less salt, fat and sugar in school lunches. Then the Trump administration did the opposite. Now, with Biden in the White House, federal regulators are ready to bring out restrictions on salt and added sugar in school lunches.

Associated Press reported that the USDA “proposed new nutrition standards for school meals, including the first limits on added sugars, with a focus on sweetened foods such as cereals, yogurt, flavored milk and breakfast pastries.

“The plan announced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also seeks to significantly decrease sodium in the meals served to the nation’s schoolkids by 2029, while making the rules for foods made with whole grains more flexible.

The goal is to improve nutrition and align with U.S. dietary guidelines in the program that serves breakfast to more than 15 million children and lunch to nearly 30 million children every day, Vilsack said.”

Unfortunately, the first limits of added sugars wouldn’t;t go into effect until the 2025-2026 school year, after another national election that could upend these plans all over again.

Children’s health should not be a political issue, just as the country’s obesity epidemic should not be a political issue. Both need to be addressed, and soon.

February 7, 2023 0

2023 search for a fast-food salad — Wendy’s offers one option

With salads off the menu at Chicago-area McDonald’s in 2023, I’ve started looking elsewhere for a fast-food salad that’s not high in fat, salt and sugar. My first stop is Wendy’s, which offers four different salads.

Two of them include main ingredients I don’t eat — the southwest avocado salad (avocado does terrible things to my stomach) and the apple pecan salad (no nuts for me either.) There’s a taco salad too, but beans also don’t do it for me and that one just seems like too much fat and salt from cheese to even consider.

So I tried the fourth, the parmesan Caesar salad which comes with a grilled chicken breast much like McDonald’s once served on its pre-Pandemic salads.

If you order it as described, it has 790 mgs of sodium in the salad itself and another 320 mgs in the dressing. That’s half a day’s sodium consumption for the average person and about all I try to eat because of my heart issues.

So I skipped the dressing, bringing my own oil and vinegar, and I omit the parmesan chips. That gets the sodium down to 650 mgs.

The Wendy’s app does show you real-time nutrition information as you change what you want on your salad, a handy feature.

Continue reading →

February 4, 2023 0

No salt, No Fat, No Sugar Journal tops 88,000 views in 2022

This blog, the No Salt, No Fat, No Sugar Journal, recorded a record 88,398 views in 2022, blowing past the record set in 2021 of 80,127. The number of visitors also set a record in 2023 with 57,344 people coming to our site, well above the 43,64 who visited in 2022.

“Last year was an amazing one for us, people are finding us and, in the process, hopefully they’re cutting the salt, fat and sugar in their diets,” says blog founder and editor John N. Frank.

*Our reporting on the partial return of McDonald salads brought thousands of visitors to our site in 2022.*

The most popular post last year had to do with the spotty return of salads at McDonald’s, First look: McDonald’s 2022 salads – a shadow of what they used to be. That post attracted 16,319 views.

An earlier post, among the first to report the return of the salads which were eliminated during the Pandemic, McDonald’s salads are sneaking back onto menus, attracted 5,225 views.

“Salads are the only almost-healthy item on McDonald’s menus. There is obviously interest in them. LEt’s hope the burger chain does more to make them healthier, and tastier than what they offer now,” says Frank.

January 5, 2023 0

Dressing up McDonald’s bare-bones salads

I’ve written about how bare-bones McDonald’s post-pandemic salads are, if you can find them at your local McD outpost at all. So I’ve taken to bringing my own accompaniments to dress them up a bit. And I was excited to see someone else is getting a lot of TikTok views with her version of a McDonald’s salad.

Me first. You can see in the picture that I added cherry tomatoes (these are from my own garden), artichoke hearts and cucumber slices to one salad. I then layered in the lettuce from a second to make a more filling salad than anything on the McDoanld’s menu these days.

Other times, I’ve also brought slices of roasted red peppers to add. And of course, I’m using my own olive oil and balsamic vinegar, not any of the dressings available, all of which are too high in salt and fat,

Speaking of more filling salads, someone known as Amber_Rae55 on TikTok posted a video of her idea for a McDonald’s salad — basically a quarter pounder with no bun but extra lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, et al.

I wish she had opened the box to show us more, it’s a great idea. If you try ordering it, let me know.

If enough of us do things like that, maybe McDonald’s will finally get the message to add some real salads to its menu.

November 8, 2022 0

The first food predictions for 2023: complex heat, comfort food, street food will be in next year

I just saw the first of many food predictions for 2023, this from The Food Institute, a food news site, which predicts that complex heat, comfort foods and street foods will be in next year.

When I go off my post-angioplasty diet, I want it to be for amazing treats I love. Nathan's hot dogs fit that bill. — *Street food anyone? When I’m in New York, I always head to Nathan’s for hot dogs.*

“Spicy food has been gaining popularity over the last decade, but today’s consumers crave more than just heat—they want to learn about different peppers and the complexity of their flavors,” the Institute reports, citing a survey by Spoonshot.com which I couldn’t access directly from the link provided. This flavor trewnd, like the others, is being driven by Covid and its aftermath.

There are also cuisines that are trending, as consumers seek new experiences through food, where spice levels are more complex and at higher levels than U.S. consumers are generally used to—Indian, West African, etc.” Robyn Carter, founder and CEO of Jump Rope Innovation told The Food Institute. “As those cuisines continue to go mainstream in 2023, we’ll see more complex heat ahead.”

Nostalgia and the desire for comfort food that reminds you of happier times is a trend that has been around and will continue next year.

And consumers looking for new food experiences while trying to hold down their food costs will turn to street food, which also carries an air of authenticity for Gen Z consumers, the Institute article notes.

What will you be eating in 2023? We’d love to know, leave your comments here to tell us.

October 26, 2022 0

McDonald’s new salads are harder to find than I thought

A post I wrote earlier this year about McDonald’s salads coming back to post-Pandemic McDonald’s menus has gotten a lot of attention. But what I didn’t realize when I wrote it was that the decision to bring salads back is being left to operators at the local level.

*Apparently finding a salad at McDonald’s these days is a hit-or-miss proposition depending on where you live and which store you try. Very sad.*

Not every McDonald’s in a given market has salads any longer. Some comments on my post alerted me about this. And when I tried online ordering from various McDonald’s in Chicago’s northern suburbs, I found only my favorite location in Winnetka, Il., had the new, slimmed-down salads.

Apparently, having any healthy options on its menu takes too much time and labor for McDonald’s to prepare, so it’s concentrating on unhealthy burgers until the day comes when people aren’t eating them any longer. Sort of reminds me of Sears ignoring the Internet while Amazon ate its lunch and its business. Sad, if my local outlet drops salads, my days of going to McDonald’s will be over.

September 19, 2022 1

Inflation is taking a bite out of the eating-out trend

Rising prices are discouraging people from eating out or from ordering-in from restaurants, according to a new study by bid-on-equipment.com, which sells a variety of used equipment, including restaurant equipment.

The study surveyed 1,008 Americans early this year. It found 50% saying they are eating out less because of inflation.

The impact of the Pandemic was evident in survey responses, 40% of those answering said at least one of their favorite restaurants had closed permanently during the Pandemic.

Local restaurants still are preferred by more people than are chains. When searching for a place to eat, people turn to Google, word-of-mouth, Yelp and other social media, the survey found. (For more survey responses, see the graphic here).

July 21, 2022 0

Category: eating out