Get ready to be bowled over by this restaurant trend

The bowls have it, at least when it comes to how people are buying food items at restaurants, according to a piece by The Food Institute, a food service industry news site.

One chain, Juice It Up!, saw sales climb 38% over the past five years because of its bowl offerings, for example.

It’s not just cereal people want in a. bowl anymore. Restaurants are seeing sales rise for bowls offering a variety of menu items, all aimed at satisfying consumer desire for better-for-them products.

“In 2023, Brandwatch declared bowls ‘the reigning champion of food trends.’

“Bowls are a fun choose-your-own-adventure with endless combinations,” Troy Guard, the owner and executive chef with TAG Restaurant Group, told FI. “They’re easy, convenient, travel well, can often be reheated or saved for later, and contain fresh and healthy ingredients.”

“No matter where consumers look, restaurant-goers seeking salads, acai, Mexican, Poke, protein, fruits, or grains can often find them in bowl form,” the article states.

A chain I’ve been frequenting lately, Cafe Zupas, has been pushing its bowls in email marketing but I’m sticking to the make-my-own salad because I can control the salt, fat and sugar by doing that.

February 28, 2024 0

Another round of low-salt, fast-food options for the new year

Finding healthy food at a fast food outlet is a lot like grabbing gold out of the air — it’s impossible. Yet different sites keep trying to give you alternatives. I’ve written about some in the past, check this post, for example. But now there’s a new one from Cheapism.com, Low-Sodium Fast Food: 42 Menu Items to Order from Burger King to Taco Bell.

*Since McDonald’s dropped its salads, there’s nothing healthy on its daytime menu.*

The list shows just how hard it is to find low-sodium foods at these places (I’m sitting at a McDonald’s as I write this, ironically, after having some unhealthy free fries, a Friday give-away).

What’s listed for Chick-fil-A, for example? A yogurt, not any of its salt-laden chicken offerings.

A salad is listed at Burger King, but with no dressing because those are all high in salt and fat. Bring your own oil and vinegar like I do with portable, small bottles.

Americans are hooked on salt and fat until they start demanding alternatives, which doesn’t appear likely anytime soon. Happy New Year!

January 5, 2024 0

Sultan Kebab — a great find after a long day

It’s never fun being on a delayed flight, and it’s no fun waiting for someone on such a flight either.

So on a recent Friday night, my son and I were both tired and hungry when his flight finally made it to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport where I had been waiting to pick him up.

We’d planned to cook dinner once we got to our house, but were both hungry by the time he landed, so we went searching for food near O’Hare and found Sultan Kebab & Shawerma. It was a great find.

As we ordered (at almost 9 p.m.), the man behind the counter offered us free lentil soup he’d made. He wanted our reaction to it. It was delicious.

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June 6, 2023 0

Can you eat healthy in food halls? Maybe but it takes some searching

Food halls are all the rage these days, especially in urban areas with lots of old buildings to recycle. Circumstances forced me on the road for three weeks recently, so I was able to visit food halls in New York, Minneapolis and Chicago.

Did I find anything healthy to eat? Aside from some salad places and a tasty beet salad in Chicago, generally no. But I did find some great pizza in New York and Minneapolis.

So if you find yourself in a food hall, check all the stalls before buying yourself a meal. Try to minimize how unhealthy you eat that day.

These food halls are generally in repurposed older buildings, feature local outlets rather than national chains (McDonald’s need not apply), sport a variety of ethnic offerings like Mexican, Asian and Indian dishes, and throw in some traditional American unhealthy options like giant burgers and barbecue.

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May 8, 2023 0

5 tips to make sandwiches healthier, a guest post

Sandwiches can be really sneaky. Often, they seem like they have all the potential for making a healthy lunch.

Afterall, they’re mostly always some combo of veggies and meat, right? And they have the added benefit of being highly portable.

But sandwiches sometimes are secret saboteurs of a healthy diet.

Here are five reasons sandwiches aren’t always the healthiest and what you can do about it.

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April 28, 2023 0

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 1

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 1

Category: eating out

Get ready to be bowled over by this restaurant trend

Another round of low-salt, fast-food options for the new year

Sultan Kebab — a great find after a long day

Can you eat healthy in food halls? Maybe but it takes some searching

5 tips to make sandwiches healthier, a guest post

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

Zupas: a tasty salad place worth a visit

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

Sugar, salt limits coming for school lunches

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

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