The No Salt, No Fat, No Sugar Journal
Creating healthier food choices
I’ve written before that fast food is loaded with salt, you might as well go to a salt mine and start licking the walls as eat anything at McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and even Subway which positions itself as healthier but still has much too much salt in its offerings.
So I wasn’t surprised by this latest list of America’s saltiest foods compiled by TheDailyMeal.com and reported by Fox News, among others. Continue reading “Who sells America’s saltiest fast foods?”
Fresh and natural have become restaurant buzz words these days that people mistakenly think will always mean healthier. Sadly that is not the case, and can be far from it.
A recent lunch at Café Mexicali in Fort Collins, Colo., reminded me of that.
The place is a favorite of students at nearby Colorado State, the university that helps give Fort Collins its quaint vib. A niece suggested we go there because the place makes everything from scratch, including its own tortillas which I watched them create. Its website talks about its goal as providing Mexican food “as fresh as it gets.” Continue reading “‘Fresh’ Mexican food doesn’t mean low-salt, low-fat, low-sugar”
Denver is a city we’ve visited quite often in recent years for nieces’ and a nephew’s graduations, first from high school and more recently from college.
Suburban Denver, where we tend to spend most of our time, has the usual assortment of national chain restaurants, which means few low-salt, low-fat, low-sugar offerings. Eating there is always a challenge for me.
So I was thrilled on a recent trip when a niece promised to take us to a unique local place in Denver itself for breakfast one day.
Maddie’s truly is a Denver gem, if our experience there is any indication The tiny place is known for its blueberry pancakes and has some fun-looking potato pancakes as well. I avoid all that because of worries about how much salt is in them. Continue reading “Maddie’s for breakfast — a modern-day Denver gold strike”
I love seafood, having grown up surrounded by it in New York. I particularly love oysters, clams and other shell-fish (mussels) which thankfully I can still eat on my post-angioplasty diet. Chicago’s Pearl Tavern is a must-go place for anyone who loves the types of seafood I just described.
The setting might be upscale bar, the space used to be long-time Chicago Irish bar Coogan’s and relatively little has changed, layout-wise (we were seated in the main bar room unfortunately, not one of the quieter side rooms), but the oysters, etc. are East (and West, they have both) Coast delicious. A full meal for my wife and I recently set her back (she treated) over $150, including wine. So be prepared to pay for the great tastes.
I started with a dozen oysters, six East and six West Coast. A small chalk board on the table lists the varieties available each night. Each was fabulous, smooth and just dreamy, the way an oyster should taste. Continue reading “Pearl Tavern — A Chicago seafood must try place”
My wife and I recently spent a weekend in Milwaukee, the city I went to college in which causes me to go off my diet when I’m there because of legendary frozen custard places like Leon’s on the city’s South Side. We actually started our Sunday with a trip to Leon’s but then we needed some food before our two-hour trip home.
So we went looking for a place I could get something that seemed relatively low-salt, low-fat and low-sugar.
Two long-time fixtures a bit south of Leon’s on the South 27 Street business corridor sit across a street from each other. Both have the old-school giant menus with everything from steak to pancakes, served 24 hours a day.
We stopped at the first we came to, the Omega, but the hostess there kept ignoring us in the crowd and seating people who came in after us, so we left and went across the street to Zebb’s. That turned out to be a great decision.
Zebb’s offers a veggie omelette, which surprisingly for the dairy state, doesn’t come with cheese in it. It does come with mushrooms, tomatoes and onions. I added a little ketchup and had a great, and filling which is unusual for me, breakfast there.
I recommend Zeb’s, forget the other place.
John
I blogged earlier this week about tips for cutting salt when you’re eating in a restaurant. One tip is to check nutritional information online before going to a place to find where the salt is hidden. That’s advice I should have followed on a recent lunch trip to an Applebee’s in downtown Milwaukee.
Applebee’s has been advertising its new Have It All Menu as lower calorie and healthier than its traditional fare. Applebee’s doesn’t have a place near where I live thee days, so when we were in Milwaukee recently, I thought it would be a good chance to try the new menu at an Applebee’s we were walking past in downtown Milwaukee.
The new menu seemed appealing and had several dishes I considered ordering. The ad line Applebee’s is using for them is “all the flavor, all under 600 calories. It should add …”and all the salt.”
When I finally found nutritional info for what I had ordered I was shocked and sadly disappointed. My lunch, Napa Chicken and Portobellos, is listed as having 1,610 mgs of sodium! That’s over my daily limit of 1,500 mgs and almost a full day’s worth of salt for anyone adhering to a 2,100 mg-a-day limit. Continue reading “Applebee’s Have it All menu has all the salt; boo, hiss!”
I’ve been trying to cut my sodium intake most of my adult life because of chronic high blood pressure, and a near-fatal clogged artery in 2012 that almost ended my life. But it wasn’t until my 2012 angioplasty that I really discovered how much salt is hidden in everything we eat in America, everything that’s processed or made at a restaurant, that is.
So I’ve started this blog to share my findings of ingredients, and restaurants, that offer low-salt alternatives. and I’m always looking for resources to help me cut salt. Continue reading “Here’s a resource to help you reduce sodium intake”
Friends who follow this blog likely were wondering how I would react to the latest dietary guidelines that came out last week. My basic reaction: are you kidding me????
Sugar came out as the big demon now, specifically added sugar, as if our body can tell the difference between added sugar and the sugar that is naturally in fruits and other things we eat. Sugar is sugar, I saw my mother’s diabetes worsen because she was eating too many mashed potatoes which essentially produce sugar in our systems after we eat them (the science is more involved, but I’m not a scientist). The main reason a nutritionist told me not to eat simple carbs was because of the sugar implications. So there’s a lot more to worry about than added sugar.
Salt got a pardon from the food police in these new guidelines, which also stunned and angered me. I know from personal experience that wringing the salt out of my diet has helped my blood pressure and my weight, so I’m not going to go back to more salt in my diet as the new guidelines suggest, I think that’s absurd for anyone over 55 and especially anyone over 55 with heart troubles like I’ve had. Continue reading “Sugar is demonized in latest dietary guidelines”
Our no salt, no fat, no sugar Top 5 list week concludes with this look today at the five most-viewed posts about restaurant or away-from-home meals I’ve blogged about.
Finding low-salt dishes at restaurants is almost impossible and so extremely disheartening to anyone who loves to eat out as I do. But I have been searching menus, and challenging chefs, to make low-salt, low-fat, low-sugar offerings and gathered the best of my findings here. So enjoy, you can eat out again, just plan ahead and don’t be afraid to challenge a chef or two to do better to meet your needs.
1. Costco Food Court Salads: you can make then healthier
With Costco nearly everywhere, it’s no wonder this was my most popular eating out post. I show you here how to take a salad that can be horribly unhealthy because of the dressing and cheese involved, not to mention the croutons, and field strip it down to its healthy essence.
That said, I still worry about how much salt was used in cooking the chicken on it.
2. What’s an airline no-salt/low-salt meal like?
Finding good airline food is impossible. Finding good airline low-salt food is even worse. This had to be the worst airline meal I have ever had. And that’s saying something given that I remember when meals were regularly served on long-distance flights.
3. Can you eat healthy at Universal Studios?
Speaking of horrible salads, Universal has the worst excuse for a salad I’ve had, on the ground, in a long time. I literally lost three pounds in three days in Orlando because of the lack of healthy food. Disney does have a fish place that made me some plain salmon, thankfully. Continue reading “Top 5 no salt, no fat, no sugar restaurant posts of 2014”
New Year’s Eve was always a special time in my family, a night for major partying at my grandmother’s house. I loved those days so much I wrote a play about it all. With my current low-fat, low-salt, low-sugar diet, however, finding a place for a New Year’s Eve Gala serving food I can eat seemed a challenge to me. Luckily, the Hilton Orrington hotel in my town of Evanston came to the rescue this year.
The Orrington is an Evanston landmark that has gone through its ups and downs in the almost 40 years that I’ve lived here. Thankfully, its in a major up period now and the special New Year’s Eve celebration it hosted for 2015 showed that in spades.
My wife and I attended what the Orrington was calling it’s New Year’s Eve rooftop gala after I checked the menu and saw that it was friendly to my diet.
The main course was a combination of sea bass and fillet mignon, the only steak I eat now because of its leanness. Sides were vegetables and mashed potatoes. I contacted the event manager and mentioned my diet issues and was told everything could be prepared in a low-salt way and all sauces would be served on the side, which they were. Continue reading “A Great no-salt, low-fat way to ring in the New Year”