Choose Healthier Menu Options
- Choose healthier menu options when eating out
Choosing healthy menu options when you are eating out can be an important step to limiting highly processed foods. If you eat out often, remember that the foods you eat are a part of your eating pattern or routine and can affect your health.
Benefits of choosing healthy menu options:
It is important to make wise menu choices whether you’re eating food from cafeterias, restaurants, coffee shops, or fast food restaurants. The foods served in these places often have a lot of sodium, sugar, and saturated fats. Eating too much of this type of food can increase the risk of chronic diseases such as, heart diseases, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer.
Many restaurants, fast food restaurants and cafeterias now offer healthier menu options. These options may include baked potatoes, fresh fruit salad, steamed vegetables, whole grain pizza crust, berries with lower fat yogurt, baked, grilled or poached fish, salads with dressing on the side, and grilled chicken sandwich on whole grain bread.
How to choose healthier menu options
Try these ideas to enjoy delicious meals and snacks while keeping healthy eating in mind. No matter what kind of restaurant you choose, some choices are healthier than others. Find out how food is prepared and if the nutrition information is available. You can often find this information directly on the menu, on posters or pamphlets, online on the restaurant’s website, or you can ask for it.
Choose foods cooked in healthier ways such as baked, grilled, broiled, or poached. As for sauce and dressing “on the side” so you can control the amount you have. The sauces and dressings served are often highly processed. Using a small amount is strongly recommended.
Enjoy a colourful meal. Try squash dishes, salads with dark leafy greens like spinach, and a variety of colourful vegetables on rice. Choose whole grain options. Ask for whole grain rice, pasta, and bread. Limit cakes, cookies, and rich desserts. If you do eat them, get a smaller size or share with others.
Healthy menu swaps:
Try these swaps to make your choices healthier:
- Order tomato sauces instead of alfredo or cheese sauces.
- Flavor your food with lemon or pepper instead of salt, sauce or gravy.
- Choose stir-fry vegetables with garlic instead of stir-fry vegetables in oyster sauce.
- Choose dark mixed green salads with vegetables or fruits instead of taco, Caesar, potato, and pasta salads.
- Order a small or regular sized coffee, cappuccino or iced latte. Ask for your drink to be made with lower fat white milk or unsweetened fortifies soy beverage instead of higher fat options.
- Skip the whip cream topping.
Choose Healthier Menu Options
- Choose healthier menu options when eating out
A. Match the word to the meaning:
1. Affect
2. Chronic
3. Poached
4. Crust
5. Broiled
6. Cappuccino:
7. Latte
8. Fortified
9. Diabetes
10. Snack
a. having healthful substance added.
b. A hot drink made from espresso (strong coffee) and warm milk.
c. Coffee made with heated milk with a thick amount of bubbles.
d. cooked under a very hot surface
e. The outside layer of a loaf of bread.
f. To cook something by putting it in boiling water.
g. continuing for a long time
h. to influence or change something
i. A disease in which the body can’t control the level of sugar in the blood.
j. A small amount of food that is eaten between meals.
B. Answer the following questions:
1. Give examples of places where you can eat out.
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2. What’s unhealthy about the food that we eat outside?
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3. Give 3 examples of chronic diseases.
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4. Give 4 examples of healthy cooking methods.
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5. How can you find nutrition information about the food prepared in restaurants?
__________________________________________________________________________
6. How can you control the amount of sauce or dressing served in restaurants?
__________________________________________________________________________
7. What is a colorful meal?
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8. If you’re eating dessert in a restaurant, how can you make it a healthier choice?
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9. When you order drinks outside what is the recommended cup size?
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10. How would you order a healthier cup of coffee in a coffee shop?
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