What if you just don't have time to cook and have to eat out? If that's the case, then you'll need a reliable guide to healthier restaurant eating and here's the ticket: Eat Out, Eat Right! by Hope S. Warshaw, MMSc, RD, CDE.
Having spent the last 20 years advising clients on navigating the pleasures and pitfalls of restaurant menus, Hope S. Warshaw is a nationally-recognized expert on diabetes and healthy eating out. In Eat Out, Eat Right!, published by Surrey Books, she has managed to condense her knowledge of what's good and what's not good for you into one compact resource.
Covering the 14 most popular kinds of restaurants (including Mexican, Italian, Chinese, American, Breakfast/Brunch, Fast Food and Seafood), Eat Out, Eat Right! provides basic strategies and specific food choices for controlling calories, carbs, fat, cholesterol and sodium when eating restaurant foods. Each chapter familiarizes the diner with the positive nutrition traits and pitfalls of a particular style of cooking. "Pre-planning is key," says Warshaw. "Do you go to your favorite Mexican restaurant and order chimichangas or enchilidas? Do you go to the ballpark ready for a jumbo hot dog, chips, and ice cream or will popcorn and a slice of pizza do?"
One of books best assets is the Menu Profile, which is a basic description of each cuisine, its healthy points and hazardous pitfalls, along with a run-through of what to order (and not to order), from soup to dessert. Following the detailed description of the cuisine's typical fare, author Warshaw gives the reader a "Nutrition Snapshot," which is a quick look at some of the nutrition numbers for a cuisine's typical dishes. You'll also find "Green flag" (good) words, such as "lightly sautéed," and "Red flag" (bad) words, such as "fried," about each cuisine, along with special requests to make to the waiter which are designed to help you make the healthiest choices.
With Eat Out, Eat Right!, you can plan ahead by "studying-up" on a specific cuisine before you go to the restaurant, or slip this compact book into your purse or the glove box of your car for no-excuses dining out. P.S., it makes a perfect stocking-stuffer, too!
Reviewed by: Marilyn Helton
