Are you able to stick to your low saturated fat, low cholesterol diet when eating out? If not, you will be able to if you follow these tips:
- Choose restaurants that have low saturated fat, low cholesterol menu choices. And, don't be afraid to make special requests -- it's your right as a paying customer.
- Control serving sizes by asking for a side-dish or appetizer-size serving, sharing a dish with a companion, or taking some home.
- Ask that gravy, butter, rich sauces, and salad dressing be served on the side. That way, you can control the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol that you eat.
- Ask to substitute a salad or baked potato for chips, fries, coleslaw, or other extras -- or just ask that the extras be left off of your plate.
- When ordering pizza, order vegetable toppings like green pepper, onions, and mushrooms instead of meat or extra cheese. To make your pizza even lower in saturated fat and fat, order it with half of the cheese or no cheese.
- At fast food restaurants, go for salads, grilled (not fried or breaded) skinless chicken sandwiches, regular-sized hamburgers, or roast beef sandwiches. Go easy on the regular salad dressings and fatty sauces. Limit jumbo or deluxe burgers, sandwiches, french fries, and other foods.
Reading the Menu
- Choose low saturated fat, low cholesterol cooking methods. Look for terms like steamed, in its own juice (au jus), garden fresh, broiled, baked, roasted, poached, tomato juice, dry boiled (in wine or lemon juice), and lightly sauteed or stir-fried.
- Be aware of dishes that are high in saturated fat and cholesterol. Watch out for terms like butter sauce, fried, crispy, creamed, in cream or cheese sauce, au gratin, au fromage, escalloped, parmesan, hollandaise, bernaise, marinated (in oil), stewed, basted, sauteed, stir-fried, casserole, hash, prime, pot pie, pastry crust.