Grocery Shopping, Revising Conventional Recipes, Restaurants and Fast Food

Grocery Shopping

What to look for in the grocery store

Shopping for healthful food doesn’t have to be overwhelming if you know
where to look. Use table 19 to help navigate your way to health-promoting
food in the different sections of the grocery store.

Revising Conventional Recipes

Replacing ingredients in conventional recipes

Deciding to choose more healthful foods doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy
Grandma’s famous cream of mushroom soup. Most recipes can be easily
modified to be health-supporting and still remain delicious. Use the substitutions
in table 20 when you are revising recipes.

Restaurants and Fast Food

More and more of our meals are served at restaurants, and much of what’s
on the menu is far from healthful. But that doesn’t mean you have to forgo
dining out. If you’re a choosy about which restaurants you patronize and
about what you order when you arrive, you’ll still find plenty of great options.

For starters, it helps to think in terms of international foods. Restaurants
that feature the cuisine of other lands often have a broad range of healthful
menu items. For example, at an Italian restaurant you’ll find minestrone,
pasta and bean soup, pasta with marinara sauce, and green vegetables
sautéed with garlic. Chinese and Thai restaurants have plenty of savory
soups as well as vegetable-based main dishes featuring tofu, broccoli, green
beans, spinach, and other nutritious ingredients. You’ll also find a great
many rice and noodle dishes. Ask them to use their more traditional cooking
methods, without the added oil that may Westerners have come to
expect. Japanese restaurants serve miso soup, salads, tofu, and vegetable
sushi, all of which are usually very low in fat and delicately prepared.

Mexican restaurants serve hearty bean burritos, which, if prepared
without lard and not smothered in cheese and sour cream, are usually low
in fat and free of cholesterol. Indian restaurants always feature many delicious
vegetarian choices, from appetizers to desserts. Ask the waiter to skip
the dairy products and to be careful about the overzealous use of oil.

At generic restaurants and American steak houses, you’ll find salad
bars and vegetable plates. More and more fast-food and family-style restaurants
are featuring veggie burgers, salad bars, and baked potato bars.

If you find yourself at a restaurant that does not have any healthsupporting
options on the menu, ask your server if the chef can prepare
a vegetarian meal that does not include dairy products. Common examples
include spaghetti with marinara sauce, a vegetable stir-fry over rice,
or a baked potato with grilled vegetables. Chances are the kitchen has
plenty of ingredients to prepare a wonderful vegan dish. And, since restaurants
want their customers to leave happy, they should be more than
willing to oblige.