There is nothing better than brunch! I am a big breakfast eater so being able to have breakfast for two or more meals during the day always is fun! Breakfast foods can be extremely nutritious, however, restaurants tend to give much larger portions than necessary! For example, my restaurant offers home fries and muffins with their brunch dishes! Although the muffins are miniature size they can pack on the calories to an already high caloric dish. Here are some easy to follow tips to ensure your brunch doesn't expand your waist line!
1) Don't be afraid to ask for substitutions: Just because the menu lists a meal with certain side dishes, sauces, etc doesn't mean you can't substitute one thing for another. For example, if you are a fan of a Western Omelet, just ask the server if it can be prepared with egg whites and without cheese. If you must have the cheese, stir clear of cheddar (very high in fat) and ask them to go light or easy on it.
2) Watch out for Side Dishes: A lot of restaurants always accompany their main course brunch items with large over proportioned side dishes. Side dishes can be home fries, bacon, sausage, biscuits, muffins, etc. There are a few ways you manage side dishes:
A. Order fruit as a substitute for a side dish. This will completely eliminate any temptation to eat those caloric nightmare side dishes.
B. If you can't pass up sausage or bacon when ordering brunch see if the restaurant offers any other types then just regular. For example, Cracker Barrel offers Turkey Sausage instead of regular sausage. Go with the lighter calorie sausage/bacon and I promise it will make you feel a bit better about yourself!
C. So you just can't give up beef sausage or pork bacon! No one is asking you to, but make sure your do it in moderation. Get a side of bacon and split it with someone or just simply have a piece and ask the server to take the plate away. Sounds corny but it will help you from over indulging.
3) Don't be afraid to modify the dish: Sometime simple modifications to a dish can turn a caloric nightmare into something great. The best example I can think of is Ebggs Benedict. An American favorite breakfast dish can sometimes have over 1000 Calories! Where do a majority of the calories come from you ask? That's easy, the hollandaise sauce. You'd be suprised how many calories a sauce made from purely egg yolk, butter, and salt could contain. Below is a diagram from http://www.fitday.com/webfit/FoodFacts_Outside.html, displaying the nutritional information from 1 cup of Hollandaise Sauce.
| Nutrition Facts | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Amount Per 1 cup | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Calories 1097.9 Calories from Fat 1050.9 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| *Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
It's a bit scary I know. Subtracting the hollandaise sauce an Eggs Benedict is actually a pretty nutritional dish. The classic is made with 1 English Muffin, which usually runs under 150 calories, two slices of Canadian Bacon, which is actually a great very lean low calorie protein, 2 and poached eggs which provide fiber and protein. All in all you are looking around 500 calories without the sauce. So if you are at a restaurant ask for no hollandaise! I always like to add vegetables to my Eggs Benedict because to be quiet honest, it doesn't really fill me up that much. I will order an regular benedict with no hollandaise but add sautéed/raw spinach and tomato. Then I just add a little bit of salt and cracked black pepper and the dish is healthy and flavorful!
If you absolutely can not live with the sauce then just order it on the side. Having it on the side allows you to control the portion size not the people in the kitchen. A great trick to use with sauces on the side is instead of pouring them on your dish just dip your fork in the sauce before every bite! This allows you to get the flavor from the sauce without having to over indulge. It also causes you to slow down while eating which will make you fuller faster!
4) Whole Wheat is your friend! If the restaurant offers whole wheat options of any menu item, such as waffles, pancakes, bread, pasta, etc GO FOR IT! Whole wheat flour offers a lot more grains and fiber than regular flour! Check out the excerpt below from the website http://food-facts.suite101.com/article.cfm/white-flour-vs-whole-wheat-flour about the differences between whole wheat and white flour!
Whole Wheat Flour and White Flour
The two are actually both made from the wheat grain; the difference lies in the parts of the grain used to make it. Whole wheat flour uses all three parts; the bran (outer layer), germ (inner layer), and endosperm (starchy part in between), while white flour uses only the endosperm.
When the bran and germ are removed from the wheat grain, over 80% of the fiber, nutrients, and antioxidants are also removed, so much that the government requires five of the 30 nutrients removed to be added back in, producing what Americans know as enriched or fortified flour. The synthetic nutrients sprayed on the final product are much weaker than the real nutrients and only add a fraction of what is supposed to be there.
White flour is nutritionally useless, and breaks down in the body as a sugar. The body cannot tell the difference between eating a spoonful of sugar or a slice of white bread; the pancreas reacts by secreting insulin—at fat-storing hormone stimulating the appetite and slowing the metabolism. With the Western diet so full of processed foods the pancreas works overtime to balance the sugars consumed and eventually shuts down, causing low blood sugar, diabetes, and a handful of other problems.
Well my friends, I hope that this post will make going to brunch tomorrow a little bit easier!
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