Eating Habits

Unit 8 Eating HabitsCooking at HomeSo you’d rather eat out because you think cooking at home just takes too much time? Well, here’s Jennifier Harrison with our FYI to prove to you that hitting the kitchen at home can be healthier and a lot easier than you think!You can cook a healthy meal in about half an hour with just a few ingredients. Does this sound too good to be true? To find out we’re taking professional cook, Spencer Ritchens, with us into different homes. Now he will have to prepare a meal on deadline with just the ingredients found in the kitchen!Let’s hit the pantry! All right, so here we are. Let’s see what’s going on!First stop. Jill Guenza’s home. Jill, a typical busy mother of two, doesn’t find much time to squeeze cooking in. She makes dinner two or three times a week. So how does she feel about Spencer cooking up the family food?Could be scary! I haven’t gone to the store in a while, but I’m sure he’ll find something. I do have a lot of staples.Let’s take a look in the fridge.In the nooks and crannies of Jill’s kitchen, Spencer actually discovers an array or ingredients: meat, bread crumbs, eggs, garlic, onion, tomatoes, and tomato products, olive oil, noodles, salt and pepper.Let’s see what we can do with this stuff. What do you say we make a little spaghetti and meatballs and try to keep it simple today?It can be quick and easy to cook at home, but there’s also a health issue to home cooking. And we enlisted the help of registered dietitian Kathleen Newman to show us how to stock a kitchen, and more importantly, to discuss the nutrition downfalls of always eating out.When we eat out, the food that we purchase is generally higher in fat, saturated fat, calories and lower in fiber.Cooking helps your health, but listen to this. It may also help your mental skills.Where else can you learn how to organize and have a meal turn out at the same time when you have such diverse ingredients, such as potatoes and a piece of meat and some vegetables that don’t take very long to c ook.Now it’s time to put those meatballs together.As Spencer whips up spaghetti and meatballs, it’s clear Jill can do this, too. She had all the ingredients on hand. But catching the cooking habit starts with planning.My key is organization. You actu ally can’t decide what you’re cooking for dinner on the way home to do that.Looks like we’ve got some growing kids here, so we’ll give them a couple of meatballs.All right kids! Let’s see what happens. Here you go!Taste test.Oh, this is great.We’re now at a bachelor’s pad. We’ve dropped in on Brandon, and again Spencer’s mission is to make a meal out of the food found in the kitchen, Spencer, I bet the ingredients will be rather different here.I think so. I’m thinking maybe some wheaties and a little Taco Bell.Let’s check it out.Spencer searches the single guy’s space and finds exotic and healthy ingredients: rice, shrimp, orange juice, mandarins, onion, nori paper and balsamic vinegar.We’re going to try a little orange glaze shrimp ove r rice with just a little bit of onion. In found a little grape seed oil in there. Shrimp high in protein, low in fat. Do this really, really fast, just a quick sauté. You don’t want to overcook anything.Spencer heats up the kitchen, making a high-protein, highly nutritious meal. It was easy in Brandon’s kitchen. He had lots of food to choose from, and that’s one of the most important aspects of cooking at home. If Spencer came to your home, would there be enough food in the cupboards and in the refrigerator to make a meal? Kathy, there must be staples that we can have on hand to make meal preparation easier.Absolutely. If we open this cupboard right here, you can see that we have a nice selection of rice, and different types of noodles. We have whole grain, wild rice, whole grain noodles.A variety of canned goods and a refrigerator full of fresh produce also help make a meal on the fly. Spencer cooked up this in a matter of minutes and the results?So here are orange glaze shrimp with a little nori paper over rice. Here you go, my friend.Right on. Thank you, Spencer.Mmm… you are a talented man, my friend.Well, thank you very much. Why don’t you ham it up a little more!By the way, Spencer made that spaghetti meal in less than 30 minutes and the shrimp dish in less than 15. So if you have just a little bit of time, try eating in, and eat healthy!Dining Out on a Special DietSo you’re on a diet or you need a special meal because of a health condition. What do you do when you go out to eat, when you go to a restaurant? Jennifer Harrison found out in our FYI.Does this sound like a line from a movie? I’d like Fettuccine Alfredo, but for the sauce, can I substitute light milk for the whole milk? And salad, but have the dressing on the side? And an order of garlic bread, but hold the butter? Actually, restaurants and chefs expect special orders, and you can eat out anywhere and maintain a healthy diet.To prove it, we’re taking registered dietitian Dayna Green-Burgenson on a behind-the-scene’s look at restaurant eating.In classical French cooking, we use a lot of butter and cream and that’s kind of the foundation.The first item on our menu is understanding what issues are specific to your health needs or goals. For example, if reducing your fat intake is an issue, there are ways to make a dish heart healthy and weight loss friendly.We can take a sauce off one dish, put it on another dish. We can easily substitute olive oil for butter.Menu secret number two: you have to ask. And as a side dish, remember to be kind to your waiter.You might need the wait person to be the communicator between yourself and the chef or whoever is preparing the food.Menu item number three: is heart disease an issue when dining out? The key is to inquire about low-fat options and how sauces are prepared. For diabetics, getting the lowdown on sugar is the key.Making sure none of the sauces has a real sugary type of component because sometimes very sweet sauces might be served with something like lamb.Okay, m enu tip number four: foods like butter aren’t necessary bad for you, unless you overdo it! Try a smaller portion.Typical portion that we recommend with meat is like three to four ounces, restaurant portions can be more like six to eight ounces.Another tip? For a happy and healthy fine dining experience, study the menu and don’t be afraid to be particular.Salmon sounds great, but it’s served on sour cream mashed potatoes, which might have a lot of fat, but I might ask either not to have the mash potatoes or to have a different side dish.Does it ever irritate you as a chef to get special requests or do you just expect that?You have to expect that.We’re here at the buffet-style restaurant, and what strikes you as the most unhealthy food choice?Well, they have something called urban-style fries with blue cheese and chili oil.Buffet restaurants can be a health haven or hazard, depending on what you order. Our buffet tip: toss in a salad with the dressing on the side for a low-fat alternative. Watch the serving sizes, and again, don’t be afraid to inquire about your food.Excuse me, may I ask you a question? In you mashed potatoes, do you guys use butter?Yes.So skip the old-fashioned, home-style cooking and stick with the vegetables and whole grains. They pack in lots of vitamins, minerals and fiber. Anything that is drowning in sauce is probably not the healthiest choice.Now for the ultimate challenge: healthy dining on fast food.Do you want chicken salad?No, I just want regular salad.So here we come with all our food.Dayna, I think we found maybe some healthy alternatives at the fast food restaurant.Salad.Well, it looks like maybe they gave you a Caesar salad because it has cheese on it, so that wouldn’t be as good as a salad wi thout cheese. And it also has only one color which is the green. The more color vegetables you have in the salad, the better.And our dressing packs in a way too much fat.Ranch… probably not the best choice I imagine.Right. Eighteen grams of fat if you use this whole package and 179 calories.But a grilled chicken sandwich with no mayonnaise and yogurt with fruit are healthy choices.Yes, it has a lot of nutritional value in it that it’s got some fruit and that it’s got a lot of calcium in the milk and protein.From fine dining to life in the fast food lane, eating out can be healthy. Know what to look for and when in doubt, all you have to do is ask.Another way to maintain a healthy diet while eating out is to split a meal. Most restaurant portions are so big that they can easily be divided into two.。