Health Tip: Are restaurants really healthier than fast food?

in #health7 years ago (edited)

This is a very common misconception about sit-in restaurants as compared with fast food restaurants. Regular sit-in restaurants are often perceived as a healthier choice than fast foods but this is mainly because of the bad publicity that fast food chains have received. In fact, almost any restaurant you go to, whether it is fast food or not, offer similar foods in terms of calories, sodium, and fats. But sit-in restaurants almost always have larger portion sizes so they contain even more calories! So don't fool yourself into thinking regular restaurants are healthier than fast foods but instead consider each meal you have and in terms of portion size, calories, sodium, and fat intake separetly. Depending on which restaurants you like going to, it might even be best to limit how many times you eat out!

Source: http://globalnews.ca/news/2129802/fast-food-vs-restaurant-fare-which-is-worse-for-your-waistline/


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Great post. Thinking about it, it's logical that these type of restaurants are more or less the same. What would they do different in preparation? Maybe it would be better to choose a vegan restaurant? Thanks

Hmmm good question. I think with Restaurants, as well as any big company, it is important to view how much of the price or value of a product is due to its marketing. For example a Nike shirt has billions of marketing dollars put into building a name brand, thus giving the impression to people that it's better than other lesser-known branded shirts. Thus we can take that analogy towards restaurants and view the branding, environment, and service as being the real difference makers.

Anyways I kinda got sidetracked there, but getting back to your question about food preparation. I think most restaurants have similar methods and sources of obtaining the food, as well as storing them, but the actual cooking/preparation might differ but more so on a taste/quality level and not so much as the macros. This is especially true for meat products because they require the most preservatives to retain freshness, and the longest road from initial grazing/feeding of the animal to being shipped to the restaurant and stored. So a vegan choice would be my way to go (I'm vegan FYI), especially at restaurants that usually store foods for longer periods of time than the average person IMO.

This might be a great discussion :-) Why fast-food restaurants have a bad image...
It's true that most restaurants differ mostly on taste/quality, but if they would produce the same bad food, why is it that only fast-food restaurants are being attacked?

There are restaurants, especially the more expensive ones that take nutrition into account and therefore use products of better quality and use them in the right amounts. However, a lot of restaurants earned their fame by either their fantastic taste or the decoration of the establishment, making the client forget about the most important thing, health and nutrition. Then you can't say anything about a restaurant until they present the nutrition facts of the meals :-)

I'm not a vegan, but I prefer a vegan restaurant over a normal restaurant, because I simply like vegetables more than meat. My question is, what is the chance that a vegan restaurant prepares a bad meal? Do they take nutrition into account?

Hmmm I think fast-food have a bad rep because that way the more expensive restaurants can charge... well more expensive for their food haha.

And vegan restaurants usually are healthier because usually the restaurant owners and their employees are more conscious amount the food they eat. Also, the preparation of meat is intrinsically much more complex and much more salt/preservatives is used. So I think it's usually a good bet going with Vegan restaurants.

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