I’m trying to make an effort to eat healthier while eating out, so I checked out Restaurant Confidential from the library last week. It’s been a great read. They analyze many dishes from many popular food chains, categorized by food type: breakfast, chinese, mexican, etc. I’m a very quantitative person and like to be an educated consumer, so I like to see these nutrional numbers. It’s amazing how bad most restaurant food is. Tons of fat and calories and huge portions. The part I like best about the book is how the authors manage to pick out at least one or two, what they call, Best Bites from every category. So not only can you see what to avoid, more importantly, you know what to order. And the Bottom Line hints under each dish are quite helpful. The writing is not all dry, spouting out nutritional numbers everywhere. The authors have a strange sense of humor, for example, calling fettuccine alfredo “a heart attack on a plate” saying “if you are planning on ordering this … make sure your cardiologist is on call,” making for an entertaining read. Even if you’re like me and don’t go to these chain restaurants that much, I still recommend this book. The advice seems sound for most restaurants of the same category, since the dishes are fairly common. I think I may buy a copy for future reference.

Written by members of the same organization, the Nutrition Action Healthletter looks like a great resource, too. I’ve just browsed over some of the archives. There are numerous good articles, and I like reading over the Right Stuff vs. Food Porn. In fact, I liked it so much, I just subscribed for $10.