Family Style Restaurant Meals:

Try the meatloaf? It gives you a day’s worth of artery-clogging fat!

Many people remember the quaint, greasy-spoon diners of the 1950?s. The atmosphere was fun and the food was mostly ?comfort food.? Many dishes were full of the worst kind of fats.

Today we know the dangers of these types of foods. A serving of today?s special meatloaf, for example, could clog up your arteries with a whole day’s worth of heart-threatening fat ? and that?s just for the entree. Meatloaf can contain more fat than two 12-ounce sirloin steaks or two 6-ounce pork chops!

The nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) - the group that exposed the fat content of movie-theater popcorn and Chinese restaurant meals - analyzed popular meals from major family-style chains. The results were published in CSPI’s Nutrition Action Healthletter: ?1950’s food helped make the ’60s the heart-attack decade of the century,? said CSPI Senior Nutritionist Jayne Hurley, who carried out the study. ?Even now, the US Department of Health and Human Services attributes approximately 400,000 deaths each year to poor diet and lack of exercise.?

According to CSPI, the food served at typical family-style restaurants isn’t any worse than the types of food served at other restaurants; however, that doesn’t mean it’s not bad for you. 

Let?s look at some typical meal-choice examples:

The patty melt - a cheeseburger with fried onions between two slices of grilled rye bread - gives you more than a day’s worth of artery-clogging fat. Adding an order of fries brings the total to at least 2 days’ worth of fat in one sitting. Adding a vanilla milk shake brings it up to 3. That 2,000-calorie lunch has the same fat content as 4 Big Macs!

The hamburger is very popular at family-style restaurants. Unfortunately, even if you order it with nothing on it but the meat and bun, you’ll be eating up ? of a day’s worth of fat.

Most family-style restaurants do offer some healthier choices, however and diners are fervently urged to choose them.

Pot roast, a lean cut of beef, uses up just 1/3 of a day’s worth of saturated fat. Add a side of vegetables. You’ll walk away with quite a decent meal, usually for fewer than 600 calories.

Grilled chicken or fish and a salad with low-cal dressing can usually be found under ?healthy? or ?light? items on the menus.

Be careful to stay within the ?safe? options, however and keep this thought in mind ? ?Family-style restaurants may be cheap, but if you don’t want to blow the savings on doctor bills, order with extreme care.?