6 Survival Tips for Eating
in Bars By Joe Wilkes
 Most of us think of fast food, office doughnuts, or that tub of
ice cream in the freezer when we think of diet traps. But what about those
unplanned little grazings that happen when we wander out to happy hour with
colleagues after work, hit the nightclubs for somebody's birthday on the
weekend, or gather with friends at the local sports bar to watch the playoff
game on Sunday afternoon? Somebody passes around a bucket of wings, a plate of
calamari, or a couple of orders of fries and onion rings, and you decide you're
just going to try one of these, one of those, and you surely can't refuse that
one at the happy hour price—it's like throwing money away! Emboldened by
judgment-loosening alcoholic beverages (not to mention highly caloric), a whole
diet plan can be shredded in one evening. But none of us wants to stay home
with our celery sticks and cabbage soup while our friends and coworkers are out
on the town. So let's take a look at some of the worst offenders offered up at
our favorite watering holes and some alternatives we can order instead.
 Buffalo wings. These little deadlies took
off like crazy in the 90s and now they, or some variation, are available at
almost every bar in town. Sold by the pound, by the half-dozen, or by the wing,
they are delicious, but watch out—these babies can give you a buffalo
butt. The basic recipe for the classic Buffalo wing is to deep-fry separated
wing sections and then toss them in a combination of butter and hot sauce. Some
places have added breading to the mix to better absorb the fat and sauce, and
most serve them with celery and carrot sticks with a healthy serving of
full-fat ranch or blue cheese dressing. Why have they become so popular? Well,
of course, they taste great, but more than that, think about the bar's
strategy. What are they in the business of? Serving drinks. And here's where
the wings become the perfect bar food. They're spicy—which makes you want
to drink more. They're salty—which makes you want to drink more. They're
fatty—which makes you feel the effects of the alcohol less . . . and makes
you want to drink more. It's a perfect storm of high-calorie temptation to make
you ingest more high-calorie drinks.
I initially went to the Hooters
Web site to get nutritional info for their wings, and finding none, went to
their FAQ, where I was informed they couldn't possibly give out nutritional
information for such a customizable dish. I found this to be the case at most
of the popular chains. This reluctance to divulge didn't bode well for the
dainty chicken wing. I finally found a third-party site reporting that a
10-piece chicken wing appetizer order at Ruby Tuesday had 910 calories and 66
grams of fat. Add the blue cheese dressing, and you can knock it up to 1,090
calories and 85 grams of fat. This seemed pretty typical. If you add variations
like breading, or syrupy sauces like teriyaki or sweet-and-sour, you can bump
up the calories even higher. It's safe to guess that for every wing you eat out
of your table's wing bucket, you're getting around 100 calories and 7 grams of
fat. Chicken wings are mostly skin, so they're pretty much the least healthy
part of the chicken you can eat. And chicken "fingers" or "nuggets" aren't much
better. Some grind up the skin into the meat, which ends up being the base for
the nugget, and even the all-breast-meat versions have tons of fat from the
breading.
Instead: Just treat yourself to one or two
wings or fingers from the bucket. But then fill up on the accompanying celery
and carrot sticks (however, skip the ranch and blue cheese; ask if there's
salsa or marinara sauce). You can ask your waiter and barkeep for extra sticks,
too, so your friends don't think you're a celery hog.
 French fries. Fries are definitely high on
the bar's salty-fatty scale. But they're another perfect bar food. Loved by
vegetarians and carnivores alike. Usually the cheapest appetizer on the menu
and great finger food for passing around. But a basket of fries, depending on
how they're prepared, can have 500 to 1,000 calories, at least half of which
come from fat. Not to mention the sodium content, and even the accompanying
ketchup which is usually full of high-fructose corn syrup. And, you can also
get creative by adding cheese, chili, bacon, or anything else to the fries. At
the Outback Steakhouse, you can order the Aussie Cheese Fries, whose one-pound,
12-ounce serving contains 2,900 calories and 182 grams of fat.
Outback—it's Australian for heart attack! Hopefully, this dish is meant to
be shared, but even an individual 10-ounce cheese fries order at Johnnie
Rockets clocks in at 760 calories with 43 grams of fat.
Instead: Skip the toppings. Fries, at heart, are just
potatoes, which, while a bit carby, aren't unhealthy. If you have an option
between steak fries and shoestring/thin-cut fries, go with the steak fries. The
potato-to-grease ratio is much higher, so essentially each steak fry absorbs
less fat than the shoestring/thin-cut variety. Also, if you're at an Irish or
British pub, you could use no-calorie vinegar as your condiment of choice
instead of HFCS-laden ketchup.
 Nachos.
This "snack" plate is a fiesta of fat and calories—a
bed of deep-fried tortilla chips, loaded with full-fat melted cheese and sour
cream. At least there's some salsa, which is low in calories; refried beans,
which give you a little fiber with your fat; and some heart-healthy guacamole.
But don't let those ingredients justify the indulgence—nachos can often be
the most caloric item on the menu. One order of Classic Nachos at Chili's
contains 1,570 calories and 115 grams of fat (58 grams of which are saturated).
Even if you share this pile of fatty goodness with a friend, you've still
inhaled almost your entire day's recommended allowance of fat, and you haven't
even ordered dinner. Olé!
Instead:
Let your fork be your friend. Instead of using the tortilla chips as your
cheese delivery system, use a fork and pick at the healthier things on the
nacho platethe salsa, the guacamole, the jalapeños, the olives, the
beans, or the lean chicken or steak (if the nachos come with that). I also
recommend sitting/standing far away from the nachos. It'll be less tempting to
eat them absentmindedly. If you've only ordered chips and salsa, try keeping
your salsa-to-chip ratio high. The salsa's low-calorie and nutritious, the chip
is fattening and virtually nutrition free. So load up a chip with healthy
salsa. Better to get refills on the salsa than the chips.
 Deep-fried delicacies. This year,
a top seller at state and county fairs is deep-fried Coke. Clearly, as a
society, we have arrived at a point where we are able and willing to deep-fry
pretty much anything. From classics like onion rings and calamari to new
innovations like deep-fried jalapeño rings, anything that can be dipped
in batter and dropped into a vat of sizzling oil will be served at your local
bar. But keep in mind that while these munchies may have begun their lives as
vegetables and seafood, they are not for the health-conscious. A large raw
onion has 60 calories and no fat; a typical serving of onion rings has 500
calories and 34 grams of fat. Three ounces of squid contain 78 calories with
one gram of fat; an order of calamari fritti at the Macaroni Grill has 1,210
calories with 78 grams of fat (13 of which are saturated). Clearly the lesson
is to stay away from the deep fryer.
Instead: The
bright side of a deep-fried menu is that a deep fryer is usually a sign of a
working kitchenone that might have a refrigerator. If so, you could order an
alternate appetizer like shrimp cocktaila 10-shrimp serving only runs you 228
calories with 4 grams of fat. Or order a salad with dressing on the side. And
if you feel bad that you're not joining the crowd at the saturated fat trough,
see if you can get a buddy to go halfsies with you on a healthy menu item like
a salad. Then you can bond with your friend instead of having plaque bond with
your artery walls.
 Sushi. If your alcohol-themed gathering is
at a Japanese-themed or sushi bar, you may have hit diet heaven. Sake is only
39 calories an ounce, comparable to wine, and sushi—generally a roll of
fish, rice, and seaweed—is actually low-calorie, low-fat, and healthy!
Score! Be careful though, not all sushi is created equal. Some rolls that
contain spicy mayonnaise sauces or tempura batter can rack up the calories big
time. For example, a plain tuna roll is about 184 calories with 2 grams of fat.
A spicy tuna roll is 290 calories with 11 grams of fat; and a tuna tempura roll
is 508 calories with 21 grams of fat. Of course, with true Yankee ingenuity,
Americans have figured out ways to incorporate all manner of ingredients into
sushi. I swear to you, I've seen cheeseburger and pizza sushi on menus. Watch
out for the ones that will turn your heart-healthy snack into a gut
bomb—like the salmon-cream-cheese roll which has 517 calories with 20
grams of fat. Traditional Japanese appetizers like tempura can also be as
fattening as onion rings. Three pieces of vegetable tempura run about 320
calories with 18 grams of fat.
Instead: Stick to
sushi made without sauces, tempura, or other caloric ingredients. If you really
want to cut calories (and carbs), order sashimi, or sushi without rice. A
typical serving of tuna sashimi is less than 40 calories and 3 grams of fat.
Also, look for other low-calorie items on the menu like miso soup (76 calories)
or edamame (100 calories for half a cup).
 Peanuts, pretzels, popcorn, and mixes.
The diviest bar in town might not have a menu from the
kitchen, but they'll probably have a barrel of some crunchy treat which will be
served in small refillable bowls—gratis. Again, this isn't just
an act of incredible generosity by the bartender, it's motivation for you to
get full of salt and fat so you can order more drinks, early and often. Peanuts
are a good source of protein, but they have about 164 calories an ounce (about
30 peanuts) and 14 grams of fat. Popcorn is 140 calories an ounce (about 2-1/2
cups) with 8 grams of fat. Pretzels are only 107 calories an ounce (about five
pretzels), with almost no fat, but you also get a full 20 percent of your
sodium RDA in that ounce. An ounce of Chex mix (about 2/3 cup) is 120 calories
with 5 grams of fat. And Asian snack mix (largely seasoned rice crackers) is
142 calories an ounce (about a cup) with 7 grams of fat.
 Instead. You can
pretty well name your poison on this one. They're all around the same calorie
count per ounce. I've yet to find the bar where the bartender dished out a
healthy alternative from the bottomless snack bucket behind the bar. The main
thing to remember is that the bowl is indeed bottomless, and the bartender will
keep filling the bowl, so you keep filling your glass. And keep in mind Ben
Stiller's speech from Along Came Polly, where his risk assessor
character explains to Jennifer Aniston the number of people in the bar who went
to the bathroom, didn't wash their hands, and then plunged those dirty hands
into the communal nut bowl. The nice thing about joints like this is that
they're not going to give you a dirty look if you pull a P90X® Peak
Performance Protein Bar out of your purse. Also, if you plan on getting your
nutritional sustenance from a bartender in the evening, it might be wise to pop
a couple of ActiVit® multivitamins in the morning. Bottoms
up!
|
|
