I am doing beans such a disservice by repeating that rhyme, because they truly are among the best foods around. First the nutrition – they have all sorts of good nutrients, including protein (good for vegetarians like me), folate, fiber, and several different minerals. They’re classified as a vegetable and as a stand-in for meat on the Food Guide Pyramid. And they’re really versatile. You can puree them into a dip, toss them onto a salad, use them in soup, add them to sauce. They’re easy to use straight out of the can, and they don’t cost very much. And if you eat them often, their “side effects” diminish.

The Dietary Guidelines say to eat at least 3 cups of legumes (dried beans, peas, lentils) every week. That’s certainly doable if you’re eating at home. What if you eat out a lot? Using some of the menus that we consulted for the meals in the 400 Calorie Fix and Prevention magazine, I went looking for beans and bean dishes in restaurants. I’ve listed the obvious below. (Au Bon Pain is the clear winner!) Some restaurants may include beans in, say, a salad or a Mexican entrée, but you have to ask.

Fast Food

Chili’s
Black Bean Soup
Black Beans (side)
Southwestern Egg Rolls

Chipotle
Black Beans
Pinto Beans

KFC
BBQ Baked Beans
Three Bean Salad

McDonald’s
Premium Southwest Salad

Mexican (Taco Bell, Qdoba, Chipotle, and friends)
Refried beans

Popeye’s
Red Beans & Rice

Quiznos
Chili (maybe)

Roy Rogers
Baked Beans

Subway
Chili Con Carne

Taco Bell
½ lb. Cheesy Bean & Rice Burrito
7-Layer Burrito
Bean Burrito
Fresco Bean Burrito
Pintos ‘n Cheese

Casual and Sit-down

Atlanta Bread Company
Baja Chicken Enchilada Soup
Classic Beef Chili
Fire Roasted Corn and Black Bean Fiesta Salad
Frontier Chicken Chili

Au Bon Pain
Black Bean and Corn Salad
Black Bean Soup
Curried Rice and Lentil Soup
French Moroccan Tomato Lentil Soup
Hummus and Cucumber
Jamaican Black Bean Soup
Pasta e Fagioli Soup
Red Beans, Italian Sausage and Rice Soup
Southern Black-Eyed Pea Soup
Split Pea with Ham Soup
Vegetarian Chili
Vegetarian Lentil Soup

Chevy’s
Beans a la Charra
Black Beans
Refried Beans
Tostada Salad

Panera Bread
Low-Fat Vegetarian Black Bean Soup

Ruby Tuesday
Garbanzo Beans (Fresh Garden Bar)
White Bean Chicken Chili

So here’s my confession – I don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables. According to the soon-to-be-updated Dietary Guidelines, my daily diet should include about 4 1/2 cups, the equivalent of 9 servings. Or about 1/2 cup at breakfast and 2 cups each at lunch and dinner. And as a registered dietitian who rarely dines out, I have no excuse. How about people who eat a lot of restaurant and take-out meals?

When I was working on 400 Calorie Fix, I gathered menus from lots of restaurants. So here are a few different ways to hit the 2-cup mark in a lower calorie, lower fat way; many meals still exceed 400 calories. (I’ve chosen to leave off the fries, which are the most popular vegetable in the US.)You can forget the value or dollar menu; this is strictly an a la carte and more expensive deal.

At McDonalds:

• Premium Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken (320 calories)
• Hamburger (250 calories), Premium Caesar Salad (no chicken) with low fat Italian dressing (150 calories), Apple Dippers (35 calories)

At Roy Rogers:

• Grilled Chicken Filet Sandwich (413 calories), side salad  without dressing (99 calories), baked apples (102 calories), fresh fruit cup (44 calories)

At Boston Market:

• 1/4 White Rotisserie Chicken, no skin (240 calories), fresh steamed vegetables (60 calories), seasonal fruit salad (60 calories)

It depends. High calorie ingredients like cream, butter, and cheese certainly can set back the best waist-watching efforts. So can big portion sizes. Researchers from Cornell University found that recipe portions have grown by about 35% in the cookbook classic, Joy of Cooking,. This means that a portion that was, say, 300 calories in an earlier edition, now is 400 calories. It takes only 25 days-worth of an extra 100 calories to gain a pound! So what can you do?

My colleague JoAnn Hattner, a San Francisco-based dietitian, suggests serving smaller portions and pairing higher calorie favorites (read it here: sfgate.com), like her creamy baked oysters, with lower calorie dishes. And get guidance from books like 400 Calorie Fix that feature tasty and even indulgent recipes in right-size portions.

The January 20 food section of the New York Times featured an article on the culture of snacking in the U.S., Snack Time Never Ends. In the article, columnist Jennifer Steinhauer laments the fact that American children are plied with snacks at every turn, in school, on the ball field, in the car, and at after-school activities. Certainly we snacked when I was a kid, but snacks were at set times, sometimes mid-morning, always mid-afternoon, and sometimes in the evening (back when my dad ate a piece of cherry pie while watching his favorite prime time shows). Snack had a mission – to quiet our hunger between meals, give us a kick of energy, and add nutrition. Not anymore. Snack is what kids do.

Now that I am of an age where I have to think about calories, I am very circumspect about my snacks. They have to be filling – I don’t want to down 300 calories in, say, a candy bar, just to be hungry 30 minutes later later. They have to be nutritious – every calorie really counts. They have a beginning, middle, and end – no non-stop snacking. And they have to taste good. That goes without saying. So here is a list of 5 great snacks for kids of all ages, in no particular order:

• Cookies and milk. Any kind of cookies (don’t kid yourself into thinking that some are that much healthier than others), as long as they weigh an ounce max (125-150 calories). Dunk in milk (80-100 calories per cup of skim or low-fat, and packed with calcium and protein).
• Peanut butter on graham crackers. For the peanut butter, smooth or chunky, natural or regular, whichever you like best (180 calories in 2 tablespoons); all types have a bit of protein, some fiber, and plenty of heart-healthy monounsaturated fat. A couple squares of cinnamon (my favorite), honey, or chocolate have about 60 calories, and some brands are made from whole grain.
• Yogurt parfait. I don’t love super-sweet, so my parfait has a cup of calcium-rich low-fat plain yogurt (120-150 calories, depending on the brand) layered with a couple handfuls of cereal (maybe 80 calories) and a cup of frozen berries or half a banana, sliced (about 50 calories).
• Baked sweet potato. It’s a bit unusual, but what a great snack. Toss a medium-size sweet potato (100 calories) in the microwave until it’s mushy, slice open, and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar or your favorite sweetener. It’s packed with fiber and important vitamins and minerals, and it’s really filling.
• Popcorn. Not movie theater popcorn. The stuff you make yourself in the microwave or in the air popper. Figure up to 100 calories for three cups. While it’s still hot, toss with 4 tablespoons of grated reduced fat cheese, any flavor (80 calories).

[ Photo credit: Denise Cross via Flickr ]

On April 7, Good Morning America featured a segment on food label accuracy. The Food and Drug Administration allows a margin of error of 20 percent for each nutrient, meaning that if a food has, say, 2 grams of protein per serving, the actual amount can range from 1.6 grams to 2.4 grams. Not surprisingly, Good Morning American found that some foods exceeded the 20 percent margin.

I don’t object to their findings but I do object to the irresponsible way they reported the information on the Good Morning America website:

The government says trans fats are downright dangerous. The Nabisco Cheese Nips label boasts “0″ trans fat but, according to our test, each serving actually contains about a quarter of a gram of the artery-clogging fat. It’s perfectly legal, but also troubling because the Food and Drug Administration says Americans should try to eliminate trans fat from their diets.”

Yes, Americans should cut back on trans fat, but a quarter gram of trans fat is NOTHING compared to the amount that a person might get in a doughnut or serving of fried chicken.

The website is equally alarmist about the amount of fat in a fat-free cookie:

As for total fat, consider Snackwell’s Devil’s Food Cookies. With “0″ fat listed, they’re supposed to be a guilt-free treat for dieters, but the lab we hired found more than a quarter of a gram of fat in each one-cookie serving.”

Get real. Even if a dieter eats four cookies, the fat totals a mere gram. That’s next to nothing. The article totally misses the mark — Americans need to learn to eat better overall, not stress over a small amount of extra fat in a still-low-fat food.

[ Photo credit: slierk via Flickr ]

Two news headlines caught my eye this morning. The first, summarizing a study from the journal Pediatrics, stated that teens who eat breakfast may be less likely to gain weight. The second, from Neurology, found that a having a belly during the midlife years increased risk of dementia later in life. So remind your teens to eat breakfast (if you remember), something as simple as a sealable plastic bag with cereal and dried fruit plus a carton of yogurt, whole grain toast with peanut butter and banana, or a fruit and milk or yogurt smoothie. Don’t try this at home, but my favorite breakfast during my high school years was an instant breakfast shake and a cinnamon toaster pastry.

[ Photo credit: Sunday Nite Dinner via Flickr ]

I didn’t have a lot of time to scope out the food offerings at Expo West (March 14-16), but I did notice a large number of different jerky manufacturers. Historically a native American food, jerky is a handy form of marinated and dried “meat” that can be stored without refrigeration. Why “meat” in quotation marks? Because today’s jerky comes not only from beef or bison, but also from turkey, salmon, and even soy. Putting aside its sodium content, which tends to be high, jerky is high in protein, virtually fat-free (the fat is trimmed off to prevent rancidity), and low in cholesterol. I don’t eat beef or bison, but I would have loved to try the soy jerky. Sadly, I don’t think Trader Joe’s carries it.

[ Photo credit: blogjam via Flickr ]

My friend Adrienne and I were doing our part to improve our health by exercising on the elliptical machines at the gym while watching the Food Network on TV. We were absolutely SHOCKED at the menu prepared in one half-hour show. The chef, who shall go unnamed, started with cheese straws, crispy cocktail party fare made with butter, flour, and cheese. An artichoke dip — mayo, cream cheese, mozzarella, and parmesan — followed. By my nutrition analysis, the dip dishes up over 1000 calories per cup. How about chicken cutlets sautéed in butter and topped with melted cheese and cherry cheesecake for dessert? My arteries were clogging just watching. As if things couldn’t get worse, the chef ended the show with blocks of macaroni and cheese wrapped in bacon, dipped in cracker crumbs, and deep fried. Tell me you don’t eat like that. Maybe one of those dishes, once in awhile, and in small amounts. But a full portion? More than one at the same time? Just watching made me ramp up the speed on my machine.

[ Photo credit: chirpingbee via Flickr ]

Remember the Atkins diet? No regular bread, rice, pasta, and potatoes, certainly no regular desserts, and even high carb veggies like carrots and beets were suspect. A lot of my friends lost a lot of weight by denying themselves (and gained it right back when they went off the diet). To its credit, the Atkins program has invested money into research about whether cutting carbs works as well as, or better than, cutting calories by eating less fat. While early results showed that both low carb and low fat diets supported weight loss and beneficial changes in blood cholesterol and blood sugar, targeted studies support what many health professionals believe — cutting out whole food groups and eating high fat foods in abundance can’t be good for you. An article in last month’s issue of Hypertension showed better artery function in a group of people eating a low fat diet, as compared to people eating low carbs. So what’s the best strategy? Eat less and eat balanced. I wish it could be more dramatic than that.

I admit that I’m watching the fight over nutrition information in restaurants with great amusement. Just as I’m watching the trans fat debates with great amusement.

How can I be so flip about these “public health measures” aimed at improving the health of Americans? Truth is, I’m not sure they’ll make any difference.

Over the past 20 years, Americans have enjoyed access to a growing amount of nutrition information on food labels and in magazines, newspapers, and recipes. In fact, I have been a source of some of that nutrition analysis. Yet Americans weigh more than ever. With all that information at their fingertips, shouldn’t Americans be able to select a weight-friendly diet? Will nutrition info on restaurant menus make a difference in what you order?

Now to my first question about keeping it simple– the food world is filled with really simple, easy-to-follow messages, like eating “5-A-Day” fruits and vegetables, getting “three daily cups of milk” (or yogurt), and “making half your grains whole.” Do they work? Well, we still don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, drink enough milk, or eat enough whole grain foods.

If detailed doesn’t work and simple doesn’t work, what will? We nutrition communication folks have our work cut out for us!