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

The last set of Dietary Guidelines, (2005) were great for whole grains. For the first time, they called out whole grains with a specific recommendation – half of all your grain servings should be whole. That means that you should have at least 3 servings of whole grains every day, with a serving being a slice of whole wheat bread, 1/2 cup of whole wheat pasta or brown rice, a 1-ounce serving of whole grain cereal, or something similar.

Meeting this recommendation is not as hard as you think if you eat at home or in your office cafeteria. Have a bowl of oatmeal or cold whole grain cereal for breakfast and make your sandwich on whole wheat bread and you’re there without having to think about brown rice or whole grain spaghetti or bulgur wheat for dinner.

But what if you eat out?  The picture is somewhat dim, as we found out when researching the 400 Calorie Fix. Here, a list of some of the chains offering a whole grain or partly whole grain option on the menu, in alphabetical order. Remember to ask for whole grain or whole wheat as it might not be on the menu. And although I’ve put tortilla chips and nachos on the list because they are made from whole grain corn, that doesn’t make them a smart choice!

[ Photo credit: niseag03 via Flickr]

While I was working out at the gym this morning, I caught a commercial for Chili’s new $9.99 fresh pairings. The ad suggested a pairing of an appetizer of what looked like nachos plus a half rack of ribs. Certainly a budget bargain but also a gazillion calories. So I decided to explore a few money-savers at national chains to see if I could even come close to the 400-calorie mark by picking the lowest calorie options, as well as to see how high the calories might go. Keep in mind that you probably need 1,600 to 2,000 calories for the entire day.

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)

This past weekend, I ate with my family at Taverna Banfi, the restaurant run by the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University. We enjoyed the food but all agreed that portions were too big, certainly not consistent with eating in a 400 calorie way. Just a few standouts – a basket of focaccia, maybe 100 calories per slice, refilled by the wait staff (we finally said no thanks). An overly well-dressed salad, with, say, 2 tablespoons of oil; that’s 200 calories in oil alone. A tasting menu with two entrée-size courses, one of duck and one of short ribs, probably over 500 calories before factoring in side dishes. An appetizer-size portion of pasta that easily topped 500 calories.

So why should restaurants concern themselves with portion size? Because chefs play a huge role in teaching people how much to eat. If you serve too much, diners will eat too much, and think that your portions are okay. How about cutting down on meat and pasta portions, and adding more veggies to the plate instead?

When we were researching restaurant meals to include in the 400 Calorie Fix, we were shocked to find that eating the 400 calorie way is virtually impossible when you’re eating out. Portions are too big and they have too much fat – chef friends of mine brag about using butter with abandon. And try finding whole grains or beans on the menu. So I was pleased to read in the LA Times that restaurants are beginning to offer lower calorie fare on their menus. You’ll still find plenty of dishes with almost enough calories for the entire day. When you let a restaurant chef decide what and how much you should eat, weight gain shouldn’t come as a surprise. Here are a few tips for eating out sensibly:

1. Start your meal with a side salad, creamless soup, or bowl of fruit. According to research by Dr. Barbara Rolls, people who start their meal this way end up eating fewer calories.
2. Salad dressing on the side and used sparingly, always. At up to 100 calories per tablespoon, dressing can be the highest calorie part of your meal.
3. Enjoy less than a fist-sized portion of pasta, rice, or potatoes plus a palm-sized portion of meat, fish, or poultry. Take the rest home for tomorrow.
4. Wait at least 10 or 15 minutes before making a decision about dessert. Then order just one, with plenty of spoons.

I got a lot of questions from the photo studio during the photo shoot for 400 Calorie Fix. Does the Cosi Signature Salad Light include bread in its 400-or-so calories? (No.) Do the 370 calories in the Baja Fresh Baja Ensalada with Savory Pork Carnitas include the extra packet of tortilla chips? (No.) What about the extra dressing or barbecue sauce tossed into the fast food bag? (No.) So I started thinking about restaurant calorie counts and how accurate they really are.

Researchers in Boston posed the same question in a study published in the January 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. They found that the average actual calories in 29 different restaurant foods were slightly higher than what was stated, although some dishes has twice as many calories as the number posted. BUT, extra items that were provided free of charge along with the main item – bread, chips, and the like – more than DOUBLED the calories in the meal. So if you go into a quick-serve restaurant thinking that you’re ordering a 400 calorie meal, you might actually be served 800 calories.

How can you avoid falling into the calorie trap? Unfortunately, the folks serving your food probably don’t know which items are and are not included in the calorie calculations. So don’t even ask. Instead, you’ll need to do some sleuthing ahead of time on the restaurant website, or get ideas from the meals in 400 Calorie Fix.

Remember – if it looks like an extra food item, the calories probably are extra also. And the best news is that a growing number of restaurants are increasing their calorie-smart offerings, making it easier for you to follow your diet wherever you eat.

If you eat in New York City, Westchester County, New York, or any of a number of other cities and counties across the country, you may have noticed calorie counts on restaurant menus and signboards. Some of the numbers are reassuring – a plain cup of coffee at Starbucks is only 5 calories and a soft serve cone at McDonald’s weighs in at 150 (not many calories for a perfectly satisfying dessert). But others are pretty discouraging, like the 750-calorie tuna salad sandwich at my beloved Panera Bread; that’s almost half the calories I need for the whole day. I have to admit that the numbers on menus do affect what I order.

Not everyone notices the calorie counts or does anything about them. In fact, in some urban neighborhoods, patrons ordered higher calorie fast food meals when calories were posted. And in working on the 400 Calorie Fix, the new book that I co-authored with Prevention’s Liz Vaccariello, I learned that the average fast food order is over 800 calories! That’s why it is important to use calorie counts as a way to order a more sensible meal, like the study participants [http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/AJPH.2009.160226v1] who ordered 250 fewer calories when the restaurant supplied calorie info plus info on daily calorie needs.

Here are a few simple guidelines:

• Decide ahead of time on your own personal calorie limit, whether 400, 500, or 600 calories, and stick to it. (Adults generally need 1,600 to 2,000 or so calories per day.)
• Look for ways to fill up on lower calorie fare like salads (light dressing is best), non-creamy soups, and fruit. I’m also a big fan of yogurt parfaits.
• Save money by cutting your meal in half, making it last for two meals. Keep the leftovers in the fridge for no more than a day.

If you’ve ever been to a convention at the Anaheim Convention Center, you know that the surroundings are not known for culinary excellence. So imagine my delight when my friend Mona and I stumbled upon Los Sanchez, a Mexican food “place” on Harbor Boulevard about a mile south of the convention center. Pretty it wasn’t, but it had a huge menu of Mexican dishes — some familiar and many not — at really reasonable prices. And judging by the crowd in the communal dining room, the Los Sanchez menu appealed to families, gang members, police officers, and wandering tourists alike. I told all my friends to go. Sadly, about a year ago a friend reported that Los Sanchez was no more, razed to make room for what looks like a shopping center. Fast forward to this past weekend, when business travels took me back to Anaheim. Posted on the chain link fence where Los Sanchez used to be is a sign announcing that Los Sanchez moved to nearby Garden Grove Boulevard! I didn’t have a chance to stop by, but you should.

[ Photo credit: culturesponge via Flickr ]

[ Photo credit: massdistraction via Flickr ]

You walk into Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts or even McDonald’s and buy a coffee drink without too much thought. Mark my words: our love of fancy beverages is going to translate into extra pounds down the road. Why? Because most drinks have lots of calories, sometimes close to one-third of the calories that a woman or child needs for the entire day. And researchers at Purdue University have shown that drinks don’t fill you up.

Drink 500 calories and your body doesn’t say, “hey buddy, don’t eat lunch because you’ve just guzzled down enough calories for a meal.” It doesn’t take a law to find out the nutrition analysis of your favorite drink, and maybe a lower calorie alternative. Many chains post nutrition information on their website. Frappuccino® Light anyone?