On restaurant food and how healthy it is

[nadinbrzezinski]

so recently we have had the claim that you too can eat a "healthy" meal at insert fast food place here... and that it is no different than insert higher priced restaurant.

Well the other day was watching worst cooks in America. It is entertaining to see people who literally can burn a kitchen down... and have no clue what flavor is, or how to cook anything. In the meantime I have picked a few things as well... or who cannot boil water.

But one thing really struck me from Anne Borrell (I am sure I am not spelling the Chef's name right) steak. And it is a good insight into insert restaurant here and why restaurant food is full of hedonics and not necessarily good for you. While most of us have cooked a rib eye from time to time... I want to know how many of you use brown sugar in the rub?

<------ NOT ME. And mine come out tasty, thank you very much. With a nice crust to boot as well.

How many of you will boil first and then pan sear your carrots, in a simple syrup?

<----- NOT ME... though they did look pretty.

Oh and I am sure both tasted amazing.

And that was a good insight at what is going on in the Restaurant bidnezz. I do not care if you are talking off... oh the Carls Juniors down the road, or the high end restaurant in the city. The use of sugar, salt and fat has increased to the level of a science... to make you CRAVE the food.

This is why when you say that you can find a healthy meal at a fast food place... would have been accurate up to generation ago, that is about 25 years ago, when heavy food engineering and use of sugar, salt and fats went over board. It also has changed how I personally look at it. Fast food is crap... but so is higher end food. The only way I can control what goes into my food and EAT in a healthy way... I have to cook, bake, what have you, myself. And in fact, we do go out. but we are aware that it does not matter if this is Mickey Ds. or Chillis (Haven't been there in a LONG time)... or Chevy's... or for that matter the high end local place... food has been engineered to the point that no... it is NOT healthy. I don't care who does it.

You might be able to find something LESS bad for you... but let's use the correct qualifier here.

Oh and there are now studies on this... but watching the Chef prepare the food was an insight into the thinking of restaurant food. Last week the Pork Payard, using herbed butter was the other aha moment...

Remember all this is about increasing pleasure, and those three elements in the right combos do exactly that.

So watching that show can be amusing at MULTIPLE levels, and you get to see how restaurant chefs truly think about food prep... and what is tasty and what are the standards.

[Denninmi]

1. The sodium content is terrible.

Both in foods cooked in restaurants and in foods I've seen chefs prepare on cooking shows. I really watch it, because my mother has heart disease and has had a couple of bouts of fluid on the lungs nows, although not serious at this point.

The other night, I was watching something on Create, I believe it was Sarah Moultin's Weeknight Meals in 30 Minutes. She was going to boil some kind of vegetable (maybe asparagus or pea pods), and she threw a TREMENDOUS fistful of salt into the cooking water. Granted, I doubt that the vegetables absorb all that much of it based on the volume of water in the pan, but it was completely unnecessary, IMO, to add ANY salt at the point.

Yes, it's pretty hard to get much in the way of healthy food when eating out, unless you specifically request it and have something done up "custom" with little or no salt, as little fat as possible, or if you do order off the menu, you are selective about just what you order and which foods or parts of foods on the plate you eat.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Yes, it is amazing

and watching that particular show, since they are teaching regular joes and janes how to cook... (they are terrible, take my word for it)... they are teaching them what is standard in the biz.

For us... we go out, I am gluten intolerant, so I have to read the menu very carefully.

Between the gluten and the diabetes, there are places I just cannot go to anymore. That includes souplantation. Their non-cream soups, have gluten... which had me going WOW... the creams, I get it...

[SoCalDem]

6. The salt in the boiling water is to retain the "green"

and if you rinse the boiled whatevers you can probably remove any excess. Of course the secret is to boil stuff fast, serve it ASAP and cook it "crunchy"

We gave up completely on Chilis a long time ago due to their excessive use of salt. Most of their foods are so salty, it's not even tasty.

If you want to control additives & salt at restaurants, you need to avoid soups at all costs..and choose the things that are cooked the least, or are baked.

Avoid the obvious things like pot-pies, stews, or things that brag about being "old fashioned" or "just like your Mother made", things with sauces or glazes.

If your favorite whatever is an occasional treat, and the rest of the time you cook for yourself, it's probably not going to hurt you that much to "cheat" a little every so often, though..

Glazing carrots is as easy as just sprinkling a little bit of granulated brown sugar on them before serving (cover the pot up, so it melts)

[MineralMan]

9. For glazing carrots, I like a tablespoon of orange marmalade.

After cooking the carrots, heat a little butter in a saute pan, add the carrots, then the marmalade. Shake the pan to distribute everything evenly and serve. Takes 30 seconds to finish these, and folks get all excited about them. If they ask, I give them a complicated recipe for an orange glaze - one that starts with whole oranges. That way, they don't duplicate the dish. :rofl:

[Codeine]

18. Chili's uses a downright bizarre amount of salt.

The first time I saw their fries I nearly choked. I had to scrape each one before I ate it.

Luckily they are very pleasant about getting a lightly-salted batch out to you if requested.

[fasttense]

3. Restaurant workers are some of the lowest paid employees in America.

They rarely get anything above minimum wage and they hardly ever get benefits. Since most restaurant workers don't get sick leave, they come into work sick or healthy. Just think how those sickly workers handel your food.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. I am just sticking to the food

not even going into working conditions here.

[JustAnotherGen]

4. I don't do fast food

And I have an auto immune disease so day to day I eat between 855 and 90% raw.

That said - food and wine are a pleasure for me and my ethnic heritage says: butter, wine, champagne, pork, etc. etc. they won't kill you in moderation.

A little tiny bit of butter and cream go a very long way . . . but then again. For me: Food is mostly about staying healthy and the rest of the time? A party in my mouth and sex on a plate.

I'm not going to turn my nose up at cream pasta dish at Trattoria in Bedminster NJ, or Origin Thai in Somerville, or Char in Bridgewater. And I always have a good wine with those. :-)

We can't always live life sparingly.

All of that said - give up fast food for a year . . . and then see how disgusting just walking in a restaurant smells. Yuck! If it HAS to be microwaved (I don't own a microwave - I cook the way my grandmother's did) - don't eat it. That simple! :rofl:

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. We are not talking of small amounts of butter here

and my point is... that it is NOT just fast food that is not healthy. It is the whole offerings.

And yes in moderation it is fine... but we are talking REAL moderation here.

[JustAnotherGen]

63. You have to find the good restaurants

Several of my friends are from Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain and their restaurants/chefs (i.e. them/their husbands) cook the old fashioned way -the European way.

When I went back to a mediterannean diet sans raw tomatos, zucchini, squash, eggplant (nightshades) I dropped 30 pounds and eliminated the need for Aleve, Nanoproxen, etc. etc. to manage my A.S.

Their four restaurants are mainstays for me. Dig into the chefs, avoid places that can seat 300 per night. <--- They are cooking for the masses.

BTW - My mother is a hotel/restaurant person for 40 years so I grew up in the back office, the kitchen, etc. etc. They really aren't inherently evil these people who make the menus.

[MineralMan]

8. Thanks for continuing the discussion from my thread.

Restaurants survive by pleasing their customers. And, yes, it's absolutely true that they use techniques and ingredients that we don't use in our own kitchens. Butter is everywhere in most restaurant kitchens. Why? Because we like the taste and mouth-feel that butter provides. Same with salt and sugar and other ingredients most home cooks don't use in the same ways restaurants do.

We don't eat out for our health, generally. We eat out to get what we can't easily get out of our own kitchens. I do all the cooking in my house, and I cook healthful meals. However, when we have guests for dinner, I generally cook restaurant-style. The guests love it, and think I'm some sort of great cook. I suppose they think we eat that way all the time. Nothing could be further from the truth, but dinner for guests is different from the meals we eat on a day-to-day basis. Same principle as going out to a nice restaurant.

The key seems to be moderation. I know that my dinner in a restaurant is not going to be as good FOR me as what I would prepare at home, but that's hardly the point. It's going to taste great (at least that's the plan). I can't really sear a steak at 800 degrees and get that taste without setting off every smoke alarm in the house. I'm not going to create a sauce finished with a big chunk of butter from the butter tub. Nope. But, when I go out, I expect to get something different.

When guests come to my house, I cook the very best way I know how to cook, but it's not the way I cook normally. Their pleasure is my goal, just as it is the goal of the restaurant. It's OK to eat that way sometimes. Health isn't accomplished (or ruined) in a day. A little extravagance in one's diet is OK from time to time. A little charred animal fat is OK, once in a while. It's not on a regular basis, but once in a while, it's just fine, and adds to the pleasure of living. And pleasure is important once in a while.

That other thread is sinking, so thanks for starting a new one, so we can continue the discussion.

[canetoad]

17. Ah, butter

Yellow in colour and slippery tae th' touch.

[haele]

10. We watch Anne Burrell's "Secrets of a Resturant Chef" on Food Network, also -

On that show, she talks about the differences between resturant cooking and home cooking, especially in terms of the amount of salt, sugar and oil used.

Much of the difference between what you'd do at home is due to portioning your recipe and the length of time prepped food and the fixings sit before they're actually cooked; where you'd prepare everything as you need it, a restuant kitchen begin all the prep work - the cutting and portioning - for their service hours before the resturant actually opens. Produce is all cut and binned up in a cooler to be pulled out for individual dishes as they are ordered, which can change the flavor - make them go more bitter - as the night goes on. Sauce components need to be made in bulk and able to simmer/sit out for hours without losing their flavor.
And time - most people are not willing to wait for an hour and a half for honest "home cooking" when they go to a resturant; the actual dinner, no matter how complex or robust, needs to be on the plate and ready to go back out to the customer within ten/twenty minutes of ordering.

So, more salt, more sugar, more fats (oils) go into those famous recipies to keep the flavors of all the taste components of a dish consistant from the 5pm opening to the, say, 11pm kitchen closing.

Same as with frozen foods. That's one of the reasons many resturant chains - Chili's, Marie Callendars - can also sell their dinners frozen with not much difference in quality.

Haele

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Which is a service to people actually

I remember doing kitchen prep work, and trust me tomatoes are just a pain in the rear... due to the acid.

But the way she prepared that steak was very telling... as well as her counterpart cooking that pork payard. The amounts of salt and butter were not what you'd see in a home kitchen.

Bottom line is... and most people delude themselves... eating out ONCE IN A WHILE is fine, don't care where. Healthy and restaurant food do NOT mix... PERIOD. And they have not, for at least a generation. Chilis, and the rest actually have food labs to develop recipes and all that. Over the years they have become worst for you.

[haele]

12. Yup, it's the stop off every day to pick up a quick nosh or ready-made meal

instead of bringing your own left-overs or lunch to work.
I've unfortunately had a time drain (going back to school) which means the home food preparation falls on the two people who either don't have the ability - or in one case has the inclination - to spend time shopping for fresh food or taking the hour or so making something healthy.
There was a reason why chicken was sunday dinner and the rest of the week was stews or casseroles in the old days.
It takes serious time to prepare good food for more than two people.
Another way for big business to profit on the average working family - take one parent out of the house for a second full-time job to make ends meet, and on top of all the other services they push on you, they can sell them cheap, quick shit chemically designed as "comfort food" to poison the overworked parents and kids to be able to sell all sorts of supplements or meds that wouldn't be needed if the average working family had more time for the family and less economic stress.

Haele

[Dorian Gray]

36. Not entirely true

I go out to eat once a week. Usually to sushi restaurants. Seaweed salad, a few pieces of sashimi and miso soup or a bowl of rice. I try to take it easy with the soy sauce, and there is really little fat in anything other than the dressing on the seaweed salad.

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. You get plenty of salt though

sorry, but restaurant food, for many of the reasons well known to anybody who's worked in the food business knows that it is just there.

Oh and you should know the rice HAS SUGAR. It is part of the recipe... not just at a restaurant level, but also home made sushi.

Enjoy, but realize that no, it ain't what you or I think. I've learned this the HARD way. Oh and for me a California roll is a no-go. I am sure you do not realize that the faux crab has wheat in it.

[Dorian Gray]

59. I don't eat rolls

just sashimi.

I know that soy is high in sodium, and I certainly know that the soup will have loads of sodium in it. Luckily, I don't have high blood pressure. But when going out to eat, it's about making the best choices you can if you are watching your weight. (I lost 100 lbs before I got pregnant, and I'm not working on getting back to my pre-pregnancy weight. About 18 lbs to go.)

Cooking at home without all the added ingredients is definitely ideal, but if you do that 80-90% of the time, making health(IER) allowances while outside the home isn't problematic!

(I also realize that since I love Pork Belly and other terrible foods of that nature, I have to stay far away from places that serve them!)

And I don't really ever do fast food. (Except when I was pregnant. For some reason I craved a Sausage McMuffin with Egg. The thought now makes me want to throw up, though!)

[NMDemDist2]

39. we've radically changed our diet this year

and since we only have 4-5 restaurants in town we don't eat out much but we like to treat ourselves once in a while and give the cook a break (me)

so our choices are

Chilis
Denny's
Chinese Buffett (which is family run and actually pretty decent)
and 7-8 fast food joints

anyway, we wanted to go out and thought a trip to Chili's would be a nice break. I have an app on my iTouch that lists restaurant meals with their nutritional info. I looked and looked, not a thing at Chili's for less than 900 calories!! Not even their salads! Not one thing we could eat! The only thing we could have done was split something but really!!

We went to the buffett and ate crisp veggies and lean chicken

sigh and sorry about all the !!!! I am still aghast at the calories and fat on everything at Chili's. We do ok on the Denny's Senior menu tho....and Subway

I have embraced cooking, it's the only way we could have lost all this weight and got our BP and cholesterol under control like we did this year.

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. I also do Denny's senior menu

it is almost ok... portion size.

[Missy Vixen]

13. We didn't eat out for almost a year after Mr. Missy Vixen

got laid off. I noticed a big difference in our eating habits immediately. In other words, even now, I don't want to eat out unless it's better than something I can make at home, and we take it easy with salt, oil and butter in food preparation.

If I'm craving the "fast food" experience, we go to Chipotle.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. For health reasons I avoid it

Gluten allergies are a pain. When we do we immediately notice the salt.

These days I even bake at home.

[Stinky The Clown]

15. That's an awfully broad brush you're using

Brown sugar on meat -- it isn't an intentional way to get you fat. It increases the beneficial aspects of the Maillard reaction. The technique is scientifically sound and not really unhealthy if done correctly. I frequently brine meat before grilling it. A very simple brine, actually. 1 T of salt and 1 T of brown sugar. After a minimum of 30 minutes, a pork chop (for example) has transferred all water soluble flavors from the meat to the brine and back to the meat, taking additional water with it. Pat the meat dry and grill it. It retains a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of the salt and the sugar, but the chemical reaction that came out of the transfer increases the flavor and the meat's propensity to form a nice, delicious crust. The sugar and salt are not gratuitous in the least.

Many local, non-chain restaurants follow sound practices, such as this. Most chain restaurants do not.

Going back through history will not lead you to healthier restaurant foods. Read Larousse Gastronomic or any of Auguste Escoffier's cookbooks. The use of fats, as but one example, is far more prevalent and heavy-handed than in any modern cookbook, except maybe Paula Dean's. Chef's today are *far* more health aware than they ever were.

I've been in the food-away-from-home business for 42 years and counting. Crap food is common, but so is healthy food. It is where you find it - and often that isn't at home.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Not a broad brush at all.

I could recommend books on this, as well as articles in dietetics journals, but food is not something that people wish to question. It is a fact that hedonics and their use has been gong up... As well as... Obesity. There is a real connection by the by.

[madinmaryland]

19. I am surprised that there is no mention of Olive Garden in this thread..

:hide:

[delightfulstar]

25. I actually worked for them once, and...

You'd be shocked to see how much butter and cream and salt go into things, and the breadsticks are the worst culprit. And most things are drowned in cheese, or some kind of sauce. The only way to get off relatively scot-free in there is to order something with marinara, or get the shrimp primavera. Even the salad is drenched in fat...if you have a salad portioned for four people, there's at least an entire CUP (yes, 8 full ounces) of dressing poured into it. And I haven't even gone into all of the appetizers (mostly fried or with cheese) or desserts (mostly heavy cream-based) or specialty drinks (mostly sugar based). I lost 15 pounds after I quit that place.

[Motown_Johnny]

20. I have a degree in Culinary Arts and cooked for over 25 years

anyone who seriously wants a healthy meal at a restaurant can get one



I never refused any request for things like a plain grilled chicken breast with steamed vegetables and lightly buttered pasta.


I'll agree that most menu items do not even consider how bad for you they are. The items are there to be enticing, and enticing is often unhealthy.


The next time you go out to eat simply ask for what you want instead of holding yourself hostage to what is printed on the menu.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Oh trust me, gluten intolerance means LOTS of questions

And special orders for me.

[Motown_Johnny]

30. That is difficult, but if you know what to order don't you usually get it?

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. Well only at "better restaurants."

We no longer even try insert fast food.

Usually a grilled fish, rice or taters and a veggie will do.

Recently been modifying the living daylight out of cookies... I almost got a gluten free/sugar free cookie.

[tridim]

21. I've noticed that chefs on TV have a bad habit of putting brown sugar on bacon

I gotta ask, why? I don't even want to try it.

[Codeine]

24. Not to mention putting bacon in everything.

When the hell did bacon become a condiment?

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. It increases caramelization

And taste...salt, fat and sugar..are like a lovely combo for your taste buds and you might have had it at a restaurant by the way.

[Codeine]

22. If people gave a shit they'd make their own food.

They don't. Nobody thinks that shit is healthy, they just like the taste. They are too lazy to make their own meals so they eat overly-rich food that isn't designed for daily consumption too often and suffer the consequences.

[flvegan]

23. Restaurants I eat at, mostly raw, completely vegan.

Very few and far between, but if you want quality nutrition, find a restaurant and not just a chef that really cares about their food and their impact.

That's one to grow on.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

26. I cook with butter.

Isn't butter much better for you than synthetic oleo?

I use sea salt, and not much of it. Once I had some beef and cheese nachos at Chili's, I think, in Dallas, and specifically said no jalapenos, no spicy stuff.

I don't know what they had on them, but I was getting up all night burping and I thought I was gonna get the runs. Really awful.
Raw onions give me indigestion, but I cook a lot with onions and garlic sauteed in butter. I also cook fried eggs in butter.

I have several food allergies so I don't eat out much at all. (shellfish, tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers)

My eating out tends to be sandwiches like Subway and Quizno's. Fancy restaurants tend to have weird stuff.


I once ate a meal at the local branch of The Art Institutes. The ripoff private school that advertises heavily.

All the food combinations were weird and I had indigestion. Dear Hubby had to run home and relieve himself.

We were not impressed. I had to send the meat back to get it cooked. They had a fruit compote with licorice liqueur on it. I absolutely cannot stand licorice. I think they should have had a fruit liqueur on it, like Cointreau. But no, it was gross.

As Moe the bar owner said on the Simpsons, "Postmodernism. PoMo. Weird for da sake of weird."

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. Butter in moderation is fine

I use it in the chocolate chip cookies gluten free and all that.

As always in moderation.

[Dorian Gray]

38. Do you have a recipe for gluten free chocolate chip cookies?

My friend has gone gluten free this past year, and her birthday is coming up. I'd love to make her some!

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. In the process of being perfected

Been futzing, started with a normal recipe and gone from there. My issue right now is the amount of xanthan gum in it.

If she has no issues with diabetes, the other reason... I started with a regular recipe, changed the flour for Gluten Free flou at 1:1 and Splenda at 1:1, oh and the chocolate, from white and mik to just good dark chocolate.

:-)

It worked.

[Dorian Gray]

60. Thanks for this...

I'll make a test batch and see how I do! :) Would love to do something nice for my friend. (She complains that it's difficult to find things, though we're in NYC, so it's not as difficult here as it would be in smaller towns.)

[K8-EEE]

32. Nachos with no spicy stuff?

That seems like a strange thing to order if you don't want spicy food! Me I LOVE hot peppers, I grow them in my garden & rarely even go one day without them....butter I don't use but you can do most things with olive oil. I've actually gotten to prefer the olive oil on bread.....what's weird to one person is every day food to somebody else!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

53. I grew up on semi-bland Tex mex.

Food has gotten a helluva lot spicier.
I had a former mother in law whose cooking I could not eat. One bite and I ran to the sink for water. Greasy,spicy and just inedible by my standards. She was the biggest, tallest and fattest white woman I have ever seen.
Six feet tall and four feet wide in the beam -- went through doors sideways. Have no idea how much she weighed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

54. I wish then I could introduce you to some really good

Mexican food, but some of it would make your tongue burn.

An "aunt" of mine was like that, except for short. She died at 47 from a massive coronary.

[Dorian Gray]

61. I LOVE spicy

My friend from TX carries her own hot sauce around with her for all restaurant visits!

[K8-EEE]

62. Hmmm, well spicy and greasy SOMETIMES go together...

But not always! I love to char up a pasilla chili and stuff it with low fat string cheese, stick it in the toaster oven and voila! Such a yummy light dinner with maybe some corn chowder and avocado salad. Chilis have powerful antioxidants too, the hotter the more magic!

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. Oh and forgot chillies is among the worst culprits

For this...with, not surprisingly, mickey Ds

[K8-EEE]

27. Read the book "Confessions of a Carb Queen" (fast food addict"

This woman tells her story of gaining 250 lbs after becoming addicted to fast food as an adult. There were both psych and physical issues that triggered this but it was a full fledged addiction. She would spend night after night driving around in a daze eating meal after meal at drive-thus. Finally after umpteen gazillion horrors (trapped in elevator in NYC - could not be lifted with any of their equipment they had to improvise, then she couldn't fit through the hatch!) she checked herself into a rehab for this where they serve a very bland (no added salt) diet of mostly vegetables, fruit, whole grain rice and pasta ,and small amounts of fish. Absolutely no restaurant food or processed food.

In this way she lost the 250, no surgery or anything (she might have had surgery after for the loose skin etc.)

Anyway the point is -- for a lot of people that stuff is really a full blown addiction, like a heroin addiction, and she said salt and to a lesser degree sugar triggered her binges, and she's given up both just like AA. You can't give up FOOD....but you can give up salt and sugar for the most part if you are addicted, one day at a time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Supersize me touched on this as well

[Odin2005]

42. When I cook I tend to substitute spices of various kinds for salt.

I try to avoid salt because too much gives me edema in my legs.

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. A little goes a long way

When I do a steak I use a rub, some salt, black pepper, freshly ground, either cayene or sweet paprika, dry onion and garlic... it is GOOD.

[Odin2005]

47. That sounds about the same as what I do for pork chops.

I don't make steak, never liked it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

48. Try a little cinammon with birds and well pork too

I don't do pork... for semi religious reasons.

[Odin2005]

50. Hmmm, that sounds good!

I thought you weren't an observant Jew? :hi:

[nadinbrzezinski]

51. We are not, but we just don't

I used to eat it. don't get me wrong... bacon I avoid due to salt and fat.

And pork is not just something I miss.

[Le Taz Hot]

55. Another spice user here as well.

I started an herb garden several years ago and I've been hooked ever since. NOTHING like picking it from the plant and putting in your dish. It's amazing how much salt you can cut out of your diet by substituting herbs.

[Jaren]

43. A nail on the head.

I have been Haunting the boards for a long time through my wife, who is on here quite often. I will let her reveal herself on her own if she wants. I feel that Motown has it just right, any good restaurant will allow special orders due to most any reasons, especially for health or safety reasons.

The truth is though, there are quite a few mis-conceptions floating around out there about the culinary field in general. Yes, there are quite a few (if not a majority) of the dishes out there that are not very good for you, just due to the nature of what they are, but on the other hand out of the millions of different dishes out there, there are still many tens of thousands of dishes that are healthy for you. You just need to make sure you are educated about where you are going or what you are eating. Like what NMDemDist2's experience with chilis and the all 900+ calorie meals, this is more common with the 'casual dining' establishments, but if you go to the restaurants that are not necessarily chains you will run into more success with healthy foods.

Stinky The Clown also makes a strong point, and one that I myself was going to reference, that of Auguste Escoffier, and his works. Escoffier used much more creams, butter, oils and what not, this is the basis of a lot of our cooking today, so of course we will still use a lot of these techniques.

Me, myself am a very large proponent of the farm-to-table movement and I like to see green, sustainable, non-cruel ingredients. From what I can tell and who I know I am not the odd-ball in the young cooks that I work with on the line, we all like to see healthy good-for-you food, but who cannot say they don't like that horribly rich bad-for-you food every once in a while, but just like anything, all in moderation.

[NMDemDist2]

45. welcome to DU Jaren!!!

as soon as you get a star, come visit us in Cooking and Baking. It's the friendliest little forum on DU and full of foodies!

:hi:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=236

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. I had that discussion on eggs this morning at my local

Ralphs. Lady was surprised on how her food is mostly raised. I get mine directly from farmer. Yes, it makes a difference. And they are better for you too.

Oh and welcome to DU

[Odin2005]

49. Welcome to DU!

[riderinthestorm]

52. Welcome to DU! As a small farmer, more "foodies" are always a good thing imo. nt

[madinmaryland]

57. Welcome to DU!

[Le Taz Hot]

56. I've been preaching this sermon for years.

Home-cooked meals are cheaper AND you control the ingredients. Besides, my husband and I both love to cook and some of the stuff that comes out of our kitchen is unrivaled by any restaurant even if I do say so myself.

We even started making our own Yogurt (most people aren't aware that flavored yogurts have HFCS). Whenever a recipe calls for cream/milk/sour cream, I substitute yogurt. Works great.

Sea salt/Kosher salts have less sodium and using FRESH herbs does wonders for flavor which means less salt.

Unfortunately, there's no substitute for butter.

[hobbit709]

58. The only thing I put on my steak is garlic, pepper and a little soy sauce.

Nobody has ever complained.