Delivery Food Strategies

Here's how to keep your delivery food healthy — or, at least, sensible

Watching what you eating doesn't mean saying bye-bye to your beloved takeout menu collection. Your regular takeout order from the Mexican restaurant on the corner or the pizza place with three kinds of crust shouldn't be a black hole of points value (weight watcher folks), according two well-respected dieticians and doctors. With a little caution, you can feed your craving for that quick meal and not spend the rest of the night working it off at the gym.

"I love fast-food places," admits Dawn Jackson Blatner RD, LDN, the resident dietician for lifetimetv.com and an American Dietetic Association spokesperson. "They can be nutritious; you just have to be smart."

“Restaurants always give way too much for a normal person and half a portion is generally enough.” — Timothy S. Harlan, MD

According to Timothy S. Harlan, MD, host of former Food Network show Cooking Thin, fast food should be kept to a minimum, but when hunger calls remember to order a single meal and split it up: "Restaurants always give way too much for a normal person, and half a portion is generally enough."

DOs & DON’Ts for fast food:

Asian: Rice out of sight, out of mouth
Asian restaurants have a surprising amount of nutritious meals, say Blatner and Harlan — and also a surprising amount of hidden fat masked as healthy fare.

"Proximity is the name of the game here. If you don't have it on your plate, you're not going to eat it," Blatner says. "Fill up on the steamed veggies, and cut your rice portion in half."

"Go for a made-to-order stir-fried dish, but ask them to go easy on the oil," Harlan says. "And stay away from coconut milk — 1/4 cup has 111 calories, almost all from fat." His choice: Sushi and sashimi and rolls with a lot of veggies, but avoid deep-fried versions such as spider rolls.

Blatner adds a tip to remember on your next trip to Chinatown: "A bite of rice has four times more calories than a bite of vegetables."

Mexican: Chips and extra cheese are not your friend
Blatner suggests avoiding the brick of fat in the cheese enchilada and ordering something a la carte, like a fajita, "which is vegetable heavy and allows you to layer on your own cheese, sauce and guacamole."

The healthiest choice is generally going to be a taco salad; just eat a little bit of the tortilla, advises Harlan. He also suggests ordering something like a chalupa: Essentially a fresh corn tortilla with lettuce, tomato, guacamole and a bit of cheese.

"Refried beans are going to be made with lard and contain a ton of calories and saturated fat — avoid them," Harlan says.

Pizza: Keep it local
"I have to eat this once a week," Blatner says. "But I always go with a thin crust and go easy on the cheese with a little basil and artichoke on top." She suggests ordering a bowl of minestrone soup to go along with your pie. "Having this fills you up, and I swear you'll eat several fewer bites of the pie."

Adds Harlan, "The major chains are the most guilty of making this an unhealthy food, and it's best if you go to a neighborhood joint. It's even better if they make whole-wheat pizza dough for a boost of fiber."

While it may be obvious that you should steer clear of the artery-clogging cheese-stuffed crust, Harlan said it's also wise to avoid the fatty meat toppings and get your pie piled high with mushrooms, peppers, tomato sauce, olives, onions, roasted garlic, eggplant, artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes instead.

Hamburgers: There's no value in some of those meals
"Get whatever is the smaller sandwich, and swap out the fatty sides of rings and fries for a side salad or a fruit cup," Blatner recommends. "The major hidden calories are in the slice of cheese and special sauce snuck in under the bun."

"There are not a lot of fast-food burgers that I would eat," Harlan says. "It might not have trans fats, but that doesn't mean [it's] fat free. And if you want to eat French fries or fried chicken, you should seek out the best your town has to offer, and splurge on that."

Remember, says Harlan: "Life is too short to eat bad food, and a cheap, greasy hamburger with reconstituted onions and awful pickles on a soft, limp, spongy white bread bun is just not worth eating. Seek out a good, lean burger."

What they all do wrong
"The calories in your cup count too," Blatner says. "Don't wash your good choices down with soda; stick with an unsweetened iced tea or water.”

Harlan thinks you're best off eating at a sandwich shop, where you make the choices. "Try to make fast food like being in your own kitchen, and choose a lot of fresher, healthy ingredients you would find in your own house."

Some of their favorites are salad and soup joints, and both agree that printing out the nutritional values for favorite fast meals and keeping them in your briefcase for a quick consult before you're next in line is a good place to start.