Home > Media > Books > Hope Warshaw - American Diabetes Association Guide to Healthy Restaurant Eating: What to Eat in America's Most Popular Chain Restaurants
Hope Warshaw - American Diabetes Association Guide to Healthy Restaurant Eating: What to Eat in America's Most Popular Chain Restaurants
nollequeen's Full Review: Hope Warshaw - American Diabetes Association Guide...
Three years ago, I found out I was pregnant for the first time. Because I was 39, it was termed a “geriatric” pregnancy. I started to feel funny right away. At work the following day, I suddenly felt incredibly shaky as if I had drunk 10 cups of coffee all at once. I figured that’s what being pregnant must feel like.
It wasn’t. It turned out that’s what being a diabetic feels like. I was hospitalized for a few days, mainly for the intensive training involved in learning a whole new life style. The injections and the finger pricking for blood tests 5 times a day would seem the worst of it, but to me they weren’t. Learning a whole new diet based on counting carbohydrates was plainly horrifying. Math has never been my strong suit and I have always prided myself on my complete lack of discipline. Finding out I was diabetic was a huge blow to my spontaneity and freedom. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was cruise the countryside, stopping at every roadside stand I could find, eating what ever and when ever I wished.
Being pregnant however, I realized I was going to have to get a handle on things but quick and be the best little diabetic there ever was so as to avoid the scary specter of birth defects. I went to the library and signed out all of the diabetic cookbooks that I could find. They were pretty dreary, but at least I figured out a few things that I could eat in the next couple of days.
Going on line, I discovered The American Diabetes Association Web Site. In their bookstore, I found the key to my freedom (dramatic I know, but it felt that way at the time) “The Guide To Healthy Restaurant Eating.” Hooray! Hubby and I wouldn’t have to eat every meal at home, or pack our meals and carry them with us. We were free to travel the country, eating at some roadside stands. Of course it would have to be just the right amounts and the right times, but that was do-able.
The Guide contains nutritional information on more than 50 chain restaurants: Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, McDonalds, Wendy’s, Dairy Queen, Boston Market, Outback, Taco Bell, Denny’s, and Baskin Robbins to name some of the more exciting possibilities. Even if you are not diabetic, this is an amazing book to read. The healthier possibilities aren’t often what you’d expect. For example, many of the donuts at Dunkin Donuts are much healthier choices than the muffins or even the bagels. Most of the 6 inch Subway Sandwiches are o.k. from a diabetic perspective, but avoid the Sourdough bread, it contains 49 carbs, whereas most of the other breads are in the lower 30’s. Did you know you that it takes 3 Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts to equal the amount of carbs in a Dunkin Donuts bagel? EEEK! See the value of this book? The carbohydrate content of most restaurant food is knowledge that is often hard to come by and in my situation (and a lot of other people’s situations as well, now that Atkins has become so popular), if you don’t know it, you really shouldn’t eat it.
I can’t praise this book highly enough. I have used it to eat at Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Blimpie’s, Subway, Boston Market and Olive Garden. I really don’t eat out that much, but having this book in the car just makes me feel much freer to do so. Initially, this book transformed me from a nervous pregnant diabetic engaged in a life and death struggle (involving Math!) to Easy Rider.
Just this year, I purchased the newest edition of the book, “Guide to Healthy Restaurant Eating, the 2nd Edition. It contains 3,500 menu items and 55 chain restaurants. For each restaurant listed, the book lists all menu items (including condiments) in chart form showing: calories; fat; percentage of calories from fat; saturated fat; cholesterol; sodium, carbs; as well as servings and food exchanges. The author also makes a recommendation for each restaurant of two different healthy meals, a “Light’N Lean Choice and a Healthy ‘N Hearty Choice. Are you curious? The Light’N Lean choice at McDonald’s includes: a hamburger, Garden Salad with Fat Free Herb Vinaigrette and a Vanilla Ice Cream Cone, for the Healthy’N Hearty crowd: A Grilled Chicken Deluxe (without mayo), Small Fry and a Garden Salad with Ranch Salad Dressing.
Another big eye opener for me was the amount of sodium in so many foods that I was happily eating because they were lower in carbohydrates. The biggest nightmare of them all was Taco Bell’s Grilled Stuft Chicken Burrito with 1900 mgs. of sodium. Dear God. No wonder the thing tastes so good. One more word of wisdom from this book, that I’m sure you will be happy to hear is that an almost perfect snack at 150 calories and only 23 carbs is the Vanilla Ice Cream Cone at McDonalds. Finally some good news.
If you know someone who has recently been diagnosed with diabetes, this book would make a great gift. It’s made me feel more normal and much freer. What could be better than that?
The bestselling restaurant guide for people with diabetes! This bestselling and indispensable guide contains the most complete and user-friendly resta...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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