February 16, 2009

Going out to dinner tonight? Who doesn't love Outback Steakhouse or Romano's Macaroni Grill, right? Well, unless you're a 320 pound linebacker who is trying to pack on the calories, you better beware!

One would hope that big name chain restaurants would be trying to include healthy options on their menus. BUT that is NOT the case! Unfortunately, most restaurants haven't figured out that we might go out to dinner more if we were offered more healthy choices.

I love it when Hungry Girl posts these nutritional facts on entrees from well known restaurants serving up dishes with astronomical amounts of calories and fat grams. Check out her latest Girls Bite Out post.

Romano's Macaroni Grill used to be a family favorite of ours and HayHay's choice for his family birthday dinner every year. But we stopped going there a couple of years ago. Over 2100 calories and 141 grams of fat for Parmesan Crusted Sole? Are you kidding?

The Pollo Magro Skinny Chicken is the only healthy choice on Macaroni Grill's entire menu at 320 calories and 5 grams of fat, but I can't say that I would go there to order that. You can grill a better chicken breast at home!  And, I'll make my own salmon, too, thank you very much! I ordered the Simple Salmon one time back when we were still enjoying picking up orders at the curb. When I ordered the salmon, I wasn't aware that it contained 32 grams of fat.

Oh, and the prize for the Worst Food in America goes to one of HayHay's all-time favorites, Outback Steakhouse's Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing!

Outback Steakhouse's Aussie Cheese Fries

Did you know that one order of those yummy cheese covered fries contains 2900 calories and 182 grams of fat? WOW!

I really do enjoy going out for a nice dinner! I just wish that more restaurants would include some nutritional facts on their menus.  I have heard that Applebees offers a lighter menu, so I'm going to research that a bit. Now that I've done a post on some of the worst choices we can make when we eat out, maybe I'll do one in the near future on some better choices!

~LilSis