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Eating Out on a Diet: Indian Food
By WLR Dietitian
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Spicy Indian meals can be a great choice
because even a small portion can satisfy your taste buds. Go
for a really hot curry such as a vindaloo or madras if you can
bear it – you’ll find it hard to eat too much! Bear in mind
that many dishes are packed with calories and fat because
large amounts of oil or ghee (clarified butter) are used. To
cut the calories, choose dishes that include rice as part of
the meal such as biriyani – that way you don’t need to order
an extra portion of rice.
Poppadoms
These make a much better starter than bhajis or
samosas, which are packed with fat and calories. Each poppadom
contains just 65 calories. Top it with raita (cucumber dip)
and tomato sambal (chopped tomato and onion) rather than
higher-calorie mango chutney or lime pickle.
Curry
Vegetable, chicken and prawn curries tend to have a
slightly lower
calorie
content than those made with beef or lamb
and so are a better choice. It’s often the rich sauce that
boosts the calorie content so spoon as much of the meat and
vegetables on your plate as you want but leave the sauce
behind in the dish.
Curries cooked in creamy sauces are the
worst. Masala dishes, for example, are made with cream and
ground almonds, while pasanda dishes are cooked with cream.
If
you’re thinking of your waistline, go for tandoori, tikka or
bhuna dishes as they’re made without a sauce or are quite dry.
Rice
Without a doubt the best accompaniment for curry is
plain boiled rice, which contains around 370 calories per
portion. Pilau rice has oil added to it and with 650 calories
in a portion it’s best to give it a miss. And if you’re going
to fill up on curry, give the Naan bread a miss – each one
contains around 300 calories!
More Food Information
You can find out full nutritional information for thousands
of UK foods with the database in WLR.
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