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Eating Out on a Diet: Thai Food
By WLR Dietitian
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Eating out Thai style is a good choice as there are usually
plenty of healthy options on the menu and portion sizes tend
to be small. Many dishes also include more vegetables than
meat, and are cooked quickly so that few nutrients are lost
due to over-cooking.
Coconut
Coconut cream and milk are popular ingredients in
many sweet and savoury dishes. Despite the recent trend for
the faddy Coconut Diet, which is basically a
low-carb diet
with the addition of coconut oil, there’s little evidence that
coconut can help you lose weight. In fact, it’s high in fat,
especially saturates, and calories, so it’s best not to
overindulge if you want to stay looking fabulous in your
bikini and keep your heart healthy!
Noodles
Noodles make a good main meal, with the most famous
dish being Pad Thai – rice noodles, shrimp, chilli, bean
sprouts and egg topped with peanuts.
Rice
Rice is often served as an accompaniment, but to keep
the calorie
content down choose plain or fragrant varieties – a
portion contains around 380 calories.
In contrast, fried rice
contains 540 calories and coconut rice, which is made with
coconut milk, totals 580 calories.
Peanuts
Peanuts are a favourite ingredient in Thai dishes
and while they have a low glycaemic index, they’re still high
in calories and fat, although it’s mainly heart-healthy
monounsaturates.
Satay – meat or seafood on skewers – is a
common dish and is generally low in calories. The peanut sauce
it’s served with though can bump up the calorie intake
considerably.
More Food Information
You can find out full nutritional information for thousands
of UK foods with the database in WLR.
Try it free for 24 hours.
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