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Takeaway food guide - is it all junk

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Takeaway food guide, is it all junk?

Whether it's time constraints, a lack of healthy alternatives or you just want to settle a quick hunger attack, junk food sure can be tempting.

Maybe you haven't planned for dinner and need to get something quickly or you have completed a rigorous exercise routine, whatever it maybe, at this point it's too easy to reach for the quick fix of take away food. Especially with numerous food vendors and franchise operators ready to satisfy your every need, be it pizza, hamburgers, or fried chicken, usually only a short trip away.

With a 106% increase in takeaway food sales from July 1999 to July 2009, we really do need to be making healthier choices.

Take Away Food Shop that sells Hamburgers, Chicken and Pizza
Some take away Food Outlets is a one stop shop for Hamburgers and Pizza

Is all takeaway bad for you and how can you make it better?

Hamburgers & subs

Your basic Aussie hamburger from your local takeaway shop is not as bad as you may think but be aware of the more highly processed, cheaper varieties that come bundled with other food.

Good choices: Look for fresh ingredients: lettuce, tomato, beetroot, pineapple, unprocessed meat patties, whole pieces of steak or fillets, wholemeal buns and basic mayonnaises. Be careful of those highly processed and fancy sauces that tend to have a lot of sugar and additives designed to ensure you get a zap of flavour.

Ugly choices: Highly processed patties, sugary buns and cheeses, special sauces.

Pizza

From pizzas humble beginnings comprising a dough base, tomato paste and fresh ingredients we now have a highly processed monster that comes with mega meat, processed meat toppings and fancy sauces.

Good choices: Starting with the pizza base, look for a leaner pastry, maybe a pita bread or a lighter base that tends not to be as dense in carbohydrate. Next look for fresh ingredients: herbs and vegetables. If it's meat such as chicken or salmon make sure that it's freshly cooked.

Tip: Order vegetarian and ask for salami as the person making the pizza's will tend to add extra vegetables to dilute the amount of salami they need to add.

Ugly choices: Bacon, mega meat toppings full of processed meat, splashed with processed tomato sauces and crusts filled with cheeses etc. Extruded processed meat products formed to look like meat products.

Fried chicken

On top of the list comes this mega kilojoule food high in fats from deep frying and some added salt thrown in. Although chicken can be a good source of protein the modern day chicken delivery system isn’t great.

Good choices: Grilled chicken without the skin, any salads but avoid the heavily oiled variety and those salads heavily doused in mayonnaise as they tend to contain a lot of sugar and fats to make them a lot more digestible.

Ugly choices: all the associated extras that come such as chips and nuggets or any other processed chicken products made into the shape to resemble a chicken drumstick etc. Doubly bad is combining season breadcrumbs and deep frying.

Fish and Chips

An Aussie favourite that doesn't get much simplier

Good choices: Grilled fish, any salads but again avoid the heavily oiled variety and those salads heavily doused in mayonnaise as they tend to contain a lot of sugar and fats to make them a lot more digestible.

Tip: It may seem strange but battered fish is actually better as the batter absorbs the oil and you can easily peel of the batter to reveal the naked fish inside.

Ugly choices: Anything deep fried and processed, ie sea shanties, dim sims, crab sticks, even potato cakes as know they are made outside the shop with preservatives and other chemicals, keep to the variety actually made on the premises.

Fast food eating tips

1. The City of Melbourne has introduced a traffic light labelling guide. This can take the guess work out of deciding what to buy based on a simple red, amber and green codes.

2. Order smaller servings, avoid the trap of upsizing in the belief you're getting better value.

3. Check the ingredients listing if available, a salad may be low in fat but high in sugar.

4. Use half the amount of tomato sauce and resist the temptation to salt everything

5. Keep it simple, no processed ingredients, just good quality vegetables, meats and topping.

6. Eat slowly to feel fuller for longer and avoid the temptation to go back for more

7. Avoid going for the feeding frenzy and getting the fries and other condiments

It’s amazing that something as simple as McDonalds fries contains so many chemicals:

Potatoes, vegetable oil (canola oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor [wheat and milk derivatives]*, citric acid [preservative]), dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate (maintain colour), salt. Prepared in vegetable oil ((may contain one of the following: Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness), dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent).

Other takeaway food

Chicken parma and chips, sausage rolls and meat pies once again contain high levels of saturated fat and sodium. Keep these for the odd occasion.

Home junk food

Don’t forget all the junk food that we take home from the supermarket and keep in the deep freeze and the fridge, so get rid of all those. Frozen meat pies, frozen pizzas, fish fingers, chico rolls, cake ice cream and all the other junk food that we tend to accumlate and can too easily get stuck into, depending on our mood.

Andrew Talati
Fitstyler
www.fitstyler.com.au

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