Diets & Weight Maintenance Support Group

If you think about the make up of an actual calorie... you would know that they will rise rapidly with just adding fat or carbs (which 1 gram of those can equal anywhere from 4-9 calories each)

so... if someone adds extra 2 ounces of ranch dressing (restaurant style), that could add 100 calories easily.

If you break down the things that are high in calories, it is the toppings that are often doubled and tripled in restaurants by heavy hands.

I worked in a mexican place for a while. The Queso dip... you don't want to know what 1 ounce had as far as calories... 1 ounce is very small... almost like a teaspoon... so that is easy to double.

I wasn't saying that you get double portions... it is just extra of the high content stuff that is supposed to be portioned lightly.

This is human error- and it is real. You can easily double and triple calories this way when the food is not prepared EXACTLY to spec.

In one restaurant, we would have weekly "tests" just to measure what people were putting on the plates when we ordered foods. Even when the employees knew we were going to measure it and they cut back to compensate for heavy hands.. they still were way over. It is a bad restaurant habit. I can only imagine how much goes on plates of the restaurants who don't conduct the weekly tests (and 85% of restaurants may complain and remind employees.. but few actually test regularly and get it fixed) It is an ongoing battle and it is frustrating.

And.. as a former restaurant manager.. I can tell you that the frustrations are not because it is like a lie to the customer.. it is because of food costs on the final numbers and in the stocking of the store. Heavy hands cause HUGE losses of profits.

< -- chef in training here.

I can pretty much guarantee that anything you eat in a restaurant is unhealthy for you, no matter how 'diet' it is.

You can make any restaurant meal healthier - by making it at home.

Not to put myself out of a job, but being honest. I make the food, I see the people eating it. I see what happens. ( I don't eat at work unless it's salad or something I made myself from home ).

Anything that needs to be cooked in a pan, poached in water, broiled or placed on the grill, is going to have oil added to it to keep it from sticking to itself or the pan.

If it's sitting in a steam well, it will most likely have oil added to it as well, to keep it from drying out from extended time in heat - soups, sauces, veggies, mashed potatoes, gravy, grits, oatmeal...

If it's anything that will look and/or be dried out by the time it reaches your table, it will have oil sprayed on it at some point to keep it looking pretty.

If it's anything that was thickened ( soup, stew, gumbo, gravy, cheese sauce, alfredo, dessert sauces-rum, praline, fudge, and even a souffle, etc ) it will have some sort of roux added to it ( either flour/oil or flour/butter) or a cornstarch slurry.

If it's on a buffet, it WILL be loaded with oil, sugar and salt.

You want veggies? HAH! They are most often boiled or even steamed while drowned in butter/oil/bacon grease, salt and chicken base ( those little containers of boullion paste you find at the store? that's what restaurants use for seasoning just about everything, but we get ours in 5-10 gallon sized containers ) and sometimes even SUGAR ( corn and carrots most often, as well as fruits getting added sugar syrup or a dipping in sugar water if they aren't as sweet as we want ).

If any part of your meal came from frozen ( most likely ALL of it did, by the way ), it will have salt, oil and probably even sugar, added to it to by the packager preserve it and to help it maintain consistancy when reheated.

All of the frozen veggies (and meats) I've seen over the years, come salted straight out of the box, and yes, we add more to them.


A 'standard' restaurant serving ladle for salad dressing is about 2 oz.

The serving size of dressing is 2 tablespoons.

Most workers put on 2 ladles ( 4 oz ), and sometimes 3 of them when making a salad, depending on dressing thickness ( thicker gets more so it covers the salad... ).

You are usually best off, getting a small cheeseburger, small fries and diet soda, or a bowl of chili or a slice of plain cheese pizza than any of the "diet" or "healthy" options at a fast food place.

If you get a salad, leave off all the meat, cheese, croutons ( they are usually FRIED by the way ), asian noodles, nuts, raisins, dressing, eggs. Don't get the granola/yogurt parfait - it's loaded with fat and sugar.

If it's a fast food type place, it will have added salt, sugar and oil to pretty much everything - as just about everything, comes premade. All they do is unwrap, heat (if needed) and serve. They might have to make the salads by hand each morning though. I doubt they actually weigh anything, since when I worked at Denny's, we didn't weigh stuff unless the Corporate higher ups were arriving. ( a Denny's side salad is supposed to have 4 oz lettuce, 2 cucumber slices, 2 small rings of onion and 1 tomato wedge, with 1 oz of dressing and 8 croutons ). All our veggies came in single serve, boil or nuke to order packages, as well as our steaks and burgers coming in frozen.

I eat out once a week and enjoy my meal, even knowing how it was made LOL

I've lost almost 90 pounds, even with my job's required taste testing.

Oh, and the last place I worked, made their own Ranch dressing. 1 gallon whole milk, 4 gallons heavy duty mayo, 3 large packets ranch mix. That's it. It was like DIP it was so thick. Every time I tried to make it like the recipe stated on the package ( double the milk, less mayo ), I get yelled at by the owner, who liked her dressing to be THICK. And yes, she put a literal CUP sized amount on her cheese, bacon and lettuce salad.... "but it's allowed on Atkins! "

hey thatperson...

great reply.. and i agree..

one ounce of oil is like 17g of fat (150 calories)
If you use 2 ounces, that is like 300 calories.. and all the things that don't get measured...

it is so hard to explain unless you have been in the restaurant biz and really pay attention.

and regular restaurant dressings are between 14 and 25 grams of fat per ounce.. and with a 2 ounce ladle.. and overflowing the ladle... that is almost 500 calories just for the dressing.

It is so easy to add 1000 calories to a dish in a restaurant- very easy... just blink and it happens.

and the rouxs and soups.... uh.. whoole milk, heavy cream, and real butter...
how much is in that..
let's not even try to do that math- some people might never eat it again.

There are a few restaurant meals that are not horrible... but it is hard to find and you will wait a while to get it.

I worked in a restaurant that made everything from scratch and everything to order... we even diced our own onions and mixed our own seasonings.... and the calories were nuts there too.

So very true, mkat.

I've worked in food service since I was 14 - from serving to cooking and everything in between... and below.

I've worked in a hotel, 3 mom-n-pops, a bakery, a deli, an ice cream shop, catering, a Denny's, a Ryan's and a Ponderosa.

Now, I'm at a casino on the Gulf Coast, and as I've said, I'm training to be a chef.

Special requests tend to take the longest - they mess up the flow and routine of a kitchen, unfortunately. The cooks are used to making it one way day in/day out for years, and 1 person wants it made a totally different way.

It sometimes involves running around looking for the ingredient label off a thrown out box to check for allergy info ( did you know some pancake mix is made in a factory that also processes pine nuts, peanuts and soy? ).

Or trying to find the Head Chef to find out what is in a recipe ( trying to get a list of ingredients from a Head Chef is near impossible btw. They guard their recipes in a locked cabinet... I usually just ask "Is 'vvv' an ingredient in 'mmm' " )

Or going to the freezer/walkin to find non-sauced, non salted, non seasoned, non oiled veggies, non-breaded, non pickled, or meats, or a shell egg instead of a liquid one from a 5 gallon bag, due to a sensitivity or allergy to liquid egg preservatives. ( we only have shell eggs in the kitchen on Sundays. We have to go to the other restaurant at the other end of the casino on weekdays when someone wants one... )


Speaking from a restaurant standpoint: I'd really recommend for people to call ahead to find out if the meals provided on the menu can be modified, or to state allergy concerns or dietary/nutritional needs ahead of time.

If we know someone coming in, is allergic to "nnn" or is unable to have "mmm", we can be better able to provide a meal suitable, or you will know ahead of time if something is okay for your meal.

What most non-chain places can't do is provide accurate nutritional info, as the recipes are not standardized and vary by who makes it and each cook's personal touches. My version of chili isn't the same as Chef Dan's, etc.

Chains have a chart, but as you can see, it varies too, depending on how heavy handed people are. BUT, it's a start. Short of bringing your own scale and measuring cups, you'll have to learn portioning and judge what's on your plate...

What I used to do was get a menu of where I was going, pick a meal I'd like, find out the approximate portion sizes and run the meal thru fitday or find each item in a calorie book and add up my meal.


Wow, sorry to all about my long-winded posts on this topic.

hey.. you sound like my back ground...

mom and pops.. ice cream joints, hotel, catering, managing, .. all kinds in my background.

I just wrote a paper on restaurant communications.. it is a different world in there.

And as far as allergies go.... it is so hard to figure out since the servers and cooks usually do not know the recipe.. and when they look it up, then they have to find each ingredient and read the labels of those products.

sometimes it is easy, other times it is just SO time consuming.. and no one wants to get it wrong.

Kinda off topic... but Hell's Kitchen is very close to reality sometimes... like in a high traffic restaurant on a busy friday night... even the best folks make huge mistakes and can't portion correctly under pressure.

There are too many variables in a restaurant to dine and diet.

haha, the casino kitchen is like Hell's Kitchen sometimes.

I'm tired of training people that last 2 weeks or less or just don't 'get it'. We don't get breaks like other jobs. We get 15 minutes if we are lucky - no matter what the law says. Whining about wanting your break = the whole line getting behind.

Tuesday night ended with 3 cooks screaming obscenities at one another, loud enough it was heard down the hall at Security, who of course, all came running down to the kitchen to see what was going on. ( DRAMA! )

Even our Head and Sous Chef's can't portion right under rushes - one added one bottle of rum too many to the rum sauce. Another put too much cream in the spinach and had to add extra roux to fix it. Another burned up 12 brisket in the smoker because she forgot to set the timer 8 hours beforehand and got too busy to check on them.

It happens! I should write a book about the goings on and happenings I've seen in the various kitchens.

Another thing I used to do:

When I couldn't discern the calories in a meal, I'd put half in a to-go box and eat it later :) :D Of, give it to the kids/husband/dog.

Most places charge more than half for half orders. Last place I worked, 70% of the original price for an order 'half-sized'.

So 4.50 for a meal, turned out 3.15 for half of it. People would get mad about the price and just order the full sized meal.

As for allergies... We serve seafood.

An almost literal TON of it nightly - 3 kinds of boiled crab legs and claws, shrimp, crawfish, lobsters... Fried seafoods.

PLEASE DON'T COME IN HERE AND SAY YOU ARE ALLERGIC TO SEAFOOD when it's EVERYWHERE you look. We have cold shrimp, crawfish and crab on the salad bar. At least 1 type of soup with seafood in it. Fried and hot boiled on the buffet line. It's likely that something seafood-like touched something non-seafoody, no matter how careful we are.

Now that I've derailed the topic... hahaha

To bring it back on track: Restaurant workers are human too, and prone to mistakes. We tend to make stuff "look right and good enough to eat, it all". I'm guilty of it as well.

Places that list ingredients and the ideal portion size... really leave it for the consumer to know what the real serving size is and to decide for themselves if they really want to eat it.

I am allergic to seafood.
I can't even go to a red lobster and order a garden salad
I know about cross contamination on the grills and sautee line.
If they have a bunch of seafood on the menu, I don't order any meat at all.
especially grilled stuff or pastas.

and the mistakes in restaurants add up quickly in the calorie, fat, and allergy categories!

I try to stress to my new trainees and co-workers to change their gloves constantly on the buffet line. Also having them change out the serving utensils on the customer side every hour or so... ( the stories I could tell.... ).

The meat carving station also has all the boiled seafood and it's possible that one of the kids out there will go from straightening up the crab legs to carving a slice of meat without changing gloves.

It's my pet peeve. "We have millions of boxes of gloves. Change them often.

Seafood and peanut allergies are among the worst. I have friends with both types of allergies. We are pretty picky about where we eat out at and tend to stick to the same places.

No kidding that mistakes add up!


Another food item to watch out for...

BAKED POTATOES!!!

and not just the toppings...

We rub ours with bacon grease (actually, it's bacon flavoured LARD) and seasoning salt before baking them. Not to mention our potatoes are huge. HUGE. 1 could feed 3 people.

Well, that was a very enlightening little discussion...

In the back of my mind, I knew there was a reason I decided to avoid eating out.

My old, extremely fat, now almost completely gone gut is angry about my decision but my now beginning to emerge six-pack abs are thanking me.

Thank you, Thatperson, for sharing what it really is like at the restaurant business.

I'd have to agree that I enjoyed the "behind the scenes look" ... however, I must tell you that I eat out quite often and find that it is the knowledge I've gained about portion control, asking questions and ordering dressings on the side that has helped immensely.

Here are a few things I found helpful.

Call ahead first and ask about healthy choice options OR explain to your server that you are watching your weight and would like to know the most health conscious choice you can make. I've had wonderful assistance and found the servers truly happy to offer their assistance and show their knowledge of the menu and how things are prepared.

Order dressings on the side. A neat tip is to just dip the tip of your fork in the dressing and then put a lot of lettuce on your fork. It will taste like you're having your entire salad coated in dressing but you will end up with 2/3 to 3/4 of the dressing left over.

If eating a baked potato, ask for the butter on the side. Learn what 1 tsp looks like and make it go a long ways OR bring your spray butter in your purse. Planning ahead is the key.

Anything grilled or baked is a healthier option; ask what they put on it and ask them to leave off butter, etc.)

Ask if the vegetables are steamed and ask that no additional butter be put on them

Stay away from breaded or fried foods.

Ask for a "take home" container to be brought with your meal and divide it in half. If you're at the Cheesecake Factory, take home 2/3. Restuarant portions are much too large.

OR ... follow intuitive eating techniques, order what you want and only eat a few bites, realizing that after 2-4 bites (regular sized ones, eaten slowly and savoured) that your craving is satisfied and any additional eating beyond that point is for other reasons.


Hope these help.

Ranae