Consumers are asking for more nutritious menu options featuring clean foods made with high-quality ingredients.
With restaurants from fast-food chains to country clubs re-examining the integrity of their ingredients and menu items, frying less and using fewer cream sauces, John Petrick of NorthJersey.com found the age of pigging out may be over.
“It’s been gradual, over the last two years,” said Nick Gatti, former executive chef and now culinary administrator for the Alpine Country Club in Demarest, N.J. “But, I think it’s really starting to take hold. People ask: ‘Is this GMO [genetically modified]?’ They ask if the salmon is wild or farm-raised. They ask if the beef is grass-fed. These are the questions we get. And we didn’t always get them.”
Hugh Magnum, chef and a co-owner of Mighty Quinn’s Barbeque in Clifton, agreed, NorthJersey.com reported.
“There is more of a trend of eating cleaner foods,” he said. “Most people – and most restaurants – are more focused than ever on using just better-quality ingredients. That doesn’t necessarily mean ‘organic.’ But it does mean as close to local ingredients, as possible, and eating at least a little bit healthier. As opposed to what people might consider to be standard barbecue fare, we don’t, for example, do a lot of macaroni and cheese. We do, instead, lighter side salads. We do a beet salad. And then we dress them with vinaigrettes. We are using seasonal vegetables. And obviously, we are a meat-centric place, but we are procuring all-natural meat. That means antibiotic- and hormone-free. We take it very seriously that quality not only tastes better, but it’s better for you.”
Vincent Barcelona, a corporate chef in Englewood, agreed that it’s not so much about calorie counting as it is about being more nutritionally and environmentally sound, NorthJersey.com reported.
“What’s cooler than going to a local restaurant and knowing that a local farmer dropped off food that was locally grown at the back door that morning?” he said. “The trend is slow eating, cleaner eating, and locally grown, from the simplest of neighborhood restaurants to the James Beard Award-winning rising chefs. You can’t get away from it now. Even if you’re a steak eater, people would rather have an organic, grass-fed piece of meat than one shot up with antibiotics. Even a lot of the chain restaurants are starting to get on board with offering healthier alternatives.”
Are “healthier alternatives” a step in the right direction, Petrick asked. Or does it just convince people they’re eating better, when, in the end, they really aren’t?
Peggy Policastro, nutrition specialist for the New Jersey Institute for Food Nutrition and Health at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, said that while it’s true more people are aware of healthy eating than ever, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are actually eating better, NorthJersey.com reported.
“It’s all about psychology,” said Policastro, who teaches a course at Rutgers called “The Hunger Frame,” focusing on what she terms “behavioral nutrition.”
“People want to feel that they are doing the right thing. The research I have done has shown that just having a healthy item or two on the menu almost gives people more license to eat unhealthily. They feel like, ‘I made this first good choice, so now, I can make choices that are not-so-great.'”
“Base ingredients that are healthy are a good start, but you can’t lose sight of the fact that they may be frying it, or putting something into a high-sodium sauce,” noted Susan Kraus, program dietitian with Hackensack University Medical Center. “It won’t be a protective mechanism, to be using healthier ingredients.”
If you want to eat more healthily prepared foods, she said, look for terms on the menu like grilled, roasted, broiled, poached, steamed, garden fresh and even stir fried. Terms that should set off alarm bells include au gratin, cream, crispy, sautéed and breaded. Fresh herbs should be used in place of salt to enhance flavoring, she told NorthJersey.com.
Policastro also told NorthJersey.com that restaurant-goers are very seduced by terms like “organic” and “healthy,” but just what those terms mean isn’t always clear.
“People perceive them not only of being healthier, but tasting better,” she said. “But studies show that one thing isn’t necessarily healthier than the other. And the standards are sort of sketchy, and up for interpretation. There has been controversy over this. The most important thing you can do is to enjoy your food, whatever it is, whether it’s organic or not – but in moderation. As soon as you get your plate, take half of that and bring it home with you. This way, you can enjoy your food, without overindulging.”
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