THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701190085
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 53 lines
The Center for Science in the Public Interest said Friday that a juicy steak isn't as bad as it has been depicted if you choose a lean cut and healthful side dishes.
A single appetizer - more than a pound of french fries, buried in cheese, crumbled bacon and ranch dressing - was worse than any steak platters the center analyzed, nutritionist Jayne Hurley said.
Ever a student of cuisine, I've noticed the tendency among diners to make up in fatty trimmings for the calories they cut on lean entrees.
Why, I've seen faddists become fatties by dumping gobs of creamy dressing, enough to choke a billy goat, on a dainty patch of iceberg lettuce with a sprinkling of grated carrots.
Just to look at that gross, heaping mound of goo, without having tasted a soupcon, gives you the sense of having overeaten.
As for the cheese fries appetizer, it weighs in with more than 3,000 calories and 217 grams of total fat.
The government recommends a daily maximum of 65 fat grams for adults. The cheese combo tripled that allowance before the diner even took on the steak.
The second-worst appetizer gauged by the calorie and fat counters in a nationwide survey of steak houses, including samplings from the largest chains, was a deep-fried onion, which had 116 fat grams and nearly 1,700 calories.
(Let me say there are some foods, including thread-like tangles of crisped onions served at KC Masterpiece Barbecue restaurants in the Midwest, that I would devour no matter what the count - and give up dessert and the next meal.)
Steak is fine, said Edith Hogan of the American Dietetic Association, if you remember to balance it and stay on the treadmill an extra half-hour - or walk a Labrador retriever 10 blocks in sub-freezing temperatures.
Steak houses' healthiest foods are barbecued chicken and fish, Hurley said, but you can build an acceptable meal around sirloin or filet mignon with vegetables and salads with low-fat or fat-free dressing and a baked potato with a tablespoon of sour cream.
A trimmed 12-ounce sirloin, reputed to be the leanest beef, has 1,200 calories and 58 grams of fat when served with a Caesar salad and baked potato with butter. An identical amount of New York strip steak with platter has 1,280 calories and 76 grams of total fat.
Order a 20-ounce porterhouse and you're dealing with 1,640 calories and 107 grams of total fat.
Whack off a third of the porterhouse and request that the waiter put it in a doggy bag.
So many consumers are tallying calories and fretting over the gyrations of the economy that it is no longer gauche to walk away with a doggy bag or, worse, a tacky styrofoam container.