Navigating the buffet

THE BALTIMORE SUN

More dangers lurk in those tempting by-the-pound hot food bars than you can imagine. See that yummy-looking Sesame Chicken, for instance? If you eat too many of them or have them too often, those crispy little nuggets in their thick, sweet sauce are a heart attack or stroke waiting to happen.

A cup serving can contain more than 300 calories, 9 grams of fat and 700 milligrams of sodium.

But the news isn't all bad. We decided to head for Wegmans' Wokery, the Hunt Valley supermarket's Asian hot food bar, for the latest in our monthly Make Over My Meal series -- a reporter (me) and a nutritionist, Robin Spence (a registered dietitian at Union Memorial Hospital) -- out to save the world one guinea pig at a time.

Or at least to help people eat better by changing their routines in small ways.

Wegmans knows that dishes like the Sesame Chicken sell well; but the store also tries to include plenty of choices that would be more healthful for its customers, including five or six vegetarian entrees.

The good-natured guinea pig this month was Ronn Blaney, a 56-year-old electrical inspector for Baltimore County, who let us analyze the lunch he had selected from the hot food bar and then suggest ways to improve it. It's not easy eating with a trained nutritionist watching you and talking about the consequences of every bite, so give Blaney credit -- although he may never visit a food bar again.

By-the-pound hot food bars are a logical extension of the salad bar. These days, busy people need easy, quick, relatively inexpensive ways to get good meals on their tables. For that reason alone, expect to see more and more of them.

Stores like Whole Foods and Super Fresh have hot food bars, although they aren't as elaborate as Wegmans' Wokery. There are even several restaurants in downtown Baltimore devoted to the genre, where people on their lunch breaks can get Chinese or American hot food and salad-bar items, all sold by the pound.

But hot food bars have two major pitfalls. First, it's easy to load up on more food than you meant to when you keep adding a little of this and a little of that to your plate. Second, there are the visual prompts. You might never order fried foods or dishes with thick sauces from the menu of a Chinese restaurant, but on a hot food bar they look too appealing to resist.

Blaney, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 226 pounds, likes vegetables and eats pretty well most of the time. But when faced with the Wokery's spread, he ended up with two meaty spareribs, a generous helping of pineapple fried chicken, three Shrimp Purses (a sort of stuffed fried won ton), and Vegetable Fried Rice. He did some things right, including some Veggie Delight (mixed vegetables in a light garlic sauce) and stir-fried green beans.

Because of the vegetables, Blaney thought his lunch was fairly healthful until Spence pointed out that the spareribs, with their saturated fat, were worse for him than the fast-food beef burger he says he never eats.

In any case, a meal of Chinese food should be only an occasional treat for Blaney. He told us he has high blood pressure, which his doctors can't get under control. Even though he's on multiple medications for it, his numbers have been as high as 189 / 105 -- what Spence calls "stroke territory."

On a brighter note, Blaney's cholesterol is good. His cardiologist, though, would like Blaney to get his weight down to 210 pounds, so he should be watching his calories and fat as well as his sodium intake.

"You get in trouble with the sauces," Spence said about the Asian dishes he was eating. They can be extraordinarily high in calories and sodium, which Blaney is trying to avoid. An article on Chinese restaurant food published last month by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest found that a meal can contain a full day's worth of sodium -- or even two days'.

The choices are sometimes hard even for a trained nutritionist. Spence thought the Thai Seafood Combo might be a good option for our "after" meal, but when she went to the nutritional information on Wegmans' Web site, she found that while a one-cup serving was relatively low in calories (170), it contained 890 milligrams of sodium. (The government recommends that people with high blood pressure consume no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day.)

There were other surprises.

"The Lemon Pepper Chicken that Tom and Dave [a chef and a team leader in Wegmans' kitchen] pointed out isn't so great," she e-mailed me. "One cup has 170 calories, 8 grams of fat and 510 milligrams of sodium. But Pork with Scallions is pretty good: One cup has 130 calories, 5 grams of fat and 250 milligrams of sodium."

Spence suggested that people with health problems check out nutritional content before they visit a fast-food restaurant or get carryout. (If the place you're going doesn't have what you need on its Web site, try CalorieKing.com.)

She did have one bit of good news for Blaney. She explained that nutritionists look at the total sodium intake for the day, so when he does eat a lunch like this again, he could balance it by being extra careful about his salt the rest of the day.

Most important, she told him, with his blood pressure numbers he should get a copy of the DASH Diet book (DASHdiet.org). The DASH Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is based on multisite research studies and has been recommended by just about every health organization that matters.

I met Blaney a couple of days later to buy him an "after" lunch, consisting of foods that were lower in fats and sodium and more nutritious than his first meal. But if it didn't taste as good to him, he wouldn't follow Spence's guidelines in the future, so we were anxious to hear what he thought of the substitutions.

Conventional wisdom has it that chicken is better for you than beef, but in this case Spence found that the Pepper Steak had less than half the calories, fat and sodium of the non-fried Lemon Pepper Chicken. (The chicken dish Spence suggested instead was Chicken With Snow Peas.)

Blaney liked the Pepper Steak, but wasn't crazy about the chicken substitution. "The Pineapple Chicken," he said, searching for a word, "was more ... robust."

He was happy to have steamed rice instead of the vegetable fried rice.

"Frankly," he said, "I didn't know it was there the first time." (It's not on the steam table with the rest of the food but in its own pot at the end.)

The Steamed Ginger-Scallion Fish (tilapia fillet) was also a hit with Blaney, and he enjoyed the Shrimp With Asparagus, made with the same light garlic sauce and vegetables as the Veggie Delight he had had a few days before.

The Wok-Grilled Vegetables -- the new name for stir-fried vegetables because "fried" has become a dirty word -- didn't have as much flavor as the Veggie Delight, Blaney decided, because there was no sauce. But there was also less sodium. He could live with that.

"I like vegetables just for the taste of vegetables," he said.

In fact, the only part of his meal that Blaney was negative about was something he had decided to get on his own, Asian Tofu, which he thought would be healthful but Spence had not recommended because of the fat content. (It's deep-fried, although not battered.)

"I'm not crazy about this tofu," Blaney said. "But I tried it. I doubt if I would get it again, though."

elizabeth.large@baltsun.com

ONLINE Think you know the best nutritional choices at Wegmans' Wokery? Take our quiz at baltimoresun.com / makeovermymeal

ROBIN SAYS ...

FISH CAN BE FINE

Fish in a light sauce that emphasizes seasonings like ginger and scallions will have more protein, fewer calories, less fat and (if you're lucky) less sodium than many other dishes.

GO FOR STEAMED

Steamed rice is a more healthful choice than the veggie fried rice with its extra fat and calories.

SAY 'NO' TO FRIED FARE

Load up on vegetables and skip the fried foods. If sodium is your biggest issue, you should avoid dishes with sauces whenever possible.

CHICKEN VS. BEEF

Chicken isn't always better than beef. The cut used in the pepper steak has fewer calories and less fat than a comparable serving of pineapple chicken.

Robin Spence, a dietitian at Union Memorial Hospital, helped make over Ronn Blaney's lunch. Above are her tips from the session.

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