How much do you know about eating out and eating side dishes at noodle stalls to lose weight?

How to eat when it comes to losing weight? Noodle snacks commonly seen in Taiwan's streets and alleys can be said to be a good choice, because they are low in calories, balanced in diet and light in cooking. For those who want to lose weight but eat out for three meals a day and cannot prepare their own food, as long as they pay a little attention and choose the right food, it is easy to control the calories between 400~500 calories, eat enough and lose weight, and achieve the weight loss goal. Today, we will focus on the most common type of food in noodle stalls - various side dishes.

Just a piece of cake, but very important!

"A piece of cake" is often used to describe something that is very simple. However, even though it is just a piece of cake, it is very important for people who eat out to lose weight, because whether you can eat a balanced and full diet depends on it. Side dishes have two main functions:

1. Help you eat a balanced diet: Generally, noodle stalls are not short of various noodle-based staple foods. If you want to achieve a balanced diet with rice, meat, and vegetables, side dishes are indispensable. The most common side dishes are meat and vegetables, while pasta is a staple food. If it is paired with meat and vegetables, the nutrition of the meal can become more balanced. The combination of protein and fiber can also help lower the GI value of the meal and reduce the chance of starch turning into fat.

2. Make you full and satisfied: Although pasta looks large in quantity due to its expansion due to absorbing water, the sense of fullness and the desire for food alone are poor and it is not easy to satisfy the appetite. Appropriate side dishes can not only increase the sense of fullness but also the sense of satisfaction.

Think about it, a bagel + a box of fresh milk VS a bowl of noodles + 3 side dishes, both have a calorie content of 400~450 calories. Which one will make you feel more full? Which one tastes more satisfying? Which one would you feel less depressed when eating? The answer is of course a combination of noodles + side dishes! So don’t underestimate it as just a side dish. If you want to eat well and be full when eating out, you must know the side dishes.

Knowing the classification of side dishes will make it easy for you to choose and enjoy eating!

In Wenzhou's wonton noodle shops, dumpling shops, beef noodle shops, noodle houses and other places, we can always see plates of side dishes. How should we choose so that we can eat enough and eat wisely without hindering our plans to lose weight?

The easiest way is to learn to judge which type of food the side dishes belong to, so that you can easily know how to match them so as not to gain weight. The food we eat daily can be divided into five categories according to the main nutrients: staple foods with high starch content, meat with high protein content, vegetables, fruits, and fats that are indispensable for cooking. The main nutrients and calories of each type of food are different, while the nutrients and calories of foods of the same type are similar. Therefore, as long as you understand the food classification of the side dish, it will be easy to know how to match it with your staple food.

meat

Meat refers to food with a high protein content, including beans, eggs, pork, beef, mutton, chicken, duck, goose, or seafood such as fish and shellfish. Each serving of meat has 75 calories, weighs about 30 grams when cooked, and is about two fingers long and wide.

Common meat side dishes: including single-ingredient braised tofu (five-spice tofu, large black tofu), braised chicken; cold bean curd skin, shredded tofu, three-color eggs, fried tofu, etc. And mixed foods such as dried tofu and braised eggs, century egg and tofu, fried fish with dried tofu, etc. Some restaurants offer freshly cut side dishes (black and white cut). Common meat side dishes include smoked shark, powdered liver, pork liver, goose, turkey, etc.

Vegetables

Most plant foods, from the common vegetables we see, to kelp, seaweed and mushrooms. Each serving of vegetables is 100 grams and contains 25 calories.

Common vegetable side dishes: including kimchi, bean sprouts, cucumbers, kelp, cabbage, cauliflower, Yangtze beans, fungus and other cold dishes; there are also pickled side dishes such as bitter melon, pickled bamboo shoots, spicy eggplant, etc. Some freshly cut (black and white cut) shops also have mustard greens, bamboo shoots, beans, eggplants, cauliflower and other side dishes that are only blanched and eaten with sauce. In addition, some stores also provide blanched vegetables.

The above-mentioned vegetables and meats are the most common side dishes in noodle stalls. In addition, we occasionally see staple food and fat side dishes. For example, peanuts, pig skin and other side dishes belong to the fat category; while burdock, pumpkin, etc. belong to the staple food category.

When ordering side dishes at a snack stall, balance is the most important thing!

Because most people's staple food is starch (no matter whether you order vermicelli, rice noodles, noodles, rice cakes, sliced ​​noodles, etc.), it is best to choose meat and vegetables as side dishes. If your staple food (starch) does not contain meat, you should choose 1 meat side dish and 1-2 vegetable side dishes to achieve a balanced diet of both meat and vegetables.

If you originally chose noodles with meat (such as pork liver noodles, goose meat noodles), since you already have the staple food and meat, it is more appropriate to just pick vegetable side dishes to go with it. If you really want to eat a side dish, but it is a staple food (such as burdock), then you can still order meat and vegetable side dishes, but only eat half or 1/3 less of the original pasta to balance the extra staple food from the side dish.

In addition, if you pay a little attention, although they are all vegetable side dishes, there are differences in cooking. For example, some are served cold, some are fried (fried dried fish), some are pickled with heavy flavors (this type of side dish will add extra chili oil, sesame oil and other fats), or are marinated with sauce to make it dark and tasty (generally, in order to make the sauce less salty, sugar or other seasonings will be added, and it may even be fried first and then marinated).

Some stores even offer vegetables that are blanched and then cooked with oil, scallions and braised pork, so in addition to the calories from the vegetables themselves, there are also extra calories from fat or sugar. Therefore, even if you are eating vegetables, do not think that vegetables themselves are low in calories and it is okay to eat more. You still have to learn to judge whether the calories are high in order to decide whether to eat a lot.

Basically, you can taste the food in your mouth, observe the sauce remaining at the bottom of the plate, dip your right finger in the sauce to feel how greasy it is, or put a small piece of the dish on toilet paper and observe the oil content from the penetration... Through these methods we can also determine which vegetable dish has lower calories. (As shown in the picture below, they are both vegetable side dishes, but you can tell just by looking at them that the calories in eggplant are definitely higher than those in cucumber)

This article comes from: Nutritionist Stella's Weight Loss & Nutrition Blog

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