Dining not fine.

[Gob]

EATING at gourmet restaurants may be as bad for you as a trip to McDonald's, according to diabetes specialists who are increasingly diagnosing young businessmen with the debilitating condition.

Doctors from Melbourne's Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute are now seeing men as young as 40 afflicted by the disease, which is often triggered by obesity and linked to poor diet.

Corporate lunches and dinners at restaurants dishing up rich, fatty foods, coupled with desk-bound working lives are being blamed for the trend.

Advertisement: Story continues below Neale Cohen, general manager of the Baker's diabetes service, said many patients were unaware meals at upmarket restaurants could be as high in fat, salt and sugar as those served in fast-food chains.

''People think that if they're dining at a nice restaurant that it's good and healthy food, but eating out is really code for eating badly. Whether it's a fine French restaurant or McDonald's, it's the type of food that causes the problem. In a lot of cuisine, particularly French and Italian, the food is cooked with oils and cheeses and sauces and dressings that are not what you would normally do at home,'' Dr Cohen said. ''Many of my patients will eat out three or four times a week for work and we are seeing 40-year-old businessmen who are in real trouble. To have diabetes at that age and otherwise be perfectly well with very little family history, is a really worrying thing for their future.''

Peter Acheson, chief executive of IT recruitment company Peoplebank Australia, knows how difficult it is to make healthy choices when eating out. Entertaining clients up to five times a week at some of Melbourne and Sydney's top restaurants led to him piling on 15 kilograms.

''The working lunches were a big contributor. You've really got to be careful, it creeps up on you because the food's so nice you tend to have more of it,'' the 46-year-old told The Sunday Age.

His daughter bluntly observing, ''You're fat daddy,'' was the catalyst for the father-of-four to shed the weight, and while he still regularly dines out at places such as Rockpool, Pure South and Treasury, he has changed his eating habits.

''Previously, I'd be having entree, main and dessert and two or three glasses of wine, but now I only have one course, I've banned dessert, and I drink mineral water. Typically I used to have a steak and that would come with a creamy bearnaise or peppercorn sauce, but now I'd have fish with salad and I don't have the buttery mash or rich sauce, even if it's provided.''

Dr Cohen recommends his patients only eat out once a week but said the ''MasterChef effect'' was also having an impact as amateurs try to re-create the elaborate dishes on show on the hit television show.

''It's been a wonderful series, but I'm not sure it's going to have a terrific effect on everyone's health because most of those things are pretty high in fat and I would like to see healthy eating incorporated into the next series,'' he said.

Chris Gardner, an employment lawyer with Freehills, eats out with clients at least three times a week at restaurants including The Press Club, Becco and Bamboo House.

''The challenge in eating at high-end restaurants is that they take pride in their rich sauces and the cocktail of ingredients that make up a good dish, but you can still make healthy choices.

''I have rules which I stick to: I go easy on the carbohydrates, I avoid risottos and pastas, particularly at dinner, and I never eat fries. I always go for greens as part of a meal and I gravitate towards fish and shellfish rather than red meat,'' he said.

Dr Leon Massage, who runs private weight loss clinic Body Metabolism Institute, is also seeing younger patients with type 2 diabetes, many of whom regularly eat out.

''The aim of every good chef is to create a dish that titillates and makes people salivate and the only way you can do that is not by grilling on an open fire and adding nothing to it. They add lots of fat and salt and oil to make the dish taste good.''

But Cory Campbell, head chef at Melbourne's Vue de monde, said the three-hat restaurant's degustation menu was proof that it is possible to eat out healthily.

''We have 10 courses to one guest, so we have to look at being balanced and health conscious. I don't want people walking out of there and feeling they're so stuffed, and rich and heavy food is going to do that. I have a lot of dishes where a lot of the vegetables are raw so there's no cooking involved, no butter, no oils. I think it probably is quite a healthy meal over ten courses.''


http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/ ... rom=smh_ft

[loCAtek]

That is absolutely the truth! On one of my Seabee missions stateside, the Indian Reservation one, it was decided by the anchors, that since there was no military mess hall nearby for meals, that we would receive 'vouchers' from the local restaurants to get a fancy entree for our breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Ugh! How quickly we sickened of that! First we begged; then we pleaded; then we threatened collateral damage if we couldn't get extra pay to shop for groceries and cook our own food.


Fine dining should only be done finely!

[Andrew D]

In a lot of cuisine, particularly French and Italian, the food is cooked with oils and cheeses and sauces and dressings that are not what you would normally do at home ....

Who wouldn't do that at home?

Anyway, that is, of course, what makes gourmet food so good. It's about being exceptionally satisfying -- in appearance, in aroma, and above all in taste. Weight watchers it ain't, and a damn good thing, too.

If you want health food, go to a health-food restaurant. I'll wave to you over the slab of gruyere melting deliciously in my French onion soup. Or the slab of Mozzarella on my inslata Caprese. Or my bacon-wrapped, blue cheese crusted steak.

Have a nice dinner!

[Gob]

I hate you Andrew D!!!!!!

[oldr_n_wsr]

desk-bound working lives are being blamed for the trend.

Get up and get out and do something. Stop blaming it on resturants, what they serve and what you don't do to help yourself. YOU have a choice. If you don't do what needs to be done, blame yourself.

[rubato]

"An essential part of happiness is to not have some of the things you want."

[paraphrased]
BR

[Jarlaxle]

Or my bacon-wrapped, blue cheese crusted steak.

What a travesty. Contaminating a perfectly good steak with bacon & cheese.

[Gob]

What a travesty. Contaminating perfectly good blue cheese with steak & bacon .

[Andrew D]

What a travesty. Contaminating one's body with steak. Or bacon. Or blue cheese. Or anything else but fruits, nuts, legumes, fungi, and berries.

Have a nice dinner!

[Jarlaxle]

Long past dinner, but I enjoyed the fruit I just ate.

(Is a serious addiction to Granny Smith apples a bad thing?)

[Andrew D]

(Is a serious addiction to Granny Smith apples a bad thing?)

Not at all. Have you ever tried apple juice made from a combination of Granny Smith and Fuji? Yum!