Nina Simonds and Dr. Eric Rimm visit an American restaurant and reveal how you can order a delicious and healthy meal.

Nina and Eric describe how you might choose to order a salad and one or two appetisers instead of a full meal. Eric explains that vegetable oils you get in a salad dressing are healthy. Some salad dressing contain fructose syrup which = lots of calories.

Arctic Char, Trout and Salmon are a good source of Omega 3 fatty acids. Greens on the plate are good and order sauce on the side. Cut your meal in half and take a doggie bag home.

Nina and Eric bring the USDA food pyramid to life.

Dr. Eric Rimm is a brilliant and funny nutritionist from the Harvard School of Public Health. We met on the Nutrition Roundtable, a group of doctors from the HSPH, restaurateurs, cookbook authors, food businessmen, and other concerned individuals, that meets three times a year to discuss the latest research in nutrition and health. Dr. Walter Willett (Yay Walter!!) is our esteemed leader. For more information , check out the Harvard School of Public Health website.

This series is in response to the CSPI study (Center for Science in the Public Interest), a group we admire and support, where they analyzed the calories of some common dishes at a Chinese-American restaurant and reported their outrageously high caloric and fat content. We wanted to show people how EASY it is to go to a Chinese restaurant and order well.

Steve Says:
I found it interesting that you don’t have to always order low fat salad dressing. After the shoot I go to eat the Arctic Char. It was amazing. I got so caught up in the filming of the episode, I asked Nina waht kind of salmon it was because it tasted so good. She told me that it was Arctic Char. HA! I really enjoyed it.

Technical notes: This episode was filmed using a Nokia N93. It records at 640 x 480 30 frames per second. I converted the .mp4 files to QuickTime .mov files using MPEG Streamclip, then edited the video with Final Cut Pro. When done editing, I exported using Compressor at 320×240 H.264 and uploaded to blip.tv. Blip.tv then converts the video to Flash and cross-posts here to Spices of Life.

Alternate Version: QuickTime 320 x 240, QuickTime 640×480, YouTube.