Is that tuna on the sustainable seafood Super Green List? Credit: brockamer

I love fish. When it comes to getting lean protein that’s full of nutrition (hello, healthy omega-3 fatty acids!), you really can’t beat it. However—and I’m sure I’m not alone here—knowing what fish is the best to buy and eat can be confusing. From hunting practices to farming to mercury levels, it can be super confusing. I mean, really, I’d just like to eat something that’s good for me that doesn’t kill the earth. That’s not so hard, right?

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program recently put together its Super Green list, which highlights species that have low levels of contaminants (less than 216 parts per billion mercury 11 parts per billion PCBs) and the daily minimum amount of omega-3s (at least 250 mg per day). Check out what fish make the sustainable seafood Super Green grade!

The Chipotle you love, now with brown rice! Credit: punctuated

A few things fuel my obsession with Chipotle. 1) It tastes delicious. 2) It’s quick, cheap, and you get real meat and vegetables. 3) The company actually cares about where its food comes from. And 4) It tastes freaking delicious.

We’ve discussed how to make your Chipotle experience as healthy as possible, and now the company has given me another reason to swoon: brown rice. The company so rarely changes up its menu that the first time I saw the brown rice option, I honestly thought black beans had gotten spilled into the regular rice. It wasn’t until a return trip that I did a double take and realized it was actually brown rice.

We all know that brown rice is packed with more nutrients and fiber than its white rice counterpart, making it the more filling and healthier option. But the good news is that it really tastes great in your Chipotle meal. While the white rice is pretty much impossible to beat, the brown rice has more of a bite to it and a slightly nuttier flavor. It seriously won’t disappoint. If you’re opposed to switching up your tried-and-true Chipotle formula, the brown rice is a simple switch that you probably won’t even notice.

Are you Chipotle-obsessed too? Have you tried the new Chipotle brown-rice option? —Erin

When you’re eye-crossingly busy putting in a full day’s work before trying to squeeze in a workout, it can be tough to get a healthy meal on the table. While fast food isn’t always the healthiest option, you do have a choice as to whether you pick the high-calorie No.1 or a healthier item on the menu. McDonald’s Asian Chicken salad is back for a limited time, giving customers a lighter meal option under the golden arches. With grilled chicken, the salad comes in at just 360 calories. And while it’s great that it’s a low-cal meal, I found it to be too calorie light when I tried it a few years back—I was starving just an hour later. When the company sent me a voucher to try the salad again, I was prepared: I added a Fruit ‘N Yogurt Parfait, which with 160 more calories gave my lunch enough sticking power to tide me over until my next meal.

Head on over for the delicious, crunchy details of the salad—along with a chance to win a salad of your very own! —Erin

Credit: Mike Saechang

It’s hard to imagine the words “KFC Double Down” and “healthier” in the same sentence, but Canadian researchers are saying that when it comes to watching your cholesterol, it’s more dangerous to your health to eat a single egg yolk than to consume a KFC Double Down sandwich. Now, we know that egg yolks are high in cholesterol, but we’re not so cool with dissing a whole food and claiming that such an overly processed high-in-saturated-fat food is even close to healthy. Again, everything in moderation!

Continue reading about this KFC Double Down sandwich research!

—Jenn

Back in graduate school, I stumbled across a small yet growing franchise called Noodles & Company. At the time, it was a pretty refreshing and cool concept—lots and lots of noodles from a variety of different cultures all on one menu. I happily gobbled up pad thai, Bangkok curry, spaghetti with tomato sauce and I even once tried their famed Wisconsin Mac and Cheese (no finger pointing—all good things in moderation!).

After grad school, I moved away from Minnesota and, sadly there were no convenientNoodles to be found. Until now! Noodles just moved into my ‘hood! (Originally started in Colorado, they are expanding across the country!) Can you tell I’m excited?

The good people at Noodles & Co. recently gave me a gift card to try some of their new dishes, and, while I tried to play it cool, I was geeking out hard core. Thankfully, the food at Noodles is as I remembered from years ago: healthy, fast and fresh. I tried a “Trio” which includes some type of noodle, a protein and a mini salad. My Trio concoction was as deliciously follows: Japanese Pan Noodles (pictured left) with tofu and a tossed green salad with a little fat-free Asian dressing. It was filling, and with just under 500 cals, it’s  the perfect dinner that will make you feel like you ate some good stuff but know you won’t regret it during that 6 a.m. run the next day.

My other Noodles faves? You can NEVER go wrong with the Med Salad, a tasty half-noodle half-salad dish with cheese or the Thai Curry Soup, which is super filling and only has 240 calories in a small serving (480 for large, but it’s a big-arse bowl).

Have you eaten at a Noodles & Company? Love it? Loathe it? Wish you had one in your town? Tell us about it! I’m obviously a fan…(and absolutely giving my honest-to-goodness unpaid opinion!) —Jenn

At some restaurants, it can be nearly impossible to find a healthy item. Sure, you can customize many entrees using phrases like “on the side” and “light on the…” and “substitute veggies for (insert less-healthy item here).” But isn’t it easier for you (and the server) when there are already low-cal items on the menu? Most definitely!

Applebee’s has had lighter items on its menu for years now, with its FBG-tested WeightWatchers menu. But now the restaurant has added even more low-calorie items to help diners avoid some of the caloric monstrosities that sit on its menu. The chain’s “Unbelievably Great Tasting and Under 550 Calories” menu may not have the catchiest name, but we’re all about the idea of adding better-for-you entrees. “Tasty” is a key word on the menu, too. After discovering in a survey that consumers who look for healthier options tend to shy away from them for fear the food won’t be appetizing, Applebee’s enlisted the help of nutritionists and chefs to pump up the flavor.

When I hit the ‘bee’s to check out the new menu, I ordered the Asian Crunch Salad (pictured above). It comes with a grilled chicken breast over salad greens, roasted red peppers, sugar snap peas, cucumbers, sliced almonds and a tangy Asian vinaigrette dressing. The chicken was my absolute favorite part of the salad; it was moist, tender, and truly yummy. The salad greens also had a slaw/cabbage mix added in, which gave the salad a more dynamic texture. The vinaigrette was probably my least favorite part about the salad. I ended up using all of it, but was a bit too salty for me. If I were to get the salad again, I’d probably opt for a few more calories and get the oriental dressing on the side and use it sparingly.

My salad was good—crunchy and satisfying—but didn’t blow me away. I’d been pressured to make a snap decision, so after I ordered I wished I had tried one of their other tasty-sounding options. On the new 550-calorie menu they’ve got Grilled Shrimp and Island Rice, Grilled Dijon Chicken and Portobellos, Asiago Peppercorn Steak, and Spicy Shrimp Diavolo. Next time I’m getting the steak!

FBG word of warning: When you know you’re going to order a low-calorie item, don’t let your mind tell you that it’s fine to order a Big Brutus beer, an appetizer and a dessert. Remember, you’re trying to keep it light! (Also, avoid these dining traps!)

Have you tried any of the 550-calorie items at your neighborhood Applebee’s? What do you recommend? —Erin

Credit: puroticorico

My hubby and I (and pug!) recently moved cross-country. While we could have flown and been done in just a few hours, circumstances, family visits and the amount of stuff (and pug!) we had required us to do the distance driving. Even though we were able to break up the drive with family visits in the Midwest and a vacation, we still had to drive from Northern California to New Jersey. That drive is no joke, requiring five full days in a car.

I’ve been so diligent about working out and trying to eat healthy, so I was curious how healthy we’d be able to eat on the road during the drive. I gave us a challenge: Get across the country without eating fast food.

I was thoroughly excited to see if it could be done. I knew it would require some sacrifice and forward thinking, but I was up for it. I packed healthy snacks and vowed that I’d skip the Big Macs (yes, even FBGs cave to the Big Mac temptation every now and then—at least this one does).

Unfortunately, only the pug was able to stay on track with her pre-packaged kibble. Our fast-food strike didn’t make it past the first day.

It started out well. After a Luna bar and coffee breakfast, I had some beef jerky for a snack before we stopped at a grocery store to walk the dog and pick up lunch. My husband got some California rolls, and I had a chef salad with minimal dressing. A nice leafy green salad? I was off to a good start. A couple of hundred miles down the road, hunger struck. After a small serving of Somersaults, I was good to go again. My husband grabbed a hot dog during one of our gas stops, and I stole a nibble, but I was willing to wait to grab something more nutritious for dinner.

We kept pushing on, and pushing on, trying to get a little farther before we called it a night. Before we knew it, it was 9:30 p.m., I hadn’t had dinner, and we were several miles from our stopping point. By the time we got to a seedy-yet-dog-friendly hotel on the border of Nevada and Utah, I was ravenous and slightly lightheaded. And by the time we struck out to get dinner, it was 11 p.m. with the time change, and our options were severely limited. We headed to the only grocery store in town. At that hour, none of the pre-made food items looked at all appealing, and I knew it was over. But hey, we’d passed an Arby’s. I could get a roast beef sandwich for just 320 calories!

Except Arby’s was closed. My roast-beef-hungry belly was not happy at this point. What else was open in this little town, you ask? You guessed it: McDonald’s. So not only did I not make it past the first day, but I also had to cave and have McDonald’s on the first day. And because I just wanted something hot, I got the grilled chicken (370 calories) and a small fry. All in all not a diet disaster, but I hated giving in the first day.

From Nevada, it only got more difficult. With stretches of a whole lotta nothing through Nevada, Wyoming and Kansas, food choices were often limited at best. Grocery stores don’t line I-70, and in my attempt to eat fresh at a gas station Subway, I was stuck with a way-soggy turkey sandwich. After that lame lunch, I caved big time with a dinner in Colorado. I’ll just say that there were chicken wings, corn fritters and macaroni involved. It wasn’t nutritionally pretty. But it was delicious. And at least my husband and I split it instead of getting our own meals. That counts for something, right?

Lessons Learned on the Road

1) Don’t get ravenous.

3) Plan ahead!

It’s so easy to overeat when you’re out to eat. Not only is everything super delicious, but there is also just so much of it. And if you’re like me, if it’s there, you’ll eat it. Plus, sometimes it’s hard to tell what exactly you’re getting when you put in your order. But with a little restaurant know-how, you can lighten up any restaurant order and have a strategy for eating a healthy portion when you’re out on the town.

Credit: Frank Jepsen

Beware the Bread
When you hit the restaurant starving, it’s oh so easy to dive face first into the bread basket. But if you don’t watch out, you risk consuming hundreds of calories before your meal even arrives. You have a couple of options with the bread dilemma. If warm, crusty carbs are your ultimate weakness, you could ask the waiter to keep it in the kitchen altogether. You could also make a pact with your dining companion to keep the bread to a minimum, and keep it to one piece per person. So by all means enjoy the bread, but don’t go overboard.

Soup or Salad
A great way to avoid the main-course binge is to minimize the hunger pangs before the big meal arrives at your table. A great way to do this is by ordering a soup or a salad. A simple cup of a broth-based soup is enough to warm up and tame your tummy—just avoid thick, cream-based soups, which are high in calories and fat. A side salad to start with is also a great way to get some greens into your meal, especially if your entrée isn’t heavy on the veggies. It’s also a wise idea to order the dressing on the side so that you have control over how much you’re getting (and having worked in food service, I’ve seen just how many gallons of dressing go on salads!).

On the Side
It’s so easy to order the smothered potatoes or yummy french fries to go along with your main meal. But it’s also so easy to suck it up and get a healthier item. Restaurants are more than happy to make substitutions, and you can always throw in a side of steamed veggies, a plain baked potato or a side salad instead of the heavier items. You might also want to make sure butter and sour cream come on the side for baked potatoes and that steamed veggies aren’t smothered with oil or butter. Just ask nicely. As a former server, I can tell you that we’ll put up with a lot of special requests, but a “pretty please” goes a long way.

Main Dish
Even if you follow the above tips, oversized entrées can have you overstuffed in a hurry. If you’ve got stellar self control, just plan ahead how much you’re going to eat. A trick I like is to ask for a to-go box as soon as the server delivers your meal or the first time he comes to check on you after your meal arrives. This way you can box up half of the main dish, save yourself the calories and have lunch for the next day ready to go. Or, if you and your dining companion have similar food tastes, you can split the meal. My husband and I have found that a side salad or light appetizer and a split meal is typically enough to make both of us perfectly content, not to mention it keeps the wallet happy.

Dessert Don’ts
As you know, we are all about everything in moderation, so I’m not about to tell you to swear off dessert. Don’t order the sweets every time, but treat yourself every now and then or on special occasions. Making them an off-limits food will only mess with your mind and give them too much power. When you do order dessert, just make sure you ask for a spare fork or two for sharing. Options with fresh fruit tend to be a lighter pick than heavy cheesecake or ice cream options, but go with your craving and listen to your hunger.

Watch Words
Certain words on menus are guaranteed to mean delicious, but those same words typically spell danger for your waistline. Anything that sounds terribly decadent—smothered, stuffed or loaded, for example—probably is. Lots of words can also tip you off to meaning “fried,” such as the tell-tale battered, crispy or crunchy. Likewise, anything creamy, cheesy or buttery is probably loaded with fat. Avoid “bottomless” and “all you can eat” traps, too. Words to look for include broiled, baked, grilled and fresh—and when dealing with pasta, go for red sauces over whites when you’re watching the calories. For a great list of more good and bad food words, check out this list on SparkPeople.

Bottom line: Don’t run away from restaurants in fear. I guarantee that if you’re paying attention, you can have a delicious and nutritious meal out on the town without blowing your diet. Just knowing common restaurant traps can help you keep your head in the game. And no matter what you order, just remember to always listen to your hunger. —Erin

Photos grabbed from Frank Jepsen, Kanko* and VirtualErn at Flickr.

We make it no secret here at FBG headquarters that we’re all about everything in moderation. We splurge at times just like anyone else. But don’t you hate it when you think you’re being healthy at a restaurant, and you find out that you’re sabotaging yourself? It’s like an April Fool’s joke that’s not funny.

A trip recently to Chevy’s where they had the calorie counts right there on the menu (yay!) had me going for the seafood enchiladas when I saw that a salad I was thinking about had nearly the same calorie count. Here’s the lowdown on a few menu items you might think are healthy, but boy, are they sneaky.

Credit: iamchanelle

Villainous veggie or terrible turkey burgers
Just because you’re not eating red meat doesn’t mean that a burger is going to be light in the calorie department when you’re dining out. Smothered in sauces, cheese and bacon, the turkey version can add up to be just as many calories as a regular burger. For instance, at Ruby Tuesday’s, the classic burger comes in at 1,066 calories, whereas the turkey burger still hits 866, and the avocado turkey burger bangs out 1,088—more than the regular burger! Red Robin’s turkey burger logs in at 704 calories, an improvement for sure, but not exactly a light meal (and the salmon burger comes in at 745).

FBG tip: Go for a burger if you want it, but if you’re trying to lighten the load, opt out of special sauces, cheeses and the addition of other fatty meats.

Treacherous taco salad

Credit: pointnshoot

Really, watch out for any salad at a restaurant because you just never know what tricks will be thrown in. But when in a Mexican restaurant, watch out for the treacherous taco salad. With a deep-fried crunchy shell and loads of sour cream and guacamole, your salad is probably packing quite the caloric punch. A Taco Bell Fiesta Taco Salad comes in at 820 calories. Ordering Fresco style, though, which includes beans, beef, lettuce, tomato and salsa, and nixes the sour cream, shell and tortilla strips, knocks the count down to 270. (In fact, order anything Fresco style at Taco Bell, and you’re making your meal lighter by a long shot.)

FBG tip: When and if ordering a taco salad, try to customize. Ask them to hold off on sour cream, go light on cheese and any dressing, and even have them hold the shell if you think you’ll devour it all. Or, get all of the extras on the side if it’ll help you monitor your meal.

Fishy products

Credit: rick

You think you’re being so healthy not eating red meat when you order fish. But think again. If you’re ordering a tuna salad sandwich at Subway, for instance, you’re clocking in 530 calories because all that mayo ratchets up the caloric cost. Why go with mayo-laced tuna when you could go for any of the eight Subway sandwiches that come in at 370 or less?

FBG tip: Opt out of fish if it’s smothered in mayo or battered, deep fried and served with “chips.”

Light Peril
While you’re almost guaranteed to be doing better if you go for a restaurant’s light fare, sometimes the calories are still higher than you’d like to think. Plus, we’ve read some news that sometimes these “light” menu items actually have more calories and fat than are claimed on the menus.

FBG tip: Opt for the light items when available, but keep in mind that the calorie count still depends on the person making the meal. Another good reason to dine in! —Erin

For a great reference for deceptive dining, check out Hungry Girl’s Chew The Right Thing section where Lisa Lillien shows healthy alternatives for disastrous menu items.

St. Patrick’s Day is one of the few holidays that people use as an excuse to party—whether they’re actually Irish or just celebrating their faux-Irish descent. Whether you’re as green as a leprechaun or just a wannabe Irish bloke or lass, celebrate right this St. Patty’s Day, the FBG way!

Green beer
Green food coloring doesn’t add calories to beer, so drink up. Just remember, a 12-ounce glass of a cold light beer has about 110 calories. And while Guinness may seem like it would be a heavier beer, a hunt through the web had conflicting numbers. An article from a head brewmaster, though, put a pint of Guinness at 125 calories.

Potatoes and Cabbage
Skip the French fries and celebrate St. Patty’s Day by eating some mashed potatoes. As fitness guru Denise Austin let us know, potatoes are a powerhouse food. While they may have gotten a bad rap during the Atkins anti-carb phase, the Idaho Potato Commission recently revealed that the potato was the favorite American veggie, chosen by 26 percent of Americans. At approximately 25 cents per potato, each 5.3 oz spud has only 110 calories, contains zero fat and zero cholesterol, provides 45 percent daily value of vitamin C, and also nourishes the body with potassium, fiber and vitamin B6. And if you have any doubt about the importance of the potato, read about the Irish Potato Famine for convincing. Cabbage is also a great choice, with gobs of vitamins K and C, as well as fiber, folate and Omega 3s.

Burn it off
Just five minutes of an Irish step dance will burn off almost 24 calories (based on a 140-pound non-leprechaun), so do a jig on the street or hit a dance floor to make up for the beer. I’m not sure how many calories you can burn by playing darts, which are apparently a big hit in Ireland, but from past experience, I know you can get a sore arm or elbow out of that endeavor.

If you’re going to any type of parade—if you have to fight the crowds and park far away just to get there—even if you walk at a snail’s pace, you will burn 53 calories in 20 minutes. If you walk home, as you should if you’re a bumbling, stumbling fool, you’ll burn 120 calories if it takes you 30 minutes to weave your way home. If you’re actually in the parade walking, give yourself more calorie-burn props for waving enthusiastically.

Whether you choose to get your drink on, walk a parade route or just wear some green, have a safe, festive Irish-inspired day! —Erin (go Bragh!)

Want non-St. Patty’s news? Check out whether to munch after a workout and new fishy findings.

Photos grabbed from SpaceAgeSage, psd and Seamus Murray at Flickr.