Comments on: How To Eat Healthy In Restaurants: Advice from SF food critic Michael Bauer

By: Hannah

Hannah — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:04:55 +0000

Thanks for this timely post, Darya. These tips are sure to help me in my quest to find the balance between taste and health when eating out!

By: julie

julie — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 19:35:48 +0000

I’ve come to expect that I don’t finish my meals, so just bring a tupperware along with me. I don’t have to make extra trash, save servers a step, and have lunch for the next day.

By: Virginia Griffey

Virginia Griffey — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:07:31 +0000

I don’t feed leftovers to my dog, but I do need to take her for walks every day — no matter how lazy I’m feeling — so that’s how she helps keep me healthy.

By: Darya Pino

Darya Pino — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 03:58:43 +0000

The nice thing about the fancy places is that, as Bauer pointed out, they do a much better job with their portions. If you are having multiple courses it can get to be a problem though!

By: Darya Pino

Darya Pino — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 03:57:02 +0000

Great point Jennifer. The doggie health issue has been addressed in the NYTimes companion post as well as by Bauer himself on his own blog. He seems to know what he’s doing

By: Darya Pino

Darya Pino — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:20:49 +0000

Ha ha, he sent it to me. Cute aren’t they?

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:13:11 +0000

Hey Darya, howd you score an interview with MB?! And how did you get those pictures of his dogs?

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:46:23 +0000

Is that why it’s called a doggie-bag?

I think bagging extra portions early is a good idea. Often a dish will come and I will know that it is too much and say to myself, well I’ll just take the extra home. But by the end of the meal, the extra portion seems to have disappeared. If you ask for a to-go box as soon as your too large dish comes, you can box half right away.

Yeah, this can be tacky, especially in a fancy place. Maybe you can look at it as sending a not-so-subtle message about portion size to the chef. Or try to be a little subtle about it. But I think it’s worth the tackiness if you can avoid stuffing yourself silly.

By: jennifer

jennifer — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:38:19 +0000

This article was very interesting. I wish I lived somewhere like SF, rather than Texas where EVERYTHING (including portions) is bigger.

One thing I don’t agree with, however, is feeding leftovers to your dog. As a former editor on a pet magazine, I’ve seen a lot of people have problems with their dogs due to feeding them tablescraps and leftovers.

Dog owners should avoid feeding too much human food to their pets. Dogs have sensitive digestive tracts and human food doesn’t always agree with them. Also, dogs can become obese, just like humans, from eating too much people food. And if you–even accidentally–feed the wrong food to your dog (such as chocolate), it can become sick and/or die.

Dog food is formulated to be healthy for pets (if you buy the right brand, of course). That’s really all that a dog should be eating, aside from the occasional treat of people food.