22.

Pub Grub: Yes or No

Everyone loves to eat out, to indulge themselves on something delicious.
But some pubs have been claiming that they’re changing, that they’re healthy and suitable for any diet.

I am not one to believe this.
To me, pub food is and will always be stodgy, and something to eat when you need cheering up.

There are always ways to make your meal healthier when you’re eating out; some are listed below thanks to NHS Change4Life:

•         Try swapping fried rice for steamed rice, or fried noodles for boiled noodles. You could take this one step further and go for steamed dished on the menu containing vegetables, chicken or fish.
•         Dishes made of tomato or vegetable sauces usually contain less fat than ones with creamy sauces. Try swapping your usual curry for a madras or tandoori dish when you’re eating out.
•         When you’re having pizza, swap your usual cheese stuffed crust with a thin, crispy crust instead and choose lower fat toppings such as chicken, prawns and vegetables.
•         When picking a starter, change your usual fried starter like prawn toasts for something like soup. Soup will contain less fat and will fill you up, which means you’re less likely to eat your entire main course.
•         If you usually have an alcoholic drink with your meal, choose the smaller size! This way you will most likely drink less, which means less calories, and you might save a few pennies too.
•         If you’re eating out, some restaurants offer free refills of fizzy drinks with your meal. This makes it easier for you and your children to consume more calories and more grams of sugar. Try asking for a jug of water on the table instead of refills, this is free too!
•         You don’t always have to miss out on your favourite take-aways. When you really are craving good grub, swap for the ‘low fat’ option.

To explore the Pub world further I spoke to Simon Pick, the owner of the pub, The Plough, Littlethorpe.  I asked him all about his food and the health industry, our conversation goes as follows:

“Do you think that your food is healthy?”
Simon replied: “I think it is. You can always improve things, but we always try and get things like sour cream, all of our dips, low fat.
“I don’t think that when people come here for a meal they generally think about the health aspects of the food, they just want to come out and stodge."

I asked: “Has anything changed in the industry recently?”
He said: “The industry has become a lot tougher, and no one makes as much money as they would do, it is very competitive.
“Everyone has to have an angle to get customers in, our angle is that everything is home cooked, we don’t buy any of our meals in, this means that we can get away with charging slightly more for our meals.

“There has also been a legislation change in allergens. On our menu’s we now have to state that if you do have an allergy, you can ask and we will tell you whether our food contains it.
“We don’t all have to know what every meal contains but we must be able to find out. That is the only thing that has changed massively, the most prominent thing.”

I also asked: “I know that schools have had to be governed, they have had to change salt content and include vegetables in every meal. Has anything like that changed in the pubs?”

Simon replied: “We are not governed like in schools. However, we do get customers asking to put no salt on their chips. Because everything is homemade, we can change how much salt is in our cooking.

“Because every batch of our food is different, the pies for example, one may have a little bit more salt in than another. So a customer may come in one time, have a pie, and say it has too much salt in, and then come in another and say it is perfect.
“Salt content is something that we are very much aware of and we can also advise about.”

My last question was: “Is the food market in pubs really competitive around here?”
Simon said: “Around here, it is very competitive. Every pub or eatery has a different angle. Ours is that all of our food is homemade.
“The Narborough Arms is cheap and cheerful; you get what you pay for. The Dovecote is higher end than other pubs in this area, and is more of a dining experience and they do charge a little more than the rest of us. And finally the last one is Spice 45 and that’s completely different as it is a curry house.

“We have recently had to put our prices up because of the competition around the area. This is the first time we have had to do it in 18 months.”

If you do want to go out for healthy food, there are healthier options that you can pick. However, if you are on a health kick, then steer clear of the pubs. Yes, go out and enjoy yourself as much as you can, however, if you do want to tone your body and lose some weight, the pub is not the way to go.

http://www.nhs.uk/change4life