Why fine dining may be a health hazard

[n2doc]

Jill Stark
December 6, 2010


Photo: Harry Rekas
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.

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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.

more
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/why-fine-dining-may-be-a-health-hazard-20101204-18ksv.html


It used to be that eating out was for special occasions only....

[rfranklin]

1. They mention businessmen, not family dinners....

I remember a sea change in business lunches back in the early 1980s. Younger people in the advertising business did not have three martini lunches which had been common previously. Suddenly lunches were salads and sparkling waters. But the steak house is still popular among many business execs and a few of those a week will do you in.

[TNDemo]

2. And sometimes you just get tyoe II diabetes

because it's genetic and you are skinny and eat healthy.

I guess all restaurants use a lot of fat but the fine dining ones start with something healthier before they fry it.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. The "gourmet" theory was the flavor is in the fat.

Butter, oil, melted animal fat (duck, chicken, beef, pork, etc.).

I was thinking of making a simple cream of turkey soup recipe from a cookbook put out by the Culinary Arts Institute in the Eighties and you have 3 cups of turkey stock, 2 sticks of butter, and 2 cups of half-and-half. A far better choice would be the stock, cooked with grated potato, a dab of butter if desired.

Fine dining does taste very good but regular consumption of such cuisine is why some people become diabetic, develop gout and/or high blood pressure. My father is a retired cardiologist and found that not everyone will "deteriorate" from eating fine dining, but do you want to take that risk.