Your guide to healthy ethnic cuisine

Healthy eating doesn’t have to mean doing without dining out! These tips will help you make the best choices at different types of ethnic eateries.

Chinese cuisine:
Look for: Stir-fry or steamed dishes with lots of vegetables, steamed rice, poached fish, and hot and sour soups.
Avoid: Fatty spareribs, fried wontons, egg rolls, shrimp toast and fried rice. Remember that soy sauce is high in sodium.

Indian cuisine:
Look for: Dals (bean and lentil-based dishes), biryanis and pilafs (rice-based dishes), and naan and capitis (baked breads). Try the vegetable curries, salads with raita (shredded vegetables), tandoori chicken or fish, which are low-fat, tasty meals.
Avoid: Fried entrees, chapati, nan, kulcha, or roti breads. Avoid dishes made with coconut (a hidden source of fat and calories).

Russian cuisine:
Look for: Soups (shchi, borsch, ukha, rassolnik, okroshka), vegetable salads (such as vinegret), pelmeni, kashas, meat, poultry and fish dishes, studen’, shashlyk. Taste beverages: medovukha, kvas, sbiten, mors.
Avoid: Mayonnaise-based salads (such a s olivie). Do not fall on pies and pancakes (pirozhki, blini, syrniki, vatrushka)

French cuisine:
Look for: Steamed shellfish, roasted poultry, salad with dressing on the side, and sauces with a wine or tomato base.
Avoid: High-fat sauces (béchamel, hollandaise, béarnaise), croissants, pate, and rich pastries.

Greek cuisine:
Look for: Plaki (fish cooked with tomatoes, onions and garlic) and kabobs, in which the meat or poultry is broiled on a spit with tomatoes, onions and peppers.
Avoid: Dishes with large amounts of butter or oil such as baba ganoush (eggpland appetizer) and baklava (dessert made with butter, nuts and honey).

Thai cuisine:
Look for: Seafood-based dishes (e.g. steamed mussels), vegetable and noodle-based dishes, such as yum salads, steamed dumplings, soup (e.g. tom yum koong or tom yum kai), larb (meat-based salad), nam pla (as a sauce or dressing).
Avoid: Curries prepared with coconut milk or deep-fried foods.

Italian cuisine:
Look for: Marinara, marsala, clam sauce and pasta primavera with vegetables and a small amount of oil. Simply prepared fish and chicken dishes are also good choices
Avoid: Pasta stuffed with cheese or fatty meat and dishes with butter sauces.

Japanese cuisine:
Look for: Steamed rice, soba or udon noodles, yaki sobra (stir-fried noodles), shumai (steamed dumplings), tofu, sukiyaki, kayaku goban (vegetables and rice), yakitory (chicken teriyaki).
Avoid: Shrimp or vegetable tempura, chicken katsu, tonkatsu (fried pork), and fried tofu.

Mexican cuisine:
Look for: Fish, shrimp, and chicken with salsa made of tomato, chilies and onion. Order corn or flour tortillas as long as they are not deep fat fried.
Avoid: Dishes with large amounts of cheese, sour cream, guacamole and refried beans cooked in lard.

Vietnamese cuisine:
Look for: Pho (Vietnamese soup), lean salads with a wide variety of raw vegetables, and meats, fish and shellfish that are grilled, simmered, braised or stewed.
Avoid: Fried foods. Stay away from the popular fried spring rolls, fried fish and fried stuffed chicken drummettes.

Reference: Mayo Clinic (2002). Healthy meals for hurried lives.