It's one thing to know, intellectually, that eating a lot of fast food is probably not your healthiest choice. It's another thing entirely, though, to flip through a book that lists nutritional values and see what you're actually getting when you order that tasty treat.
Former Brigham Young University professor Steven G. Aldana, who wrote the best-seller "The Culprit and the Cure," gets his message across using a stoplight to show, graphically, what's good and what's not. "The Stop & Go Fast Food Nutrition Guide" (Maple Mountain Press, $6.95) briefly and clearly explains why good nutrition is important — and even what good nutrition is, or is not. The introduction also talks about the fast-food merchants who are trying to change, offering healthier choices and dropping bad-for-the-body trans fats from their menu.
"There are two diet patterns that appear to either cause or prevent chronic diseases," Aldana writes. "The diet pattern associated with the best health is called the prudent diet. The diet that is most unhealthy is called the Western diet. 'Western' refers to countries that have become Westernized — basically the industrialized nations of the world that are a lot like America. This Western diet is fairly typical of what most Americans eat, especially those who eat a lot of fast food."
Those popular food items, he says, include red meat, french fries, refined flours, butter, processed meat, high-fat dairy products, few fruits and vegetables, and lots of sweets and desserts.
But the book's main event is the breakdown of the menus of more than 100 fast-food restaurants, each menu item color-coded either red (hit the brakes), yellow (use caution) or green (go for it).
Although it's a fast-food guide, we're not just talking McDonald's or Wendy's-style places. The book features Denny's, Chili's, Golden Corral and others, as well.
The listings by the individual items show the serving size, number of calories, grams of total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium and dietary fiber.
That way, if you are sincerely trying to make healthier food choices and you find yourself at the drive-through window of a favorite eatery, you can glance at the book and pick out something green — if there is something green. Most of the restaurants featured do have some healthy fare, but not all of them. At Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Kreme, for example, the book shows a sea of red because of the fats. The two, in fact, share a distinction in this handy little guide: With the exception of a couple of drinks on the Krispy Kreme menu, they're red, red, red. A lot of other restaurants lean heavily toward the red, too, but there are nearly always at least a few green offerings that Aldana deems heart and body friendly.
Aldana is now an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois School of Medicine and is CEO of www.wellsteps.com.
E-mail: lois@desnews.com