What's your favorite sit down chain for healthy eating? I love Ruby Tuesday because their salad bar is GREAT and then they have good main dishes too. I also like the Outback for their salads and their grilled mahi-mahi.

I love both of those chains. After Outback, my favorite is Applebees. I love their sea food. - And their Perfect Margarita. That's healthy eating isn't it? <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Seafood is healthy. I suppose if it was a strawwwwwberry margarita that sounds healthy to me <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

- while not "technically" a sit down chain, Whole Foods grocers prepared food area ROCKS.....they will prepare almost anything low carb and the choices are practically unlimited.....the info on each food product is invaluable and it's like being at a festival! I love to go there for lunch with my low carb-ing friends and look for new low carb lunch ideas!

Great people watching as well!
(and if you go....don't miss the chair massage!)
It's BLISS!

Olive Garden's salads are my favorite. I can even get past the pasta and breadstix if I have one of their salads in front of me.

I do love Olive Garden's salads, those are delicious. Now remember to avoid the bread sticks though <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Just ask them not to bring them, that's easiest <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Red Lobster still tops my list! Anything seafood, and they'll steam pretty much everything on their menu!

Those cheddar biscuits are a BAD temptation though. <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue2.gif" alt="" />

Sizzlers has a great variety of salads. I agree cheese and cheddar biscuits are my downful.

I don't think there are any Sizzlers in New England ...?

I imagine it's the melty cheese and butter that you love about the biscuits - how about trying a dish that involves a veggies with melted cheese and butter instead?

I totally agree on the Whole Foods prep area! That is the most amazing place to grab food. it's all organic and range-free, with no transfats. Sometimes Dan and I will grab enough salads and meals for three or four meals and bring them home for later. It is super expensive so we can't do this often...but everything a person could want, hot or cold food, is there. I love the Indian Food options (Tandoori Chicken!)

Jilly - sometime, make a list of each of your favorite 3 things in that area. Write down the cost of each. Then see if it might be easy to make that at home in bulk, even if it means you stuff it in the freezer <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

it's a good thought but we both hate cooking. I would happily do without a kitchen, like the Romans did. I just hate dealing with food. I would rather do anything else than cook. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I am thinking to make bulk meals like you say, and cook once every two weeks or something, then just heat and serve. But it would all have to be easy stuff (not tandoori chicken) because I just don't like learning to cook. Aren't I weird?

(BTW, I only like cooking while backpacking. now that is even weirder).

I like Bertucci's for Italian. Their brick oven pizzas are delicious with fresh ingredients. Their salads are also very good.

Also like the low fat dishes at Chili's. And they have the best salsa ever. The tortilla chips are probably not so good for you.

I used to eat at many different places until I started looking up the nutritional values online. Very scary!

When I think of healthy restaurants, I think of the ones that actually prepare their foods from scratch. These are the ones we prefer because most big chains served processed foods. From what I understand, even Olive Garden's soup is brought in.

So we try to go places like PF Chang's, The Cheesecake Factory, etc where food is prepared on site.

Would love to know of others...

does mick sing for you ?

does Cracker Barrell count.. I love their grilled chicken... guess I should stay away from fried okra...

Well the Aspidistra in Llandrizzledod is quite nice, as long as you don't mind fat in your salad.

Eating out is not one of my favorite pastimes. I personally prefer to eat at home. Healthy options are truly hard to find. Even salads can be deceptive (due to the high amounts of sugars and fats in salad dressings).

I used to enjoy Ruby Tuesdays low-carb menu. They have done away with the extra low carb options, but still have healthy options (like broccoli on the menu). I had the salad bar last time we ate at Ruby Tuesdays. I find that I eat too much no matter how healthy the choices. I try to avoid all-you-can-eat restaurants and salad bars.

I would like to add that nothing tastes better than home cooked food. We always used fresh ingredients and plenty of herbs. It is quite difficult to find items like zucchini and spaghetti squash on restaurant menus. The downsides, of course, are that meal preparation is time consuming and cleaning up is just a pain.

I would also like to add, that I enjoy Wegmans salad and olive bars (true this is a bar, but their is portion control involved). :-) I especially enjoy their fresh mozarella and salad selections. Unfortuantely, the closest Wegmans is an hour away. Perhaps, Wegmans will some day find a home in northern NY.

Has anyone been to Bob Evans lately? They used to have nice salads and a fruit plate.

I think this is key. I actually don't mind cooking on the weekends, but we usually go out at least once because I just don't feel like cleaning up. I guess I need to recruit hubby for the weekend clean-up.. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Truthfully, though, it's nice to sit down and be waited on a bit when you're home with the kids all week!

My boyfriend is a great cook and does most of the cooking, so we'll eat out when he's not in the mood to do more cooking. I've been very pleased with the salad bars and non-potato side dishes that many restaurants now have. If I ask for my meal with veggies instead of french fries, they don't bat an eye, they say "sure thing!". I think that's an excellent improvement.