How to Eat Healthy Thai Food While Eating Out

Thai cuisine, known for rich ingredients and robust, spicy flavors, can be purchased throughout the United States. Although Thai dishes are often made with fresh produce, well-known dishes often contain fried meats and other fattening ingredients. When you are watching your weight, you must aware of the ingredients used to prepare your preferred Thai dishes. With careful planning, however, you can experience the culinary delights Thai cuisine offers without consuming extra and unhealthy calories.

Instructions

• 1

  Order low-fat appetizers such as fresh Thai summer rolls. Summer rolls are made with fresh, crispy ingredients such as cucumber, lettuce and herbs, and steamed in rice wrappers, rather than fried. Thai restaurants serve "satay" meats, meat grilled without oil, which can be accompanied by sweet or spicy dipping sauces. You can also order salads, instead of fattening soups. The well-known shredded papaya salad contains carrots and herbs. Thai green mango salad contains raw mangoes and shallots. Both salads use a fat-free lime vinaigrette dressing.

• 2

  Skip entrees with fried meats, noodles, coconut milk and peanuts. To be on the healthier side you can order cashew chicken because the dish contains raw nuts, which have healthy fats such as omega-3 fatty acids. You can also order healthy entrees from the vegetarian section of the menu such as vegetables stir fried in garlic or steamed seafood dishes. For dishes that contain coconut milk and peanuts, tell the waiter that you don't want such ingredients added to your dish and ask about alternative, low-fat ingredients.

• 3

  Avoid dessert. Unfortunately, there's no way to get around the calories in Thai cuisine's most famous desserts, sticky rice with mango, which contains more than 500 calories per serving, and fried ice cream. To curb your sweet tooth after dinner, order a glass of Thai iced tea, an anise-flavored black tea sweetened with condensed milk, which contains around 200 calories per serving.