EATING OUT TIP: Cafe lunching

A quick cafe lunch is so trendy these days - stylish decor, trendy music and decedent foods. There's a different cafe on every corner throughout the city, all with so many delicious-sounding foods and drinks on the menu. Focaccias, BLT, quiches, iced-chocolate and mega muffins. We tend to love these cafe foods for all the wrong reasons - nutritionally speaking that is! So what are the best lunch choices to enjoy at your local cafe? Here's a bit of a guide to cafe menus.

Best Choices

• Frittata
• Salads - green, vegetable, legume or couscous-based
• Sandwiches or wraps - made fresh with lean grilled meats, tuna, low-fat cheese, chicken, egg, salmon or roasted vegetables
• Soup - vegetable, tomato-based or clear soups
• Antipasto or dips to share (NB - these are very kilojoule dense, so share them with a work colleague)
• Sushi
• Parcels made with filo pastry filled with vegetables and/or lean meat
• Pasta - tomato based sauce with vegetables and seafood/chicken/lean meat.
• Risotto
• Vegie burger made with roasted vegetables (hold the fries and enjoy a salad instead)
• Grilled chicken or lean beef burger - without heaps of salad and no bacon or cheese (again hold the fries)

Choices to limit

• Quiches and pastries
• Creamy salads such as Caesar salad
• Cream-based soup
• BLT and chicken schnitzel burger
• Quesadillas and nachos
• Creamy pasta sauces
• Garlic and herb bread
• Focaccia

Pastries are high in saturated fat, especially the ones made with puff pastry over filo pastry. And when they are filled with fatty cheese and meat the kilojoules sky rocket. A creamy quiche is rich in eggs and also has a nice kilojoule-laden pastry crust. Top it with regular cheddar cheese and you've got yourself a nice little fat trap. Mexican dishes can be extremely high in fat and kilojoules, especially after you have added the cheese, sour cream and guacamole. The vegetable frittata is a better option out of these foods as it is high in protein, is a source of fibre and contains less kilojoules.

With salads, ask for your dressing on the side so you can control how much goes on your salad and around your waistline. Chefs love to drown food in oil and creamy dressing, and there tends to be a stack more dressing than you really need on salads. Here's a tip, if there is an oily layer on the salad there's a tad too much dressing.

Yummy focaccias, BLTs, burgers and schnitzels are hard to pass by and appear on not only cafe menus, but also on the menus of pubs, bistros and even some restaurants. There is always a healthier way to order a burger or sandwich - ask for small amounts of cheese, get them to hold the bacon, give you a side of salad instead of fries and put the creamy mayo on the side instead of covering the burger. You could also share a burger with your work colleague and order a side of something else to share.

With pastas and risottos, choose a tomato-based sauce and select the entree size. also you don't have to eat it all in one go. If you can't finish it, you could ask for a dodgy bag and take it home for tomorrow's lunch or simply leave - it's better in the waste than around your waist! Happy lunching.