How to Eat Healthy at Red Lobster

Seafood just ain't what it used to be. On the one hand, we hear our diets need the Omega-3s found in fish. On the other hand we hear that since PCBs and mercury levels in fish are too high, maybe we shouldn't eat it. If you love seafood, and want to eat healthy at Red Lobster, here are some ideas about what menu choices you should make.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Choose the Apple-Walnut Chicken Salad and make life easy. You won't find high mercury levels in this dish. Field greens, grilled chicken, sundried tomatoes, apples, toasted walnuts and blue cheese with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing are not only somewhat healthy but tasty, too.
2. Try Red Lobster's Lighthouse Menu. Order grilled chicken breast and sides of steamed broccoli, without the butter or cheese sauce, and wild rice pilaf.
3. Order the tilapia fish on the Lighthouse Menu and the sides mentioned above. Tilapia has one of the lowest mercury levels of all fish.
4. Select salmon from the Lighthouse Menu if you're not a woman of child-bearing age or a child, and enjoy it. You do need the Omega-3 oils after all. A little fish added to your diet once a week or so may be better than no fish at all. Salmon is one of the better choices.
5. Enjoy shrimp and crab without the melted butter dip. However, be cautious about the lobster; Northern American lobster has mercury levels close to those in canned tuna.
6. Take a good fish oil that has high standards of purity before going to the restaurant so you won't feel tempted to get your Omega-3s from the fish. See the Resources section below for fish oil sources.
7. Do grilled. Avoid deep fried and loads of butter, which can be found in abundance at Red Lobster. Stay away from the white breads, alcoholic beverages and desserts.
8. Enjoy the ambiance of Red Lobster: the dark wood, sea nets, sea shells and live lobsters in the aquariums. Reminisce about how not long ago our oceans were not so polluted, and we could enjoy eating shellfish and deep sea fish almost with abandon.

Tips & Warnings

• A 2004 FDA advisory warned people to not eat Shark, Swordfish, King Mackerel or Tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury.