Eating Some Seafood Dishes Could Make You Fat

Quite often, people order seafood at popular restaurants thinking the fish is a healthier choice over pork or beef.

But according to David Zinczenko, the author of a popular series of books called "Eat This, Not That," several seafood dishes are loaded with hidden calories.

Fish dishes can be loaded with heart-healthy, brain-boosting omega-3 fats, and are high in protein, if they are broiled or poached. But deep fry those filets in batter and look out... the calorie count almost triples.

Below is a list of the worst dishes in America, according to Zinczenko, and a healthy alternative.

No. 7: Seafood Salad
California Pizza Kitchen’s Field Greens Salad with Sautéed Salmon
1,227 calories
15 g saturated fat
952 mg sodium

The menu touts this mound of oily produce as a blend of field greens, pears, and candied walnuts topped with salmon and Dijon balsamic vinaigrette. Sounds about perfect, right? But like nearly all of CPK’s salads, this thing harbors a furtive load of fat. CPK doesn’t provide the total fat count, but we do know that this salad packs in 75 percent of your day’s allotment of saturated fat. That’s more than you’d get if you ordered a Baconator cheeseburger at Wendy’s.

Eat This Instead!
Caesar Salad with Grilled Shrimp
649 calories
14 g saturated
1,338 mg sodium

Bonus Tip: We’ve also uncovered the nation’s worst chicken entrees, and you can find them all right here. (Some have more than 2500 calories and days' worth of saturated fat!)

No. 6: Pasta
Applebee’s Grilled Shrimp Pesto Alfredo Fettuccino
1,600 calories

Applebee’s has made it a policy to withhold nutritional numbers from its patrons, but thanks to legislation coming from progressive jurisdictions, the restaurant has been forced to cough up a few unflattering digits. That’s how we discovered this unhealthy bomb, a plate of shrimp and noodles blanketed under so much fatty Alfredo sauce that it manages to squeeze 80 percent of your day’s energy requirements onto one plate. Don’t blame the shrimp though-the curly crustaceans are actually one of the leanest forms of protein you’ll find. The key is to make sure you’re not fishing it from a sea of butter and cream.

Eat This Instead!
Applebee's Spicy Shrimp Diavolo
500 calories

No. 5: Non-Salmon Fillet
Romano's Macaroni Grill Parmesan-Crusted Sole (dinner)
1,710 calories
28 g saturated fat
3,360 mg sodium

Before it receives the Romano treatment, sole remains a nutritionally reliable standby. Red Lobster, for instance, sells an entrée that comes with a full fillet of sole with vegetable side at under 300 calories. So what’s the problem here? Oily breading, greasy rice, and a viscous butter sauce that helps give this thing as much saturated fat as seven Chocolate Frosted Cake Donuts from Dunkin Donuts. And as if that weren't enough, the dish has 150 percent of your day’s sodium intake. (Maybe they just forgot to wash off the salt water.) To the restaurant's credit, they've recently overhauled their menu, thanks to a new CEO, and now it boasts one of the healthier menus in the restaurant world.

Eat This Instead!
Lobster Ravioli
520 calories
17 g saturated fat
1,220 mg sodium

No. 4: Seafood Sandwich
Quizno’s Large Tuna Melt
1,740 calories
135 g fat (27 g saturated)
1,940 mg sodium

No sandwich receives more abuse than tuna salad. For some reason, sandwich shops just don’t think you’ll eat the tuna if they don’t churn it in a bucket of mayonnaise. Or maybe they just like the fact that mayo costs less than fish. Either way, it’s your health on the line, so you have every reason to be upset. Selling a sandwich with this much fat ought to require a warning label.

Eat This Instead!
Tuna Melt Bullet
525 calories
36.5 g fat (7 g saturated)
690 mg sodium

Bonus Tip: Think this is bad? Check out the sorry state of some sandwiches with this must-have list of the 30 Worst Sandwiches in America--along with much healthier options for each.

No. 3: Salmon Fillet
Cheesecake Factory’s Miso Salmon
1,757 calories
40 g saturated fat
2,748 mg sodium

Cheesecake Factory has a reputation for turning good meals into nutritional nightmares, and few entrees make that point more clearly than this one. Honestly-a piece of salmon with as much saturated fat as an adult should eat in two full days? (You’d be better off trying to eat a live piranha.) Go with the Simply Grilled Salmon instead-it’s one of the best items on Cheesecake Factory’s menu.

Eat This Instead!
Simply Grilled Salmon with Green Beans and Broccoli
710 calories
13 g saturated fat
787 mg sodium

No. 2: Fish & Chips
Cheesecake Factory’s Beer-Battered Fish & Chips
1,817 calories
23 g saturated fat
3,232 mg sodium

This makes two for Cheesecake Factory, only at least this entrée looks the part. That said, we haven’t seen another fish and chips entrée with even close to this many calories. The problem is that fat is the common nutrient uniting everything on this plate. The cod is blanketed with fatty breading, the fries suffer the same fate, and both the coleslaw and tartar sauce are built around a gooey base of mayonnaise. This positions this fish in the middle of a sea of beige and white foods, and that’s often a terrible sign.

Eat This Instead!
Cheesecake Factory’s Simply Grilled Mahi Mahi with Broccoli and Green Beans
517 calories
9 g saturated fat
844 mg sodium

Bonus Tip: Sign up to follow me on Twitter. I'll let you know when I come across new gut-busting dishes, so you can run the other way, and offer you life-changing health and nutrition secrets that you can apply to your life immediately! (For example, did you know switching from white bread to whole grain helps you lose twice the belly fat, according to a new Penn State study?)

No. 1: Worst Seafood Dish: Baja Fresh Breaded Fish Nachos
2,090 calories
116 g fat (41 g saturated, 4.5 g trans)
2,740 mg sodium

Granted, nobody expects nachos to make a lean meal, especially not when the meat on top is breaded. But would you really expect Baja Fresh to serve you something with more fat, sodium, and calories than you should eat in an entire day? Plus more than two days' worth of artery-clogging trans fat? Stick with the tacos instead. You can eat until you’re stuffed and still not get close the abysmal numbers in these nachos.

Eat This Instead!
American Mahi Mahi Soft Tacos (2)
480 calories
20 g fat (9 g saturated)
980 mg sodium

Bonus Tip: There’s plenty more where this came from! Head over to this 20 Worst Restaurant Meals story if you really want to be shocked. And save calories, time, and money by signing up for your FREE Eat This, Not That! newsletter.

For more information please check out David Zinczenko's article at Yahoo! Health.