Chinese food traditionally in the United States is made with a lot of extra oil as well as sauces. So it's a double whammy. What happens is things such as broccoli, a lot of vegetables act like tiny little sponges. What happens is when they are preparing the food in oil, it absorbs all that extra fat and then they're pouring the sauce on top of it. So if you're to look at some nutrition analysis that happens on Chinese food. They can clock in anywhere between 1,000 and over 1,600 calories per dish. They can range anywhere from 20 to over 75 grams of fat.

But here is what you can do, if you order your food steamed, which many people do, and then you put the sauce on the side, you use the fork method, which is dipping your fork in the sauce and then spearing your food, this way you are eliminating all the extra oil and you're using the sauce sparingly. But an even more creative suggestion that I tell a lot of my clients is if you order the same food, steamed, you order hot and sour soup on the side and what you do is you take a little bit of the hot and sour soup and pour it on top of the steamed dish that you've ordered, mix it up and you'll get the same saucy flavor and texture without all the extra fat. One side of hot and sour soup is only about 100 calories and 4 grams of fat. So even if you use half of that soup, you'd have eliminated all of that extra, er, the excess calories and fat.

One of the suggestions that I have at Chinese restaurants are soups. What you notice on the Chinese menu is that they have pints and quarts. Even the pint size is a large, is large enough for a meal, they are broth based, they have added vegetables; there are some noodles in it, so if you are watching carbohydrate intake, you can always take some of that away.

And if you order something like the seafood, vegetable soup, there are shrimp; there is, ah, crab meat, sometimes it's imitation crab meat, er seafood, which is generally low in calories, virtually fat free and it has all the extra vegetables that are in it. And the broth is very filling. So something like a pint of a special tea soup at a Chinese restaurant is a great choice. One of the nice treats at a Chinese restaurant is the fortune cookie. It's less than 30 calories and 1 gram of fat. So it's something that you can enjoy easily at the end of your meal.

For more tips and tricks on how to dine out healthily, be sure to click on the other videos in our special series, and log on to my website at www.nutrifactsforyou.com.

1. whammy:n. evil-eye, jinx, spell (Slang) 晦氣, 劇烈的打擊

2.broccoli:n. type of green vegetable which resembles cauliflower 綠花椰菜

3. broth:n. clear soup made from concentrated meat or fish stock原汁清湯, 肉湯

4.carbohydrate:n. class of organic compounds of carbon hydrogen and oxygen 碳水化合物, 醣

5. intake: n. taking in; opening through which fluid is taken in (i.e. mouth of a pipe); something which is taken in or received; narrowing, contraction 攝取量