Dining Out? Personalize Your Food.

They may not have a meal named after me at the restaurants I frequent, but they might as well. More than twice, separate waiters have commented on having seen my personalized food order in the kitchen and thinking that the person ordering must be a bit…er…picky? But, come on, I happen to love Claim Jumper, which is pretty much the LAST restaurant you want to go to as a someone who “watches” what she eats (by the way, where does the phrase “watching” what you eat come from? If I spent more time watching what I ate instead of eating it, I wouldn’t be in this predicament, would I?!). But I have found the perfect meal and I will share it with you here:

The Veggie Burger minus the cheese, no mayo, no butter, and swap the wheat bread for squaw (I don’t think their version of wheat bread is “whole wheat” and squaw bread tends to have more whole wheat flour – plus it’s delicious!). Get fruit on the side instead of fries (or a green salad with light dressing and no croutons). They use Boca patties as their veggie patties, which I know happen to contain 70 calories. Apparently they cook the patty in a tablespoon of olive oil (110 calories and yes, I asked what they cooked it in). Squaw bread is typically 90 calories a slice (or less), total 180 calories for bread, cucumber, onion and lettuce total in at about 65 calories, and 260 for avocado (they put about half an avocado, I’d say), that comes to a grand total of 685 but that is a very generous estimate, and you can see that the majority of the calories come from the avocado which you can either eat less of or eye ball to see how much they gave you. It’s highly probable that they will only give you a quarter of an avocado’s worth on your sandwich and that would cut 130 off the total calories. Just so you know, I eat the whole darn thing! It’s my favorite meal and if I for some odd reason can’t finish it, I take it home and eat it cold later.

By the way, Claim Jumper is one of the few national restaurant chains that have still not posted their nutritional information online. This is why it’s really hard to know what to eat when you go there.

This is what the sandwich looks like:

This is what my boyfriend ate (just so you can see that I can indeed commiserate with you if you tend to have temptation at every reach!):

Alright…I’m getting cranky….

Anybody else have any tips on what to eat when they go to Claim Jumper? (Calorie estimates, too!)

Tags: Boca burger, calories, Claim Jumper, dining out, food, healthy food, healthy living, nutritional information