Jessica Messinger: 'Eat This, Not That!' promotes healthier eating

If you are like the thousands of Americans trying to watch your weight but tend to eat mainly at fast-food chain restaurants and are totally clueless about nutrition, then this book is for you. "Eat This, Not That!" by David Zinczenko, helps make the decisions for you.

The idea of this book is to advise you in your eating choices at select restaurants and fast-food chains.

Equipped with pictures, it shows you that, for instance, you could eat a Big Mac with 540 calories instead of a Whopper with cheese that has 760 calories.

Interesting facts from the book include:

• Chick-fil-A gets an A-plus for having nothing over 500 calories. Pizza Hut sits at the bottom with a D-minus with slices of pan pizza hitting 650 calories per piece.
• The worst steak: A Lonestar 20-oz. T-bone coming in at 1,540 calories. Add a baked potato and lettuce wedge and you've got a 2,700-calorie meal.
• At KFC -- eat three crispy strings plus beans plus corn on the cob (total 470 calories) -- not a Famous Bowl at 750 calories.

The author has analyzed not only restaurants but grocery aisles, holidays and special occasions and then tells you what to eat and what to avoid.

For good measure, and helpful to many I'm sure, he also offers tips for channeling nutrition into everyday moods such as post-workout foods, hangover cures, aphrodisiacs, restless evenings or memory improvement.

The book is simple to navigate with the left page being the "Eat This" page, offering a marquee dish and two or three tips or facts. While the right page is the "Not That" page, expounding the antithesis of the opposite page.

This book is just simply facts encouraging hungry folks to wisely navigate a menu or supermarket.

So as we approach the long days of summer with cookouts, parties and the beach, grab this book as a guide to help you make the best possible choices.

Stick it in your pocket (if they are big enough), in your purse, or leave it in the car, either way this is the book to have when you don't want to diet but simply make the right choices.

Be on the lookout for "Eat This Not That! for Kids!: Be the Leanest, Fittest Family on the Block!" releasing Aug. 19, 2008.

Jessica Messinger is the manager at Empire Books and News at Pullman Square in downtown Huntington.