What Are the Worst Appetizers?

I don't usually order appetizers in a restaurant unless I order one as a light meal. I have trouble finishing the gargantuan servings that you get in most restaurants nowadays without having more food beforehand. If I ordered an appetizer that's anything other than a salad, I'd be full by the time dinner arrived.

We Americans eat too much. We are becoming a nation of fatties and sometimes eating out can add a whole lot more calories, fat, and salt to our diet. They are a cheap way of making food taste good and if all the restaurants served greens and sprouts for their main courses, they'd soon be out of business.

So which appetizers are bad for you and which ones are good? According to WebMD, these are some of the worst appetizers for your waistline.

Bloomin' Onion: It doesn't matter what that fellow from the Outback says, blooming onions are the worst possible appetizer that you can eat. Yeah onions are a vegetable, but when you deep fry them the calories go through the roof. An average blooming onion has over 1500 calories, a whooping 83 grams of fat, and an even more astounding 5,500 mg. of sodium. That will jack your blood pressure up to stroke level in a matter of minutes.

Spinach Artichoke Dip: Another whooping 1500 calories in this one. And not to be outdone by the blooming onion, it has 100 grams of fat in it. Hey, why not have both?

A word about these "vegetable" appetizers. When I worked for Wendy's years ago, we needed something that was "healthful" to put on the menu. Back then, we just had burgers, fries, and chili. So we decided to put a taco salad on the menu. So you had a bed of lettuce topped with chili and chips, cheese, and a big dollop of sour cream. It was a cardiologist's nightmare, but people thought it was a healthy alternative to a burger because it had the word "salad" in it.

Cheese fries: The fat just keeps going up. These babies can have over 150 grams of fat and a whole day's amount of calories in them. Might as well skip the meal altogether.

Potatoes are a good vegetable other than being a little starchy, they pack a lot of nutrients. But when you take out the potato and stuff the skins with cheese, meats, and sour cream, you load on the fat, calories, and sodium.

Some other offenders on the worst appetizers list include: buffalo wings, Mozzarella sticks, and chili cheese nachos.

But if you still want an appetizer before dinner then all is not lost. Here are a few healthier alternatives: vegetable kabobs, beef skewers, crab cakes, stuffed mushrooms, vegetable soup, shrimp cocktail, and a spinach salad are infinitely preferable to a glob of deep fried fat.

Source: http://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-best-and-worst-appetizers