This month: long John Silver's

Flex, Dec, 2008 by Jordana Brown

Dining at Long John Silver's may put you in the mood to live in a sea shanty. It's also apt to put you in the mood for food. The menu is stocked with fish of all sorts--from fillets to shellfish--but all cooked in just about one way: deep fried. That generally spells trouble for any diet, be it low fat or low carb. Still, after aiming our trusty spyglass at the tiny menu, we unearthed enough treasure to create a low-carb meal.

As far as our eye could see, there was only one item on the menu that wasn't fried. Two orders of baked cod comes to a perfectly acceptable 44 grams of protein with a mere 2 g of carbs. That leaves plenty of room for a choice: either round out your meal with an order of cole slaw (at 15 g of carbs) or truly treat yourself and marry your cod with three battered shrimp. Yes, they're fried, but they're also small, meaning the carb impact isn't too severe. Which, of course, is just what you need to keep your low-carb diet right on course.

ITEM               CALORIES  PROTEIN *  CARBS *  FAT *

2 baked cods         240         44       2         9

Cole slaw            200          1      15        15

TOTALS               440         45      17        24

                           OR

2 baked cods         240         44       2         9

3 battered shrimp    135          6       9         9

TOTALS               375         50      11        18

* in grams