The Best and Worst Takeout

Healthy and Delicious Choices

If you like THAI, go for:

• Thai-style chicken: It's loaded with vegetables and sometimes served in a hollowed-out pineapple. It's your five a day in one eye-catching meal.
• Summer rolls: usually wrapped in low-calorie rice paper and filled with bean sprouts and other steamed vegetables, shrimp and/or fish.

But Steer clear of:

• Peanut sauce: "It's delicious but loaded with fat," says Joan Carter, R.D., an instructor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and a trained chef.
• Thai tea: Sweetened with condensed milk and loaded with heavy cream or half-and-half, it's virtually a dessert.

If you like CHINESE, go for:

• Wonton soup: It's light, refreshing and flavorful. One caveat: it can be high in sodium, so be sure to drink a lot of water.
• Beef, chicken or shrimp with broccoli (heavy on the green stuff). Ask for the sauce on the side.
• Brown rice: It's richer in nutrients and higher in fiber than white rice, so you'll crave fewer fortune cookies.

But Steer clear of:

• Chow mein noodles and anything else that's crispy, crunchy and deep-fried, says Laura Olsen, R.D., a dietitian in private practice in Brooklyn.
• Sweet-and-sour pork: Underneath all that calorie-packed sweet sauce are big chunks of deep-fried pork.
• Kung Pao chicken: A typical order could be "garnished" with up to a half pound of cashews (read: 30 grams of fat).