About Hazel Ng Hazel Ng, RD is the director of DSC Weight Management Program www.dscwellness.com who has helped thousands of people to regain their shape.  DSC is located at 889 San Gabriel Blvd., Sn Gabriel, CA 91776. She enjoys dining out with family and friends and she teaches her clients how to enjoy foods in a healthy way.  She strongly believes that sensible eating, not restrictive diets, is the key to a healthy and happy life.

Thai food is famous for its strong and rich flavor.  Although the major cooking methods for the Thai dishes are deep fried and stir-fried, a weight conscious eater can still dig his/her balanced meal choice out from the extensive Thai menu.  

Picking appetizers will be a bit challenging since most dishes are deep fried, such as fried calamari, fish/shrimp cake, spring roll, and Stuffed Chicken Wings.  However, healthy eaters can choose soup or salad as their starters.  For soup, “Tom Yum” is a hot and sour soup with mushrooms, lime juice and Thai chili paste.  It is a healthier choice compared with “Tom Kha” soup which is a hot and sour cream soup with coconut and cream.  Coconut is high in saturated fat which will adversely affect your cholesterol level.  If you are planning to have a meaty dish for your entrée, you may want to replace Tom Yum Goong (Shrimp) with tofu or vegetable.  Green Papaya Salad will be a good pick as a starter too because of its high fiber content.   

People who like spicy food will most likely pick Curry as their main course; however, curry is considered a higher fat dish because of its coconut and chili oil ingredients.  I suggest not finishing all the curry sauce to avoid too much saturated fat.  If you don’t like spicy foods, there are plenty of other choices for your entrée.  You can choose from chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, squid, or tofu and prepared with your choice of the seasoning.  Common Thai seasonings are Pad Prig Pao, a Thai Chili Paste and Pad Prew-wan, a Sweet & Sour sauce.  The healthier choice will be Ginger Sautéed, fresh garlic & black pepper and Thai Basil.

During summer time, a salad dish will be a refreshing choice as your main course.  For example, my favorites are Yum Woon Sen which is a glass noodle salad with shrimp, ground chicken, and chilies and lime juice dressing, and “Yum Talay” which is a Thai Style Seafood Salad.  Both of them are by themselves a well-balanced meal with grains, protein foods and vegetables all in one plate. 

Among the different noodle plates, noodles in soup will have less oil and calories than the Stir-fried noodles.  Glass noodles and thin rice noodles like “Pad Thai” and “Pad Woon Sen” are less fatty than “Pad Ke Maw”, the flat rice noodles.

Since there are so many varieties of great dishes from the Thai menu, I suggest to invite more friends to go with you and have a family dining style dinner so that you can have a chance to order different dishes, both the healthier dishes and the higher fat content dishes.  The key to enjoy great food is to share with your loved ones and to go moderate in portion size.