Over the last year, Steve Loyd has done the near impossible: He has lost 50 pounds.
Using his smart phone and an app to keep track of every calorie that went into his stomach, Steve was able to whittle down his weight.
But he ran into snags when the app didn’t have nutrition information for certain foods, including his favourite Vietnamese pho.
The pho presented a problem because I really had no idea how good or bad it was and I really try to stay away from guessing,” he explains.
So Steve asked The Dish for help.
I’ve been avoiding one of my favourite lunches because I have no idea what to enter. If I look up pho noodle soup in my tracking software, I see a range from 400 to 1,200 calories.
Steve’s favourite pho comes from The Sprout, a neat and narrow restaurant near Yonge St. and St. Clair Ave. W. that proclaims cheerfulness with refreshing lime green decor. All a-bustle during a weekday lunch, Sprout offers up many kinds of pho. A takeout order comes quickly in two Styrofoam containers; one with noodles, a handful of sprouts and the meat or vegetable of choice, the other with steaming, savoury broth.
As per Steve’s request, we tested the rare beef pho with satay sauce. He was eager — yet also afraid — to hear the results.
He was right to be wary. This soup contains 644 calories, 8 grams of fat and 3,100 mg of sodium.
Steve’s reaction?
Holy cow that’s a lot of sodium! The fat and calories are not too bad, a little higher than I would have liked, but wow that sodium is out of control.
Registered dietitian Carol Harrison shares the exclamation marks over the sodium.
My first thought was ‘Oh, darn!’ because I love pho,” she says. “This just seems like a gratuitous over use of salt. No meal needs that much salt to taste good.
The calories and fat are completely reasonable for a meal. No qualms there, Harrison says. But the sodium should give any diner pause before ordering this pho. The staggering 3,100 mg — more than double what your body needs in a day — forces Harrison to give this meal an emphatic two thumbs down for its poor nutrition.
To help put the large sodium number into perspective, Harrison provides the following comparisons: The 3,100 mg is equivalent to 20 dashes with a salt shaker or one heaping teaspoon of salt or the sodium found in 10 small bags of potato chips.
This is why diners may feel parched after eating out. For your body to process that much sodium, you will feel a physiological response.
The high level of sodium and the refined carbohydrates in the noodles have a combined negative impact to push up blood pressure, Harrison says. She suggests diners ask for more vegetables in their pho to get more nutrients and beneficial complex carbohydrates. The beef does provide a good dose of protein, iron, zinc and B vitamins.
Harrison says it is time for restaurants to focus on lowering the sodium in their meals, noting that Health Canada predicts nine out of 10 Canadians will need medications to manage blood pressure if sodium consumption continues to rise.
Sodium is an issue for everyone,” she says. “When you consume too much fat, your jeans get tight. You can feel the effects. With sodium, it’s harder to feel the negative impacts. The damage is being done inside your body, something you can’t see.
Steve says knowing the nutrition numbers of his favourite rare beef pho will help him make room for the soup in his diet. Even with its astounding amount of sodium.
Once I take the guesswork out of the equation, I can plan around it,” he says. “We’re definitely talking a sometimes food here, and I might skip the satay sauce to try and take a little bite out of that sodium.
I can see it being a little reward for myself after doing a good workout and having had a good eating week. I wouldn’t want to have it more than once a month.
VERDICT: Sodium-full pho renders it a “faux-pas.
Rare beef pho with satay sauce
Serving size: 795 grams
Calories: 644
Fat: 8 grams
Sodium: 3,100 mg
Protein: 28 grams
Carbohydrates: 95 grams
