Great healthy eating in Germany?

Wiener schnitzel and brats are not healthy healthy foods??? Who knew!!!

I enjoy whatever seasonal veggies are on special. My favorite being Pfifferlingen mushrooms. They will have these in sauces or risottos. I like salads that have sauteed oyster mushrooms and rucola, with parmesan shavings. Many people enjoy the white asparagus when it is in season, but I am not a fan of it. You will find big salads with sauteed turkey, or tuna fish, or ham, sort of like chef salads, tho they never give you a dressing option. You will find boiled potatoes, spinach, cabbage sort of dishes (wirsing), leeks, red sour cabbage, or brussels sprouts as side dishes.

If you were going to be in Frankfurt, I would tell you to try their specialty, Green Sauce, as this is my favorite menu item here. This is a sour cream / joghurt mix with 7 different herbs in it, like chives, parsely, kress, etc. served over boiled potatoes, and most often with a hard boiled egg or 2. If you like baked potatoes with sour cream and chives then you will enjoy this. There is Frankfurt schnitzel too, which has this sauce on it. I order this all the time when I go out, always looking for the place that has the best recipe.

You might want to take a look on the menu for the vegetarian options, as these can be a good choice. Every restaurant has these, as being vegetarian is very popular in Germany.

Other than that, you will probably be walking 10 times more than you do living in Texas and so, you can probably eat whatever you like, cause you will walk it off.

Jo, the Green Sauce sounds AWESOME! I've been eating sort of a modified South Beach -- low fat proteins with simple veggies and a few fruits and carbs. I am hoping to learn to read all the various fish types, too in my mediocre German. ;o)

LOVE these ideas! Any others?

Look for the little Turkish places. Although the well-known kebab isn't exactly health food, they'll usually have something very vegetable-heavy on the menu, like falafel and various salads.

If you travel in the spring, many restaurants will have a special "spargel" (asparagus) menu. There's usually a few healthy items here.

Of course, you can always ask for sauerkraut as a side dish, which is pretty low calorie. A warning about red cabbage, though. It may seem like an innocent side dish, but it's usually loaded with bacon and sugar... probably why it tastes so good...

Considering that the life expectancy for a German is 14 month longer than that of an American, the question, "Eating healthfully in the U.S." ought to me more to the point. How do you avoid the saturated fats and salt-laden food in American restaurants.

And, contrary to the obvious prejudice on this board, you don't have to eat vegetarian to be healthy. Pork Schnitzel is made from a much less fatty cut of meat than the ubiquitous beef in this country. My favorite in Germany is Zigeurner Schnitzel, a lean cut of port, topped with a tomato based sause with peppers and onions (lots of antioxidants).

Most dinners I've had in Germany have come with a "gemischter Salat", with two kinds of slaw, carrots, cucumber, tomato, etc.

I would, however, avoid the Pomme Fritz.

I love a small piece of schnitzel, so the comment about the lean cut is great. I've also seen breaded and not breaded schnitzels at German restaurants here in the states. In German, how would I know if they were breaded?

To add to Lee's comments, I found that a lot of the restaurants that I recently patronized in Germany served Pommes Frites instead of rice or potatoes. When ordering a nice Schnitzel or whatever, I was really looking forward to some roasted potatoes or perhaps rice, and was extremely annoyed to get French Fries. If I wanted French Fries, I would have gone to McDonald's!

I suspect the restaurants have adopted this practice as Fries are quicker and cheaper to produce. Using pre-cut frozen fries, they can prepare each order on demand in a few minutes (with few worries about "leftovers" or wastage). Perhaps they also think this is what diners want?

I did have a few really nice meals in Germany, but they tended to be a bit more on the "pricey" side.

I'll have a chat with a European-trained Chef that operates a restaurant here (probably tomorrow morning when I go for my weekly full English breakfast), as I'd like to find out why French Fries have become such a "staple" in Europe (I found much the same situation in Greece - don't get me started on the Chicken Souvlaki I was served on many occasions).

Cheers!

Rice would never be served with a schnitzel. Pommes (french fries), fried potatoes, or spätzle would be normal. Rice just isn't a popular option in most German places.

Seeing how french fries came from Belgium, it surely is not odd to see them here. In fact, some places do cut their own. Not a lot of places do that in the US. People just like eating them, I know I do. I enjoy Kroketten and Knödel too.

I see a lot of eggplant on menus, also zucchini, cauliflower, carrots, peas, & green beans.

As to the reason why people eat vegetarian, that is another whole discussion, better left to another forum besides a travel forum. We have no idea what Kelly eats usually, she just asked for some healthy food choices in Germany.

The price of meals in Germany are about the lowest I have found anywhere I have traveled in Europe and they are almost consistently good. I can count on one hand the bad meals I have had here the past 20 years. We seldom pay more than 8-12 euro for a meal, with 10 being average. If we go out at lunch, then the cost would go down to about 6-8 euro.

Jo,

"The price of meals in Germany are about the lowest I have found anywhere I have traveled in Europe"

I found the cost of meals in Germany were considerably lower than in Switzerland, but comparable to eastern France (the Alsace region). The prices in Italy were also quite reasonable.

The fact that Rice isn't popular in Germany explains why I didn't see it on the Menu too often. Still, it would have been nice if a choice was offered instead of French Fries. A baked or roasted potato would have been a better choice for me.

Cheers!

Ah, but I do love Spätzle. In southern Germany, particularly Bavaria, it's a staple.

Kelly, "breaded" is "paniert" in German.
It really depends of the kind of Schnitzel: Wiener Schnitzel is always breaded, Jägerschnitzel never.
When in doubt, just ask the waiter.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm - this is almost torture. Schnitzel, spaetzle, weiners...oh my! I love German food and yeah, after weeks in Germany you realize how it is a challange to eat healthy (or at least healthier).

Salads are really your best friend. I had to just force myself to forgo the "Pork Medallions in onion gravy" every so often for a salad just so my colon would get some fiber!

I had one of the most memorable salads in St. Goar, Germany. It was lettuce with beans, asp, green beans, tomatoes and a really nice dill dressing! I wish I could go back tomorrow and have it again.

I'm not a big meat eater so when eating out in Germany/Austria/Switzerland I always order what I call "surprise salads". These are just listed as salads, and sometimes the menu will describe them as having sauerkraut or macaroni or something else in them. I call them surprise because if you start poking around you find all sorts of other salads within the salad--potato salad, bean salad, tomato salad, the other items I already mentioned... They are always fresh, healthy and good, and every restaurant does them a bit different so I don't get sick of them.

See what you people have made me do? Now I have to go down to the local German restaurant to satisfy the cravings you have incited in me. MMmm, spaetzel, jagerschnitzel, zigeunerschnitzel, rahmschnitzel...

A baked potato is rarely seen in Germany. Why? Because it includes the skin, which is usually not served to people. The potatoes were peeled and the skins fed to the pigs, so potato skins were considered "pigs food".

However, things are changing. When I first went to Germany, you never saw corn (maize) on the menu, because corn was also considered animal food. Recently I've seen corn, usually as part of a gemischtes Salat.

When I am on European trips, I usually walk so much, that I end up losing weight even though I am eating quite a bit of food with lots of fat. I took the RS Village Italy tour last year, the food was good, but very few vegetables. Whenever I had to buy my own meal (not all meals are included on the tour), I had a big salad. It was quite comical because many of us on the tour were looking for salads by the middle of the trip!!! I always try to buy some fresh fruit that will travel well in my daypack, like apples. I snack on fruit at home and I was really missing it.

I think you should just go for it, two weeks is just two weeks. If you are walking a fair bit, you may keep even weight or even lose some as I usually do. Save healthy eating for home and enjoy the wonderful wursts and desserts in Germany.

I tend to avoid fast food places here in America and I don't eat pork at all but will be spending a total of eight days in Germany while in Europe this Sept. Any advice on what I can have other than pig meat? I already know they have wonderful salads and such, but I'd like to have some animal protein sometime!

Depending on what part of the country you are in... I love roullade (sp?), which are rolls of beef, sometime wrapped around a pickle. In the north, you can often find herring or eel dishes, whereas trout and carp are more common in the south. One of the traditional foods of Oktoberfest is spit-roasted chicken.

I don't mind pork, but don't like to eat it too often. I spent 12 days in Germany and had salmon at least half of my dinners.

While German cuisine is known for its pork dishes there are also some very traditinal and tasty beef dishes. Tom mentioned already Rouladen, thin strips of beef rolled up, usually with a pickle, some onion and/or bacon inside. We also love Sauerbraten which is beef marinated in wine and vinegar for several days before cooking. YUMMY!!!!

For affordable and mostly healthy fish dishes look out for the "Nordsee" chain of fast food restaurants. They sell a variety of buns and sandwiches filled with fish and veggies. And in many cases the fish in those is not fried.

For fish, you will often find trout (forellen) on menus, as it is quite popular. Also Zander, which I think is pike.

Turkey and chicken are everywhere, either sauteed on salads, medallions with sauce, in ristotto or in cream sauces over noodles or späztle. Beef steak will be found on menus or something called Tafelspitz, which is a piece of boiled beef. Schnitzel may also be veal.