Registered dietician Andy De Santis speaks about what to consider when choosing to eat rotisserie chicken. <\/p>\n
Rotisserie chickens are a beloved grocery staple, celebrated for being a convenient option when you need a meal in a pinch. They\u2019re consistently tasty, easy to pair with a side, and are abundant enough to feed a whole family – or a single person who appreciates having several meals worth of leftovers.<\/p>\n
But a debate persists on message boards and health-oriented<\/a> websites: are rotisserie chickens actually healthy?<\/p>\n Lack of nutritional labelling<\/p>\n Elaine Zhang, a Vancouver-based registered dietitian, said that rotisserie chickens are often made in-store and are not always labelled with nutritional information. That can make it challenging to understand how much sodium is in the chicken through seasoning and brining. <\/p>\n \u201cHow much consistency is there? That\u2019s something I would be wondering about as a dietician,\u201d she told CTVNews.ca on Friday. \u201cOf course, I would encourage people to buy a raw chicken and to season it themselves, because you have better control of the condiments you use.\u201d<\/p>\n However, she acknowledges that many people don\u2019t always have time to cook, which makes rotisserie chicken a decent option for a lean source of protein, especially if the meat is used in other dishes like soup and stir-fry.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, it\u2019s a quick and easy option to explore,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if you have time, and you have the opportunity to tackle raw chicken, of course that will be better.\u201d<\/p>\n Context is key<\/p>\n Andy De Santis, a Toronto-based registered dietician, describes rotisserie chicken as a \u201cgood option for the right person.\u201d However, he acknowledges that it depends on the context of how it\u2019s consumed, and by whom.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s for a younger person who has high-energy needs and is very active, I don\u2019t know that you have to worry about that at all,\u201d he told CTVNews.ca in a Zoom interview on Friday. \u201cIf you\u2019re consuming it infrequently, I don\u2019t think you have to worry about it at all. <\/p>\n \u201c(But) if you\u2019ve been advised medically to moderate your saturated fat and sodium intake, and you\u2019re having it often, that\u2019s a different story.\u201d<\/p>\n Consider plastic packaging<\/p>\n One of the signature traits about rotisserie chickens, which adds to their convenience, is the packaging. Often, they come in a plastic dome container or a plastic bag. <\/p>\n Vanessa Hurley, a Barrie, Ont.-based registered dietitian at JM Nutrition, said use of plastics can have an impact on our overall health – from inflammation<\/a> to hormonal disruption<\/a>. That\u2019s why she recommends using less plastic if possible.<\/p>\n She said that while plastic packaging doesn\u2019t necessarily impact the nutritional value of food, some chemicals in plastics like phthalates can be found in products when they\u2019re tested. <\/p>\n \u201cYou kind of have to look at how much plastic you\u2019re consuming in a day, in terms of containers and foods that are packaged in plastics, and how much you\u2019re microwaving in plastic,\u201d she said. \u201cSo you\u2019ve got to look at the overall versus this one product.\u201d<\/p>\n Hurley added that people shouldn\u2019t use the plastic containers to reheat rotisserie chicken in the microwave \u2013 or any other type of packaged foods.<\/p>\n \u201cReady-to-go prepared meals anywhere contain plastics,\u201d she said. \u201cIt can be a big thing for families and individuals who are really relying on convenience like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Registered dietician Andy De Santis speaks about what to consider when choosing to eat rotisserie chicken. Rotisserie chickens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[10787,103,61,60,446],"class_list":["post-536372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-apple-news","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}