“What Does the Dietitian Order?” @ IHOP

Reviewed February 17, 2011 by Anna Gewecke, MS, RD, LDN

4 out of 5 Forks

My husband wanted sausage on a Thursday night, and I was game for breakfast for dinner, so we decided to go to IHOP. I ordered the garden omelet because of the number of vegetables it includes (mushrooms, onion, green pepper and tomato), because it has plenty of protein, and because it comes with pancakes. I could have gotten fresh fruit instead, but I really like pancakes! Many breakfast choices don’t contain veggies, and eating these as much as I can is important to me. The server gave me the butter on the side without any grief.  I noticed later that IHOP now has a whole wheat pancake with real blueberries - one of my favorite foods!  When my omelet came, I was disappointed in the amount of vegetables it actually contained. With so many listed, I expected it to be FULL of veggies, but they were really more of a condiment. If I had to do it over, I would have asked for extra veggies, and also for the blueberry pancakes (even though I suspect that would have cost more).  Another thing I did was order with the plan to eat less than half of the omelet, since IHOP’s omelets are HUGE. I took home about 2/3 of the omelet and 1/3 of the pancakes, and ate the leftovers for breakfast the next day!

IHOP has rolled out their “Simple & Fit” menu items since the last time I was there. I like that these are easily distinguished from the other menu items by a green circle with a strawberry and that all these items have the calories listed (although none of the others do).  I was surprised to see that IHOP actually has a lot of foods that qualify for “Simple & Fit” description.  Unfortunately, these menu items can be up to 600 calories, which is a bit high.  They also have suggestions on the menu for how to order your favorite menu items to make them lower calorie - like to order without butter or with sugar free syrup. Nutrition information is available online. 

Prices at IHOP are in the $7-10 range, making it quite affordable. I wouldn’t have thought of IHOP as a healthy restaurant before, but with the “Simple & Fit” menu, it’s easy to make healthy, even low-calorie choices there.  And like at any restaurant, you can order most foods with extra vegetables, or look for the items that contain a lot of vegetables or fruits in order to boost the nutrition and keep your choice low calorie. 4 forks! Not bad!

Submitted by: 

Anna Gewecke, MS, RD, LDN

(865) 305-8099

agewecke@utmck.edu

IHOP has multiple locations in the Knoxville area and received 4 out of 5 forks because non-fried appetizers are not available.