IS MEXICAN FOOD FATTY? NO WAY JOSE SAY DINERS

Luiz Tozetto has a customer who comes to his restaurant three times a week to eat a meal of flour tortillas, grilled chicken and steamed vegetables.

"His doctor told him his cholesterol is going down," said Tozetto. "It's been almost a year and it just keeps getting lower. There's something to be said for that."

But a national consumer's group recently decried the high fat content of most Mexican dishes. The Center for Science in the Public Interest warns some Mexican dishes in restaurants will saddle the consumer with up to a full day's worth of fat and sodium, and more than 1,000 calories.

In addition, the center found few ways to improve the nutritional value of Mexican restaurant food.

Tozetto, manager of El Chico Restaurant in Cape Girardeau, said that isn't the case.

"If you ask, you've got it," he said. "It's no problem at all."

The menu at El Chico contains several low-fat dishes, and as a rule, oil and fat aren't added, Tozetto said.

"When we cook our meats for our entrees, we use little or no oil," he said. "Our ingredients are all natural and prepared in the healthiest means possible.

"And if a customer asks that something be left out -- like a sour cream sauce, guacamole or even refried beans -- we will," said Tozetto. "Studies like this one affect a person's perception of Mexican food. It's not all bad."

Maria Paula Sams' secret to preparing low-fat Mexican food is using authentic, ethnic recipes, not Americanizing it.

"When you go to Mexico, you're not going to eat hard-shell tacos with a lot of sour cream," she said. "That's just not the way they eat.

"Authentic Mexican cuisine is low-fat and often low in calories," she said. "Getting Americans to abandon their desire to put cheese and sour cream on their Mexican dishes is the trick to reducing fat."

Sams, the head cook and co-proprietor of LaBamba, a Mexican restaurant in downtown Cape Girardeau, said she is frustrated by the image of Mexican food put forth by fast-food chains.

"We broil our meats, and use a lot of vegetables and rice," she said. "In Mexico, people do not add fat or lard to their beans. They bake and then shred their meat, if they have meat at all. They use a lot of vegetables. It's good food."

Janet Klein, a nutritionist at the University of Missouri Extension office in Benton, said it is possible for consumers to find low-fat, healthy food in restaurants.

"The traditional Mexican foods are, for the most part, low in fat and pretty good for you," she said. "But it can be very easy to take a low-fat food and make it a high-fat hazard."

Klein said that many fast-food restaurants add lard or fat to refried beans, use lower grade ground beef and lots of cheese and sour cream. Guacamole, made primarily of high-fat avocados, is a health-hazard all its own.

"But there are several healthy choices on almost any Mexican restaurant menu the consumer can choose from," she said. "People can even request that the higher-fat ingredients, like cheese, dressings or sour cream, be withheld or put on the side.

"It's much like going into restaurants that serve other foods," she said. "The health-conscious consumer has nothing to worry about. The good foods are out there. All you have to do is look for them."