The 9 Unhealthiest Things You Can Order At Ruth's Chris
For a night out with friends or your special someone, nothing beats a decadent meal at a steakhouse. Ruth's Chris is one of the most well-known names in chain steakhouses, dating back to 1965 with its first restaurant in New Orleans. Now the chain has more than 140 restaurants around the world.
The menu focuses on steaks and chops, and also features comfort-food favorites like mashed potatoes, calamari, and creamed spinach. While the dishes are undeniably delicious, they aren't exactly healthy — often containing copious amounts of calories, fat, sodium, and sugar. Too much of any of these can lead to weight gain and a host of other serious health conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes. Still, there's no reason you can't enjoy a night out at Ruth's Chris on occasion and indulge in your favorite foods. However, you might want to steer clear of some of these particularly unhealthy menu items.
1. Steak Sandwich with Fries
Built on a base of French bread, piled with meat, and smothered in creamy béarnaise sauce — with side of fries to boot — the steak sandwich with fries is one of the highest-calorie items on the Ruth's Chris menu — 1,280 to be exact (via MyFoodDiary.com).
Calories aren't bad — they're units of energy which your body needs to power all your daily activities, as well as organ function. You definitely need them. But if you eat more calories than your body needs, those extra units of energy get stored as fat — and you gain weight. There's a very important reason to be concerned about excess calories and weight gain: Being overweight increases your risk of a host of health conditions and diseases, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, cancer, and even mental illness (via the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
To manage your weight, it's important to balance the calories you consume with the calories you expend. The 1,280 calories in the steak sandwich with fries comprises more than half of the amount of calories the USDA recommends the average adult eat in a day. And that's just one meal. While this isn't a big deal every once in a while, if you eat this dish at Ruth's Chris often, those excess calories can really add up.
2. Baked Potato
Potatoes are much maligned, but, in fact, they're very nutritious, providing ample amounts of the minerals, vitamins, and fiber. However, the baked potato at Ruth's Chris is far from nutritious. It's been loaded with cheese, bacon, and sour cream, all of which are high in saturated fat. With over 29 grams of saturated fat, just this one side dish provides 149% percent of the Daily Value (DV) (via MyFoodDiary).
Recommendations for saturated fat intake vary. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) says no more than 10% of your diet should be comprised of saturated fat. But the American Heart Association recommends an even lower limit of 5 to 6% of calories. And for good reason. Saturated fats can raise levels of unhealthy low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in your bloodstream, which can increase your risk of heart disease. Per the American Heart Association's recommendation, the 29 grams of fat actually provide 223 to 264% of the daily limit for saturated fat on a 2,000-calorie diet.
The baked potato also contains 1.5 grams of trans fat. Trans fats also raise your unhealthy LDL cholesterol and they lower your levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), which is the good type of cholesterol that helps the liver process and flush out cholesterol from the body. Of all the types of fats, trans fat is the worst. Consuming trans fats raises your risk of heart disease and stroke and it's also linked to a higher risk of Type 2 diabetes.
3. French Fries
If you love French fries, there's no reason you can't eat them once in a while. But if you order the fries at Ruth's Chris regularly, it's not going to do your health any favors. French fries at any restaurant are going to be high in fat and calories, and a side of french fries at Ruth's Chris has 740 calories, or a little less than one-third of the recommended daily calorie intake for the average person (via MyFoodDiary). And that's just a side dish.
Part of balancing your calories to maintain a healthy weight is exercising regularly. If the side of french fries puts you over your daily calorie budget, exercise can help balance it. But unless you're an athlete, you're probably not going to like to do the amount of exercise necessary to burn 740 calories. According to Harvard, the average weighed person would need to spend about 1 hour and 45 minutes on the stair stepper at the gym to expend that much energy.
Fries also have 6 grams of saturated fat, which isn't too much when you consider the NIH's recommended daily limit of 19 grams for men and 16 grams for women. But again, fries are just a side dish. When you combine that with the other dishes that are high in saturated fat on the Ruth's Chris menu, you could easily exceed that limit in just one meal.
4. Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Brussels sprouts are among the healthiest vegetables you can eat. As a member of the cruciferous vegetable family, they're high in antioxidants that can protect you against cancer and other diseases. They're also a rich source of vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber — an indigestible part of plant foods that benefits digestive and heart health.
But the Brussels sprouts on the Ruth's Chris menu are far from healthy. They contain 16 grams of saturated fat, which is the recommended daily limit for women — all in just one side dish. They're also high in sodium, with almost 50% of the daily value. Sodium is a mineral that's essential for human health. As an electrolyte, it helps the muscles relax and contract, including the heart muscles. But in excessive amounts, such as the amount added to many processed and restaurant foods, sodium can be lethal.
The kidneys are responsible for regulating the amount of sodium in the bloodstream, but when there's too much they can't keep up. As a result, fluid builds up in the body and increases blood volume, which means the heart has to work harder. Over time, this can increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke.
To reduce the risk, the recommended daily limit for sodium in 2,300 milligrams. But the American Heart Association (AHA) recommends further limiting your intake to 1,500 milligrams daily, especially if you have high blood pressure. The side of Brussels sprouts provides about 65% of the AHA's daily recommended limit.
5. White Chocolate Bread Pudding
French bread, half-and-half, eggs, butter, sugar, and bourbon comprise this decadent Ruth's Chris dessert. No doubt, it's delicious, but nutritionally it has few redeeming qualities. Eggs are a good source of lean protein, and there's some calcium in the half-and-half, but the treat is loaded with saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, and added sugar. With 19 grams of saturated fat, it exceeds the NIH's recommended daily limit for women and equals the daily limit for men. Remember that this is a daily limit. To manage your cholesterol and heart health, you should aim for a lower amount on a regular basis. One serving also contains 1 gram of trans fat, the worst type of fat that raises bad cholesterol and lowers good cholesterol levels in the bloodstream.
Added sugars are the other big problem, with 93 grams in a single serving. Added sugars add calories to your diet but offer no nutritional value. When you eat a lot of added sugars, it's difficult to manage your weight and still get the nutrition you need. Consuming excess sugar can increase your risk for weight gain and obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and heart disease (via the CDC). The USDA's Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends adults limit their added sugar intake to less than 10% of daily calories. For a 2,000-calorie diet, 93 grams of added sugar is nearly 20% of your daily calories — double the recommended limit in just one dessert.
6. Chilean Sea Bass
Fish definitely plays an important role in a healthy diet. It's a good source of protein and it contains Omega-3 fatty acids that aid in heart and brain health (via the Washington State Department of Health). The body doesn't make Omega-3 fatty acids, so we have to get it from the foods we eat. For instance, chilean sea bass is a fatty fish with high amounts of Omega-3 fatty acids. Fish is also a rich source of vitamins and minerals, including Vitamins D and B2, calcium, iron, zinc, potassium, and magnesium.
The AHA recommends adults eat fish two times a week; however, the Chilean Sea Bass menu item at Ruth's Chris is not a good option for meeting that quota. Any health benefits that Chilean sea bass may have are negated by the high amounts of saturated fat in Ruth's Chris' recipe. Cooked with copious amounts of butter, it has 22 grams of saturated fat and provides 110% of the daily value — exceeding the daily recommended limit for both men and women. It also contains 1 gram of trans fats.
The 720 grams of sodium comprise 31% of the recommended daily value. One of the dangers of excess sodium is that it can contribute to the development of breast cancer. According to a 2020 study in International Immunopharmacology, excess salt intake can speed up the progression of breast cancer and promote metastasis to the lungs. To prevent this and other complications caused by excess sodium, women should limit their daily intake to 2,300 milligrams. But even less is better.
7. Stuffed Chicken Breast
Chicken breast is a rich source of lean protein, which has several benefits for your health. Protein helps build and maintain your muscles, bones, skin, and cartilage, and It also helps repair those tissues after exercise or injury. In addition, it aids digestion, helps oxygenate your blood to carry nutrients where they're needed in the body, and helps regulate hormone levels
But don't let the stuffed chicken breast at Ruth's Chris fool you — it's definitely not healthy. One order alone has 19 grams of saturated fat. A plain lean chicken breast that you might cook at home, weighing 6 ounces, has only 1 gram of saturated fat (via MyFoodData). So, all of that saturated fat is coming from the filling of cream cheese and cheddar cheese, and all the butter used to cook it. A little bit of cheese isn't bad for you, but the recommended serving size is 1.5 ounces, which contains about 8 grams of saturated fat.
8. Creamed Spinach
Spinach is so good for you, so how could anything with spinach be bad for you? Easy. Just add a ton of butter and heavy cream to it like Ruth's Chris does. There's nothing wrong with a pat of butter or a little heavy cream in moderation, but with 23 grams of saturated fat per serving — 115% of the daily value — that's going way beyond moderate.
Not only does too much saturated fat contribute to heart disease, it can also influence the development of Type 2 diabetes (via UVA Health). This type of diabetes, compared to Type 1, is characterized by insulin resistance, which means your body has enough insulin, but it's not able to use it. Insulin is a hormone your body produces to help convert food into energy and control blood sugar levels.
According to a 2018 study in Diabetes Care, high levels of saturated fat contributed to insulin resistance and increased the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Compared to unsaturated fats in healthy foods like olive oil, nuts, seeds, and fish, saturated fats caused more metabolic harm to the liver. Saturated fats were even more harmful than simple sugars.
9. Chocolate Sin Cake
The name holds no lies. You don't have to cut cake out of your diet, but you may want to cut a smaller piece of Ruth's Chris' Chocolate Sin Cake. With 33 grams of saturated fat, a restaurant-size serving has 165% percent of the daily value for saturated fat (via MyFoodDiary). But if you're going by the American Heart Association's guidelines for limiting saturated fat to 6% of calories, that's 206% of the daily limit for a 2,000-calorie diet.
That serving of chocolate cake also has 44 grams of sugar. Aside from weight gain, added sugar can increase blood sugar levels and cause chronic inflammation in the body. According to Harvard Health Publishing, the combination of inflammation and high blood pressure can contribute to the development of heart disease. In addition, research has shown that chronic inflammation can contribute to other diseases, including cancer and Alzheimer's (via Yale Medicine).
To prevent these consequences, adults should limit their daily intake of added sugar to no more than 10% of calories, or 50 grams. If you decide to eat that whole piece of Chocolate Sin Cake, especially on a regular basis, you'll need to keep your added sugar intake from the rest of the foods you eat in a day to 6 grams.