A Health Nut's Guide to Eating Out
Making wise decisions concerning your health while eating out can be really difficult. You enter the restaurant and gaze longingly at the fried everything, pasta, or maybe fluffy pancakes topped with whipped cream. Our tastes buds scream out in unison, “GIVE US ALL THOSE THINGS.” We’ve all been there.
Sometimes making the wisest diet concerning your nutrition begins with denying yourself certain foods. Sometimes it looks like doing the best you can with what you’ve got. Whatever the case, we want to help empower you stop and think about what you’re putting in your body when dining out. On this episode we depart slightly from our typical format to really focus on diet and nutrition, specifically when eating out. We talk about useful ways to trick your brain into making better decisions, how to ask difficult questions of the establishment, and how it's sometimes okay to bring in a LITTLE of your own food.
Some Topics We Discussed:
What is the first step for making healthy choices at restaurants? (2:50)
Why should you prepare and look at menus ahead of time? (5:16)
What is clean food? (7:25).
How do we address macronutrients while eating out? (9:03)
What should we look for in salad dressings? (21:31)
The importance of quality fat in our food. (25:03)
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
The biggest part of being healthy is your fork and knife. (3:11)
Pick foods that are real foods. These foods are the whole and unprocessed parts of the food from soil, pastures, and oceans. (6:35)
Your taste buds are programmable. (12:07)
Bring your high quality olive oil with you to restaurants. (26:44)
Products + Resources:
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Brian Strickland 00:43 Hello, everyone, you're listening to The Holistic Navigator podcast where we believe in the body's ability to heal itself, if given the proper nutrients and care it deserves. My name is Brian Strickland. I'm the producer of the show. And today we're taking a small departure from our typical format to take a closer look at diet and nutrition, specifically how to make wise choices while eating out. When we venture out to a restaurant, we often set ourselves up for failure just based upon the choice of where we go. So we want to encourage you to stop and really question the purpose of your eating in a more mindful approach so that mainly you can dine out without the regret of eating a bunch of garbage food. But before we begin, let me take a moment to introduce the host of this show, Mr. Ed Jones. Ed, how are you doing today?
Ed Jones 01:32 I'm doing quite well my friend and I did eat out last night and I did last week, last month, last year. I am a restaurant, connoisseur and also a single man that doesn't cook so I have a lot of experience on how to choose healthy foods if we eat out.
Brian Strickland 01:51 So how often do you actually cook at home?
Ed Jones 01:54 Oh, this is quite could be embarrassing. If I was at an age where I was embarrassed. I bought a house two years ago Thanksgiving and so far the oven has not been turned on.
Brian Strickland 02:04 That's impressive.
Ed Jones 02:05 But you know what the ovens clean still.
Brian Strickland 02:07 I bet it is. I bet it is.
Ed Jones 02:09 Now I'm not bragging about that we should be I should be. Hopefully someday being able to cook more at home. I'm just I work all the time. I don't enjoy cooking. After a long marriage, and then divorce the single guys, you know, just doesn't do it. I'm not probably gonna do it. So here we go.
Brian Strickland 02:30 Alright, so let's go ahead and start this conversation about how to make these wise choices while eating out. I know that you've kind of laid out some steps and an approach for people to ask certain questions of themselves or just kind of stop and think before they they make decisions. So what's this first step that people can take?
Ed Jones 02:51 And thank you for that, Brian. And you know, for new listeners here, I want to ask the question, why would someone want to listen to me? Let me tell you real quick, 41 years of experience listening, helping, guiding educating 10s of 1000s of individuals on what nutrition and their health outside conventional means. And one of those of course, the biggest part of being healthy is your fork and knife people. It really is not the supplements you take that's a big part. It's not truly the exercise, it's a part. It is what you choose morning, noon and night. And because I spoke earlier about the fact that I do eat out way too often. And I know most Americans do because of the fast lifestyle. And you know, I hear this all the time from all of my clients that well you know, I didn't need to eat very healthiest I because I ate out. That's not an excuse, because I've come up with a game plan that can help people process the choices at restaurants, because it is a organized mental process to determine what you should choose. So first off, we got to ask yourself this number one question, what is my purpose in eating foods? And in what I condensed to that, I think just four general purposes, when you ask people, why do I eat food. It is taste for one that is still what rules most Americans. Two is for the production of health. Three is to improve the bodies physique, and for some people are really not hungry most of the time, but they eat to survive. And along with that as cheaply as possible. So I must say right now, if you're in the number one eat for taste only group or the number four, I eat only to survive and to spend as little money as possible. You may just want to go ahead and click this off because it's not going to probably appeal to you. So if you're in the number two and three slot I eat for health and or body physique, then I am your man. So we're going out to eat someone's called you and say, let's meet at a restaurant and you're, you know, really into your health and physique. And what is the first step? Well, I'm tell you this, walking into that restaurant, and there's your friend, family, and you're going to sit down and they're going to bring you a menu and about four minutes later, you're going to order won't work. Unless you have a lot of experience at that restaurant. Why? Because you don't know the menu. You have to look at the menu before arriving online. Or if you know, you'll have 10 to 15 minutes before you order, then you can do it at the restaurant. And the reason is, it would be the identical analogy to you going on vacation and you're going to go online, to find a flight reservation, how long would you spend before you could probably pick the appropriate flight? It would not be five minutes, it would generally be 15. Maybe. And if you don't do it correctly, you're going to pay a price in the same manner that you will by choosing the wrong unhealthy foods. So one is you're going to do a little bit of homework and you're going to look at the menu beforehand. Number two, you have to know three terms in order to be the evaluator of a menu. First one is you got have to know what the term or my term for real food is. Real foods are those that are closest to the whole and unprocessed parts of food that come from the soil, the pasture or the oceans. And really, and truly it would be similar if you can put into your mind how people ate 100 years ago. We know they ate in small communities. They did it from local foods only. And they fixed it generally fresh if they could. And they also used meats and proteins if they were a meat eater from right on their farm or their local community. Now I was at Cracker Barrel about nine months ago and a young waiter named Adam waited on me and I had ordered grilled chicken and I think three vegetables. I ordered cabbage, the brussel sprouts and probably coleslaw. Well it were very busy. He came back to the table and said sir, I'm sorry, but we are out of two of those vegetables. Well, he didn't bring the menu back. So I asked him I said, well, I'll tell you what, just pick two healthy vegetables for me. And he looked and hesitated and he said, Sir, I don't know what a healthy vegetable is. And he I was stunned. I mean, I know that this is the truth. He was 22-23 years old. He literally did not know what the term healthy vegetable was. So we have to, you know, know what real food is imagine eating 100 years ago. That is real food from the earth. Secondly, the second term is clean food. What does that mean? It means a bigger picture of maybe the history how it was raised regarding pesticides, glyphosate, chemicals, if it was raised in other countries. And then the second part of this clean food is what are the oils and seasonings such as you know the things that can destroy it like margarine and MSG and toxic oils and frying. I mean, that is how you evaluate is this a clean food because you have to know that the priority is picking real food that is as clean as possible. And I will say at this point, don't expect perfection. Do not get carried away thinking all this I have nothing to choose you compromise at every single meal to do the very best you can. That's all we can hope for. And the third term that you must know and I think most listeners of The Holistic Navigator probably have a good idea of this is carbohydrate, protein and fat. We know carbohydrate is a starch stored energy. Now that sounds like a good thing. But of course we know sometimes that's not super healthy in the wrong regards. But carbs are like pasta, bread, rice, fast acting things like potatoes and corn. Then we have protein. Proteins are made up of amino acids. Protein we all know is meat. Protein can be from vegetarian sources if it's combined like beans and rice, but it supplies the muscle and the recuperative powers in the tissues. And then lastly, I don't think we need to define fat. We all know what fat is. All right, number three, this is your next step. You have to decide what is your personal philosophy on what I call macros. What is a macro? That's coming up with some general idea of your comfort level with the level of fat, protein and carbs in your meal. That would be like, if I'm a keto person, I'm not going to eat like a person on the Mediterranean diet. If I'm a total vegan, well, I have to choose different foods than I would if I'm not a vegan. So we have to go into this not haphazardly to this restaurant. We have to have a certain philosophy. Let me ask you this. When was the last time you went to buy an automobile that you did not try to pick what suited your needs? The Automobile? Is it a hatchback? A four wheel drive? Two door or four door? Would you pick a Corvette in Alaska where it snowed all the time? Well, if you did, it would not be a wise choice. So the same applies to foods. I do believe in leaning strongly to a keto diet. I think it slows aging, inflammation, reduces cravings, and produces the best physique that I've had in 62 years. When I say leaning, I do not mean being engrossed in it. But I do believe in a high fat diet. In fact, I looked at before I came down here, do you know that when we rate the life expectancy or the quality of health care in the United States, we are number 37 on one of those in number 35 on the other end, you know, the one that is right next to us is Cuba. Cuba, we all see pictures of Cuba, we know it's been a communist country, we know that they're they're not, you know, way advanced, we know they don't have a hospital and Walgreens on every corner. They are equal to us. And they're very poor country, how could that be? Well, I looked at what they ate. Guess what, it's all the same as it was 100 years ago. local, fresh, unprocessed, not always super healthy nutritionally, but it's fresh and clean and real food people. So number four, know this fact that the majority of all of your likes and dislikes and your taste buds are simply programmable. They are not hardwired into you. So stop being a slave to your likes and dislikes. Or you are going to shackle your bodies and your health in prison, just the facts. If you are so particular that you cannot try anything outside your little narrow scope, you will have a very difficult time as you age because you need to learn to evolve your tastebuds in order to evolve your life and health. Number five, when looking at a menu, let's pretend you just walked into the restaurant. Okay, Brian, and you sat down, you do have time you have about 15 minutes. The first thing you're going to do is because you already know the type of eating plan that you have adopted, like myself leaning toward keto, I'm going to mentally X off all of the choices that do not apply to me.
Brian Strickland 13:18 Right.
Ed Jones 13:18 They just need to be taken off the mental list. If you I mean, if you actually could mentally put a marker through it, it would be perfect. So let's go eliminate most of all restaurants, you're gonna eliminate 50 to 75% of your choices from the moment you sit down, you just have to know that is the truth.
Brian Strickland 13:36 Maybe if they're the laminated glossy menus, you could actually just bring in a washable marker.
Ed Jones 13:41 And I love that. And then so mentally, now that you've eliminated and put an X on a bunch of this stuff, it has now narrowed down your choices. So at this point, you're going to pick items that fit somewhere within this conversation that we just had about real food that is as clean as possible. So we're going to do the best we can. You know what I'm and I'm going to give an example here. I ate at Carabas last night. I like Carabas. I'm not really a person who goes to the corporate restaurants generally, but they do a pretty good job. So here I am eating at Carabas. I already know that I'm not going to eat all the pastas. I'm not going to eat the fried foods. I'm not going to eat the processed and in fact, Carabas has MSG in their Caesar salad. It makes my heart rate go to 92 beats a minute instead of 52 keeps me up half the night. I learned the hard way you have to be a detective at all restaurants. And don't be embarrassed by asking tactful nice questions about this stuff. But oh, here I am at Carabas last night. I'm looking at the menu. I feel like I want chicken. So I'm good with chicken. I'm good with beef. Do I want it organic? Yes. Can I get it? No. I live in a town that doesn't offer that so I do the best I can. So I'm looking at the chicken have chicken Bryan, chicken masala chicken parmesan and Tuscan grilled chicken well since my priority is the as real food as I can well chicken is not macaroni. It is more real it actually comes from something that is not you know ultimately turned upside down 14 times to produce something new. So got chicken now the catch is what's on the chicken? Well on the chicken Bryan is taught with goat cheese that's a plus sun dried tomatoes very plus basil and lemon butter sauce. Oops, all of its good until the very end the lemon butter sauce. That's where the risk lies. So what do you do? You order it on the side as I did last night. We don't know what's in the sauces. That is a killer, which I'll talk about in a minute. Chicken marsala was topped with mushrooms and Marsala wine sauce could be okay. I want to ask a question about it. Third one chicken parmesan coated with bread crumbs. Sauteed. Well those are out there, just knock me out. Bread crumbs are despicable for the quality. They have way too many unnatural ingredients. And so I'm not gonna choose it. Last one Tuscan grilled wood grilled and seasoned with olive oil and herbs. Wow. Now that's a plus as long as those herbs do not contain MSG, so I would have chosen which I did choose the first one, the chicken Bryan. I chose chicken Bryan, Brian. So that was a great meal. I did get broccoli on the side. Because you have to have colored vegetables with almost every meal except breakfast. So that is how I chose my food now. And then secondly, this morning before I came in here, I looked at McDonald's menu. Heck, sometimes we're trapped. We have no choices. If we have a job, a family, we have to meet people. Well, the key to McDonald's is you have to X out 94% of the menu. But luckily we're in a better place today than we were maybe 10 years ago. They do have a decent salad. And if you choose the grilled chicken, not the crispy. Again learning all of the sneaky words that the restaurants use crispy sounds like wow, that is something we would want to choose. But crispy means fried. Almost always. So we don't want the fried we want the grilled. The downside and the catch to all of this was salads is dressings. What do I do about that? I'm going to tell you in a minute how to solve that problem. And one other point I've been doing this for 41 years, there is a disease that I have dealt with a few people called orthorexia nervosa. It's an obsession with eating healthy foods people. You are going down a very bad path if you are a total perfectionist about your food. The people I've dealt with who did that, I think the damage from their mental state of fear with the foods far damaged them more than bad food did any day of the week. So let's have some common sense with this. No, how's that sound?
Brian Strickland 18:13 No, it sounds great. I really like your approach of like most things in life, it's really about moderation, right? It's you go out, you do the best you can with the choices that you're given. But even from the start, you try to make the best decision that you can, right. So if given a choice between McDonald's or Arby's or something like Carabas, or, I mean, we have some really great local restaurants that serve farm fresh items, there's like start there. I mean, don't set yourself up for failure by you know, going to a place where you know that your options are extremely limited. And that prey on your taste buds more than, you know, provide nutrients for your physical body. So I mean, even at Carabas it's great because no they're probably not serving organic free range chicken that, you know, is the healthiest that you can get or grass fed beef. But the fact of the matter still remains is you do the best that you can and I really love that about your your approach.
Ed Jones 19:16 Well, thank you, Brian. I mean, you know, I have been a perfectionist off and on in my life with food, nutrients, exercise, and it just is not the common wise path for me. And I see it being a great mistake for others. Now sometimes people who can use the term you know, doing my best or just picking the middle ground. What that means to some people is they're going to eat a half of their french fries, because the whole bag is bad. So we have to make wise choices and those just cutting back 50% on bad food is not to me a wise choice, right. So let's just say that we've we've done the research on the menu. We now know that you know the options we have because we've mentally X-ed everything, we've asked the waiter a couple questions, we feel confident that I'm going to get my green vegetables or my yellow vegetables or something with phytochemicals along with my protein.
Brian Strickland 20:12 Which to be honest, I mean, if we're eating out that can be difficult at times, depending on where you're eating.
Ed Jones 20:18 Well, you say that. I eat green vegetables every single day at lunch and supper. Now I don't. And again, a part of this is not on this podcast. Iceberg lettuce is not a green veggie.
Brian Strickland 20:31 Exactly.
Ed Jones 20:32 But spinach lettuce can be considered a green vegetable. So some of the details still have to be worked out.
Brian Strickland 20:39 And broccoli casserole doesn't count.
Ed Jones 20:42 It counts in a very miniscule amount if it actually had enough broccoli. But the downside is this got too many unhealthy ingredients. But most places have coleslaw. Now they do and there's cabbage. Cabbage changes the way your liver disposes of toxins in the hormonal family. That's why it helps to get rid of some of the estrogen in men and some of the unhealthy estrogen in women
Brian Strickland 21:08 But even coleslaw can have some good amount of sugar in it too.
Ed Jones 21:12 Right. And so again, choosing the trying to choose the restaurant is pretty damn important I will have to say, but let's say you've done all this you're at the restaurant, you've looked at the menu, you x-ed out the bad stuff, you know your philosophy, you ask a couple questions, you found the modestly clean foods, you've put it together. Now it's time to choose a litte bit more on taste, preferences and price. It's okay to do we want good tasting food. But do know this. I've dealt with again with so many people, your taste will change dramatically if you will eat a new way for eight, maybe four to eight weeks. And I enjoy foods more today. And I hear this every single probably other day from clients. Oh, I enjoy eating more today the good quality foods than I ever did when I was eating the poor quality junk foods. I did not know that you could have such pleasure because number one, it makes the body feel connected, balanced healthy. And the junk food didn't. It was an addictive process because sugars and chemicals feed the brain and it becomes addictive and it also feeds some of the systems of the body like insulin and glucose. So it's really a drug junk food is and that's why we can't function very correctly with it. However, here is the last red flag that I want to bring up about eating out. And I call it the danger is labeled the on and in killer. Okay, we've chosen great foods man I chose that chicken at Carabas. I got the broccoli and it was prepared perfect. And I also had a which I didn't mention I did have a salad with nothing but olive oil on it so I had a wonderful meal last night. But the on and in killer is again the dressings, the sauces, the sugar, the unhealthy oils and the frying of anything. Repeat anything with dressings, sauces, sugar, unhealthy oils and frying will completely almost negate the quality of a perfect food. So that's the last big avenue you have to jump into is get dressings on the side. Get sauces on the side, you'll have to ask about the sugar content. You know better than to get fried food because there's frying destroys the quality of any food. I don't care how organic and perfect it was. It has now gone down the toilet if you have fried it because the oils at high temperatures are unhealthy.
Brian Strickland 23:47 So you're you're talking about not just deep frying but even like a saute or pan fry?
Ed Jones 23:51 Sauteed on if again if it's sauteed with quality oils that are stable, which you don't know that's where you'll never be able to determine that. In fact, there's a place in near New Smyrna, Florida I would eat as the only time and I'm not a perfectionist people but as the only time I would eat the fried fish and or the onion rings because they had this whole motto that they change the oil every night in that restaurant. Hardly anyone does that. Once you've hated an oil one single time. It's already rancid. It's not rancid. The first cook is the second time and rancid oils destroy the body, makes you age quicker causes so many diseases. So having the ability to not consume those oils if you did nothing else you're going to be far healthier now. The last me winding this up is my super toolbox bullet points and they're they're the points you want to take home. If you do nothing else. Here is the one thing that no one else says. I have lived this for 25 years. I know it sounds a little kooky. But you the biggest downfall to all foods is the quality of the fat and or that it doesn't have fat, we cannot be healthy with a low fat diet that is an absolute to me. The low fat craze is what destroyed the health of millions in this country and caused obesity because of its negative qualities on so many parts of our chemistry. So we have to have at least modest fat, unbeliever and higher fat. Well, how do we do that if we eat out, you do what Edward Jones does, you get a little bitty bottle of one of your vitamins. That's pretty small bottle that you have finished. And you're going to fill it with high quality olive oil is the oil that will stay stable and heat. You need a bottle that is doesn't light sunlight in or at least is dark into some point. And you can just keep it in your car. When you get out at the restaurant as I did last night at carabas I just carried in with me I'm not embarrassed if you are put it in a little sack. But when you eat that salad at McDonald's, you cannot eat their dressing or you just destroyed every hope of any goodness from that. And you need calories. If I went to McDonald's at lunch today, Brian and had that salad, I'm not gonna eat their dressing. So it would be so lean. I'll be hungry in an hour. That's not working. So I want to be satisfied. How do I do that? I have got to have about 700-800 calories for me or I won't be happy camper so I can get 200 easy from this olive oil. Olive oil has been linked to prevention of even hip fractures. lowering of the bad cholesterol lowering of triglycerides, so many functions is the only oil that can do that. And cheap olive oil is contaminated with despicable canola oil. So do not buy the lowest price you have to know and do your research on the olive oil. So carry your olive oil in anywhere you go. And always add at least two tablespoons to anything if eating a salad as much as you want, as long as you're not crazy with, you know needing to watch calories. So that is the take home message is you have to carry fat with you if you're going to eat out a lot. Secondly, I love the bullet proof roadmap, we should have the link on our page. But the if you will Google bulletproof roadmap. This is the eating list that says if you're going to eat protein, this is the healthy if you're going to eat vegetables, these are the ones all the way down the list, including the oils. So if you want a printed list of food choices, bulletproof roadmap is my go to. And then the very last thing for people who want to keep up with their calories, protein fats, My Fitness Pal app is my number one recommendation. And then my second one, which I don't let screw with my head too much, but it's called Seafood Watch. This is for people who want to ask a few questions when they go to a seafood restaurant. Where did the halibut come from? Do you know which country, where was it caught. And if you had that you plug it into this Seafood Watch. And this is going to tell you probably the toxicity level of that fish and whether you should choose that or you should choose another fish off of that menu. Because fish is only as good as the waters they are swimming in. And chickens and beef are a little bit different. They certainly are related to what's the environment they're around, but not like fish. So seafood watch and My Fitness Pal. Boy, we covered it, I think pretty damn well. Yeah. I want to say there was a lady named Ann Wigmore. And I knew of her back in the 70s because that's when I started this journey. And she had a clinic where she would treat diseases from A to Z. I mean, you name it, people came to her. She was one of those true healers. And she had been raised in another country and she had come here and opened the clinic. And she still regarded as a real pioneer in this whole field of respecting the human body and nourishing it when is ill not medicating it to cover symptoms, when is struggling and she had a great quote, the food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine, or the slowest form of poison. And how true is that? I've seen it for 41 years and so many and myself and the last one is I can't control everything in my life. But you know what? I can control what I put in my body. So please everyone take that into account on your meals do still enjoy eating and socializing. And look forward to talking to you again on this elicit navigator please subscribe. Please share it. We are here to help educate them every area we can. So thank you so much everyone and have a great meal The next time you eat out.
Brian Strickland 30:12 The information on this podcast and the topics discussed have not been evaluated by the FDA or anyone of the medical profession and is not aimed to replace any advice you may receive from your medical practitioner. The holistic navigator assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of any purchaser or reader these materials, the holistic navigator is not a doctor nor does he claim to be, please consult your physician before beginning any health regimen.