Eating Healthfully at Restaurants
Though eating at restaurants is a great way to have a break from cooking, there are a few reasons that it is almost harder to eat at restaurants than to cook at home—if you seek to eat wholesome foods.
Restaurants are expensive. For what you get, the food costs several times as much as the ingredients that would be used while cooking at home.
The majority of restaurants do not use the types of good ingredients that, for instance, I have in my own kitchen. At a restaurant I end up paying several times more for the very things that I do not buy at grocery stores. Of course, there are occasions when restaurants are the only option, and they can certainly be a compromise when most of our meals are healthier. For instance, restaurants {unless clearly advertised to the contrary} do not usually use healthy cooking oils, pastured meats, unrefined sweeteners, organic full-fat dairy products, etc.
When we are used to eating healthier food, we simply might not feel good after eating something that is drastically different from what we regularly intake. For instance, for me this happens at chain restaurants or any time that I eat something made with soy oil, excess sugar, or fillers or preservatives.
Health-conscious Restaurants
However, health-conscious restaurants are a breath of fresh air. Sometimes delicatessen-style restaurants, with minimal service, have more wholesome {and less expensive} options than restaurants where patrons are seated and served.
At health-conscious restaurants, It is evident that the chefs have thought about every ingredient that they use and choose a majority of certified organic and local foods. This will be advertised on the menu or website or otherwise made obvious in the restaurant.
If a restaurant is health-conscious {and this may well be described with other words such as organic or “farm-to-table”}, the staff generally know all about the food they serve and are pleased to answer questions. In such a place, it is obvious that they care about the health of people, animals, and the landscape—and not just about the flavor or their profit margin. Contrast knowledgeable servers such as these, with servers at conventional restaurants who often do not know the answers to inquiries about ingredients {but are willing to go check with the kitchen}. It is reassuring to eat somewhere where everyone working in the restaurant can tell you about the food and is proud of its origin.
Conventional or chain Restaurants
There are thoughtful steps you can take even if you cannot find an organic or “real food” restaurant.
Places that serve salad bar-type of fresh foods are less likely to use a lot of mixes or additives. For instance, a bowl of yogurt and berries from a continental-style buffet is better than a stack of pancakes made from pancake mix and covered in maple-flavored corn syrup, at the neighborhood breakfast chain. Look for restaurants likely to cook their food from scratch—which even with their conventional ingredients are better than with an establishment that uses premade mixes full of artificial additives.
Other than the tendency toward highly-Americanized Chinese, Italian, and sometimes Mexican restaurants, ethnic restaurants often serve food made with traditional ways of preparation and made with natural, authentic ingredients. Search these places out for what can be a fabulous, flavorful dining option. So many countries outside of America use whole foods in their meals, eat savory foods for breakfast, drink traditional beverages, and have less-sweet desserts than we have in America. {For instance, at an Indian restaurant you can a lassi made with mangoes, rosewater, and yogurt; at a Mexican restaurant you can get horchata made with rice, almonds, and cinnamon.} Ethnic restaurants typically provide wholesome meals {not necessarily the vegetable oils, but the remainder of the ingredients} regardless of whether they happen to be a quick, seat-yourself type of establishment. Some examples include Indian food, Korean food, Brazilian food, and North African or Middle Eastern if you can find it.
At any restaurant you choose, you can make deliberate choices within their menu. Choose sautéed meats over deep-fried meats. Choose fresh foods over cooked foods, to avoid their cooking oils. Ask for real butter on your toast, or plain olive oil for your salad. Choose fruit-based desserts rather than grain-based desserts. Drink water with lemon, instead of soda or lemonade.
The idea is not to ruin the joy of going to a restaurant, but to make conscientious choices so that your eating experience can be the best possible for your health, pocketbook, and for how you feel afterward. Myself, I like to patronize restaurants that pride themselves in putting some serious attention {not just a focus on convenience, appearance, or popularity} behind the integrity and value of their food.
In the Montana valley where I live, we are blessed to have many privately-owned local restaurants who source ingredients from local farms and ranches. Menus and signage make this obvious to the customer, and the meals taste marvelous. Areas of the nation which aren’t the mountain West like here, nor trendy cities or coastal regions, might have to look harder. Healthier restaurants are becoming more prevalent everywhere as the demand increases, and this is wonderful to have seen happening more and more over the last decade.
While our touristy university town boasts dozens of unique restaurants at which it delights me to eat, I always hesitate a little with what to order if my husband and I find ourselves at a diner beside a lonesome highway. With due respect to the necessary service and hearty sustenance they provide, there is somehow never a French bistro when I’m craving one…which is pretty much all the time.