Making Better Choices When Eating Out
Fresh Foods. When choosing a restaurant, ask if they prepare most of their food from scratch (as opposed to using pre-made foods). Using whole fresh ingredients made from scratch has greater food value and helps to avoid the many food chemicals and preservatives found in canned or boxed pre-made foods. Avoid restaurants that sell irradiated food. Irradiation of food produces carcinogenic chemical byproducts.
Food Oils. Ask your waiter what kinds of oils are used in the food. Avoid eating food which contains margarine (as found in mayonnaise, cream sauces, imitation butter pats), canola oil (often found in “health foods” such as bakery items and soups, often used as a cheap but toxic substitute for olive oil) and hydro-genated oils (found in fried foods, white bread, buns, pizza crust, white noodles, etc.) Eating hydrogenated oil is linked to brain degeneration, memory problems, accelerated aging and cancer. (Hydrogenated oil is illegal in Europe – but common in the US diet.) The best oils to use are organic olive oil, organic sesame oil, organic, nonhydrogenated coconut oil and real butter or Indian ghee (clarified butter).
Commercial Meat. Commercial red meat (steaks, hamburgers, etc.) is best avoided in restaurants since commercially produced meat is saturated with artificial hormones (which interferes with the normal hormone balance of both men and women) and is extremely high in pesticides, antibiotics and toxic chemical residues. In addition, commercial beef is mostly grain-fed (instead of grass-fed) which is high in the wrong kind of fat with imbalanced omega ratios and promotes weight gain.
Best Food Choices
Drinks. Do not drink the water served at the table. (Tap water contains hundreds of known toxic chemicals.) Instead, order purified water, either plain or sparkling. Good choices: Perrier, Sole, San Pelligreno. Avoid commercial milk (high in pesticide/chemical residues, pus levels, promotes weight gain). Avoid coffee.
Salad. Order your salad without dressing (commercial dressings are literally guaranteed to contain toxic oils and food chemicals). Ask for olive oil and lemon on the side. Drizzle these over your salad for a delicious, non-toxic tangy dressing. Avoid ice berg lettuce. Avoid croutons or crunchies on top of the salad (these typically contain refined white flour, bad oils and toxic chemical flavorings).
Soup. Soup served in restaurants is usually a poor choice since it usually contains tap water and is often made from pre-made soup mixes. Even restaurants that advertise “homemade” soup often use a vegetable or meat stock that is pre-made (usually full of food chemicals such as MSG, toxic preservatives and hydrogenated oil.)
Breads and buns. Avoid eating bread or buns served with the meal. They are typically made of refined white flour with added synthetic iron, a known free radical inducer (which encourages poor bowel elimination, weight gain, fatigue, increased neurodegeneration). If the item is a sandwich made with white bread or a bun, you can eat the insides and leave the bread. If you do choose to eat bread or buns, request real butter, not margarine. Strictly avoid mayonnaise.
Main Dishes
Creamy Sauces. Avoid main dishes with creamy sauces, since these sauces typically contain bad oils (such as margarine, canola or hydrogenated oils) and are mostly high in food chemicals (MSG, toxic preservatives, etc.) Also avoid food condiments such as ketchup and other sauces (usually full of MSG, artificial flavors).
Pasta and Noodles. Avoid pasta or noodles (such as lasagna) since they are nothing but refined white flour (which encourages sluggish bowels, insulin resistance, weight gain, accelerated aging, increased infection). Fried Food. Avoid eating fried foods (such as fried chicken, French fries, etc.) Eating fried foods stresses the liver and stagnates bile, eventually leading to the formation of gallstones, impaired vision, stiff joints, etc.
Good Choices for Starches. A good starch is baked potatoes or rice (even though most rice is usually refined, at least it will not contain all the synthetic chemicals as found in white bread and buns). Ask your waiter if whole brown rice is available.
Good Choices for Main Dishes: Fresh-baked fish, vegetable and grain dishes. Main dishes with animal protein (meat, poultry or fish) are best eaten at the lunch meal, not at the evening meal. Strive to avoid eating animal protein at the evening meal. Instead, enjoy delicious vegetable-based main dishes. (Eating animal protein in the evening does not allow enough time to properly digest the protein before sleep. Thus, for most people, this encourages weight gain, poor sleep and waking up tired.)
Desserts. Desserts are best avoided in most restaurants. Most desserts will contain white sugar (a known toxic substance and immune suppressor) as well as many toxic food chemicals. In addition, eating sugar after consuming meat and starch is guaranteed to cause intestinal stagnation and gas. Instead, enjoy preparing a simple but delicious dessert using whey protein as the base of a smoothie drink.
Highly Heated Food or Microwaved Food.
Ask if a microwave oven will be used to prepare your food. If so, request that your food be oven-baked instead (even though it will take longer). Avoid eating any food that has been highly heated (i.e. heated over 250 degrees F). Research now proves that highly heated food or food heated in a microwave oven contains unique, carcinogenic (cancer-causing), unusually toxic food chemicals.
Nutritional Protection
Digestive Enzymes. After every meal that contains cooked food, be sure to take plant-based enzymes to assist your digestion and to lessen the digestive stress of eating cooked food.
Protect Your Brain. After every meal eaten in a restaurant, take a brain nutritional formula to help protect your brain and nervous system from toxic oils and hidden food chemicals as well as to deliver superior quality brain and body nutrients.
A Few Acceptable Restaurants
If you do go out to eat, several of the better restaurants are:
a) Bucca Di Peppo, an Italian restaurant, which has chains in many cities in the US (including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Austin, etc). They offer home-made dishes with many ingredients imported from Italy (which means fewer food chemicals as typically found in American restaurants). They use exclusively olive oil and butter (which allows you to avoid many dangerous oils as found in most American restaurants). However, like most restaurants, they use white flour in many dishes (i.e. pasta, pizza, etc) which is best avoided. Some of the better choices: tomato-basil onion salad, greens salad, baked eggplant, garlic mashed potatoes (with butter), green beans.
b) Kerby Lane (several locations in Austin, Texas). They use pesticide-free produce grown by local farmers and prepare many dishes from scratch daily. However, they do use white sugar in their desserts (best avoided). Acceptable choices: many enchilada choices on menu.
c) Z Tejas Restaurant (a restaurant chain in Texas and a few other states). Our favorite: a delicious, reasonably nontoxic dish: wild mushroom enchiladas; also great fresh guacamole and salsa.
d) Mother’s Market (several locations in Los Angeles): a natural foods market with fresh vegetarian entrees prepared daily. Good choices: fresh juices, homemade vegetable soup, brown rice, enchiladas, tacos.
e) Whole Foods Market (locations throughout the US): natural foods market chain, but many food items contain unacceptable oils and food chemicals (be sure to read labels). Good choices: salad bar, fresh humus, tabouli, fresh juice, baked potato, some soups (beware – avoid canola oil, a toxic, brain-damaging oil).