Eating Healthy Away From Home

The best, cheapest and healthiest food will always come from cooking at home. I try to eat 80~90 of all my meals at home. It saves on money allowing me to save more for moving into my future homestead. The other main benefit to eating at home is that I know every thing that goes into my food. I know that there is no shit in my food that I don’t want in there. Eating at home is not always an option though and sometimes you either have to eat out, for business or other social event, or  simply feel like eating out. You can eat out and not feel guilty about eating crappy food. Making wise choices, healthy, paleo food choices are not as hard as some would make it out to be. Today I’m going to share some strategies on healthy eating while out and about.

Say What You Want

If you follow paleo or any other specific diet don’t be afraid to voice you peculiar needs to your waitstaff. Many times I will find a dish I like and either ask to get rid of certain items or swap them for other items. I’m kinda notorious for going to O’Charlies and ordering a Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad with no croutons, cheese and swapping the Cesar dressing for oil and vinegar. They do not have a regular grilled chicken salad so I have to be “that picky guy” and make what they have fit my needs. I’ve got a few odd looks but mostly they just take the order, not that I care in what looks they give me as long as I get my food right.

Best Choices For Restaurants

If you are smart about ordering and know that it’s still a compromised on optimal health you can find something to eat at any place. With that said my top picks for paleo-ish friendly places are Mexican restaurants and the general family restaurant type places, think O’Chariles and Applebess, both types can offer a huge selection of entrees. For Mexican places the main thing is to drop the beans, rice and tortillas. For example I had this article in mind and went to a local Mexican place yesterday with a friend and looked for the healthiest most paleo item on the menu. I found one item, I think It was called Carmen Dish, It was grilled tilapia, spinach with onions and mushrooms and rice. I substituted the rice for a guacamole salad. The waiter didn’t even bat an eye at the substitution. I’ve ordered ribs with only dry rub since the sauce usually has tons of sugar in it. Hot wings that are “naked” or un-breaded with a buffalo sauce are a good choice as well.

Any restaurant can offer a decent healthy meal with just some planning and pickiness. Just remember to build your meal around a quality meat without sugar and dairy loaded sauces. Next go with a large portion of veggies, while avoiding grains and starches.  At subway I order a salad with double meat to get enough protein. At some places your meat and veggie substations might cost a bit extra. This has two things going for it by having to pay extra. One you will want to eat out even less and cook at home more where it will be healthier and cheaper. Secondly Tim Ferris has a saying about this, He calls the extra money you pay you Abs tax. You pay more to not gain weight and improve your health.

I’ve given you a few choices on how to stay healthy and at least close to paleo while eating out. In a future installment I will cover both fast food  and gas station/ Convenience store options. Once again while not optimal most of us have to leave the home at some point and cannot carry a full kitchen with us. Keep my tips in mind and you should do just fine on those occasions when you have to eat out.

Whats your favorite healthy food to eat at a restaurant? Does being picky when ordering bother you? Whats your favorite substitution? Let me know in the comments!