Is restaurant food healthy?
This is a question old as time, as food today becomes continually more processed and contains more and more ingredients that are not able to be grown in our gardens and in nature. Based on research, the general consensus is no, restaurant food is not healthy.
The History of Restaurants
Back in ancient times, emperors and pharaohs would have chefs make them private meals, served by their loyal servants. These meals were nutrient dense, and the best food that could be obtained at that time in history.
In medieval times, people would gather at pubs and taverns to get some warm, homemade food, and ale after a long day of work. Pubs and taverns have continued with us throughout history as a place to gather and drink and eat. As we come into more modern times, including the founding of the United States, people began to seek a place to take their families and to eat good food at a reasonable price.
Restaurants in the United States in the 1900’s served food that was real, fresh, and made to serve. Customers could buy things like a cheeseburger, fries, cooked, and beef, tallow or butter. Milkshakes would be made of ice cream, and real flavoring or fruits. As we get closer to modern day, restaurants began to seek ways to cut corners, make food, faster, and easier, and to increase their profit margins.
Thus began the commercialization of food. Today, our society contains a mixture of fast food, restaurants, designed to serve affordable, quick, and convenient food. On the higher end, we have sit down restaurants and bars, designed to serve meals for families, friends, and groups in a social setting.
Restaurants as a Social Gathering Place
The social aspect of restaurants has been around since the beginning of time, and is something we have brought with us to the present day.
Today, sit down restaurants are seen as a place for social gathering, whether it be before a family, dinner, celebrating a birthday or major life event, or friends meeting over a meal. Research shows that social interaction helps us as people to feel more connected, lowering incidents of depression, anxiety, and feelings of loneliness. Restaurants bring people together, which I think is a positive aspect, in a society where we are so separated.
While the social aspect of restaurants is something to be admired, the quality of food provided is dismal, loaded with fake preservatives and oxidative stress-inducing chemicals.
Ingredients Used in Restaurants Today
Today, restaurants serve all sorts of cuisine, from classic Mexican food, to American, and onward to different sorts of Asian foods, including standard Chinese food, Thai food, and sushi. In America, you can get almost any sort of food in a restaurant restaurant that you could desire.
This easy accessibility to food comes at a cost. Restaurant owners today are seeking to maximize their profit, at the expense of consumers health and wellness. Many foods served are sourced from suppliers that use the cheapest materials possible to make the ingredients.
One of the most toxic ingredients used in almost every restaurant would be seed oils. these can include canola, vegetable, grapeseed, and soy oil. Research has shown time and time again that these seed oils are packed with omega, six fatty acids, and go through multiple stages of bleaching and processing, resulting in a very toxic oil. I actually read that seed oils were originally used to lubricate car engines.
In the book, Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan, the author and researcher sided an observation made in her practice of patients that would come in after having a heart attack, and she said that every single patient she saw reported that they had eaten fried fatty foods the day before their heart attack. Now, this is not to say that these oils and fatty foods will cause you a heart attack, but there is most definitely some sort of a correlation between eating restaurant foods and having a lower quality of health.
I read the label of a sauce at a popular pizza fast food chain and there were over 70 ingredients. I think we all know that pizza sauce should contain maybe six ingredients: tomatoes, basil, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes if you’re feeling spicy.
So why so many ingredients? I believe the answer is simple. Billions of dollars are poured into research every year as to how to make the foods we buy in the grocery store and at restaurants, more addictive, so that we continue to purchase and consume them. I know, this is kind of shocking to learn, and I was incredibly surprised to learn it myself.
The bottom line is this: restaurants want us to keep coming back, as well as to increase their profit margin. For these reasons, most restaurants choose to use ingredients that are toxic, inflammatory, and addictive.
The Solution
If you are like me, you can choose simply to abstain from going to restaurants. When invited by family or friends, I will usually attend and choose not to eat anything, or I will invite them out for a different activity that is not centered around food, such as a hike, walk, or over to play games.
Another solution that I really like, and I am not sponsored by them, but it is actually a really great resource, so I would recommend checking it out, is Seed Oil Scout. This app was created by like-minded people seeking to enjoy the social atmosphere of restaurants, with without consuming many of the nasty additives, including incredibly inflammatory seed oils, hence the name.
This app is created by the people and for the people, in which users can collect information from a restaurant regarding the quality of their ingredients and then market it as a “safe” or “unsafe” restaurant, and include details about what the owner or manager has shared about the quality of their ingredients. Other app users can then see that information, and can add their own experiences as well.
Conclusion
Not all people care about eating foods such as the ones I have described today. Honestly, ignorance is bliss, and it is easier to continue to go about our lives, and to enjoy the foods served in restaurants. However, this can negatively impact your health.
However, if you are not happy with the person you look at in the mirror every day, or feel disgusting or uncomfortable in your body after eating at restaurants or fast food places, I would recommend considering making a change in your life. Yes, it is less convenient and takes more , purposeful action from you, but you are the only one accountable for how you feel, look, and live your life.