The Full-Body Fat Fix by Stephen Perrine

Author:Stephen Perrine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

8

Eat This Program … Anywhere!

Whether it’s a romantic anniversary dinner at the local French food palace or a quick trip to the down-and-dirty drive-thru, this handy cheat sheet makes it easy to pick the perfect meal every time.

When it comes to eating the best possible diet for your microbiome, there are two immutable rules:

You’re almost always better off cooking at home, and

You can’t always cook at home

As we’ve learned in previous chapters, among the primary enemies of your microbiome—and hence your body’s ability to manage inflammation, prevent weight gain, and improve overall health—are ultra-processed foods. The fewer processed foods in your diet, the better.

Yet while it’s relatively easy to avoid processed foods at home—what you don’t buy, you can’t eat—even restaurants that serve relatively healthy offerings often use highly processed fats like soybean or vegetable oils, and a surprising number of foods on the menu of even mom-and-pop restaurants come premade, prepackaged, frozen, and ready for the deep fryer. Those chicken wings, jalapeño poppers, fried wontons, onion rings, and sweet potato fries? In many cases, they’re shipped in from a wholesaler, tossed into a vat of boiling soybean oil, and served—at a serious markup—as “hand-cut” or “homemade.” Most salad dressings, waffle batters, and smoothies also come from factory-made mixes. These products are the very definition of “processed.”

All of this makes your belly bugs very unhappy. And if your goal is to protect your microbiome, helping it do its job of lowering inflammation and sparking weight loss, then navigating the world of restaurants means doing a little bit of preplanning.

That’s where this chapter comes in.

If you know a few simple tricks, it’s relatively easy to get around the challenges of most restaurants—whether it’s a fast-food franchise, a mid-level sit-down chain, a local diner, or your neighborhood ethnic specialty joint. Pull up a seat, grab a fork, and let’s chow down on some useful information.

THE MEXICAN CANTINA

Latin-American cuisine is among the healthiest food on the planet—assuming you’re eating it in Latin America, where plant-rich platters, fresh fish, and legumes dominate. But once that food starts gravitating north of the border, a strange thing happens: Everything either gets dumped into a deep fryer or wrapped in a tortilla the size of a parachute.

The worst offenders are the Mexican fast-food and fast-casual chains. For example, fish tacos would sound like a smart choice for someone looking to eat healthfully. But On the Border’s Dos XX Fish Tacos will deliver you 1,950 calories (a full day’s worth) and 3,549 milligrams of sodium—more than double what the American Heart Association would like you to eat in a day. On the Border of what? A stroke?

If you’re craving Mexican, you’re almost always better off skipping the big chains and visiting your local cantina, where far more healthful meals are on tap. To land a perfect meal:

Get that guacamole. Avocados are high in fiber and heart-healthy, brain-healthy monounsaturated fats. Many restaurants offer variations like pomegranate, hot peppers, or pineapple that allow you to add even more plants into this artery-clearing appetizer.

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