The reason most people become interested in nutrition is because of the downright interesting fact that you can impact your longevity, decrease risks for health problems and alter your gene expression, called epigenetics. This is only to an extent, but nonetheless deserves recognition and action. As people we center our decisions on optimizing happiness, and decreasing suffering. Making nutrition decisions to decrease suffering is a no brainer.
The power nutrition alone holds to decrease human suffering is why I am captivated by nutrition and became a registered dietitian in the first place. My passion is to decrease the risk of nutrition related chronic diseases in Canada.
The lynch pin, is that it is not about eating 1 magical food, it is truly about cultivating a healthy lifestyle. A lot of people care but the effort to do so seems too high... in the moment. We live in an instant gratification culture, making it difficult to say no to foods that high jack our caveman brains. Understandably! Also, in our already stressful lives, meal planning and cooking is the last thing we want to do when we are already frazzled and meeting the demands of work and life. Yet, there's a huge cost in the long run to eating at restaurants and fast foods instead of cooking homemade meals. I want to emphasize that restaurant meals are generally as high, if not higher in caloric density, fat and sodium as fast foods. aka fast food and restaurant meals are about the same nutritional quality.
Another aspect is the role happiness plays on eating out. Mr. Money Mustache opened my eyes to the concept of true happiness vs. false happiness. Ordering in can play a role in happiness by creating memories during special occasions with the people we love. That is meaningful and powerful, however, if we are ordering in all the time and it becomes the norm it is no longer serving towards your happiness and is actually detracting from a longevity stand point.
Why do I say this? Well, although there are exceptions, most take out food is optimized for highly palatable, high fat or sugar, high salt foods and high calorie foods with no thought towards health. Aka they are unhealthy. Food companies want to make money and have you keep coming back, so they focus on enjoyability and pleasure, not health (most of the time). Unfortunate for us, our cave man brains can not always see past this and we need to turn on our executive function to make healthy choices. Executive function = cognitive mindful decisions. The problem is that when our executive functions have taken a beating all day, they could be knocked out cold when dinner rolls around and caveman brain takes over - hello Door Dash. Honestly, who hasn't been there at some point?
So what's the solution? Well, we know that whatever has been getting in the way of eating homemade meals will remain, it's been proven to us over and over again in our daily living. So we can't expect that we will one day arrive home and magically feel motivated to cook. That would be awesome, and one day you might want to but probably not right now since you've read this far into the post. So we have to beat our caveman brain to the punch and have a plan. These plans are not there to make you feel like you need to take a sufferable route, but actually to pull you away from the false sense of happiness eating out is causing because one day down the line your body may pay the price from the repeated thrashing it gets from the high saturated fat, sodium etc. It's not like our bodies can't handle it once and while, it's more like how a river carves out the Grande Canyon, slowly with daily repetition. Our body will be fine eating out 1-2x/month but if we're eating out regularly it starts to impact our body's homeostasis. Homeostasis is a fancy word for keeping our body normally functional. For instance, eating out can be the driving force for people gaining weight which is the precursor to type 2 diabetes (specifically accumulating fat around the organs). Another example of how it can throw our bodies off is from the constant beating of high sodium meals which can eventually result in high blood pressure which can lead to kidney failure. A third example, is from the high saturated fat content of meals which can increase your lousy LDL cholesterol putting you at a higher risk of heart disease. Talk about consequences from one daily decision, made consistently.
I know it seems like a small decision in the moment, but isn't the whole trajectory of our lives enveloped in one small decision at a time? The decision to eat out today, tomorrow, the next day has a huge weight to it, and may lead to big consequences that are not worth it in the end. This is especially true because you can still have delicious meals that actually contribute to your health as opposed to jeopardizing it!
So what can you do? I truly believe in making changes in a step wise way. Some people may jump to "I will never eat out again!" realize it's too far a stretch in their lives and then order the least healthy option on the menu like a double cheese poutine, extra gravy with fried chicken cut the green onion and remove the tomato from the ketchup. Don't do this. You are smarter than that.
Start by realizing you are likely eating out for a reason. What is eating out fulfilling in your life? Is it saving you time, decreasing stress or making you feel special? Is it providing happiness? Is it a shared experience with family or friends?
The next question to ask is, is there a different option that can serve your health better and still meet that need?
Finally, ask yourself what is the next best decision I can make for myself? The tiniest possible step up the ladder? For instance, choosing a side salad instead of fries or bringing a home baked wings instead of deep fried wings to your friends get together.
Think about it.
Keep thinking.
K what's your answer?
The answer to this question will likely be something easy enough for you to do on a consistent basis. For instance, it might be choosing to order salad on the side of a burger, or getting grilled chicken instead of fried. An example from my personal life is when I switched from sausage english muffins to bacon english muffins at Tim Hortons when I would order breakfast sandwiches during university. The bacon has less fat, and less sodium than it's sausage counterpart. You may choose a bigger step up the ladder like bulk prepping lunches on the weekend or planning too cook 3 meals a night! Hey, good for you! The great thing is, is that there's no wrong answer here and it does not have to be all or nothing. Every decision, big or small has an impact on our health. Whichever decision you make, remember that you are serving your body and it will ultimately lead to less suffering down the road because the quality of food you put in your body can have a direct outcome to your body's health and longevity.
