Find a restaurant you can return to again and again – the staff will get to know you, and your ordering preferences. This makes getting the meal you want easier each time.Eating at restaurants is a social pleasure and a positive life experience. But because we, as customers, have little control over the quality of the food being served, it can be easy to write the whole experience off as an indulgence. Your Wealthy Body need not deny itself the experience of a night out, especially when you can still exert some influence over your intake.
Find a restaurant you can return to again and again – the staff will get to know you, and your ordering preferences. This makes getting the meal you want easier each time.
Eat something healthy before you go out. By the time you are seated at the restaurant, you’ll be ready to order a smaller-portioned meal without over-eating. (This also saves money.)
As soon as you are seated, drink a full glass of water, and say no to the bread basket.
When ordering, ask to have the preparation of the dishes explained. Which dishes are baked, grilled or fried, and what type of sauces or dressings are they served with?
Enquire if the vegetables can be steamed, blanched or raw.
To avoid starchy carbs (potato, pasta, rice), ask if you can load up on the ‘greens’ instead.
Never hesitate to ask for food to be prepared exactly the way you want it. We are continually amazed at the number of very senior people in business who don’t seem to have the backbone to ask for their food to be prepared the way they need it to be. Who is paying whom here? Would you run your division like that? You end up with what you tolerate, and everyone will see it on your hips.
Often restaurants serve helpings that are at least twice the normal size. Don’t feel bad about asking for a half-portion.
If you are treating yourself to a dessert or sweet, investigate and order the items lowest in cheap fats, stodgy carbs and sugar.
If you will be dining at a new restaurant, make the reservation yourself so you can advise the staff well ahead of your preferences, or task your assistant with this responsibility. This also allows you to check if the restaurant can assist with your food choices or not. It may be that you’ll have to choose another venue.
Never accept second-rate options. Ageing well isn’t for sissies – always keep a razor-sharp focus on building a lean, strong physique, a healthy constitution, and a bright and vital presence.
If you feel confident:
Don’t open the menu. Instead order whole-food, nutrient-dense items that you know will be found on any menu, or which can be easily prepared in any kitchen.
Skip the appetisers and go straight for a consommé soup (one prepared with a water base and natural stock. Avoid anything called ‘Cream of...’ or ‘Crème de...’).
Ask for a main of steamed/grilled/poached fish or meat with steamed vegetables.
Request that any dressing or sauces be served ‘on the side’.
Go spicy! The temptation to over-eat can be a subconscious response to plain food! Add chillies, peppers, cayenne, curcumin, turmeric, onions or garlic to meats, salads, yogurt dips and scrambled eggs, or curry powder to sauces. Try spicy dishes from the menu, but be sure to check the contents.
Use these as rough guides for the appropriate size of portion to eat when dining out:
Chicken: palm of the hand
Fish: palm of the hand
Salmon and tuna: ½ palm of hand
Lean beef and pork: ½ palm of hand
Starchy foods – such as sweet potato, beetroot, yams, pumpkin, etc: 1 teacup
Fruit: size of a tennis ball
Vegetables (greens): 2–3 teacups
Oils, dressings: 1 fingertip
Organic yogurt: 1 teacup
Filtered water on ice (with a twist of lemon)
Sparkling water
Iced or hot herbal teas
Dry red or white wine: a maximum of 2 x 150ml (5oz) glasses in any one sitting.
Fresh-ground organic coffee occasionally (but not at night, clearly...)
Green juice or smoothie
Beer and ‘energy’ mixers
Spirits with soft-drink mixers
Soy milk and flavoured soy drinks
Soft drinks
Diet soft drinks
Flavoured milk shakes
Juice drinks (usually containing added sugar and other ingredients)
Creamy cocktails
Generally seafood is low in damaging fats, high in good fats and high in protein. Much of the damage is done in the preparation and cooking.
Avoid all deep-fried fish. Ask for steamed, poached, baked or grilled portions.
Specify no added salt or added MSG.
Fresh lemon or a twist or two of black pepper is all that is needed for seasoning.
Choose only fish species from ethically sustainable stocks (www.goodfishguide.org)
Quiz your server about the exact ingredients and preparation methods for the soup selection. Once you have established this, it makes it very easy to order on future occasions.
Many vegetable soups have table salt, cheap oils and refined flour added to create extra texture, taste and thickness. Avoid these ingredients if possible.
Asking these sorts of questions will assist in determining the standard of preparation, degree of healthy ingredients and levels of nutrients in your soup choices.
If you are at home, remember the following points:
The best vegetable soup is simply puréed vegetables with only seasoning added. Simmering a little water off the stock, or adding potato or rice can add thickness.
At home, unsweetened Greek yogurt can be used as a topping instead of cream or sour cream. It may also be used to give a creamy texture to lobster bisque.
Instead of sautéeing vegetables in oil for a minestrone, sweat them in a light stock on a high heat.
Avoid sandwich bread wherever possible. With modern mass-batch refining and processing, most of the nutritious elements found in the whole grains that bread is supposed to be made from are missing. It simply isn’t made like it used to be.
Out for lunch? Alternatively, you can order your sandwiches with double greens: the thickness of the greens should be at least as high as the bottom bread and meat! You can also order an ‘open’ sandwich by losing the top slice of bread. Better yet, ditch the sandwich altogether and get a salad bowl with grilled fish – like tuna, salmon or shrimp – or chicken.
Vital Vegetables: The Secret to Longevity
You’re always a winner when you choose vegetables to accompany a meal. They are truly nutrient-dense foods (NDFs). Eat as many high-colour, crunchy, fibrous veggies as possible to load up on nutrition, and you can have them grilled, steamed, baked, blended (as in a smoothie) or raw. Use vegetables or organic bones as the base of any soup stock. Remember it’s not the vegetables themselves that make you fat, but the method with which they are prepared.
For a midday meal, don’t be afraid of eating starchy vegetables or grains (sweet potatoes, pumpkin, quinoa and wild rice) with your fibrous mixture – you’ll need the extra energy to get through the afternoon.
For afternoon and evening meals, choose mixed high-coloured vegetables instead – spinach, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, peppers (capsicums), asparagus, pak-choi, salad greens, grated beetroots, etc.
Organic salads are grown healthy but are then destroyed in the kitchen. Avoid any dressings containing cheap mayonnaise or oils. While there is an abundance of dressings available in the supermarkets, it is not beyond the wit and drive of most chefs to prepare a similar recipe if a herbal tang is required. If need be, simply ask for a drizzle of good-quality balsamic vinegar, Greek yogurt or perhaps chilli sauce.
Myth: I read that pouring oil over salad is good for your health.
A: Consider this: does a giraffe coat the leaves he is eating with olive oil for better health? Why do we ruin a perfectly good plate of leafy greens with a coating of oil, which may also make it difficult for digestive enzymes to recognise the food for what it is?
Here’s our view on this: Whole food is the key, as it comes with its own package of synergistic nutrients and essential fibre. Isolated fats are just that: processed and isolated. Just like we understand that isolated sugars are not a good thing, we will need to understand that isolated fats are not a good thing either. Eat the olive not the commercial olive oil; eat the orange, not the commercial juice!
Chicken, turkey, quail and even ostrich are all of the same biological structure, so what is true of chicken is true for all poultry. Always choose free-range organic meats; they will be free from chemical residues like pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, growth hormones, veterinary antibiotics and other man-made chemicals. Remember: we eat what our food eats! The animals will also be leaner, contain correct ratios of omega-3 fats, and have lived happier, healthier lives.
White meat (breast) is leanest, and dark meat has a higher fat content (thighs, wings). Don’t be afraid, just aware.
Avoid crispy skin on chicken, pan-frying, fricasséeing, or any preparation method that involves superheated fats or oils.
Red Meats – Beef, Lamb and Pork
Check for country of origin. New Zealand beef and lamb is a good choice, as it’s mostly free-range and pasture-fed.
When ordering, be aware that leanest choices are tenderloin, top sirloin and topside. Fattest steak cuts are porterhouse, rib, rib-eye, T-bone, brisket and chuck steak.
A single serving of steak should be about the same size as the palm of your hand (about 175g/6oz).
Choose lamb leg steaks or loin as the least fatty portions.
Select free-range and organic pork wherever possible.
Avoid streaky bacon, processed ham and crackling.
Eat more than just ‘muscle’ meats – bone stock and organ meats seem to have fallen out of favour lately, but they are traditionally rich sources of a wider variety of nutrients. In nature, the smartest predators always consume the organs of their prey first. Don’t say ‘Eeew’, open your mind and change your irrational beliefs.
Avoid high-fat cuts such as salami, pastrami, bologna or burgers.
Sausages, frankfurters and savaloys tend to be predominantly made from fatty off-cuts and breadcrumbs, likewise with recipes containing sausage meat. Savouries, pasties, samosas and sausage rolls have fat-rich pastry, as well as containing very little in the way of protein or other nutrition.
Common sense is your main guide here – fresh fruit salads are best, though quite sweet, and you’ll know to minimise the size of the serving if you decide to treat yourself to richer fare.
If you need that slice of cake, share it with someone. Cut it in half, or even quarters.
If you can stick to two – OK, three – forkfuls of cake, you will yield the same pleasure as having eaten an entire slice, without the long-term repercussions.
Wealthy Body Wisdom: The esoteric pleasure of chocolate and other dessert flavours comes from the first two bites. After this, taste receptors become overloaded. Every subsequent bite has less pleasure than the one before it.
Wealthy Body Action Points: When dining out, whether with family, a client or colleagues, check the menu options online to ensure you can get the right choices, before you book the restaurant.
If you’re a guest at someone else’s dinner function, phone the chef the day before to see if they have the options you’d prefer. It saves any fuss or embarrassment on the night with the waiting staff.
If in doubt, eat a small nutritious meal before you leave home. By pre-empting hunger, this will prevent you eating too much later in the evening, and you can choose to leave less healthy items to the side of your plate.