Restaurants

Menu labeling and the three phases of restaurant adoption

Restaurants aren't stupid.  They want to make a buck or two.  So as various food trends grow, they often offer relevant options: low fat, heart healthy, low calorie, whatever.  And now, gluten-free and paleo.  What's nice is that there are a decent number of menu options that don't require much, if any, alteration to be labeled as one or the other.  So it makes it easy for a restaurant to "offer" these meals.  It reminds me of a good line from Robb Wolf's book, which went something like, You've eaten lots of paleo meals before -- you just haven't eaten them in a row. 

So here are the three phases of restaurant adoption.  

  1. Restaurants ignore.  You have to custom order. Few producers make products for you.
  2. Restaurants re-label and tweak. They find easy, existing menu options to "offer". Niche food producers address the market.
  3. Restaurants design specific meals, source novel ingredients, or base their entire restaurant on your concept. And the big CPGs create these products.
Natural and organic have been in phase 3 for quite some time.  Gluten-free has been moving from 2 to 3.  Paleo is moving from 1 to 2. 
 
Below is a menu from suburban Detroit at a nicer restaurant.  Notice the "GF" (gluten-free) next to multiple of the salad options.  Do you think they invented a Tenderloin Cobb Salad, Thai Shrimp Salad, or Porter Salad just to appeal to the gluten-free crowd?  Unlikely.  They realized they already had dishes that were gluten-free - or close enough to easily alter - and so they simply marked which ones those were. That said, they're marking the entire menu with this label, and it's the only food label on the menu.  There's no heart healthy or low fat labels.

Here's a menu from San Francisco.  Notice the Paleo Steak Salad "for all you cavemen out there".  Now that's what I call progress.  Okay, so this is just one option, rather than a label across the entire menu, and I'm sure it's as easy as adding a few words on a dry-erase board.  But I'll take it.

How to eat wild at Chipotle

Chipotle is one of the best fast food chains for eating wild.  They have higher quality meat and ingredients, and it's fully customizable.  There aren't a lot of menu options, so here's how to do it.

1. Form: Order the salad, not the burrito - you can get any of the same ingredients, you just lose the tortilla
2. Filler: Pass on the rice and beans, but go for the sauteed vegetables - rice and beans are filler anyway, which is why they put them before the meat.  Realize that Chipotle wants to lower their food costs by stuffing you with the cheap stuff. 
3. Meat: Pick any meat - I love carnitas or barbacoa, but they're all good. *See bonus technique below for getting more meat without paying for it.
4. Toppings: Add pico de gallo  and guacamole, maybe add sour cream, but pass on the corn and cheese - Sour cream isn't orthodox paleo, but it's full of fat, which is much better than anything sugary.  
5. Dressing: Pass on the dressing, but use some of the hot sauce instead.  Mystery dressings can be loaded with sugar and gluten. Just ask for hot sauce (medium or hot) on the side, and use it as your dressing.
 
* Bonus Technique: There are ways to get more meat without paying more.  When you skip the rice and beans, your salad will look a bit scrawny.   Don't ask for extra meat (they'll charge you), but say something like "Make sure you put enough barbacoa on there" or "Don't hold back" or "That salad looks a little empty, can you make sure you've added enough?"  (Hat tip to Clark for the bonus technique.)
 
* Updated Bonus Technique: Commenters Sanjay and CJG suggest another brilliant trick to get more meat.  Ask for half of two different kinds of meat.  It's hard for them to do half spoonfuls, so the end result is that you get more.  This is a highly advanced technique and should not be tried by novices.
 
And there you have it.  You'll be able to fill up for under $10, you won't fall asleep afterwards, and you won't have to cheat on that late night run to go grab some chow with your buddies.
 

Poll results: Most and least friendly ethnic cuisines

Results are in for least and most paleo-friendly ethnic cuisines.  Lots of votes -- thank you.

No surprise for the clear winner of least paleo: Italian.  With all that pasta, bread, bread sticks, pizza, and breaded meats, it's hard to avoid grain, gluten, and a big insulin spike.  Maybe I shouldn't have chosen Olive Garden for our next paleo meetup.  Chinese and Mexican aren't far behind.  Favorite write-in: Tasmanian.  

There are really two winners for most paleo ethnic cuisine: Barbeque and Brazilian.  More proof that the ideal paleo meal is meat on a stick.  Greek and Japanese are runners up.  Have a look at the results, and then I'll give you my observations below.  

  • Observe that Italian and Greek are heavily divergent on the rankings, which is odd considering they are two nearby Mediterranean countries who share so much classical culture.  Italian food is very grain heavy, Greek not so much.  I'll speculate that part of it is because Greece is more mountainous, so it's much harder to grow grain there than in Italy.  Grain-products can't be a staple of your cuisine if it's hard to get hold of.  This allows us to make some hypotheses: ethnic cuisines that are paleo-friendly will be found in countries where it is harder to grow grain relative to other sources of food -- mountainous locations or regions near the sea.  Flat, land-locked regions and countries will have developed the least paleo-friendly cuisine.
  • Clearly, as commenter Alicia points out, there is a difference between Americanized ethnic food, the type of ethnic food available in NYC/LA or anywhere with sizable immigrant populations, and traditional/indigenous ethnic cuisine as it is made in the home country.  For example, Italian gets slammed, but real southern Italian food has lots of seafood and is less grain-heavy than northern Italian, as you can see from Richard Nikoley's recent trip.  
  • Barbeque got the most votes for most paleo, but I don't think it merits the highest honor.  First, while the grilled meat is very paleo (and the act of grilling it), most of the typical sides are not: tons of sweet barbeque sauce, ketchup, macaroni and cheese, corn bread, and baked beans.  But the act of barbequing is about as paleo as it gets.
  • Brazilian is a great choice if you've ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse (churrascaria).  However, the standard Brazilian diet is very heavy in rice and beans -- so when we say Brazilian, it's actually the churrascaria format that is most paleo.  That said, having been to Rio de Janeiro in the last couple years, standard lunch places have awesome paleo choices (minus the rice and beans).
  • Korean is more paleo than it gets credit for in this tally.  I've been to Korean BBQs that didn't even serve rice...the only breaded item were a few dumplings. 
  • One commenter pointed out Filipino food as particularly friendly to paleo.  Forget the rice.  There's Sisig (spicy pork cheeks and brain), Dinuguan (innards and blood stew), Kinilaw (like ceviche), and Inasal baboy or lechon (whole pig roast).  Lots of coconut milk, and no vegetarian dishes.  What's not to like?  A true blue Filipina is taking me to a Filipino restaurant this week, so I'll report back.

Keep your eyes posted for future posts where I'll give tips and tricks for how to eat paleo at Italian/Mexican/Chinese/Indian/ethnic restaurants.

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