Last update - 00:00 01/03/2007
Eating Well / 43. Eating out the healthful way
By Rachel Talshir
A., this column's taste-tester, volunteered to check out a few of the many restaurants that now purport to serve healthful food. Fearless, discerning and possessed of sensitive intestines, A. accepted the assignment to eat for a week only in restaurants that serve mounds of tofu in a variety of forms, that allow the diners to hook up to tanks of pure oxygen, that feature only produce from fields they own and that offer their customers a massage. At some of these places soybeans star in both the main courses and desserts; a few carry organic food only.
During the week in which he offered his stomach in the service of the public, A. reached the conclusion that for a restaurant to deserve the title of healthful, it must meet five conditions that sound elementary, but are complicated when an attempt is made to implement them in the reality of the work routine at a small-scale eatery. The five:
1. A healthful restaurant must offer dishes with whole grains - whole-wheat bread and pasta, brown rice, etc.;
2. There must be no fried foods;
3. It must not served reheated foods;
4. The menu must be based on fruits and vegetables; and
5. There must be no foods rich in sugar, salt or preservatives.
These five conditions can be summed up in two words: simplicity and freshness.
If the conditions are so simple, A. said to himself, why didn't any of the restaurants I visited manage to fulfill them? His conclusion: The intentions are usually good, but the logistic and economic circumstances of a restaurant make it difficult to meet the conditions. Think seriously for a minute, he said. You will understand that it's not really logical to expect a restaurant not to heat up food. In most cases a restaurant is simply unable to serve its clients without using a microwave.
Still, I asked him, how can devotees of healthful foods check whether a restaurant is suitable for them? In the week that I worked in the service of the column, he replied, I came to the conclusion that there are two main obstacles to be wary of when going to a restaurant that calls itself healthful. The first is the misleading word "vegetarian," which promises only that there is no meat served in the restaurant, but doesn't protect you against salads that are fermenting on the counter or in the refrigerator. They too are not healthy, as we know, and vegetable pies/casseroles that are heated up are also not rich in nutritional values. The same goes for restaurants that style themselves "vegan" or "organic."
I asked A. how he would sum up the week in which he ate at restaurants serving supposedly healthful food. He reiterated that heaps of quinoa and stacks of lettuce don't turn a restaurant that serves fried tofu, mejadara (rice and lentils) that has been reheated 10 times, and grains that have been over-seasoned or have gone soft from floating in a broth into a "healthful" restaurant. Most of the places that declare themselves to be healthful establishments, and whose chefs make confessions in the newspaper about the instant of "revelation" when they decided to feed the country's citizens only healthful food, don't meet the five conditions above.
In his best-selling book "In Praise of Slowness," Carl Honore describes thinking in terms of enjoying and being, rather than rushing and racing about in life. Honore recommends slowing down in all spheres. In a chapter devoted to the subject of food, he praises the experience of home cooking: "Cooking can be so much more than just a chore. It connects us with what we eat, where it came from, how the flavors work, what it will do for our health. Making food that gives pleasure to other people can be a real joy. When you have enough time for it, when hurry is not part of the recipe, cooking is also a wonderful way to unwind. It has an almost meditative quality."