Top 5 priorities when eating out

Tonight I'm going out for dinner. Because I've been doing quite well on the nutrition front recently, I want to get through the evening without spoiling that. So I went looking for tips and ended up at "The primal blueprint guide to eating out". It didn't look very promising, with tip nr 3 being "Don't eat". Hell no, I eat out perhaps once every two months so I'm damn well going to enjoy it! Besides, the whole point of this diet is too improve quality of life- quality kinda goes down if you have to sit there like a freak watching everyone else eat.

Tip nr 5 was to make special requests, claim allergies if need be- anything to get some primal food! But I know myself, I'd be fussing and worrying the whole time, unable to let it go and enjoy the night. Plus I'd spent the next couple hours dreading to face the waiter with all my requests.

I truly wish I could just forget about paleo for tonight, but that won't do either. I'd feel like a glutton, secretly feeling sad and guilty inside. Fretting over whether I'm really so lacking of any willpower, 'why oh why' etc. Not exactly a recipe for enjoying a night out. I'd also constantly be worrying about the physical consequences in store for me tomorrow..

So what's a girl to do? A good compromise seems the only option. I came up with a list of priorities, things most important for my mental and physical health. Keeping these 5 points in mind should get me through the night without all the fussing and worrying.

1. Avoid gluten
There are more things lining up to destroy our guts, but gluten seems to be the worst offender. Hopefully by avoiding them I'll be better able to handle some ice cream for dessert. Besides, gluten seem to make my stomach swell to twice it's original size, which doesn't make me feel especially sexy or comfortable...
So it's an old and often mentioned tip- but do send back that bread basket.

2. Get some protein and veggies
The protein shouldn't be a problem- even if I weren't thinking of my health I'd still want a nice piece of fish or a big ass steak. They don't seem to serve a lot of vegetables these days though, so I'm planning to order a salad on the side. Veggies will serve to fill me up and help me be moderate with other less desirable things. I'm also plenty indoctrinated with the 'veggies are good for you!' idea.

3. No soda
I think cola is nasty, but some ice tea or fresh orange juice is very tempting. However, since we'll be drinking plenty throughout the night I'll stick to 1 or 2 glasses of wine, water and tea. This will give me a good feeling mentally, since I'll be doing something right.

4. Portion control
I really, really like potatoes. So even though they're not paleo, I'll have some of those. But they tend to give you a whole lot of them. I'm not really good with portion control to be very honest, so I'll ask the others to keep the extra's away from me. They know about my eating habits so they'll understand.

5. Dessert
Dessert is always very enjoyable, but rarely paleo. As I said at the beginning of this post, for me paleo is about improving quality of life. For me that also means enjoying some vices that are not necessarily very sensible. During my lifetime I'd like to at least taste pretty much every kind of food in the world. So the master plan is to really enjoy it, and take a bite from everyone else's dessert too!

10 Money saving tips

Pretty much the only bad thing I've got to say about prof. Cordain's book is that you'd almost have to be a freakin' millionaire to follow his weekly diet plan. Fresh blueberries everyday? Salmon, asparagus? Pffsh.
On the other hand, I've argued with my friends that unless you're a very plain eater, cheap-paleo will be a lot more affordable than non-paleo. I probably safe a lot by simply not buying anything to drink or not buying candy etc. That said, there's still a lot to fiddle with.

Here's a random list of things I do to keep eating healthy somewhat affordable.

1. If you're going to freeze it, buy it frozen.
Selling stuff with a short best-before date is a risky business. In the shop where I work we end up binning quite a bit of meat. And ofcourse this shows in the price. If you're going to freeze it anyway, avoid paying for things your shop throws away.

2. You kill it, you eat it.
No discrimination on what part of the animal to eat. Liver is yumm, bones make good broth and the longer you need to cook it- the tastier.

3. Go lean.
That said, consider what you eat meat for. It's the protein. And since meat is expensive, make sure you're getting enough bang for your buck. Normally just add extra fat with oils and save the fatty meats for treats.

4. Organic & grass fed/finished?
Remember that post from MDA about the lean vs fat discussion?
A single organic chicken breast costs about 7 euro's. Non-organic I can get a whole kilo of chicken breasts for that price, and even more if I'd buy it frozen. So, another benefit of eating lean, is that you can skip having to sell your kidneys to eat a piece of chicken.
When you go for your fatty treats like bacon you want it organic/grass finished anyway because of the nitrates etc.

5. Shop often, preferably atleast every other day.
There's always some sort of discount on vegetables. Shops buy big, they have too much so they put it on sale.. and that's when you buy it. Just make sure you use it quickly. They also sometimes put as much as a 50% discount on meat when it has reached it's best-before date. It might not be optimally healthy, but hey, you gotta make ends meet.
Obviously you should be walking or riding a bike while doing this shopping....

6. Keep your pantry and recipe book well stocked.
When you come accross one of those sales mentioned, you have to be able to actually use it. This means having a recipe, and not having to buy some expensive ingredient to go with it. That's where your pantry and freezer come in!

7. Go to the market at closing time.
Dutch market's and farmers market's aren't exactly the same, but probably it holds true that the sellers want to get rid of their stuff. At the end of the day prices for perishable stuff go down, sometimes a lot. Buy it all, eat what you can and freeze the rest so that when you find a discounted piece of meat you've got something to eat it with ;)

8. Worry about saving big, and not so much about saving small.
The best eggs cost twice as much as regular eggs, so buy the best eggs. A good organic can of tuna can be 8x more expensive than a cheap can with just water and salt added. Get the cheap tuna.

9. Consider wether you're actually saving money..
Related to the above, buying a farmed non-organic piece of salmon doesn't mean you're saving. You're just wasting money on a not so good but still expensive product. Get frozen coalfish or something like that when you're going cheap and get a good, fresh, wild piece of salmon when you want a treat. You'll still be better off.

10. Don't eat so many fruits, berries and nuts.
Seriously, you don't want to do it anyway because of omega balance issues, sugar issues, way too many calorie issues... and now you can also add the 'way too expensive' issue.
Fruit and fresh berries are like paleo-candy. Before going paleo (or whatever) you didn't eat candy everyday either, did ya?

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