7. Finding Joy in Food

Next up, we have talked so much about specific foods and how to eat and how they make you feel, and we have not yet touched on the fact that sometimes you want to eat out in the world and you don’t want to cook. It’s okay. It’s fine. It’s not that big a deal.

Restaurant food is definitely unlikely to be as high quality as the food that you’re eating at home that you would cook for yourself. And if it is as high quality, for one, it’s gonna cost you a fortune, and for another, it probably still has more sugar, salt, and fat than you could ever bring yourself to add to food.

The Reality of Restaurant Cooking

Having worked in restaurants, I’ve never stopped being shocked at the quantity of things that go into food. One example would be time I spent in a corporate role this past year where I spent a week in a steakhouse watching and learning. The average meal at that steakhouse—which was undoubtedly delicious, wonderful food—the average meal, if you factor in people eating a portion of an appetizer, an entree, and a portion of a dessert, was about a stick of butter that each restaurant patron was likely to eat. That is more butter than you could probably bring yourself to put in your food for a number of meals, let alone a single meal.

So it’s very good to know that restaurant food tastes as good as it does because they are putting in more sugar, more salt, and more fat than you could or would ever put in your own food. So that’s good to know.

Prioritizing Joy and Digestion

And now what? We need joy. If you don’t let yourself have things that you love—whether that is just the break from cooking or specific foods themselves that are wonderful—you’re going to eat with stress. And what happens when you eat with stress? You’re not going to digest your food; you’re going to be unhappy and you’re going to be less healthy.

In that vein, yeah, takeout is awesome. In times when we can eat in restaurants, I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to someone bringing me food, my eating it, and them taking a plate away and my not having to wash it. There is something really magical about being served, and especially when you’re nice to the people doing it for you so that they want you to be there too. It’s a beautiful relationship and I encourage you to take part in it.

Mindful Choices and Planning

Just be mindful. Make a point of eating in places and eating food from places that you want, that you’re craving, that you enjoy the taste of, and that doesn’t make you feel lousy afterwards. What I encourage you to stay away from is just that last-in-the-moment, “Oh no, I’m too hungry, I don’t want to cook, I’m just going to grab something,” and I’m not even going to really enjoy it and I’m going to feel badly after that. There’s no point to [it] because that, too, is just a bunch of stress.

The way to mitigate that is simply to decide in advance how your time will be dedicated week by week or even few days by few days. You don’t necessarily have to meal prep in that you don’t have to spend your Sunday making food for an entire week. I don’t ever do that and I don’t particularly encourage other people to do that because I think that it takes up so much time and often creates a lot of food you don’t even want later.

Realistic Meal Prep

I do encourage people to find dishes they want to make that sound exciting, that they’ll want to eat leftovers for. So for example, if you want a lasagna, make a lasagna, but add in a layer of eggplant and a layer of zucchini so there’s a bunch of vegetables in there. Or if you don’t like that, just make a lasagna with a big salad that will keep where you mix the ingredients and they’re on the firmer side, or you just make a dressing and you have a bag of greens, and that way you’re fed for days.

So when you get home or you finish your work day and you’re hungry, you’re all set. It’s no big deal; you’ve got food made. I very much encourage that type of meal prep. If you plan ahead—even just mentally, not necessarily physically—and you have dedicated time and space for restaurant food, then when you do that you can enjoy it and you can feel good about it.

I already know that based on election results, I will be having sushi tonight because it feels celebratory to me. I’ve decided that in advance. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m celebrating what feels like a joyful occasion with food that feels joyful and that makes me feel good. I encourage you to do the same.