Do You Eat Sugar When You Eat Out?

Question

How do you handle the “hidden” sugars that are sometimes added to savory sauces in dishes you may order when you eat out? Or do you not eat out?

Answer

Carefully. Gwenn and I don’t eat out much. When we do, we try to go to a place that we have tried and are familiar with. Not only are restaurant foods sweet, they’re also loaded with salt. Here’s how I handle it.

Drinking

I always drink water. I gave up soda years before I gave up sugar. I don’t drink alcohol. Restaurant food is very salty, especially at a place that serves beer like a brew pub. At least one glass of water is necessary to make it through a meal in a place like that.

Meat

Meat often has added sugars. Seasoning is sweetening in many cases. Bacon has sugar in it. Hot dogs have sugar in them. Not to mention your average hamburger patty gets washing in ammonia. As a result of avoiding sugar, I learned about where my food comes from and chose to become vegetarian. That quickly limits my menu options.

Comfort and Ketchup

I like comfort food. Here in Portland, veggie burgers are easy to come by (there’s often at least one vegetarian option on the menu). However, that doesn’t guarantee that I won’t be eating added sugars. In fact, the bun will most definitely have sugar and french fries are, well, french fries. Still, I’ll order a veggie burger and fries.

Lately I’ll have some ketchup when I’m out but we don’t keep ketchup at home. Portland’s Little Big Burger offers ketchup made with honey, most places do not. Heinz changed their sweetener in ketchup from High Fructose Corn Syrup to plain old sugar, but many diners and restaurants use generic ketchup in Heinz bottles!

Sugar Free?

Am I sugar-free if I still eat ketchup? Yes and no. I don’t eat dessert. I don’t drink soda. I don’t buy snack food. I avoid the sit down restaurants that are a just cut above fast food. I certainly avoid my trigger foods. But there are a few things that I allow myself to eat (like ketchup, veggie burger, fries) that certainly contain sugar of some kind. When joining a group of people to eat out, I just do my best.

For me, one of the main factors in choosing my food is if it’s processed or not. If so, how much? The biggest measure is how it makes me feel. Does it make me want to binge? I discovered what I could or couldn’t eat by trying and seeing what happened. If I ate ice cream one day, I’d need it the next and by the end of the week I’d be eating nothing else, so I absolutely avoid it.

Long Story Short

If I eat out I do so consciously and conservatively. In the past few months I’ve had comfort food a couple of times and felt lousy afterwards. I am now revamping my diet and moving more of my ‘borderline replacement foods’ to my ‘avoid’ list.

In the end, you define your own parameters about what you are willing to eat and when. That’s what it means to Stop Being Sweet. It is not all or nothing. It might take you several years to alter the habits developed over a lifetime of eating carbs and sugar. I’m not completely ready to avoid bread but I’m getting close.

You can do what you want anywhere you go but expect that it’ll always be hard to avoid sugar when you’re away from home.

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