Whole-Food  Plant-Based (WFPB)


Restaurants

Some omnivore restaurants produce great vegetarian dishes.

Salad bars

Steak houses with all-you-can-eat-salad bars are often excellent values. Other restaurants can have salads that are too small and overpriced.

Dr. John McDougall eating healthfully at restaurants and salad bars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sBrA62J43g&t=257

  • 04:17 Eating healthfully at salad bars
  • 05:07 Potato salad and coleslaw are loaded with mayonnaise and oil. Almost all salad dressings contain oil and sugar. Vinegar is fine.
  • 07:00 Eating healthfully at fast-food restaurants
  • 10:57 Pizza restaurants
  • 12:48 Grocery store
  • 14:48 Stress
  • 16:32 [end of topic]

[McDougall avoids added oil, but allows small amounts of refined grains and sugar]

Avoiding oil at restaurants

Most meat, cheese, and sugar at restaurants are easy to detect and avoid. Added oil is much sneakier.

Most cooked vegan foods at restaurants have added oil. 20% to 30% of calories from added oil is common. In South Asian cuisine, many of the preparations involve soaking the spice in oil for a time before cooking.

Olive Oil Is Not Healthy - Michael Klaper MD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUP9hQC_J0o

  • 0:18 Restaurant food is ethnic-flavored salt, sugar, and fat.
  • 1:42 Olive oil

Ask for things to be prepared without oil if possible:

The reddit forum has many threads that discuss eating at restaurants:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PlantBasedDiet/

Traveling

Traveling salespeople and truck drivers have less opportunity to eat WFPB. Truck stops and small-town restaurants may not have WFPB on the menu.

Pack or buy foods listed on Easy WFPB.

Just eat WFPB when you can. A 50% WFPB diet has 50% of the health benefits. Which is still far healthier than the standard American diet.
https://www.forksoverknives.com/plant-strong-road/

Brian vs. Jessica: Whole Food Plant-Based Gas Station Challenge (19-minute video)
https://youtu.be/RGQ_y7aIegw

  • Jessica paid $7.67 for: fruit bowl (unknown cal), almonds no added oil (250 cal), canned green beans (40 cal)
  • Brian paid $12.34 for: apple sauce (280 cal), pistachios (400 cal), veg sandwich (205 cal)

WFPB results vary widely at restaurants

It takes some research & trial to find suitable restaurants.

The good:

restaurant_good

The ugly:

restaurant_ugly