Tonight my grandmother accompanied me to the Elephant Bar for a nice dinner.
New Choices: Mostly Plants
There was a large selection of food and I was confident I could find something to eat. (There were around one hundred entrees.) After reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, there came the realization that, in fact, what I consume should be mostly plants. His book mentions the importance of eating leaves - more generally that one can increase nutrient intake while maintaining fewer calorie intake. However, after searching through the menu I realized that there were very few "mostly plant" options. I counted four, and that was being generous. Solely plant entrees only existed if you wanted tofu on top.
So tonight I strayed from my medium-well steak and headed to the salad section. To my non-surprise, there was only about a page of salads (compared to two pages dedicated to global foods - almost entirely meat entrees). A beautiful looking "Santa Fe BBQ Chicken Salad" was on sale, so that's what was ordered.
The Salad?
The salad finally came, looking marvelous. Considering it had leaves, I was sure it was healthier than the other options. To be sure, I asked the waitress how many calories were sitting on my plate. She responded with a whopping 1030.
Let me repeat that: 1030. For a salad.
Then it began to sink in that this was not really a salad. First, there was probably more chicken than lettuce. Second, there were two types of dressing, both very prominent. There even came a point where I could soup up the dressing with my spoon.
This is not the salad I had come to desire after reading about how to improve my overall health. I was not eating like an omnivore, I was eating like a person who really liked BBQ'd chicken and wanted to feel healthy.
What I really wanted was more lettuce than chicken, more beans than cheese, and more corn than crispy noodles. Perhaps my suggestion for the restaurant would be to change the ratio of the ingredients, not do away with the ingredients altogether.
Calorie Wars: Sauteed Chicken Marsala versus Chicken Salad
To be honest, if I hadn't read about eating more plants, I would have ordered Sauteed Chicken Marsala instead. It is mostly pasta and chicken, smothered in what I'm sure is a delicious sauce. Turns out, the calorie count is a mere 200 calories more than the BBQ Chicken Salad. Turns out also that I was very hungry after the salad (and remained hungry after twenty minutes. and thirty minutes. and now, four hours later), but I'm sure the Marsala could have been made into at least another meal, if not two.
So why should I have ordered a salad from the Elephant Bar? The French nor the Italians nor my great-great-grandmother would have eaten what I had for dinner tonight. Nor would they have eaten anything from the rest of the menu.
The Western Diet in Real Life
After reading's Pollan's book, I wanted there to be an easy way to jump off the Western-diet bandwagon. Instead, I'm seeing it everywhere. The Elephant Bar had almost 100 meals that are sure to have been filled with over-processed meats and breads, with very, very few plants. Not even the salads could escape this sad fate.
So Pollan was correct. I can try to end my life as a Western dieter, but I can't assume I can maintain my current lifestyle. Restaurants won't support my endeavor and the change will surely take more time and effort on my part. Will it be worth it? According to Pollan, the answer is yes.
I happen to agree.
The Elephant Bar's Savior: Alcohol
The first three pages of The Elephant Bar's menu were wines and other alcoholic beverages. Clearly they're taking Pollan's (and Italy's) wine-with-dinner suggestion seriously. At least they got one part right.
tl;dr - Don't eat at The Elephant Bar if you're an animal looking to survive. Even if you're an elephant.
