A Message To Restaurants - Yes, You Can Have Healthy Food

Plus, thoughts on ways to eat better outside your home 🏡

Sep 17, 2024

Want to know the easiest way to fall off your plant-based diet? Walk out your front door. I hear this all the time. Here’s what I mean.

A friend will suggest a restaurant – somewhere you’ve eaten plenty of times before. But when you look at the menu through plant-based eyes, you discover they have nothing you can eat. You go back to your norm.

You’re out playing, hiking, or having fun with the family, and can’t find a restaurant that offers you a plant-based meal. Why not choose your old standby?

You’re invited to a barbecue, and all they serve is meat-based dishes. You feel kind of funny eating just a hot dog bun. So you load up on hamburgers, hot dogs, and chips.

Ever been in one of these situations? It’s challenging.

Eating plant-based at home is “easy.” But when you go out, it’s a whole different story.

So, let's dive into the current state of restaurants at the moment. Because I’m seeing a trend away from vegetarian options, and more restaurants offering meat-based, highly processed meals.

Plan Before You Go - Navigating This New World

To stick with eating healthy, you’re going to have to get bolder in your search to eat good food.

My daughter and I were heading out for a day of shopping recently. Fun, right? We planned where we were going. Mapped out our day to hit all the stores on our list.

A lot of people shop that way. But I have to go the extra mile.

Because I don’t eat meat, I do my research before I leave. Case in point: our local shopping center. Last December, we went holiday shopping expecting to eat at our favorite plant-based restaurant. It had just closed. So we looked for alternatives. It was very difficult to find, even with more than a dozen restaurants in the area.

It’s because restaurants have gone waayyy toward supplying only meat, and I find there are fewer and fewer options.

[I can’t stress this enough, and it’s time restaurants took notice and make changes.]

Unexpected Surprises

When I think about what restaurants could be, I always think about two trips that stand out for their food options: New Zealand and Mexico.

I spent a month in New Zealand, staying in several Airbnb’s as we moved between the two islands. As a whole, they have a better take on clean living. We saw it in the ingredients listed on the products in the grocery stores. We saw it in the way the restaurants advertised their menus.

But what surprised me the most was when we took a drive and ended up in a very small town – Coromandel Town on the Coromandel Peninsula. This town of under 2,000 residents had a main street a couple of blocks long. We walked from restaurant to restaurant, looking at the menus before selecting one for lunch.

Every restaurant offered vegetarian options. But the one we settled on offered a vegan pizza – vegan! – in a town of under 2,000.

To put that in perspective, when we had a three-hour layover in Honolulu, Hawaii, on our way back home, the only vegetarian option I found in the airport was an iffy salad with a lot of feta cheese. And the cost … 😱

Something similar happened in San Miguel, Mexico.

When we booked our Airbnb for a month, I started searching for things to do, restaurants to visit.

I Google “best vegan restaurants [city].” I use vegan instead of other choices because it gives you results more committed to serving high-quality plant-based food. I added these to my travel documents, including links to menus and addresses, so we could easily find them.

Here’s a secret: In a new city, especially a walking city like San Miguel, we’ll often start out with a restaurant as our destination. We get there, eat a gorgeous lunch, and have a new area to explore. It’s easy to make your way around the city like this, exploring each new area based on a great restaurant you choose to visit.

Then, as you’re moving around, you’re bound to find a variety of other restaurants to try. I snap photos of restaurants that look interesting. Later, I Google it. If they have a variety of vegetarian and vegan options, it goes on my list.

And San Miguel did not disappoint. It’s a food lover's paradise. They’ve made a conscious choice to ban fast food out of the city center, allowing high-quality chefs to open up high-quality restaurants. You’ll find so many great options with truly gorgeous food!

What Restaurants Could Do Differently

The two examples above prove it can be done. Restaurant owners just have to spend a little more time putting conscious effort in appealing to a plant-based audience.

I get it - you don’t want to add more ingredients to your list. Margins matter. But one or two exceptional plant-based meals won’t break the bank. And it will attract an audience that is trying to eat better. I always recommend restaurants when I’m heading out with friends. I remember the restaurants that “get it.”

When you’re plant-based (vegan or vegetarian too in many ways), you’ll notice the problem with our chain restaurants very quickly: They don’t offer options.

Seafood restaurants are the worst – they rarely even have a side salad without meat. They put seafood on everything, and it’s impossible to pull it out of many meals.
Steak restaurants are close behind – do they really think that their meat-eating patrons don’t have plant-based friends willing and able to spend money on high-quality plant-based options? Or that meat-eating patrons occasionally don’t want something lighter, something other than steak?
Chains, let’s talk about chains. I’m talking about the standard restaurants you’ll find in every city. “They have a salad,” you might say. “Or how about pasta, just remove the meat.”

I did that recently on a trip with friends. There was nothing on the menu without meat. So I ordered a side salad and seafood pasta without the seafood.

It was the worst meal I’ve eaten in a very long time. Iceberg lettuce with shredded carrots? Really? And cold, unattractive pasta that looked like it had been sprayed with olive oil? You couldn’t put a little thought into it? [I won’t say where this was; frankly, it could be anywhere.]

The next step up is a restaurant that looks for easy. It almost always adds a plant-based burger on the menu. They take it from box, heat it up, and call it a burger. You know, the Impossible Burger and Beyond Burger stuff.

I just think a restaurant could do so much better. Like one of our favorite breweries out on the coast. We visit every couple of months and enjoy their in-house prepared bean burgers that are delicious!

It’s not that there isn’t an audience. One in four Americans report they are eating less meat.

High-rated chefs are jumping on the bandwagon - Eleven Madison Park has made its mark in high-end plant-based eating. I love that Chef Daniel Humm says:

“Cooking plant-based has been meaningful and expansive. We made the commitment to use our creativity toward a plant-based future because that’s where our food system needs to go. There’s no question that this way of eating is better for the planet, and it doesn't mean sacrificing deliciousness.”

Yes, the reasons to offer better plant-based menu items are many. Here’s just a few.

Attract a growing audience. I don’t eat out much because I cook waayyy better meals at home. I’m not paying BIG BUCKS for an iffy meal. But if it was good …

Stand out from the crowd. I know exactly where plant-based friendly restaurants are in my community. I specifically use them when meeting friends for dinner. “Hey, want to meet at [plant-based friendly restaurant] tonight?” It works like a charm.

It shows off creativity. Because throwing a steak on the grill is easy. But getting creative with veggies takes a lot more thought process. [Hello, Eleven Madison Park. I can’t wait to visit the next time I’m in NY.] Everyone can recognize when a chef knows enough to create healthier plant-based items that don’t sacrifice flavor.

Think local. I know so many people who emphasize getting to know farmer’s markets, talking with farmers, and eating local. I LOVE restaurants that use that as their business practice. That’s where fresh, flavorful menu items come from. It truly is the way of the future.

It’s healthier. That’s the purpose of this Substack. Good Food + Great Health = Gorgeous Wellth. As a society, we need to tell the chains “goodbye.” We need to demand good food that’s good for our health. And that starts one restaurant at a time.

So my question to you, restaurant owners, is:

What plant-based menu item will you be adding to your list?

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