Week 2: Meal Check

Yesterday I spent the day entertaining some friends who were visiting for Labor Day weekend. A huge part of showing someone a good time in Santa Barbara, besides seeing the mission and the courthouse, is taking them to all the best restaurants and the local hipster ice cream shop and so on. I try to be conscious of my eating habits, for both health and financial reasons, but yesterday my single goal was to keep everyone happy– dieting took the backburner. For breakfast I ate my kale, pear, lime, ginger, celery smoothie that I try to make a habit. But once I met up with my friends we had tacos and ice cream downtown for lunch. The taco meat was definitely salty and fatty, and the ice cream was probably all the saturated fat I was supposed to eat all day. However, I don’t know the exact amounts of either; there was no food label or calorie counter in the taco stand. Eating at restaurants must be so difficult for Cardiac patients when they really don’t have a choice what type of food their loved ones are asking for. It seems like many people would end up being polite, and choose not to make a fuss and tell their children, “Actually my doctor told me I can’t eat this type of food.” Without knowing the content of the food the food you’re ordering, and often not being able to choose a restaurant with healthier options, eating out must be a source of stress and discouragement for many adults trying to limit their salt and fat intake. After dinner, another friend made us all steak and yams and cold slaw. When eating the yams, I mentioned “These are amazing, what did you put in them?” My friend replied, “Heavy cream and a big stick of butter.” I had thought the yams were the “healthy” part of the meal! Unless you are sitting at home, cooking for yourself, reading every label and measuring your daily allotment of fat and salt specifically, it seems impossible to really know what you’re eating. In one day of being social and polite, I ate salty, fatty red meat twice and washed it down with ice cream and butter mixed with yams– all without ever seeing a single food label or any nutritional information.