Most of us crave sharing, camaraderie. Whether from tradition or habit,
we desire to dine with others rather than alone. We are conditioned
for it. Add to that, the fact that food preparation takes lots of time
in our work-busy world, we desire time to rest and eat in restaurants,
whether plush or fast food usually depends on budget.

When dining away from home, shouldn't we consider what food is being
served? Is the food nutritious? The word nutritious comes from the
word nourishes. So, does the food on the menu nourish our bodies to
better health? To know the answer to that question, each food must be
analyzed. Oops, did I just remove fun from dining in restaurants?

One hundred years ago, the answer for most foods would have been, they are
nourishing. Today we have to consider how food is processed. Now, nearly
all processed food is meant to have "infinite" shelf- life for corporate
profits. In order to create infinite shelf-life, all ingredients must
be sterilized. That is, any thing that occurs in food to make them
naturally decompose (nature's digestion) for bio-recycling must be
chemically altered, destroyed or removed.  Processes that accomplish
those are high heat, centrifugal or chemical fractionation, radiation,
isolation, and industrial chemical treatments.

Take for example milk. The major producers of milk completely remove any
animal fat from milk because it decomposes and alters flavor as it ages.
They boil it for about 20 minutes. They add equal amounts of chlorinated
and fluoridated water, and then sterilize the liquid that was made from
milk that looks blue and smells like brewery mash. To make it look like
milk again, they add chalk or dolomite (powdered rock high concentrations
of calcium) that can be up to 1/4 the weight of the "milk". To make if
flavorful, they add artificial flavorings and hydrogenated vegetable oils.

Most foods today are made with vegetable oils, margarine being
the highest. Nearly ALL vegetable oils used in food production are
hydrogenated to make them solid. This turns the oil into highly unhealthy
trans-fatty acids. It has been documented and known among health-minded
individuals for at least 25 years that hydrogenated oils are trans-fatty
acids that have the same molecular structure as plastic.

University of Auckland, New Zealand researchers documented that children
who ate margarine daily had significantly lower IQ scores by age 3.5 than
those who did not eat margarine.[1] Those man-made trans-fatty acids
have been shown to raise LDL cholesterol and lower HDL cholesterol. They
have also been linked as a major cause of heart disease.[2] Underweight
children at birth who consumed margarine had IQ scores that were even
lower by age 7.

A 20-year study revealed that men who consumed margarine had 77% more
heart attacks than men who did not eat margarine. However, when butter
was consumed, heart attacks decreased substantially.[3] Since real
butter is very expensive, you will not find real butter in any average
restaurant. In fact, you may not find it in many exclusive restaurants.

Primarily, consider that in human bodies, vegetable oils harden
and crystallize because of our low body temperatures. Herbivores
have normal body temperatures between 101 and 105 degrees F in which
vegetable oils remain liquid. In our normal range 98.6 F. and lower,
vegetable oils do not remain liquid, solidifying over time and eventually
crystallizing. That causes many ill problems, from congested lymphatic
system and arteries, hardened liver and pancreas to psoriasis, eczema
and multiple sclerosis.

Add the hydrogenous/plastic factor and most people have a fat that will
completely congest the lymphatic system and decrease health substantially,
causing lots of lymphoma and other cancers. Those fats are relatively
non-removable. The greatest crime, and it is criminal, is that margarine
and vegetables oils have been sold as healthy, better-for-health over
butter and other animal fats. That is completely fraudulent. We have
been told that animal fats cause heart disease and obesity. However,
hydrogenated vegetable oils are the main factor in heart disease and
add greatly to obesity.

The main cause of obesity is processed carbohydrates, such as corn syrup
that is in 70% of all manufactured foods as a sweetener. Ninety percent
of the corn used in food-processing is genetically modified (GMO). GMO
foods have proved to cause many allergies, cellular mutations and some
diseases. Soft drinks are loaded with corn syrup.

Kerosene-derivatives are often used to fractionate parts of food to
isolate them, giving them longer shelf-lives. Chlorine, fluoride,
hydrogen peroxide and other chemicals are used to soak and wash food
including animal products. Would any of us knowingly eat foods that have
been soaked or washed in kerosene, wood alcohol, chlorine or fluoride?

Even most of the better restaurants use canned sauces rather than prepare
them. ALL fast-food restaurants use canned sauces such as tomato and
paste, mustards, horseradish and other sauce condiments.

When I lived outdoors traveling on a bicycle for nearly 3 years,
I observed how tomatoes are prepared for soups and sauces. They let
the tomatoes sit in open trucks to ferment, mold and rot for weeks,
then haul them to factories where they process them as much as they
process and alter large-factory milk.  The coloration, fragrance and
flavor are all produced with industrial chemicals that are not food,
chemically bearing little resemblance to a real tomato soup or sauce.

For a dose of hard reality, I suggest that everyone view the
documentary "Food, Inc." Although it may be faulty in its assertion
that factory-farming created E.coli 157H7 that killed a little boy,
and although it lingers on bacterial contamination as a main objection
to processed food, it shows how animals are factory-raised, slaughtered
and processed. What killed the little boy was medical stupidity. They
treated his bloody diarrhea with antibiotics (Cipro?)  which damage his
kidneys and reacting to the kidney problem, dehydrated the little boy
to death. However, the movie reveals how the fast-food industry created
the worst animal-growing factories in the world, naming McDonalds as the
initiator starting in 1930's.  I wish that it would have focused on the
diseases that are caused by the 30,000+ industrial chemicals that are
used to grow and process factory foods.

Now, let's return to the question, what is good to eat at a restaurant? My
answer is: Nothing is absolutely clean and healthy in restaurants.
Absolutely everything from fast-food chains deteriorates health.

I choose the least of evils at good restaurants. I order meats that are
deep into an animal so that they are less likely to have come into contact
with cleaning compounds at slaughter houses. I choose only fish that grow
in oceans and cannot be farmed. I choose FRESH sliced tomato, avocado,
peeled cucumber, onion and garlic. If I want butter and/or cheese with
my meal, I take them with me in decorative glass jars so they look nice
and appropriate on the table.

Having a vegetable or fruit salad may be risky because most restaurants
buy them pre-prepared, sprayed with monosodium glutamate (MSG) to preserve
a fresh-look. MSG causes many health problems and is toxic. It would be
best to order a whole fruit if the restaurant has whole fruit. If the
restaurant cuts fresh fruit and makes its salads, salads could be okay
but ask if they use any preservative to keep their salads looking fresh.

Almost all of the sushi restaurants in Los Angeles use MSG on their
vegetables, fruits and fish. I stopped eating at sushi restaurants in Los
Angeles 9 years ago because every time I ate at one, I got an MSG headache
and experienced poor mental and physical energy for next 24-48 hours. If I
want to eat at a sushi bar, I choose smaller, cheaper Asian-owned sushi
bars where they are less likely to use chemicals.  I always ask before
I sit. Twice I was lied to and got MSG headaches. I returned to the
restaurants several times and picketed outside the restaurants stating
that they used MSG, lied about it, and I suffered. For those 2 days of
picketing, probably I hurt the restaurant's business considerably for
several months, causing many customers to turn and leave. When the police
came, I explained the situation and they did not immediately evict me. We
must act to oppose such behavior, or corruption will be our fate.

So, if you plan to eat at restaurants, now you know what to order to be
at lowest risk of damaging your health. If you want the best for your
body and your life-experience, you might arrange with other health-
conscious eaters for dinner together at one of your homes. Bon appetite.

===

[1]: Theodore, RF., Thompson, JMD., et al. "Dietary patterns and intelligence
in early and middle childhood," Intelligence. 2009; 37(5):506-513.

[2]: C. Oomen, M. Ocke, et al, "Association between trans fatty acid intake
and 10-year risk of coronary heart disease in the Zutphen Elderly Study: The
Lancet, Volume 357, Issue 9258, Pages 746-751.

[3]: Matthew W. Gillman, L. Adrienne Cupples, et al. "Margarine Intake and
Subsequent Coronary Heart Disease in Men" Epidemiology, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Mar.,
1997), pp. 144-149.