Disease Proof : Disease Proof : Health & Nutrition News & Commentary : Dr. Joel Fuhrman

Ever wonder what a menu would look like if practically every dish had cheese in it? You’re in luck! The Desert Moon is a Mecca of cheddar, Monterey Jack, and blue cheese. And we all know how Dr. Fuhrman feels about cheese, it's on his list of the seven worst foods for health and longevity. So guess what that means amigo? We’ve got so some work to do before this place is Fuhrman-friendly.

Let’s start with the dishes without cheese? Excluding the Kids Menu, the Sides, and the Soup of the Day, there is a whooping ONE, yep one dish. And this lone cheese-less creation isn’t without its own problems. The shrimp in the Acapulco Shrimp Taco is a major no-no for an Eat to Liver. Not sure what I mean? Check out what OceansAlive.org has to say about shrimp. You’ll see that most of them are rated an eco worst. So you probably want to skip it, but without the shrimp there’s really no reason to order it all. So like it or not, we’ve got to monkey with the cheese fare.

I’m going to start off easy—well easier—with the salads. At a glance the Tossed Green Salad looks like the best option (I say that loosely). It comes with tossed greens, pico de gallo, sliced olives, cheese, garlic croutons, and lime cilantro vinaigrette. Clearly the cheese and garlic croutons are getting the heave-ho, going easy on or ditching the vinaigrette is a good idea, the greens are cool, and I’m keeping the olives and the pico de gallo. In case you don’t know what pico de gallo is, check out this Wikipedia link; you’ll find it to be very veggie-friendly.

The other salad I might order would be the Taco Salad, but it needs some major renovations. If left alone it comes with shredded lettuce, chili, sour cream, pico de gallo, Monterey Jack & cheddar cheese, and chicken or fire roasted vegetables. Obviously I’m throwing the sour cream and both cheeses out the window (don’t try this at the restaurant, they won’t appreciate it), but I’ll stick with everything else. Now, I’m not against eating chicken, but given the choice between fowl and roasted vegetables, veggies usually win. All and all these two salads aren’t too different from the usual standard American salads we've seen at other restaurants.

So what if you’re not in the mood for salad? To be honest I’d be surprised to hear an Eat to Liver say that, but just in case you are. Here’s what I’d order. For starters I like the Harvest Wrap; it comes with fresh guacamole, lettuce, more of that pico de gallo, olives, and Monterey Jack & cheddar cheese—not to mention the tortilla holding it all together. Okay, I’m dropping the cheeses again, but should I drop the guacamole? I’m an avocado fiend (Ambassador to the Republic of Avocado), but guacamole is sometimes made dairy or salt. I’d have to ask the staff before I ordered it, a little salt I can deal with, but dairy—no way!

If you make similar omissions to the Black Bean Burrito, Adobe Burrito, or the Fajita Taco, you’re in good shape too. Although because of the tortilla and rice, you’d definitely be making a refined grain concession. But remember you can always order any burrito or taco with fire roasted vegetables; those phytonutrients should put your mind at ease.

I got to be honest, given the success we had with Baja Fresh and Chipotle, I had my hopes up for Desert Moon, but it let me down. While I wouldn’t consider it as bad as restaurants like Denny's, Sizzler, or Houlihan's, it pretty much just joins the ranks of your typical standard American restaurants—diner beware!

As always we want to hear about how you handle eating away from home. Any tips? Check out the Desert Moon's menu and email us at diseaseproof@gmail.com or leave a comment. How do you Eat to Live on the outside?

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Alright, alright I know what you’re thinking, Denny’s? Denny’s! Why bother? Yes, I’ve heard all the stories about it too. Comedians all over the country make jokes about how unhealthy and terrible the food is. And its true, the food is by and large, not all that healthy, but surprisingly no worse than other standard American restaurants, like IHOP, Sizzler, Ground Round, and Houlihan’s; although it does have a couple redeeming qualities among all the bacon, cheese, and deep-fried crud. Let’s take a look.

Apparently Denny’s is known for breakfast, but certainly not any breakfast an Eat to Liver would make at home. The menu is a tough one; lots of meat, refined grains, dairy, and grease. So if you’re really hard up for breakfast, you’re going to have to lower your expectations. If it were me, I might order a few scrambled eggs, but the griddle would have to be free of oil, lard, butter, or what ever else they cook with. Another option would be to comprise a meal from the sides menu; applesauce, cinnamon apples, or just plain fruit might make do in a pinch.

To be honest, I’d just skip breakfast entirely. I’m not really thrilled with any of the offerings.

Now here’s one of Denny’s surprising redeeming qualities. If you check out the menu heading “Fit Fare” you’ll see they give you some nutritional information; carbohydrates, fat, calories, and fiber. I didn’t expect to see this from such a vilified restaurant. So, if you’re an egg-eating Eat to Liver, you might consider ordering the Veggie Omelette. “Might” is the important word here because, again, who knows what that griddle looks like, and it’s not exactly loaded with a lot of veggies any way; only mushrooms, green peppers, onions, and tomatoes. But if you do order it, at least you’ll know what’s in it: 38 g Carbohydrates, 332 Calories, 8g Fat, and 5g Fiber.

Okay, remember this week’s post Not All Salads are Health Foods, where I talked about how many restaurant salad offerings are totally sabotaged, and barely healthy dining alternatives? All four of Denny’s salads suffer from the same problem—prepare to punch the computer screen—you’ve got the Chef Salad (with turkey, ham, egg, and cheddar cheese), the Taco Salad (with beef, cheddar cheese, tortilla chips, and sour cream), the Fried Chicken Strips Salad (with fried chicken and cheddar cheese), and finally the Grilled Chicken Breast Salad (with grilled chicken and cheddar cheese). If I were to order any of these as they are, I’d be making major concessions. I think they’re all salvageable if you remove the undesirable ingredients. The only one I might make a case for (and of course you’d have to be into eating meat) would be the grilled chicken. Although the Chef’s Salad seems the easiest to augment, but in the end between them there really isn’t a vast array of veggies, only mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, and red onions—might not be worth the trouble.

Outside of these makeshift salads the only other dishes I’d order are on the Fit Fare menu; the Boca Burger, the Grilled Tilapia, or Grilled Chicken. The Boca Burger is a solid option, especially for non-meat eating Eat to Livers, and it comes with fruit—nice! I’m not a cheese-eater, so I’m ditching that, making the bun my only concession. The Grilled Tilapia is cool too (click here for Dr. Fuhrman’s take on fish), it comes with green beans, tomato slices, and vegetable pilaf; clearly the pilaf would be the concession. The Grilled Chicken also comes with green beans and tomato slices—no refined grain concessions here, only animal ones. All and all these three dishes aren’t that different from comparable ones offered at other standard American eateries.

Finally, the other good quality about Denny’s is the nutrition information isn’t limited only to its Fit Fare, click here and you’ll see the nutrition facts for the entire menu. Does it make up for the extremely unhealthy food? No, of course not, but at least people can’t blame the restaurant. You have the opportunity to see just how fatty that food really is. (I’m not sure if the nutritional information is actually available at the restaurant.) But one thing is for sure, Denny’s is no Just Salads, Go Raw Café, Chipotle, or Baja Fresh!

As always we want your feedback! Tell us what you might have done differently or what you agree with. Check out Denny’s menu and let us know how you Eat to Live on the Outside? Leave a comment or email us at diseaseproof@gmail.com.

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This week Eating to Live on the Outside hops on the first gondola back to the old country—well the commercialized Americanized version of it anyhow. Now, if you’ve been keeping up with this series you know for every Go Raw Café, Baja Fresh, and Just Salads there is an armada of unhealthy eateries, i.e. the Outback Steakhouses, Ground Rounds, Friendly’s, IHOPs, and Sizzlers of the world. Carrabba’s Italian Grill certainly leans towards the latter.

After a few seconds of scanning the menu you’ll notice it’s primed with cheese, butter, olive oil, and prosciutto—Italian bacon! Damn you bacon! Is there no escaping your greasy stranglehold? Sorry, I had a moment. I’m better now, let’s continue. Personally I’m going to be especially vigilant about the cheese, butter, and obviously the prosciutto, a.k.a. bacon. I’m more lenient about the olive oil, but I’ll do my best to limit my exposure to it.

Okay the first item I’d order would be the Minestrone. Being a full-blooded Italian I can honestly say I love Minestrone. There are lots of veggies in there and it fills you up, but there’s a catch. Minestrone also contains pasta, usually the refined grain unhealthy stuff. Personally, I’m okay with this concession, but if I were to order it, it’d be awhile before I ate pasta again—no sense making a habit out of it!

No surprise here, but the next dishes I’d consider ordering are salads. First you’ve got your basic house salad, which is usually a safe option (provided you limit or omit the oily dressing), but I’m also intrigued by the Insalata Fiorucci and the Insalata Carrabba. Are they perfect? Oh no, there’s some nit-picking to do. Sure, between the both of them you’ve got field greens, artichoke hearts, roasted red bell peppers, grilled eggplant, tomatoes, black olives, carrots, celery, and red onions. But there’s also plenty of stuff to make an Eat to Liver head for the hills; a hazelnut goat cheese medallion, and mozzarella and romano cheese, not to mention the vinaigrette. For me the solution is pretty clear, I’m cutting out the cheese, I can go either way with the chicken (of course some of you might prefer to ditch it), and I’d use just a teeny tiny bit of vinaigrette. See with a few alternations you’ve got a decent meal, take a moment and ponder all the phytonutrients.

Next in line is the Grilled Salmon. Many of you already know that Dr. Fuhrman classifies salmon as a smart choice if you like fish and are worried about mercury. Although I think it’s wise not to go over board with the fish (pun intended), I try not to eat it more than a few times a month and its almost always salmon, tilapia, or some other variety of low contamination fish. Carrabba’s Grilled Salmon is prepared with the “chef’s sauce of the day”, unless you know the chef personally you might want to ask the wait staff about it. This dish also comes with your choice of garlic mashed potatoes, spaghetti pomodoro, cavatappi amatriciana, or the vegetable of the day. I’d go with the vegetable of the day. I know what you’re thinking. What the hell is the cavatappi amatriciana? I asked my Italian speaking mother and here’s what she said, “Cavatappi is a corkscrew. Amatriciana sounds like a name or type.” Clearly that doesn’t shed much light on the mystery. Forget about it, and move on with your life.

I wish I had more positive things to say about my paisan Carrabba’s Italian Grill, but despite its Mediterranean namesake, it’s just another standard American restaurant teeming with the dregs of the standard American diet. How SAD.

Oh, and don’t forget, we want your feedback! Tell us what you might have done differently or what you agree with. Check out Carrabba’s Italian Grill’s menu and let us know how you Eat to Live on the Outside? Leave a comment or email us at diseaseproof@gmail.com.

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If you’ve been keeping up with this series you know it can be downright scary; the Friendly’s, Houlihan's, and Sizzlers of the world making finding a healthy place to eat a tall order.

This week’s restaurant of choice follows that trend. It seems to me any eatery that positions itself along the lines of “good ol’ American” cooking, is hardly good-for-you American cooking. Perkins Restaurant & Bakery definitely fits this bill.

Perkins menu is loaded with the usual suspects of the standard American diet, lots of bacon, fried things, melted cheese, white breads, and mysterious sauces. So to make a long story short, finding things an Eat to Liver might order is going to be a rough mission. Well, let’s have at it.

Breakfast is a pretty big deal at Perkins, lots of dishes, mostly hearty American favorites—so this menu section is pretty much useless. I’m not ordering any breakfast meats, pancakes and waffles are a no-no, the hash browns look full of grease, and I’m not an Eggs Benedict kind of guy.

So if I were really hard up for breakfast, and in the mood for animal, I’d probably order a basic omelet. Perkin’s gives you the option to create your own omelet anyway, so I don’t think you’ll get a dirty look from the waitress. I’d probably order the omelet prepared with mushrooms, tomatoes, onion, celery, and green peppers—just trying to get some phytonutrients! Oh, and I’d ask to have it cooked with as little oil as possible.

Now, usually the salad is a bastion of hope in standard American restaurants, but Perkins managed to compromise this old standby. All five of their options are served in “bread bowls”—whoopee! I’d still order a salad, but I’d hold off on the bread bowl, it’d be better utilized as a sombrero.

Even without the bread bowl these salads still concern me. As I’ve said before I have no problem eating meat once or twice a week, but other Eat to Livers aren’t so willing to compromise. The problem is all the salad options have some sort of animal product; eggs, cheese, chicken, ham, or godforsaken bacon. Of all the choices I’d probably go with the Chicken Fiesta (with or without the chicken) because it has the most veggies; black olives, red onions, red and green peppers, salad greens, and green onions. As far as the salad dressing, I’d ditch the ranch it comes with and opt for a little oil and vinegar or nothing at all.

Other than a basic omelet and the Chicken Fiesta salad, the only other dishes I’d consider ordering are the Grilled Apricot Teriyaki Salmon and the Grilled Lemon Pepper Tilapia. I’m not worried about contamination because Dr. Fuhrman considers salmon and tilapia to be safer varieties of sea fare. Both dishes come with your choice of two sides, so that means I could have a side salad, baked potato, glazed carrots, butter-steamed broccoli, or buttered corn. Now I’m not pleased with buttered anything, but on this menu, this is as good as it gets—concessions ‘a plenty!

Well there you have it, this is the best I can do with this menu—a real nightmare. So help me out, send us your feedback! Tell us what you might have done differently or what you agree with. Check out Perkin’s menu and let us know how you Eat to Live on the Outside? Leave a comment or email us at diseaseproof@gmail.com.

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Phew! Over the past few weeks I feel like quite the cross-country enthusiast. It started with a New York subway ride to Just Salads, then I rolled into Sin City to check out The Go Raw Café (sorry I didn’t have time to check it out during my recent real-life trip to Las Vegas), and now I’m back on the west coast for some exotic dining at Paru’s Indian Vegetarian Restaurant.

Now, I’m really into eating, I love good food, but in twenty-five years of stuffing my face, I’ve never had Indian food. I’ve done Chinese, Japanese, grew up on Italian food, Korean, Portugese, Brazilian, Irish, Greek, German, crappy American food, and yes, I even like the occasional serving of Sushi, but no Indian. So let me check out Paru’s online menu and see what I might order if I found myself seated in its Hollywood California location.

Okay the names of the dishes are tough to decipher, looks like someone blew up a scramble board (Paru’s glossary should help), but they still look pretty darn appetizing. Being that this place is already vegetarian, and in some cases vegan, I don’t think an Eat to Liver is going to have a hard time choosing a healthful meal. Personally, I the only things I would outright avoid are the few dairy selections and foods prepared with hot spices. That’s double trouble for me.

I really like Punjab’s Glory, it comes with Poori, vegetable curry, peas, rice, Papad, and Raitha. Raitha, Poori, and Papad, you don’t say? Yeah I didn’t know what they are either. According to the glossary Poori is stuffed round bread, Papad is crisp lentil cracker, and Raitha is a yogurt salad. I’ll have to ditch it because dairy does not do my body good, but I am digging the lentil cracker, sounds interesting, vegetable curry sounds cool and peas, peas, who doesn’t like peas! I also hope the rice is brown rice and not nutrient devoid white rice, but given the healthy vibe of this place it probably is. I’m cool with eating the round bread (there’s my concession), but I’m curious to know what it’s stuffed with; a good question for the wait staff.

The Bengal Bahadur is also looking mighty tasty. It’s prepared basmati rice, vegetable curry, Sambar, and Raitha. Well first off I have to ditch the Raitha again, but Sambar, what’s Sambar? The glossary defines it as vegetable gravy used for dipping that can double as a soup. Sounds good to me! Another cool dish is Yogi’s Delight (smarter than the average bear), it’s made with chickpeas, curry, beans, sprouts, onions, tomatoes, cucumber, Paratha, and other vegetables. Now this is a nice array of vegetables, we’ve got a virtual garden of phytonutrients here—very cool! Oh, and Paratha is a chewy Indian flat bread (hello concession), I’ll keep it, sounds interesting. To be honest, Yogi’s Delight would be my most logical choice, I always get nervous trying new food, so my first time I like to play it safe and with all Yogi’s veggies I don’t think I can go wrong.

Paru’s Indian Vegetarian Restaurant has definitely inspired me to give my local Indian restaurant a try. If I do I’ll try and get a follow up Eating to Live on the Outside as soon as possible.

And as always we want your feedback! Tell us what you might have done differently or what you agree with. Check out Paru’s menu and let us know how you Eat to Live on the Outside? Leave a comment or email us at diseaseproof@gmail.com.

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