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

The holidays are nearly over. Hopefully you’re all staying on track. Saying, “It’s the holidays. I can have one more cookie,” can’t last forever. So, if the yuletide is getting the best of you. Sit down and get ready for this week’s Eating to Live on the Outside—EXTREME VERSION!

Well, it’s not really extreme. It’s just that today we’re taking a look at Extreme Pita. Now, Extreme Pita claims to be healthy, fresh, and fast. This may very well be true, but, there’s only one way to find out. Saddle up folks. Its time to crack this menu open—CHARGE!

First let’s take a look at the Freestyle Pitas. Clearly, if we are going to go for a pita, concession number one is the pita, i.e. bread. Okay, the only one I’d consider ordering would be the Market Fresh Veggie; lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, onions, and cucumbers, and, I’d order it with the light Italian dressing. Now, not only are veggies great, but, if you check out the nutrition facts, you’ll see it’s your best bet, by far.

Alright, I’m skipping the Extreme Pita Creations and the Flat Baked Pitas, both are very meat and cheese oriented; not my thing. Onto the salads, and the salads—as they usually are—are a great refuge for the bleary eyed Eat to Liver trying to figure out what the heck to order.

There are two salads I’d go with. The first is the Fresh Veggie; lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, green peppers, and black olives. I’d keep everything but the olives, that way I could avoid the salt hit. I’d also get the Light Italian dressing, on the side of course. The other salad is the Traditional Greek. Now, it’s a tad mysterious because they don’t say what’s in it, but from the photo on the menu. I’d guess it comes with lettuce, black olives, tomatoes, Feta cheese, and the Greek Feta dressing. Well, after I ditch the cheese, olives, and switch the dressing. It makes more sense just to stay with the Fresh Veggie Salad. Don’t you think?

Outside of the Fresh Veggie Pita and Fresh Veggie Salad, you’re pretty much out of luck. Extreme Pita may advertise itself as a healthy fast food and yeah, compared to the likes of Burger Hut and Pizza King, they’re a better choice, but it’s no landslide victory.

Outside of these two options, the menu is slathered with cheese, lunch meat, and daunting condiments, but what really knocked me for a loop is the Just for Kids section of the menu. Here are the selections: Chicken Pita, Ham & Cheese Pita, 6” Pepperoni Flat Baked Pita, 6” Cheese Flat Baked Pita, and Chicken Nuggets & Dip—WHAT!

At least most of the adult menu sections have at least one “healthy” offering. Why is the kids menu loaded with the worst of the worst; cheese, processed meat, and, lunch meat! If you ask me that gives kids all the tools they need to make dopey food choices later in life, but then again, I doubt Pizza Kings’ kid’s menu is any better. So, on second thought and as far as standard American fast food restaurants go, it sure seems like Extreme Pita is par for the course.

But hey! Maybe I’m crazy. Heck knows I have been called it before. That’s why I need you. You people are the brains of the operation. Check out Extreme Pita’s menu—be sure to check out the nutritional information too—and let me know how you handle Eating to Live on the Outside. Make a comment or send an email to diseaseproof@gmail.com. Until then, eat greatly! Peace.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Share Link

Okay, I’ve got a surprise for you. Usually I pick the restaurants for Eating to Live on the Outside—with the occasional reader suggestion of course—but today, we’re getting a special treat. This recommendation comes straight from the top. That’s right, Dr. Fuhrman himself!

He suggested Blossom after having a nice meal there with his friend Peter Max. So, you know what that means. If Dr. Fuhrman’s eating there, it’s got to be good—right? Sorry Joel, there’s really only one way to know for sure—let’s do it, to it!

I love New York City restaurants! Partly because I love New York City, but mainly because I can actually go there and experience the food firsthand, which brings me to an interesting idea I’ve been kicking around. I’m thinking about…to be continued…yes more “to be continued” stuff!

Now back to Blossom. Alright, this is good. According to the website Blossom is a gourmet organic vegan restaurant. That’s a great start! Vegan can be hit or miss, but ORGANIC is always a good thing—enough filibustering—on to the menus!

This is interesting. Looks like Dr. Fuhrman picked a winner here. You could conceivably order anything on the menu. None of the concessions would be that traumatic. The only things that give me pause are some of the soy-foods, oil, and salt, but, these are pretty minor. No worries.

So, since I’ve done this before. I’ll do it again. Here are my favorites—first up, the lunch menu. As far as the appetizers go, I really dig the Black-Eyed Pea Cake; a Yukon gold potato cake, black-eye peas, and chipotle aioli. Potato good, black-eyed peas good, but the chipotle aioli is a concession. I can live it. The rest of appetizers have a lot of faux soy-meat. Not really my thing.

Alright, the salads look good, but I’d nix the croutons that come with the Cesar Salad. I’m not feeling the breakfast options, again, too much soy-meat. Okay, there are a couple sandwiches I’d be cool with. I like the Portobello Ciabatta and the Avocado Sandwich; together they include grilled Portobello mushroom, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, vegan mozzarella, fresh avocado, sprouts, tomato & chipotle mayonnaise, grain or ciabatta bread, and fries or a salad. This is easy. I’m dropping the vegan cheese and going with the grain bread and a salad. Since the caramelized onions are probably sautéed in oil, that’d be a concession, along with the bread. As for the mayonnaise, vegan mayonnaise sounds worth investigating. I’d just order it on the side.

The entrée I’d order is an easy choice. I really like the Vegetable Stir Fry; stir fried vegetables served with brown rice or cous cous. I could go with either cous cous or brown rice, but either way they’re both a bit of a concession and so is the stir frying. It’s cool. I’m not worried about it.

Now, let’s scope out the dinner menu. The Beet & Tofu Salad looks like a nice starter. I’m cool with tofu just as long as it not overly messed with. This little salad comes with roasted beets, baked sweet & spicy tofu, daikon radish, and a sherry reduction. The sherry reduction is probably the concession. Its alcohol, but, I’m a twenty-something, so I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t imbibe from time to time.

Oh! Blossom has a great dinner salad, and why is it so great? AVOCADO! The Avocado Mango Salad is made with Romaine lettuce, avocado, mango, chick peas, sunflower seeds, and topped with a chili lime dressing. I have a feeling that dressing is oil-less. So let the good times roll!

The dinner entrees are pretty cool. I see two I like. First, the Stuffed Portobello with Cashew-Tahini Sauce; prepared with Portobello caps, herbed tofu-walnut stuffing, apricot cous cous, steamed asparagus, and a cashew-tahini sauce. Looks good to me—what do you think? The Dancing Curry is also pretty neat; tofu and seasonal vegetables, curry sauce, black rice, and papadum. The papadum is a concession and rice is a tiny one too, but otherwise, I dig it!

Now, another option is just go for the side dishes. Blossom has a bunch of really good ones. You could certainly make yourself a nice plate out of them. Here’s what they got: garlic spinach, grilled asparagus, Swiss chard, braised tofu, mashed potatoes, broccoli rabe, grilled Portobello, braised Miso tofu, and fresh cut fries. Let’s see, what would I do with this? I got it! I’m going with the broccoli rabe, grilled Portobello, and the grilled asparagus—I’m on a bit of an asparagus kick lately.

I think Dr. Fuhrman found a good restaurant in Blossom. I’m planning a trip into the city in a couple weeks and if I don’t get sucked in the by the siren song of Sacred Chow, I’ll give Blossom a look-see. But now—you know the drill—it’s your turn! Scope out Blossom's menus and let me know how you handle Eating to Live on the Outside. Make a comment or send an email to diseaseproof@gmail.com. In the meantime, keep eating to live. Peace.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Share Link

Eating to Live on the Outside is back! After getting bumped last week for my success story's teaser-post—yes, I’m evil—the weekly series dedicated to helping Eat to Livers survive the gloomy swamp of standard American restaurants has returned and this week, Zen Palate is in my sights—click, click, BOOM—let’s hit it!

Clearly, given my love for Yoga, anything with “Zen” in its name is going to pique my interest. At first glance it looks pretty good. It’s a vegetarian place so that automatically ups its chances of being Fuhrman-friendly, but, it’s got a few quirks and trips we’ll have to work through.

“No soup for you!” Well, almost no soup. Restaurant soups make me nervous—salt can be an issue—but I love wakame seaweed, so, I’d be willing to give the Miso Soup a shot; made with white miso broth, wakame, soft tofu, and scallions. If it’s not too salty, I'd order it, wakame is a seriously tasty green—Wakame What?

Next up are the salads. I like all of them but the Spinach Linguine Salad; I prefer to avoid pasta whenever possible. My two favorites are the Kale & Seaweed Salad and the House Salad; together they include mesclun leaves, cherry tomatoes, red onion, enoki, soy vinaigrette, wakame, kale, soft tofu, and soy dressing. Well, if you go easy on the dressing or skip it altogether I don't see much of a problem with any of this. What do you think?

Alright, the appetizers don’t exactly have my heart in races, but here is a couple I’d consider ordering. First, the Peanut Basil Moo-Shu Rolls; prepared with jicama, carrot, mushroom, soy, basil, ginger, peanuts, and rice paper. The rice paper is the only iffy thing here. Eh, I can live with it. Now, the Edamame are a nice option; steamed in the pod and salted. Just ask the wait staff to hold the salt and you’re all set!

Now, I’m not digging the sandwiches—a lot of faux-meats and stuff—onto the rice and noodles and the prix fixe. I’m not thrilled about this section of the menu either, but maybe these options work; if you don’t mind enduring a rice, noodle, or stir-fry concession that is. I like the Stir-Fried Whole-Wheat Noodles with Soy & Vegetables; includes cabbage, mushrooms, carrots, basil, and snow peas. I mainly like it because of the cabbage. The Mango Halo is also kind of interesting; made with mangos, cherry tomatoes, gingko nuts, snow peas, soy nuggets, and sweet kung pau sauce. Personally, I’d ditch the soy nuggets and go easy on the sauce. Also, for both of these I’d go with brown rice over the noodles. How about you?

Under prix fixe I like the Felicity Mushroom and the Eggplant Zentastic. They both come with some sort of roll and rice and combined they’re prepared with shiitake mushrooms, button mushrooms, basil, bamboo shoots, carrots, eggplant, shanghai bok coy, and garlic sauce. Okay, the Felicity Mushroom involves sautéing and both come with rice. So, if you can deal with the sautéing, maybe order brown rice, and nix the rolls, you’d be in decent shape. Works for me!

Whenever I walk into an Asian restaurant I know chances are I'm going to have to deal with rice, oil, and salt—kind of par for the course. Now, as I’ve said before. I don’t eat out very often, but when I do it’s almost like a treat, so I’m more willing to bend the rules than I would be at home. Basically what I’m saying is I can pretty easily deal with all the aforementioned concessions. When you're and Eat to Liver and you're eating out I've got to have low expectations—most of the time.

Oh! And a friend of mine recently paid Zen Palate a visit, here's what she had to say:

I found the tea to be delicious, nectar of the gods, the salad and entree were bland, the presentation beautiful, but the portions were huge.

Okay, so there you have it. Does Zen Palate pass the test? I think it does. Granted, it’s not a slam dunk, but, it’ll do. An Eat to Liver could certainly survive the menu. But what do you think? Your turn! Check out Zen Palate’s menu and let me know how you handle Eating to Live on the Outside. Make a comment or send an email to diseaseproof@gmail.com. Until then, eat well. Peace.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Share Link