Small requests that meaningfully shift a meal's inflammatory load, without interrogating the waiter.
3 min read
Restaurant meals are harder to estimate than home cooking — more hidden oil, more added sugar in sauces, less control over portion and preparation. That doesn't mean eating out has to wreck your week.
Asking for dressing or sauce on the side, choosing grilled over fried where there's a choice, and adding a vegetable side instead of a second starch are small requests that meaningfully shift a meal's likely inflammatory load, without turning dinner into an interrogation of the waiter.
A single restaurant meal — even a rich one — is a small fraction of a 7-day rolling average. The pattern that actually matters is whether eating out is an occasional thing or most of your meals, not any single dinner.
If you eat out often, photo-logging (once the app supports it fully) is especially useful here — it's much faster than trying to mentally estimate a restaurant plate.