Alexander Mark
Personal Health
Eating out and ordering food
“Nutrition is the biochemical and physiological process by which an organism uses food to
support its life.” (Wikipedia Contributors)
More and more around the world, people are relying on ordering food and eating outside
of the home to supplement their busy lifestyles. It is always much easier to pay for delicious,
ready-to-eat food than to spend time and energy doing it yourself. However, some caveats to
consider are that this habit can quickly become dangerous in two main areas—health and wealth.
According to Lachat and colleagues, eating out was “associated with a higher total energy intake,
energy contribution from fat in the daily diet and higher socioeconomic status” (Lachat et al.
2011). Moreover, overall micronutrient intake from food eaten outside of the home was found to
be deficient. Basically, this all means that the more you eat out, the more likely you are to
overconsume, contributing to body fat and weight gain, while remaining malnourished in certain
vitamins and minerals. I can attest to the truth of this association. Ever since I was young, I
always considered going out to eat as an exciting opportunity to gorge myself on hyperpalatable
foods. The high amounts of fat and refined carbohydrate would hypnotize me into challenging
myself to eating competitions. They also bestowed me with unnecessary weight gain and lovely
side effects such as chronic fatigue and migraines. Although I suffered from a self-diagnosis of
binge-eating disorder most of my adolescent life, anybody can fall victim to their own
compulsive eating behaviors when presented with the right food.
Going out to eat can be an exciting and celebratory occasion, so the propensity to overeat
is even more pronounced. Every once in a while is usually okay, but it is when it happens all the
time that adverse health outcomes can result (Prentice 2001). The laws of thermodynamics make
the rules—overconsumption of energy, regardless of which form it takes (protein, carbohydrate,
fat, etc) will invariably end up in body fat accumulation and weight gain (Prentice 2001). The
negative health implications of high body fat and body weight are many. And it is no secret that
restaurants and food providers intentionally load their foods up calories so that people will feel
satisfied and happy (due to the dopamine-reward response triggered from consumption of high
amounts of sugar and fat). Therefore, eating out can become a risky situation for those with
impulsive tendencies.
In the American journal of clinical nutrition, Tarino and colleagues determine that
overconsumption of saturated fat and refined carbohydrates are linked to the development of
CVD, or cardiovascular disease. Foods high in saturated fat are most of those that you would
find going out to eat such as animal products like meat, milk, butter, eggs, and cheese. Cakes,
biscuits, and anything made using coconut or palm oil will also quickly take you to an ascended
saturated fat intake level. Therefore, Tarino recommends lowering saturated fat intake as much
as possible while replacing those lost calories with polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats
instead. This works as a mechanism to lower LDL cholesterol, thereby reducing the chance of
heart disease. (Tarino et al. 2010). However, the same strategy applied to the substitution of
refined carbohydrate for saturated fat (rather than with polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats)
seemed to yield adverse results. Also, when most of the diet is comprised of food eaten outside
of the home, the consumer will likely be devoid of sufficient amounts of certain vitamins and
minerals. These nutrients all have their own specific functions and side effects when deficient, so
the litany of negative health outcomes is outside the scope of this writing.
For an exercise and fitness vegan junkie like myself, the risks of overeating in relation to
the development of obesity are very slim. My energy consumption these days is almost always
outpaced by my activity level and energy-demanding metabolism. So, my issues with going out
to eat and ordering food became purely financial. My decisions to go out to eat or order food out
were no longer based in rationality, but laziness, emotions, and habit. Psychologically, I was and
remain to be very much obsessed with some of my favorite dishes at specific restaurants in town.
I could commit to learning how to prepare them myself, but that would take time and effort that I
am usually not willing to expend, especially in times of stress and hunger. Ordering out solves
the issue. It did not, however, do much for my financial esteem. Spending anywhere from 10-30$
a meal is easy when you’re buying from restaurants, and this number doubles when you consider
that my girlfriend and I are always eating together. Added to the fact that up to this point I have
been functioning entirely on savings accrued over the past year, it is no surprise that my funds
were quickly decimated from this seemingly innocent luxury. For example, most food orders
amounted to $40 or so on average between the two of us. I would say we would eat like this 3 or
4 times a week. That’s $480-640 a month that could be used on other things—almost our rent
payment. Of course, the assumption that this cost would be perfectly transferred to that expense
is unrealistic. The man who never bought a pack of cigarettes certainly doesn’t have a Ferrari
because of it. Still, that extra money would certainly come in handy right now, and the pinnacle
of efficient saving is cutting unnecessary costs. This would be the main benefit of transitioning to
mostly, if not completely, buying cheap groceries in bulk and cooking and eating my own food
exclusively.
I chose to change this behavior because of a few reasons. The most glaringly obvious
reason is that it costs too much money. It’s quite easy to shut out the thought in the moment, but
when all is said and done it’s pretty disheartening to have spent multiple times the amount of
money for a fraction of the amount of food. The other reasons are health-related. I have been
committed to consuming exclusively a diet devoid of animal products since 2017, and have lived
most of my life dedicated to fitness and nutrition. Therefore, I find much solace in knowing
exactly what goes into the food that I eat. The easiest way to control this variable is to prepare
and cook everything myself. This is not only most likely going to be healthier and cheaper, but it
is also an entire hobby of its own. When I first went vegan, I had a great time discovering all of
the new and exotic foods I could eat that I previously did not know existed. It helped initially to
focus on what I could eat, rather than what I couldn’t. This rocketed me onto a path of learning
how to cook. I am still not that great, but I’m the perfect cook for my own tastes.
Over the duration of the class, I certainly made progress. I did not abstain from the
behavior completely, but I diminished it to something that happens only a few times a month
instead of several times per week. Honestly, the most difficult part was the fact that I live with
somebody who is just as passionate about good food as myself. We are somewhat codependent
and feed off of each other’s energy, so when one person gets set on a certain cuisine the other is
likely to give in as well. Both of us have acknowledged the importance of this behavior change,
however, and are concomitantly working to prepare food at home and save money. The other
difficulty was giving up the delicious tastes of my favorite dishes. The simple solution to this is
to learn how to recreate them with my own ingredients. This takes an excessive amount of time
and effort, however, especially when it comes to cuisines foreign to what I am familiar with. It
also just so happens that international cuisine tends to be my preference. Some strategies I used
in this regard, with varied success, were assigning myself new dishes to learn to make
throughout the week. Without external accountability, however, I did not always stay true to my
goals. At times, simply not engaging in eating outside of home was sufficient to call my progress
towards my health behavior change goals a success.
So far, committing to this behavior change has not really had any obvious positive impact
on my life. The money that I have saved from eliminating most of these occurrences from my
life has been inconspicuously reallocated to other expenses like utilities, rent, groceries,
transportation, homecare, etc. As stated previously, I make a constant and diligent effort to
maintain a fit and healthy physique, as well as fuel my body with premium nutrients (most of the
time), so I am not tangibly benefitting from the perspective of my body composition or
functioning. The benefits I have received are much less transparent than that.
Throughout the course of attempting to implement this change, I have had to confront
some tough realizations. The first was that I was rationalizing the amount of money I was
spending on food, and becoming less and less nutritionally conscientious. This resulted in a lazy
attitude towards my health and fitness goals, and overall influenced me to care less about what I
ate. Holding healthy eating and regular exercise as basic tenants of my character, I was
embarrassed to admit that I had a problem with ordering food.
The second realization was that I was more broke than I had ever been in my financially
independent life. And the biggest contributing factor was a behavior that was not only
completely avoidable, but inconducive to my ability to effectively track my food intake. It is also
something that, living on my own in the past, was never an issue because I was so regulated in
my diet. Living with my girlfriend has added in an external influence who is capable of swaying
my opinion on just about anything. This past year or so has been especially hard on me in terms
of money, and the blow my self-esteem was hit with when I had to actively decide not to eat out
anymore was pretty hard. However, this process has not only led to me furthering my cooking
skills and knowledge, but I can feel secure in knowing that my destitution is no longer solely
caused by my inability to refrain from feeding the urge to, well, feed. All in all, I am satisfied
with my progress and will continue to make efforts to eliminate or reduce my spending on food
that I could more cheaply prepare myself.
References
Lachat, C., Nago, E., Verstraeten, R., Roberfroid, D., Van Camp, J., & Kolsteren, P. (2012).
Eating out of home and its association with dietary intake: a systematic review of the
evidence. Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of
Obesity, 13(4), 329–346. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2011.00953.x
Prentice A. M. (2001). Overeating: the health risks. Obesity research, 9 Suppl 4, 234S–238S.
https://doi.org/10.1038/oby.2001.124
Siri-Tarino, P. W., Sun, Q., Hu, F. B., & Krauss, R. M. (2010). Saturated fat, carbohydrate, and
cardiovascular disease. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 91(3), 502–509.
https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2008.26285
Wikipedia contributors. (2021, December 13). Nutrition. Wikipedia. Retrieved December 8,
2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrition