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How to order steak at a restaurant to ensure an enjoyable experience that won’t leave you with a headache, indigestion, or worse the next day.
I went out to eat at a local steakhouse recently with my extended family for a celebratory dinner. We had a lovely time – good conversation, lots of laughing, and enjoyment of each other’s company.
Unfortunately, the next day I felt pretty rotten for the experience.
While I had made every effort to order food that wouldn’t make me feel lousy or fatigued later, my attempts to dodge the chain restaurant food land mines had failed.
I even had to use my go-to natural headache remedies or I would have had to resort to painkillers to get through the day.
I knew exactly what had gone wrong, and I silently chided myself for wimping out and not saying something to the waiter at the time when the steak I ordered did not arrive as I had carefully instructed.
You know how it goes, though. Sending back your food because it is not served as specified is such an annoyance. At the time, I was having such a good time with my family that I decided to just suck it up and eat the food even though I knew it was going to do a number on me the next day.
This is truly one of the biggest downsides of eating clean, whole foods the vast majority of the time.
When you do eat something that is overly processed or laden with toxic additives, it tends to sucker punch the life out of you for about 24-48 hours afterward.
The optimal digestion and improved health and vitality experienced by eating a traditional diet on a daily basis make the occasional negative event of eating factory foods very, very noticeable.
Those who eat processed foods most of the time don’t seem to suffer from this reality possibly because their bodies are so “used to” getting beaten up by chemicals, additives, and GMOs all the time that their nervous system has stopped even registering the experience.
Does this mean that eating processed foods and apparently not suffering from them is not dangerous?
Definitely not!
I compare the experience to that of an alcoholic who can drink a bottle of whiskey and still appear sober.
Just because the alcoholic can “handle” the whiskey doesn’t mean it isn’t doing tremendous biological damage.
On the positive side, my dinner at Outback Steakhouse provided some good material for this article, so here are the pointers I would suggest next time you go to a restaurant and are trying to order steak in such a way that won’t give you a headache or worse in the coming hours and days.
Skip the Chain Restaurants
The first suggestion I would make if you are going out for steak is to avoid chain restaurants if at all possible.
Chains are cheaper than a locally owned steakhouse and that is why they are popular. That budget-friendly menu comes with a price, however, and that is lower-quality food.
Big companies have significant buying power within the industrialized food distribution system because they buy in huge quantities which allows for big price breaks. This is then passed along to the consumer.
However, food that comes in huge quantities is typically lower quality and processed in a highly industrialized setting.
It would be better to choose a restaurant that only has one or two locations where the owner lives within the same community and is also eating there!
A small restaurant tends to more carefully source its ingredients. For example, at least one steak restaurant in Tampa sources its beef locally from grassfed farms.
Not only would steak from this restaurant taste better than one from a corporate chain, but it would also contain more nutrition too.
Tell the Waiter “No Seasonings”
Another problem with ordering steak out is that when the meat sourced is of low quality, it correspondingly has little to no flavor.
Restaurants, particularly chains or franchises, typically compensate for flavorless meat by brushing steaks with seasonings before grilling.
This makes them taste more like the natural, mouthwatering flavor of grassfed steaks.
The problem with these “seasonings” is that they contain neurotoxic MSG, which will likely give you a headache, nausea, or worse for up to 48 hours afterward.
This is what happened to me at Outback Steakhouse. I ordered my steak without the seasonings (grill only) and yet when the steak arrived and I took a bite, I realized the mistake.
Weirdly, my nose often itches slightly when a bite of food with MSG in it comes near my mouth.
If this happens to you, be sure to send it back and request what you originally ordered. You will be happy you did in the morning.
Order Sauces on the Side
Sometimes steaks are served with some sort of sauce brushed on top. Again, this is typically to enhance the taste of low-quality, flavorless beef.
These sauces usually contain GMO corn syrup, GMO corn starch (thickener), chemicals, additives, and MSG.
It is a good idea to request any sauces (brown sauces, gravy, etc) that come with the steak be served on the side. Then, you can take a small taste first to see if it is made from scratch and might be safe to eat.
Most likely, it will be from a bottle, jug, or packet and not worth consuming.
In that case, just get some butter and garlic on the side to melt over your steak when it arrives, use some salt and pepper and you will be good to go.
Rare or Well Done?
While it is true that a rare steak is easier to digest and more nutritious than a steak with the life cooked out of it, if you are eating steak at a restaurant where the quality of the steak may be questionable, I would suggest ordering it well done. This will avoid the potential for pathogens or parasites in the meat.
If you are ordering steak at a quality restaurant in your community that sources from local, grassfed farms, however, ordering the steak seared or rare to medium would be fine and certainly a more enjoyable and digestive-friendly experience.
Do you have other tips to order steak safely at a restaurant? Please share your experience or knowledge with us in the comments section.
If you’d rather just prepare steak at home instead of ordering out, here is an MSG-free, homemade steak sauce recipe to try!
Kaye Tench
Just this week on a quality cooking program in the UK, a top chef recommends only ordering steak medium rare or rare at a restaurant, as only the freshest steaks can stand up to being cooked that way, whilst all well-done ones or medium to well-done are the oldest not so fresh steaks as it is easier to hide their age that way from the restaurant diner.
Joy Winston
OMG such a great article. I work out on the road and trying to find something decent is so hard. The last time I ate at Outback I thought I would die. I have traveled this country so much. And even here in Florida I see so much pasture raised animals, and yet it is so hard to locate a restaurant that serves it. An those who do are astronomical. The BEST restaurant in town id my kitchen. Thank God I love to cook. But during the working week, I am always in a tizzie. Thanks for all you do.
teresa
Wow! I thought I was the only one who got sick when I eat out. We have no idea what is put in our food at restaurants, however sometimes it is a necessity but I usually pay the price too. 🙁
Sarah, I like the ideas and have been using this same approach. I always order my salad dressing on the side too. You can rest assure that it is made from bad oils so I use only a tiny bit.
Kelly the Kitchen Kop
It’s the crap oils that stuff is fried in at restaurants that make me pay the next day, so I *never* eat fried foods at even the nice places because usually they still use the disgusting soy or canola oils in their fryers.
Instead I come home and make our own homemade fries or “chicken nuggets” fried in beef tallow from grassfed cows! 🙂
It’s wild though how this didn’t used to bother me until, like you said Sarah, I cleaned up my diet, now it doesn’t even look good to me on the menu, knowing that I’ll pay dearly later!!
Kelly
Rebecca
For my dressing I request oil and vinegar. I use my Himalayan Pink salt stash that I keep in my purse and the pepper at the table. 🙂 YUM!
Of Goats and Greens
I do tend to order seafood (within limits) or vegetarian when out, unless it is not a chain and is also reputable. Choices for me get really limited when also avoiding added sugars and the like. I already know commercial pastries DO NOT agree with me. If I do order meat at a non farm to table it will usually be pork because I know that will nearly always be well done. (No, I am not going to eat shoe leather steaks of beef.) I’ve had to get my book club to stop meeting at Italian restaurants all the time! Baked salmon, sauce on the side, no bread please gets boring after awhile.
Beth
I also recommend having a bite of lacto-fermented food like homemade sauerkraut or kefir before going to a restaurant. Just a little extra insurance policy.
Beth
I carry a tiny container of Himalayan sea salt in my purse so I can opt out of industrial table salt. It has come in handy for so many situations. It occurs to me you could do this with a salt and pepper blend, or salt-herb blend as well.
I think Rebecca’s charcoal suggestion is good to keep in mind in case you suspect you got hit by MSG and other toxins.
Beth
Nix farm.raised tilapia, I believe they eat bass poo as their chow and get shots of antibiotics. I just discovered n-a-c. Maybe good as an “after poisoning” remedy. Or Bentonite. Avoiding Lobster too. They are “bottom feeders” like catfish…the garbage guys of the sea…
M5th
OMG! You won’t believe what they do to those fish! I watched a program on one of the cable channels and they were bragging about injecting the fish with antibiotics, and showing it too!!
I have a friend who used to be an environmental engineer. He had to inspect a fish food factory because of the stench to the neighbors. He said they were dumping garbage from grocery stores in the loading dock. The food was still in its packaging and there were maggots. Everything was process, but nothing was cleaned. He ended up shutting them down because they didn’t want to change what they were doing. Of course, this gets passed through the food chain.
He also said that farmed raised fish is GREEN! and that they color it so it looks normal. I accidentally tried farmed raised salmon and I could tell it was farm raised. I didn’t eat it, but ewwwww!
Rebecca
I also have a baggie of Himalayan pink salt in my purse!! When I whip it out at restaurants and generously salt my food — my table mates look at me like I am super unhealthy as they “lightly” salt their food with the table salt. It isn’t worth the effort to explain to them that their using a teeny bit of table salt is horrible compared to my healthy, nutritious Himalayan salt! YUM!
Susan
I like the taste of Himalayan pink salt and other types of salt, but if you’re eating it for it’s mineral value – they are “trace” contents and not enough to be significant when compared to table salt. Table salt might taste horrible, but chemically and nutritionally, they are not significantly different. This article explains it pretty well (although I don’t agree with their consumption recommendations) http://blog.fooducate.com/2011/08/12/sea-salt-vs-table-salt-the-truth/
Beth
It’s my understanding that the opposite is true. It’s the unrefined sea salt that contains the trace minerals. (The sea salts with a slight grey, pink or tan color, that is, not pure white.) Table salt has been stripped and bleached and chemicalized. True that iodine has been added to table salt, but there are better ways of getting iodine and better forms of it.
A great source for info on the history and science of salt can be found at http://www.saltinstitute.org
Rebecca Filbrun
The preservatives on the salads make me very sick. I try to remember to take charcoal before I go. I rarely eat out. If I forget I take it afterwards.
Truevision
Hi, can you expand on how you take the charcoal, amounts, etc? You really need a preservation kit to eat out anymore.
Dan Tatarek
I am so great full for your painfull experience, the best part of your article for me was how you liken your experience to an alcoholic because I have been thinking that there is just something wrong or week with my body because my family or friends don’t get the problems or reactions that I do from eating certain foods, So I was so happy to here of your pain LOL, I’m not alone in this and not weird just waking up to how we have been being poisoned most of my life thank you so very much, The fermenting is the biggest awakening for the good of all I just love it thank you !!!!
John
Great topic. We rarely go to chains. I am blessed that we have some really good restaurants and grass fed farms here. As a rule for the last year since reading NT it is grilled fish and wedge salad. Seriously, I just get ill from bottled dressing. As far as meat all grass fed or forget it.
Mrs. Mac
I hate eating out for the same reasons. This morning we (hubby and I) are discussing where we will take our family (married kids, grands, significant others) out for our yearly March dinner. We treat and for years it was at Red Lobster (yuck). I always opted for the live lobster, salad and a veggie. The food here is deplorable. My little grandson claims it’s his favorite fast food (lol). With the Fukushima disaster, I don’t want to eat seafood. We used to opt for wild Alaskan salmon .. but I don’t even trust that source. We decided to give each person $25 and eat at a local resort hotel in their family dining room.
Of Goats and Greens
Lobster, which comes from the Atlantic, is still safe. But agreed, Red Lobster, yuck.
Erica
Unfortunately, not all lobster from the Atlantic is safe: http://www.pressherald.com/news/Mercury_levels_close_mouth_of_Maine_river_to_lobster__crab_harvesting.html?fb_action_ids=10202323319456923&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582
If they closed one, there are others that might contaminated. It had to be really bad for them to close it and announce it. I suppose the good news is they actually closed it.
bianca
Fabulous article. I absolutely detest eating out, most esp. in FL. Love cooking from scratch so I know what I’m getting. We spend winter months here in FL and I always get “sick” after eating out even though I desperately try to choose wisely. They are still in the dark ages here. One thing I do before going out is to drink some raw cider vinegar with water hoping it will lessen reaction. I also start each morning with fresh squeezed lemon juice in hot water very first thing. Dawn Roberts has written a special book called “Warnings of Disease” . She has thoroughly researched what is in our foods after becoming seriously ill eating junk foods for many years. She saved her own life. A must read for those who care. Bon appetito !
Dawn Roberts
Thank you, Bianca! I appreciate your favorable comments regarding my book. I hope it will help others who are suffering needlessly… Like you, I do not like to eat out and love cooking from scratch. When I am forced to eat out, I’m extremely careful about what I eat. I’ve been known to speak with the chef or owner of a restaurant just so I can get something healthy and safe to eat… I also love to drink a “hot toddy” in the morning – water, fresh lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, raw honey, and a few dashes of cayenne pepper.
Rebecca
The first time I ordered a grassfed cow and had a freezer full of healthy meat, I was ecstatic… I cooked filet mignon for my dad and mom. He was amazed at how delicious it was. He said “is it because it is grassfed?” I don’t believe that is the case. So many people have said cornfed beef TASTES better. I really can’t tell the difference on whether it is corn fed or grassfed, but what I believe the main difference is the CUT of the steak. My dad was used to going to Sizzler and Red Lobster and getting their “steak” (he would never go for a more expensive cut because he is thrifty).
A delicious ribeye or T-bone steak, a porterhouse steak, or a yummy filet tops skirt steak or strip steak any day. No wonder growing up I hated steak — we always got the cheapo thin cuts that were bargain deals (9 kids in the family, it is expensive to feed them steak so I understand)
But now I cannot have anything but a good cut. I will pass if I cannot find a good cut of steak at a restaurant. I can eat a chicken caesar salad instead. haha.
And medium rare for me! Long gone are the days of well done steak for me.
I don’t know where to find a place that serves local grassfed beef, but if I was able to, I would go there probably once a week for dinner! Right now one of my favorite places ever was Peter Luger’s in Brooklyn (on a business trip). YUM.