How high should nutritional value rank when ordering skip the dishes

We are getting ready to sell our home, which means I have a list of chores about 100,000 items long. My husband calls these lists “Impossible” To do Lists. This is because it is humanly impossible to get everything on them done. Regardless, I feel better when I make them because it helps me worry less about forgetting something.

All of this preface, is to say that yesterday between chores and still trying to spend some quality time with our kids – I decided to order Skip the Dishes.

I thought this might be a good place to start the discussion on whether or not we should try to order something “healthy” or not worry about it.

The unhealthy vs unhealthy criteria

When I work with clients and we talk about eating foods that are prepared away from the home, I try to ask them a few questions to understand what type of guidance I should provide them with regards to foods to choose. When I say food prepared away from home I mean – take out, drive through, skip the dishes, eating in a restaurant and will use all of these phrases inter-changably.

The overarching criteria are:

1. Frequency – how often do you eat out?
2. Desire – are you eating something because you really want it? or are you ambivalent?
3. Time – are you doing it save time? or because you have a time crunch?
4. Cost/Affordability – does how much it costs impact the choice you make?

Until I have an answer to all of these questions, I can’t answer whether or not to emphasize that this choice should be nutritious. So lets go through each of the criteria below.

Frequency

My general rule of thumb is that if you eat out once per week or less, I would consider this a “treat meal” and say that nutritional value of the meal can rank as a lower priority. If you eat out more than once per week, then the nutritional value of that meal becomes more important as it will have a greater impact on the total nutritional value of your diet.

I think of this in terms of the 80/20 rule, which is a pop culture nutrition idea that 80% of the time aim to make healthy foods your priority and worry less about it the other 20% of the time. The real take away here is that healthy diets don’t have to be perfect – and it’s totally acceptable to have “unhealthy foods” 20% of the time.

Desire

By desire, I mean “Are you totally craving something?”, because if you are – then you should get that something.

Evidence suggests that “restrained eaters” – those who are working hard to avoid eating specific foods compared to “unrestrained eaters” experience more intense and frequent food cravings.

Evidence also suggests that those people who try REALLY, REALLY hard to avoid eating something they are totally craving, often end up eating more calories trying to avoid that something then they would have if they weren’t trying to restrain themselves.

So if you have something specific in mind, Get that something and don’t worry so much about the nutritional value of that something.

On the other hand, if you are ambivalent and simply ordering in something because of the situation – then ranking foods based on their nutritional value probably makes more sense.

Time

If your to-do is a mile long and your day is scheduled down to the minute, ordering food in may be the right choice. I can remember many instances of driving home with my kids and ordering skip the dishes to be dropped off on our doorsteps while we were on route.

Or maybe its not that you are so busy, but that you are having a great time with your kids and you want to finish reading that Galaxy Zack book you are reading and not stop to make dinner. That’s cool – order in then too!

But, if you do happen to have a few minutes and aren’t in the mood for anything specific – making a quick meal at home might be the right choice.

You can check out my other blog post where I compared the nutritional value of homemade nachos to a cheese burger and fries and cheese pizza. In this post you can see that the nutritional value is exactly the same – so if you just want to serve nachos for dinner, or hot dogs, or toast and scrambled eggs, or a round of peanut butter sandwiches – that’s totally cool. And in most cases, likely the more nutritious choice than ordering in.

Cost/Affordability

By this one, I mean the cost of ordering in. Eating at home is almost always going to be your lower cost option, compared to eating out. My skip the dishes bill last night was like $80! That’s like a third of weekly grocery bill – except I only got 1 meal instead of 21!

That being said, we all know that depending on what you order can really impact the cost. Also, I find that often the more nutritious meals cost more or you get less food for the same price. I think in part this is because more nutritious foods tend to be less shelf-stable so the restaurant has a higher risk of food waste and needs to pass that risk on to the consumer.

When I was 15 years old, working at McDonalds (that’s true – by the way, I did work at McDonalds when I was 15), I can tell you that I did not observe much food waste. The frozen french fries, frozen burgers, frozen buns were pretty darn shelf stable.

But – if you are just trying to feed your family and you need to eat out but also need that meal to be cheap – then get the cheapest choice. Don’t worry about it. If you have a bit more wiggle room and money isn’t an issue and then paying a bit extra to get something more nutritious may make sense.

Take the Quiz

Scoring the Quiz

If your answers were lower on the number scale than the nutritional value of meal can likely be lower. If your answers were high on the number scale than aiming for a higher nutritional value at the meal might be the right choice.

What does high nutritional value look like when eating out?

Ok – so this is the million dollar question and if you are still reading then you probably were hoping I would tell you!

Nutrition is not a once size fit all approach. But if you are aiming for a higher value nutrition meal when eating out here are my tips:

1. Before you order – see if the company posts their nutrition information online and check it out. If you are looking at the nutrition information, consider looking for options that are lower in calories and sodium and higher in fibre and protein.
2. Try ordering something that contains whole grains, fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds or salmon to increase the Mediterranean Diet Score of that meal.
3. If you can avoid foods that are deep-fried this helps lower your trans fatty acid intake.
4. Don’t order extras – like appetizers, desserts, beverages, etc – this helps reduce the amount of calories, sugar and sodium you are getting delivered.

Our Dinner Last Night

My responses to the quiz for last night, went something like 1, 1, 1 and 5, which meant that high nutritional value wasn’t my goal. I also knew that I was totally in the mood for Thai food, which is food that my whole family likes and that I think restaurants do better than me.

My kids chose the coconut rice, spring rolls and pad Thai. They loved their spring rolls and rice – but left their plates about half full. No worries – I’ll eat it!

So what?

What we eat matters. And life matters too. So when your to do is a mile long and you want to order in – go for it. That being said, if there is wiggle room, aiming for something more nutritious might be a good idea too.

If you need help deciding- take the quiz!

Thanks so much for reading! If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to reach out by leaving a comment or sending me an email at contact@kellypicard.com.