Eating at Restaurants

Below is a discussion between Tony and I about the challenge of eating out at restaurants while practicing the Mucusless Diet Healing System (the ORIGINAL Vegan Lifestyle).

Is Eating at Restaurants Possible?

Written by Tony on April 23, 2013

Hey Prof. Spira,

Uhh I hate falling off! I went out to a dinner with my mom at an Indian restaurant. I ate cooked mucus forming foods such as legumes. I stayed away from a lot, but still I don’t feel good. Especially, knowing that now I’m just working to get rid of it! How do you/did you go about coping with restaurant desires, and how do you address invites to them from family?

When I encounter restaurants and being out to eat is the major time I “forget myself” and consume that which does not make me feel good.

Is stopping going to restaurants possible for everyone? I live at home with my mother for now. I’m hoping to move out again soon. Often times I feel that it’s a major hindrance because I can’t just stock the house with the foods I’m doing a fast with. In the end I think it makes me stronger, and when I do have my own space I will be that much more advanced.

Any tips for dealing with this?

-Tony

The Challenge of Eating at Restaurants

Written by Prof. Spira on April 23, 2013

For me, there was a certain point I knew that I would no longer be able to eat at restaurants. Before the diet I ate out almost twice a day, everyday. Sometimes three times a day. I rarely cooked or ate at home, especially in my junior high and high school years. And my meals were always very gluttonous.

Extra cheese, more sauce, double pepperoni, extra hot fudge, more desserts, the whole bag of chips, super sized soda, extra butter, etc. My addiction was more about gluttonous overeating than the foods themselves.

At first I did go to restaurants and try to eat salads, soups I thought were meat-free, and the occasional substandard steamed veggie plate. But the portions were always too small and the quality awful. I went to one amazing vegan food restaurant but other than that, I have some pretty bad experiences.

Some vegan restaurants just don’t make an effort. Us vegans don’t just eat salad! I got used to large romaine and red/green leaf lettuce salads with all the fixings, yet most restaurants sent out some sad looking iceberg lettuce salad. And they would always try to add some kind of weird stuff on the edges of the plate (hard boiled eggs, croutons, etc.).

And it was so hard to get steamed vegetables without it having butter on it. In most cases, I would leave the restaurant very unsatisfied and still make my own meal later on.

 

Risk of Cross-contamination with Animal Products

If you attempt to special order things, as I tried to do, you will always run the risk of cross-contamination with animal products. They might even say its “vegan” on the menu, or assure you that it has no meat, but once I found a bit of meat in something “meat-free.”

Anther time I saw cooks using the same knife to cut meat and meat-free foods. And I especially do not trust them if I can’t see the food being made. As I started to take full responsibility for everything I ate, having a fling at a restaurant where I ignore these issues was not going to happen anymore.

The last few time I ate at restaurants, I used to order a plate of lemons while everyone else around me had full meals. By that point, it made sense for me to just no longer be there. My vibe disrupted everything and no one felt comfortable at all.

The idea of eating mucus-forming foods publicly became an absurd concept. Restaurants that fit my new reality did not exist. Most juice bars were way too expensive and the juice never tasted better than what I made myself at home. Until they make juice bars with two dollar pitchers of fresh juice (like two dollar pitchers of beer), I don’t see the need to go to them unless I’m out and really need a juice.

And there were no “vegan” restaurants around when I began the mucusless diet, which was probably a good thing. f I would have went down the road of vegan restaurants I KNOW I would have become addicted to vegan baked goods, meat-substitutes, and avocados.

Taking a Hard Line

At a certain point I just had to take a hard line and tell everyone that I was no longer eating in restaurants. If they wanted to hang out with me, it would just have to be around something other than food. I started wondering why we couldn’t have social interactions without ritualized foods or drugs being attached.

By this time I viewed what I was doing to be the most revolutionary thing out, and that I was picking up where Malcolm X and Huey P. Newton left off. So, I took that level of revolutionary energy and put it directly into the practice of the mucusless diet. Did all of Malcolm’s family follow him into the Nation of Islam, or Huey’s into the Black Panther Party?

People that did not understand what they were trying to do just wrote them off as crazy, but they kept moving forward. I looked at what I was going through with this kind of lens.

I’m into a way of life that I know most of my friends and family will not understand, but this was not going to slow me down or soften my resolve in any way. I’d been warned by Brother Air that the ‘social piece’ ends up tripping up many brothers and sisters who try to get into the diet.

So I made a pact with myself that if I failed, it would not have anything to do with challenging social dynamics. If I failed, it would have to be based on my own physiological weaknesses and gluttonous addictions to mucus-forming foods.

 

Acceptance from Family and Friends

After a while people got used to what I do and now my family and friends respect the way I live. Over time, I learned how to talk about the diet in ways that do not scare people away (as I used to). Now, the diet comes across like a rational way to live that anyone could do if they wanted to.

And since I used to be a glutton, I can still speak “gluttonese” (meaning I can relate to excited conversations about eating bad foods) which trips people out. But overall I get much more support and respect now then I used to when I first talked about the diet. Today, it also helps that my lifestyle precedes me in certain social circles, so it’s just become accepted, and it even influences others in ways that I only hear about much later.

Thus, if you do decide to cut out restaurants, there might be tensions at first, but in the end people should respect you for sticking to your principles. I would just respectfully say that I’m not eating at restaurants right now. If they are religious folks, you can spin it in a spiritual way. If they are more mainstream, then just saying that you are into a diet and not eating out right now (even though a barrage of questions will probably follow).

Depending on who I’m talking to I might even bring up famous people who have adopted a vegan diet, such as Bill Clinton, Ellen Degeneres, Shania Twain, Russell Simmons, or Beyonce’s vegan ‘master cleanse’ excursion, to normalize what I’m doing to them . It’s kind of sad that I have to refer to celebrities to ease their mind and help them understand. And, of course they don’t practice the Mucusless Diet, but I find that the “vegan” concept is mainstream enough to convey the basics of my plant-based lifestyle.

People close to you will usually not concede that you possess world-changing, revolutionary information, but that will blindly follow and respect the exploits of a celebrity in a heartbeat. This technique should really be used to make what you are doing look more ‘normal’, and not necessary to educate or inspire them to join you. I find that the people who would be inspired will actually be more intrigued if you aren’t ‘trying’ to convince them, but you already know that.

It is a big step to stop messing around in restaurants, but it has been one of the most liberating experiences for me to have taken myself out of that reality.

Peace, Love, and Breath!
Prof. Spira

Check out the New Annotated, Revised, and Edited Edition of the Mucusless Diet Healing System from Amazon.