We happen to be living in a hotel for a couple of days while our home is being tented for termites. So basically, we are eating out for every meal, with the exception of snacks brought from home or purchased. And with all this eating out, we are discovering our tastes have changed quite a bit since we have been making our own food.

Once Tasty Food, Now Not-So Great.

It seems that restaurants that I once liked, are now disappointing to me — even unappetizing. These are mostly national chain family restaurants (think Chili’s, The Cheesecake Factory, P.F. Changs etc.) The food tastes over salted and sugared. Today we went to lunch at a local family restaurant chain. I guess it is along the same lines as The Olive Garden. Pizza, salad, and pasta dishes were their fare. The garlic bread tasted sweet. The caesar salad tasted like dressing on tasteless wet crunchy lettuce (thankfully, the dressing was OK and the lettuce was at least crunchy). The broccoli tasted salty, although it was cooked properly to a nice al dente texture with a bright green color. The mac n cheese tasted like macaroni in a bland cream sauce. Although it was orange, there was no taste of cheese. The angel hair pasta had a cream pesto sauce, which was decent, but it could have used half the sauce and no cream. The grilled chicken salad had decent veggies, decent clean white chicken, but again, the lettuce had no flavor. The chicken nuggets were nice pieces of breast, but the coating was thick and salty.

So this meal could have been really good if they used less “stuff” and better ingredients. Broccoli is actually sweet when naturally cooked. Lettuce has a nice flavor if nice green quality lettuce is used. Garlic bread should not have sugar added to it. Mac n cheese should taste like… mac n CHEESE. Pesto is good in it’s simple state of basil, garlic, parmesan and olive oil. The chicken nuggets could have had a lighter coating with less salt. Now I’m not one for mac n cheese or chicken nuggets (my disclaimer) in general (they were not what I ordered) but my husband ordered them.

Change Your Food, and Your Taste Buds Will Follow

I was really pleased to hear my husband complain to me about the meal. It was good to know that his tastes had changed for the better since he used to eat a lot of junk food. Granted, to most people, this meal would have tasted just fine. But since we eat at home and prepare most of our meals with mostly fresh quality ingredients, our taste buds have become sensitive. Unless it is a restaurant that uses high quality fresh ingredients and doesn’t drown the food in cream sauce, cheese, sugar, salt, or deep fry it, we don’t really care for typical restaurant food anymore.

Generally, it only takes two weeks of eating healthier food for a person’s tastes to change. People note they feel and taste a difference in food a couple of weeks after they switch their eating habits. They really notice a difference after eating junk following a change to a healthier diet. Junk food no longer tastes as good (or good at all), and they physically feel poor (fatigue, bloating, headaches, congestion, etc.).

Just Add or Change ONE Thing In Your Diet

I recommend to everyone who wants to change their eating habits to do it slowly: just add one healthy food to your daily intake to start, whether it is fresh fruit in the morning, or a side salad with lunch, or some veggies as a snack. Once that is habit, add something else, and so on. This is a great, no stress way of changing your diet gradually and it will most likely be a permanent change.

“Free” Breakfast Doesn’t Mean “Good” Breakfast.

We happen to be living in a hotel for a couple of days while our home is being tented for termites. The hotel provided breakfast. Granted, I’m not staying anyplace remotely fancy, so I didn’t expect much. But I at least thought I would have a decent selection of healthy choices, like maybe some fruit, cereal and wheat bread, along side the pastries and such. The front desk was trying to sell me on this place because they also offered “hot selections.” They didn’t say what those “selections” were (and that’s not what sold me).

Anyway, what I did find was a bunch of heated up frozen waffles, white bread and English muffins for toast, a bunch of frosted grocery store pastries, some strange looking egg “patties,” sausage patties, sugar covered muffins, Fruit Loops, Kellogg’s Raisin Bran, some hard boiled eggs and a bowl of apples. Raisin Bran should be healthy, but it has some undesirable additives such as high fructose corn syrup and preservatives. There were only two items that were unadulterated: the hard boiled eggs and the apples. Granted, they weren’t organic (nor did I expect it), but there they were. The apples were not washed. They still had their commercial PLU stickers on them. When I asked the staff if they were washed, they said, “No. But they should be fine. They are just regular apples. But you can wash it in the guest bathroom.” I was stunned. I’m not sure what was worse; her ignorance to the pesticides lurking on the fruit, or her suggestion to go wash the apples in the bathroom. Nice.

We then made our exit down to the burrito/taco stand on the corner, recommended by Julio, one of the staff (being in San Diego, we have authentic Mexican food at every corner). No, I did not get to have my healthier choices, but at least my occasional burrito had real ingredients like real eggs, homemade tortilla and salsa, beans and cheese. Side note: did you know that tortillas should only have three to four ingredients? Next time you’re at the grocery store, take a look at the ingredients and see how long the list is. It’s scary!

Why Is the Burrito Healthier?

Sugary Donut

I guess it depends on the quality and ingredients of the burrito. Not all burritos are created equal. My burrito had eggs, beans, salsa fresca (fresh tomatoes, onions and cilantro), and a little cheese. The ingredients were minimally processed (i.e. the eggs were beaten, the tomatoes, onions, ciliantro were chopped, the tortilla was housemade with flour, water, salt and oil.). The beans are fiber-rich, the eggs are protein-rich, the salsa is raw so it has vitamins, antioxidants and enzymes. Granted, there is not much nutritional value in cheddar cheese and the tortilla, but they were minimally processed and real (not “cheese food”). The downside is the size of the burrito… it’s HUGE (easily two meals for me)!

The hotel breakfast, on the other hand, was not only nutritionally deficient, but loaded with sugar, preservatives, trans fat and was highly refined, with exception to the hard boiled eggs and commercially grown apple. (BTW, I did wash and eat an apples before heading to the burrito place. I crave fresh fruit in the morning.) The selections they offered were assault weapons on my body and mind. If I had eaten the majority of what was offered, I would have felt like a slug ready for a nap (my body would have needed all the energy it could muster in order to digest the stuff!). Note: the hard boiled egg is healthier than scrambled egg because the yolk is not subjected to oxygen when being cooked which causes oxidation. But I’m not really one to eat cold hard-boiled eggs for breakfast.

Now, don’t get me wrong. A burrito is not health food. But some of the ingredients have some real nutritional merit to them and it is a healthier CHOICE than the highly sugared and refined hotel choices.

Eat Simple Foods Over Heavily Processed Foods

One way to help yourself eat healthier, is to choose foods that are not heavily processed. Try to eat foods that don’t come in a box or packaging that has a long list of ingredients. Eat foods that are in their natural state. If you do eat packaged foods, don’t eat those that list ingredients you wouldn’t add yourself if making it in your own kitchen.