How You Can Feel Good About Eating Out

Recently my group has taken on the Paula Deen and Anthony Boudain issue, which many of you may remember watching in class. Well after listening to Deen talk about how it's all about moderation and her still making not-so-good food I got to thinking. Part of our third group project is giving people healthy tips, coupons and any other health facts we might come across. In the midst of this I took a trip to the new restaurant Moe's. You may have heard of it. Well as my roommate and I were in line and checking out the menu I saw a sign that tells the customer a little bit about where the food you are about to eat comes from. It looks a little like this...

I know this photo is kind of hard to see so here is a link where you can see it bigger: Moe's Food Mission

What the picture is telling you is that the chicken served at Moe's is all natural, cage and hormone free. The cows the steak comes from are grass fed with no hormones added and the pork is hormone free, steroid free and grain fed. As soon as I started reading this I looked at my roommate and said, "I just learned about this in class!" I was very excited! Watching Food Inc. in class really opened my eyes to care about where the food I was putting into my body was coming from (and I think Paula should care too). I started looking other restaurants I thought might practice the same techniques.

Another restaurant (and a favorite of mine) is Chipotle. If you've ever gone to their website they give you full explanations about where the food is coming from. You can check all that out here: Chipotle's Food Integrity.

Chipotle's pork is raised outside or in deeply bedded pens, they are never given antibiotics and are fed a vegetarian diet. "It's the way animals were raised 50 years ago before huge factory farms changed the industry." Their beef comes from ranches that meet or exceed their naturally raised standards. The goal for their chicken is to have it become 100% raised without the use of antibiotics.

Needless to say if watching Food Inc. made you a little skeptical like myself, but you like to eat out, there are options for you out there. It might take a little research, but you can find restaurants just like Moe's and Chipotle that treat the animals right and don't pump antibiotics and other bad things into them. You can actually feel good about eating out.