How to Pick a Health Friendly Restaurant

Four Good and Bad Signs that Can Help Any Dieter Gauge a Restaurant at a Glance

Learning to recognize a health friendly restaurant, and to spot the unhealthy ones, is a skill that is sure to serve any dieter well. Finding a health friendly restaurant can make it a snap to stay on your diet when you go out to eat. If you’re presented with a menu filled with eating options that are good for you, you’ll get to dine out without feeling deprived in the moment, or remorseful the next morning. Whether you're looking for a new spot close to home, or are scouting in an unfamiliar town or city during travel, these four simple tips will help you gauge whether an eatery is a healthy friendly restaurant or not at a glance.

Good Sign: Items Marked Vegetarian, Vegan, Or Gluten-Free
Even if you’re a confirmed meat eater who makes bread a part of every meal, you’ll want to keep an eye out for these terms on a menu. Any restaurant that takes enough care to let its patrons on restrictive diets know what they can, and can’t, safely eat is a health friendly restaurant. If a dining establishment features these kinds of dishes, it is quite likely that the ethos of respecting the customer’s nutritional needs is consistent throughout the rest of the menu. So, if you see “gluten-free,” “vegetarian,” or “vegan” on a menu, congratulations! You’ve got a health friendly restaurant.

Bad Sign: All You Can Eat
No health friendly restaurant would ever have an all you can eat sign, not even on the salad bar. That’s because the all you can eat mentality is the opposite of the attitude you’ll find in a health friendly restaurant. A health friendly restaurant is a place where the chefs are paying attention to the nutritional balance of each dish, so that if there is a fatty sauce, it is on a lean cut of meat, or if there are a lot of carbohydrates, there are a lot of vitamins as well. In an all you can eat situation where quantity triumphs over quality, there’s no chance that the restaurant is interested in looking after your health. If you’ve got the option, move on and seek out a more health friendly restaurant.