Making Healthy Choices When You’re Eating Out

March 15th, 2008 | Acne, Food

chocolate, yum! You are what you eat, and this is especially true when it comes to your skin. In most cases, a healthy diet will clear up a significant amount of acne, and for others it will even clear the skin completely.

So among many other reasons, I try to eat well most of the time. I believe eating well prevented my acne from becoming as bad as it could have been. I also believe eating well keeps the inflammation and redness of any spots that I get to a minimum. Sometimes we can eat really well all of the time, but still experience spots or a breakout for other reasons, such as hormones, stress or the wrong cosmetics. What diet will do is help prevent these spots from getting worse and being as bad as they could have been in the first place.

On my recent trip to Sydney (so recent I’m typing this on the plane on the way home), I was so impressed with the amount of healthy food available to consumers.

Most ‘food courts’ where I’m from in Brisbane are full of fatty, greasy or sickly sweet foods with maybe a sandwich bar thrown in if you’re lucky. Sydney’s food courts that I visited where full of beautiful fresh foods! One food court in particular seemed to be health food heaven, with just about every kiosk selling piles of fresh salads, quality breads and even whole foods. I’m so jealous we don’t have this in Brisbane.

I wish I could take some of those salad bars back to Brisbane with me. One kiosk in particular only sold vegetarian whole foods, how awesome is that!? I can count the number of vegetarian restaurants in Brisbane on one hand.

I eat out a lot and I try to make as many healthy choices that I can. Of course it’s difficult to get organic foods when you’re not cooking it yourself, but there are healthier choices that you can make. I’m learning that this depends a lot on where you live and what’s available in your local area.

In Sydney, I enjoyed big salad filled sandwiches on rye bread for lunch and a fresh fruit juice or fruit for dessert. For dinner I chose to eat at restaurants or nice cafes where the food was rich and plentiful but also relatively healthy. For treats I indulged in dark chocolate …and yes I was in ‘holiday mode’ so I enjoyed a little more chocolate than usual

What’s my point to all of this? I want you to know that you can eat out and enjoy foods while being healthy and caring for your body and your skin at the same time. Eating well to treat your acne should not mean that you can never enjoy foods or never eat out. You can easily make good choices in restaurants, cafes and in the grocery store or market when you’re deciding what to buy for home.

I get so concerned with what I read in acne forums with how disciplined some people get with the amount of foods they’re eliminating for their skin and how strict they become. I don’t think you should ever have to give up anything for ever, that is just silly. Just reduce the bad stuff and eat more of the good stuff. And the more you learn about healthy options, the more you’ll realise how many healthy foods there are out there that taste so good, if not better than the bad stuff.

Take chocolate for example, one of my favorite foods and something I’ll never give up. I have a very sweet tooth so eating less sweet foods was a big challenge for me. I learnt that dark chocolate (especially organic dark chocolate) is a lot better for you than milk or white chocolate, so even though my favorite was milk chocolate I started opting for the darker varieties.

Now, and I never thought I’d be saying this - now I actually prefer dark chocolate. So much so that today when my friend bought a small pack of milk and dark chocolate buttons from a store in Sydney, I had one of the dark buttons followed by one of the milk buttons and didn’t like the taste of the milk one at all. How did this happen? I guess I just adapted and now the milk chocolate seems too sickly sweet to me. I never, never would have thought I’d prefer dark chocolate. I always used to think it was a little yuck

So next time you’re out and you’re buying food, have a look around and see what else is available. You might be surprised at how good the healthy options taste. And most importantly - your skin and your body will love it.

Thanks Sydney for some awesome food!

Fran

Fran Kerr is the founding editor of High on Health. To cure your acne, sign up to Fran's FREE acne cure mini-course or download her latest how to guide, Eat Away Your Acne.