Bar food and being primal page

[rrich49132]

I am finding it very tough going out and finding anything that is Primal friendly. While my friends are throwing back several beers and eating their burgers, fries, nachos and such I end up having a glass or red wine and passing on everything as I can't find anything that is primal friendly. I can order a dinner like steak, chicken, fish and get a side of veggies but am trying to figure out what type of appetizers I might have. Is chicken wings ok if not breaded? Sometimes I can find peal and eat shrimp but not usually. Anyone in the same boat and are having a tough time when going out?

[primalmontana]

Appetizers are tough and usually breaded and fried...so skip them!! Or you could order your side salad or possibly soup if your friends don't give you too much shit

[BlueToad]

Depending on what type of bar it is, there can be several choices. My husband will usually have wings, but there will be sugar in the sauce most likely. I will get a burger without the bun if nothing else looks good. There's a bar/restaurant here with amazing food and I can get things like seared ahi tuna which comes with veggies on a cracker and I just don't eat the cracker. One place we go still has potato skins on the menu and they are amazing. In fact, that is usually my entree at that place. I have found that with a little modification I can generally find something to eat.

[BlueToad]

Oh, and everywhere I go I ask for sweet potato fries, because I want it out there that sweet potato fries are the shit! (I'm closing my mind to the fact that they are fried in an unfortunate choice of oil)

[dirk41]

Chicken wings are probably your best bet. If they're breaded, though, they're not primal. Nevertheless, you could just count it as your 20%.

[rrich49132]

I avoid Potatoes for the most part but do have a sweet potato slices and grilled which I really do like but keep the quantity very low. I can usually find dinner items fairly easily but the appetizers are usually tough. My friends give me so much crap for being so anal but most of them are fat and don't workout and don't give a crap what they eat and such. The majority of our society is overweight and being like this is very much not the norm and a very small set of the population.

[ss14]

"Appetizers" are junk food restaurants sell so you eat and drink more. It's called an "appetizer," for Christ's sake.

Just have your steak and veggies. What's the problem?

[RichMahogany]

The problem with unbreaded wings isn't so much the potential sugar in the sauce, it's the rancid PUFA's they're fried in. Same with the sweet potato fries. Sorry to burst your bubble. Depending on how often you go out, it might be worth it to skip the apps altogether.

[Dice Monkey]

Yeah, bar food is tough. Make sure you scan the menu and see if you can make an app out of an entre item. Like maybe they have a salad with grilled chicken tenders. You could just ask for the tenders and something to dip them in. Look for shrimp or crab legs etc...

[Catharsis]

This is where my old Atkins lifestyle and being primal officially split paths. I used to DESTROY some restaurant wings. On a wing night, I've been known to kill 40+ of them in my younger years.

There's really nothing you can eat at a bar to be truly primal. Even if some place grills their wings, the chicken isn't going to be "gmo free". That said, if wings are cooked right and the oil is hot enough, there's not as much that gets transferred into the actual meat like you'd see if you were eating something that has been soaked in it or some dessert that had a cup of oil added in for baking. Breaded wings will hold more oil than non-breaded. The oil talk in this article is trash, but the study referenced isn't so, as with everything, research it yourself: The Fat Facts About Frying - Food - Lifewhile

I'll tell you this. For several years I deep fried turkeys for Thanksgiving in whatever oil was the cheapest from Sams Club. Even now, once or twice a year I'll have a deep fried turkey that a friend of mine does when I get invited up to his cabin. We always make sure that the oil is the proper temperature before tossing it "into the fire" so to speak. When done properly, foods aren't oily at all. If it's a chicken wing, you're going to pick up that vegetable oil in the skin one way or the other. If it's something like a turkey or a chicken, you can probably go for the meat that is 1/2" deep from the skin and deeper and be perfectly fine. The entire bird isn't going to soak up oil, and if you have hot enough oil it's not going to penetrate deep at all.

Most bars won't do this, but if it's a restaurant bar/pub then ask if they can bake or grill them. They might do it on request. Logan's Roadhouse has grilled wings on their menu. The times I've had them, trust me, they're awesome. They're a LOT better than their regular wings. Personally, I look at stuff like wings cooked in canola as your 20% provided it's something like ONCE a week with no other deviations and far from a nightly thing. To contrast my view, I'd look at Nacho's/Fries/Fried Pickles/Potato Skins, etc as not being 20% at all and being rare indulgences. Again, if you're in shape and steal a nacho or two off of a plate, it's not like it's gonna kill you. But I don't think your mind is in the right place if you're doing it on a daily basis.