Vegetable oil at restaurants?

[doctorintraining]

Hi,

I live in Albany, NY and I'm on day 19 of my first Whole30. My boyfriend isn't doing it, neither are any of my friends, and on date nights or girls night out, we've mostly cooked ourselves, but sometimes they naturally want to eat out and I haven't been able to find a compliant restaurant so they order in and I make my own food to bring over or I just don't really eat while we're out - fine for the 30 days but not that exciting/sustainable moving forward as I intend to live pretty much Whole30 for a while. I've called around to a few restaurants that I thought would have some compliant things (mexican - fajitas, just the grilled meat/veggies/guacamole, thai - curries/no rice, burgers - lettuce/no bun, steak houses, etc.) and a lot of the time it comes down to the fat - they always say they use "vegetable oil" but I don't know what specifically is in it - so I'm not sure if that's really corn oil/soybean etc., things we can't have, or like canola oil which isn't great but allowed for the few times you go out. The people at the restaurant haven't been super helpful either. How have people gotten around that? I've asked if they can grill meats for say fajitas in something else like canola oil or preferably olive oil but they're pretty resistant. It's only 11 more days + reintroduction, and I'm a busy medical student with little time for socializing, so it's not a big deal for the next couple weeks but I don't know how to get around this going forward. I really love exploring good restaurants so need some help to navigate. Thanks! 

[ShannonM816]

This is one reason to do reintroductions. Have stuff cooked in soybean oil one day,  see what happens. Have stuff cooked in corn oil another day, see what happens with it. It may be that you don't have noticeable reactions to either, so you don't worry about it when you go out (although this doesn't mean use it all the time at home, since sometimes things cause no issues in small amounts, but having it every day could cause problems). If you do have noticeable reactions, then you know you'll want to really make sure that you eat at restaurants where they'll work with you on what they use.

For now, while you're finishing your whole30, you could suggest places where you can find something, like Chipotle which has a few compliant options, or steak places usually have some options, though you'll probably want to take your own ghee or oil if you plan on getting a baked potato or sweet potato. Places that do breakfast all day might be able to do eggs for you, most places can do a plain salad so you at least don't feel like the only one not eating. Try to find a couple of options you can suggest.

[laura_juggles]

A vaguely unrelated suggestion might be to also try some date nights or girls nights where the main socialization isn't food/a bar. Do one of those painting party things (I know they're often BYOB, but I've gone with friends and just brought water or tea...still a ton of fun) or find a hatchet throwing place (I swear, they're popping up all over). Go to mini-golf, a concert, frisbee at a park, there are so many possibilities!