Okay, we all like to eat out, probably more than eating in. Some were raised that way, others wished they were.
You don’t have to cook, clean dishes, argue with your family, everybody’s happy.
But it doesn’t even matter if sometimes we experience bad or rough or not so great times when eating out – we all still do it – sometimes putting the onus on ourselves, or we look for better places and they abound – they’re everywhere.
Who wants diet food when they eat out? Okay, some elitists skinnies do. But that’s not the rest of us.
As all vegans know, it’s not easy-going without the animal in the food when we eat out, because restaurateurs want to keep the animal in – everything if they had their way.
So, I found a place that not only keeps the animal fat out of the refried beans, but there’s no fat, which is right up my fat-reducing alley. Plus they’re creamy delicious! And they serve $2.50 bottled beer on designated days. Steve always gets Heineken, I get Modelo Negra.
They also on designated days have a taco bar, so I can load my refried beans up with cilantro, tomato, onion, lettuce, (Jalapeno peppers, not for me), green and red salsa.
I also get tortilla chips and salsa and I do limit myself to 8 chips to use as scoopers for the entire dish. I could in future request flour tortillas that would help with the total fat grams – we’ll see.
A glass of red wine, a plate of side dish refried beans, 8 chips and all the trimmings, which are free foods (negligible calories and fat) = 451 calories and 6.6 grams of fat. The Fat Calorie to Total Calorie Ratio = 13% (well below the 25%-35% recommendation by the government forces that set them.
Now, if I omit the chips and don’t sub in the plain flour tortillas, this becomes a fat-free animal-free meal. However, when eating out, it doesn’t make much sense to deprive myself to that extent. I’m doing everything else right and they deep fry in 100% vegetable oil.
For all these reasons, I’m placing El Jalapeno’s refried beans on the Fat-Free Chef = Diet Food list.
FAT-FREE CHEF™ 