Comments on: Week three progress report

By: bluntmoney

bluntmoney — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:58:19 +0000

Just to clarify, the reactions I experienced weren’t from eating chicken parmesan in general (because I’m fine when I make it myself or eat it at restaurants that have “home-cooked” style meals) — it’s only when I eat it from Olive Garden.

By: lizzie

lizzie — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:13:17 +0000

Why do americans have this blind spot when it comes to eating out. You should learn to cook my dears and never (well, once a year if you have toand preferably when someone else is paying ) You cant eat out and expect to save money !

By: June Cutoff Cash

June Cutoff Cash — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 12:35:22 +0000

I wonder if there was MSG in the food. It adds flavor or it’s a preservative — I don’t even really know why it’s there. But you could’ve had a reaction to that. And by the way, they now call it all sorts of tricky things like “Modified Food Starch” when you look on labels. That said, congratulations on your plan! You’ll be richer and healthier!

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:09:28 +0000

heart is racing after eating chicken parmesan? Never heard of this before?

By: Susanna

Susanna — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 21:15:34 +0000

I agree with m. I tend to find chain restaurants too fatty, sweet, and salty for my tastes. That’s not to say we don’t eat there occasionally – we got takeout from Ruby Tuesday the other night when dinner was accidentally burned – but it just doesn’t taste as good as what we make at home.

By: m

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:19:32 +0000

The same has happened to me over years of eating mostly at home. Plus growing up we ate healthy home cooked meals nearly 99% of the time and my palette was affected by that and got used to a pretty high standard.

I find meals out to often be too greasy, fattening, cheesy, and otherwise not healthy or simple enough for my taste. Not everywhere mind you, but many places, esp. the chain type restaurants and of course fast food.

Some of the more pricey restaurants though serve the type of food I like, plenty of fresh veggies not cooked to within an inch of their life, but crisp, full of natural flavor and not buried in tons of sauce, oil, and additional flavorings.

Give me a fresh salad with a light splash of vinaigrette and some veggies or a nice sorbet with one or two cookies for dessert and I’m happy. But mostly eating at home allows me to eat what I want, control the amount of fat, and to eat vegetarian, low/lowish fat, and often organic, and fresh, tasty meals. Why would I want Olive Garden when I can have that?

I think your non eating out project is great, we are doing something similar, cutting down on dining out even more to save money. But we still go here and there, enjoy small tasty meals when the urge hits. We just are selective about where we go and what we eat.

By: Dedicated

Dedicated — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:00:47 +0000

I’m shocked by your physical reaction from the Chicken Parmesan. I too love this dish, although I prefer it at Maggianno’s. I have never had the reaction you experience or maybe I never noticed it. I will pay attention next time.

Of course, at Olive Garden I generally order the soup and salad combo with a rasberry peach tea.