08 Nov A side salad for FREE and other strategies for food establishments
There is an elegant way to encourage people to eat more leafy greens being employed in some progressive eating environments.
I stepped into Laurent on Whitehorse Road in Balwyn yesterday afternoon. It was past 3 PM, , , and I required sustenance. . .
Before that when I was strolling down the street perusing the cafes in that neighbourhood, I felt like salad.
I knew it was going to be a tough find. There was a Vietnamese eatery with a salad, however, I didn’t feel like meat.
In any case, there was a cafe open until 4 PM. That wasn’t going to help me since I needed to do my webs work.
For some reason I felt compelled to cross the road 😛 and came across Laurent.
A number of tasty things were in their display cabinets, including an impressive (and healthy) array of sandwiches.
I know that I crave green vegetables and leaves because I ate them as a child.
Taste preferences are ‘imprinted’ on your preferences in the womb and as a child
My brother and I crave vegetables because my parents decided to ‘go bush’ when my brother and I were small children of 4.5 years and 6 years. . . They grew a vegetable garden, and we were eating lots of vegetables with every meal. . . I would sit in the garden and feast on egg tomatoes (dipped in mayo), strawberries and other delights.
I don’t remember eating A LOT of vegetables, , , and my brother didn’t like all the food we ate, or was not as accepting of it as I was. . . ((in any case)) we had a garden, and we ate vegetables. . . (as well as fish oil, home made muesli with raw oats and honey, weetbix, ,, and presumably fruit (although I did not develop a taste for that).
Earlier than that my Mum told me that she was ‘very conscious’ of what she offered to my brother and I as babies and young children. She would blend vegetables such as pumpkin (the only vegetable I now hate), as well as all sorts of other vegetables, , , and pureed them into baby food for my brother and and I to eat as babies and small children.
In my nutrition studies I have learned that preferences for foods develops as a child. . . It makes sense to me on an anecdotal level, for example with the kinds of foods that my parents prefer.
What can eateries do today to help people develop a ‘preference’ for leafy greens and vegetables?
Case in point. . . I wanted to sit in a cafe to do work for my Mum and chat to my dear love friend. . . Here is where it gets interesting. . . I ordered a Mushroom Quiche because I was done with meat for the day. . . When I placed my order, the waitress asked ‘Would you like salad with your quiche?’
I assumed that it would cost money – probably a lot, , , so my instant (heuristic, perhaps) instinct was to say ‘no thank you’. However, there was a a bit of a kerfuffle with my drink order. I wanted something with some flavour (something a bit fancy), )(ie. not simply sparkling mineral water), and I wanted it to be LOW SUGAR (for all the reasons I have outlined in previous posts.
the drink on offer had 23.8 grams of sugar in it. . . It felt like a lot, , , (and it is half the *daily* amount of sugar recommended by the CSIRO Low Carb diet). . . however, I acquiesced because I wanted a drink while I was working on my puter, Pipeldoot.
This break in the proceedings gave my brain enough to rationally come back to the ‘salad situation’. I asked ‘how much is the side salad?’ And she said ‘It is free‘. So of course I asked her to add it to my order!
Fruit mineral water, quiche and side salad at Laurent Balwyn
When the drink came out (they gave me a nice glass), I sipped on it and was actually extremely grateful for the sugar. (This is the flipside to the sugar argument – – – our brains require carbohydrates to function (for energy), and our brains use the VAST PROPORTION of energy required for our bodies. . .
In any case, the quiche and salad came out, , , and the side salad was smallish, , , but had a number of lovely fresh leaves. It was dressed in a creamy dressing, that I initially baulked out (‘the fat, the calories!!’ I thought), but then i stopped and realised that dressing vegetables in something tasty is ANOTHER sexy way to get people to consume vegetables in a way that is palatable to them.
What great strategies for making vegetables more enticing! Make them free and dress them in something tasty so that they are enjoyable!
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