If you know how to cook for yourself, and you make the time to, you have much more control over what you eat. But sometimes it’s just not an option. Maybe you’re travelling, or you’re among friends who all want to get some fast food, or sometimes you just want to let someone else do the washing up. So what do you do?
Fast Food Hipsters
If you are lucky you can find a fast food Hipster joint that specifically caters to Paleo or Low Carb customers such as thr1ve which I randomly discovered in the Canberra Center Mall.
tip: try the Chicken bowl (Roast Chicken thigh + Pesto + Roast Capsicum) on a bed of Spinach.
Th1ve.me Paleo Fast food joint
Burger Joints
- Ask them if they are willing to make a sandwich without the bun. Most Burger Kings (Hungry Jacks) and McDonalds I have tried will prepare the sandwich fillings right in the burger box and give you a knife and fork to eat it.
- Ask for mayonnaise instead of their regular sauce. Regular BBQ and Ketchup sauces are shelf stabilized with sugar and HFCS, but Mayonnaise is just oil emulsified with vinegar.
- Don’t get anything battered – so if you are going for a chicken burger, ask for grilled not crispy.
- Choose the burger option with the best meat. eg: Aussie McDonalds have a burger called the Mighty Angus, made from grass fed Angus breed cattle. The other burgers are made from the cheaper cuts (fore & hind quarter) of grain fed cattle. Meh.
eg: One de-Carbed Mighty Angus is 479 kcal, 2g carbohydrate – and it’s Delicious.
de-Carbed Mighty Angus
eg: Mighty McMuffin hold the muffin is 200 kcal 1g carbohydrate
Mighty McMuffin hold the Muffin
eg: de-Carbed Double Whopper with Cheese: 590 kcal, 8g carbs
de-Carbed Double Whopper with Cheese
You won’t get as good a meal as you would if you made it yourself – but you will get a tasty meal that won’t knock you out of ketosis.
The other option I’ve fallen back on is a kebab plate. Most kebab shops do them, and provided you are smart about the sauce it actually works out pretty well.
So True Malcolm. The other day we had Chicken and Meat Bowls from Ali Baba (Kebab chain) in Canberra.
If they don’t offer a plate or bowl of meat and only offer meat in a pita wrap – then I’ll get that one and just treat the Pita like an inedible plate. The most reliable sauce I’ve found is mayonnaise which is usually just oil, egg yolk and lemon juice.