Don't Let Restaurants Deprive You

Sometimes we go to restaurants, fast food joints, and Starbucks because we don't want to feel like we are being deprived of the "restaurant experience."  However, we have been looking at this deprivation thing all wrong.  In our area, most "regular people" restaurants suck.  

On about 30% of our restaurant visits, something is prepared wrong.  If you can under-cook something, burn something, make something too spicy, or make something too bland, restaurants in our area will do that to your food.  When they don't do that, they'll often let you sit at your table for far too long before being served or they will be surly when taking an order.  While the food quality won't send you out to wretch your guts out in the parking lot, the food quality and service are just poor enough to make you wonder if visiting the restaurant was worth your time and your money.

When we realize that low quality restaurants are not worth our time and money, we realize that we are not being deprived when we don't go out.  Instead, we realize that we are being deprived when we go out and don't get our money's worth in food and service quality.

Then, when we go to the grocery store, buy decent ingredients, and make a great meal at home, we realize that we've been crazy to go out and waste our money dining out all along!

Let's look at an example of a great home cooked meal.  My wife recently made enchiladas at home.  The can of beans was around a dollar.  The rice and tomato mixture is actually low carb cauliflower rice and canned tomatoes.  The tortilla is also a low carb variety and the ground beef inside was the lowest fat variety we could buy.  This entire meal for two people probably cost about $11.  At a local Mexican restaurant, it would have been about $45 when you include a tip.

Home-made enchiladas

By cooking at home, we controlled the ingredient quality, the nutrition, and the price of our meal.  We also saved about $30.  By eating out, we would have been deprived.