Eating out: the Panera challenge.

One of the highlights of my week is getting together for lunch on Tuesdays with my good friend Ann. The two of us have known each other since college: a LONG time! We always talk about the most interesting things, with plenty of laughs thrown in, during our precious hour together.

Previously, Ann and I met at one of two very sweet local cafés featuring natural, freshly prepared, simple food. But recently, my place of work moved. This called for a change of venue. So we started meeting at Panera Bread.

I rarely eat at chain restaurants but Panera boasts a kind of cozy atmosphere (fireplace! booths!) and it’s just five minutes away from my job. However, considering their menu is basically GLUTEN and STARCH, it’s difficult deciding what the hell can I eat there? Not the regular sandwiches, nor the grilled flatbreads. Not the seasonal Lentil Quinoa Bowl, the Soba Noodle Bowl, or even any of the soups (all contain beans or grains).

That narrows it down to salads. Panera actually has a nice selection of salads, many with "antibiotic-free chicken" added, that you would think could do for a SIBO person who is well enough along to eat raw vegetables.

So yesterday, it being Tuesday and all, I met Ann at Panera and ordered a Chicken Cobb with Avocado Salad.

Antibiotic-free or not, I don’t trust the chicken at most restaurants so I requested the following modifications: HOLD the chicken, substitute tuna. (I figured tuna salad would be safe—it’s just fish, maybe with a little mayo.) HOLD the dressing, substitute a lemon wedge. (According to foodfacts.com—an extensive database of ingredient lists for countless food items—all the dressings at Panera are made with inflammatory soybean oil and loaded with sugar, gums and other crap. Click here for the deets.)

Back at the restaurant, Ann and I got a booth by the fireplace (perfect!) and started right in discussing the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Katy Perry riding in on a mechanical tiger emblazoned with Illuminati pyramids? Wow. (And what a great game!)

Then my salad came and it looked pretty nice:

They gave me an entire half a lemon to squeeze on top. I added some Gulden’s Spicy Brown mustard (supplied in packets) plus black pepper to jazz up the no-dressing effect and it tasted fine. Best of all, Ann and I had a blast, but later, back at work, I realized that I was not feeling so hot. Long story short: I ended up with a bad case of the bloats that, along with my sore back from shoveling, totally screwed up the rest of my day.

What went wrong? Granted, maybe my bod wasn’t quite ready for cold raw vegetables. It is fricking freezing outside, let’s face it. But still. This was bad.

On a hunch, I checked back on foodfacts.com and looked up the Panera Tuna Salad. OMG. Not only is the list of ingredients a mile long* it includes onion and garlic (high FODMAPS), xanthan gum (fermentable) and modified CORN STARCH. Twice. (P.S. Looks like their “Chicken” is even worse than their "Tuna".) Shocking!

In the future, if I go to Panera I will avoid their adulterated dead animal proteins and stick to safer options: hard-boiled egg (it is what it is), pecans, avocado and feta/gorgonzola cheese. We’ll see how that goes.

With SIBO, I have to be sensitive about including cheese and avocado. These foods are only okay for me some of the time. (Avocado contains moderate FODMAPS and Feta is not introduced until after at least 6 months on the SCD/GAPS diet.) Dairy-wise, I’m best off with aged, raw sheep cheeses and raw goat cheeses, hard types only (never the chevre).

By the way, I know nobody likes to be a pain in the ass but there’s no reason to feel self-conscious about requesting “something special” at a restaurant. Just do it with a smile. We all have the right to ask for what we want. There is no shame in SIBO!

*Ingredients in Panera Bread's Tuna Salad: Tuna Fish (Tuna fish, water, salt, disodium EDTA), Mayonnaise (water, olive oil, canola oil, soybean oil, vinegar, modified corn starch, sugar, maltodextrin, eggs. Contains 2% or less of the following: salt, mustard flour, dried onions, dried garlic, natural flavors, modified egg yolks enzyme, beta carotene, lactic acid, potassium sorbate, calcium disodium EDTA, phosphoric acid), Relish (cucumbers, water, vinegar, sugar, salt, spices, xanthan gum, alum, turmeric, Blue #1, sodium benzoate), Mustard (distilled vinegar, mustard seed, water, salt spices, turmeric, natural flavors), Modified Corn Starch, Salt.