Navigating Real Food at Ruby Tuesdays

Ruby Tuesdays has been one of my top restaurant picks for years, until recently. I’ve always loved Ruby Tuesday because of the salad bar, it’s clean and we don’t break the bank for a family meal.

On a date with a very dreamy and most handsome fella (who is getting grayer and grayer by the day!) I stepped out and kicked up the menu a bit. I ordered a steak, which came with the salad bar and a glass of dry red wine. Salad bar items are generally safe for me as I can pick and choose real food items, avoiding the edemame (I’m not into eating Round-up) and pre-made pasta salads (don’t like the swollen belly and opiate affect of wheat). The salad dressing is skipped and substituted for oil and vinegar, GMOs upset my stomach and rip up my intestinal tract.

At this stage the more clean I eat, the more sensitively my tract responds. We eat at home or travel with food we made at home 99% of the time. This has been by necessity, not by choice. Still, Ruby Tuesday had always been a safe choice.

When I ordered my husband checked with the waiter on each item. Nothing was battered in wheat, sprinkled with grains, used MSG in the seasoning and no corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup were used. No soybean oil, no corn oil and no other allergens were present. All sauces were omitted with simple instructions of butter and salt only. The steak was to be cooked on the grill with butter, that’s it.

When the meal came the vegetables were dry. They were cooked but dry. I asked for some butter and started eating.

Ordering butter was my saving grace.

It turned out my definition of butter and Ruby Tuesday’s definition of butter were two different things. Since my veggies were cold by the time the “butter” arrived it didn’t melt over the broccoli. The color and consistency should have been a flag but since we were so explicit about ingredients I assumed the butter was butter.

Then the fire in my belly was heating up and burning. The tightness in my tract was contracting…. it was starting! The waiter was passing by and I grabbed him specifically addressing the butter.

He went to the kitchen and brought me back the lid showing the ingredients. 

When I saw the label that read 20% by eyebrows hit my hairline! This wasn’t food! It was food-ish.

Sigh…..

Butter is the third ingredient on the list, right after canola or soybean oil, and right before water and soy lecithin. The waiter was most kind but it still took me two weeks to recover.

So heads up my fellow foodies! This one’s for you.