Whether you’re on a business trip or on vacation; eating healthy while traveling is always a top priority.
Luckily, social media is the perfect research tool to find healthy eateries wherever your travels take you.
With social dining in mind, here are just a handful of ways social media can help you eat healthy while you’re away from home:
Reach Out to Friends and Family
Your social followers are a great resource for finding healthy restaurants while you’re traveling. For starters, you can use Facebook to post travel updates and gather healthy dining recommendations from your friends and family based on your location.
Likewise, you can also reach out to your social followers on Twitter. Tweeting questions about healthy eating options around your travel destination is a quick way to get multiple responses, especially if you hashtag your healthy dining pursuits.
If you’re unsure of whether your social friends have been to your travel location, ask anyway. There’s a good chance that if your followers don’t have any recommendations, someone they’re socially connected to probably will.
Follow Food Blogs
There are a number of healthy food blogs that can help you choose healthy dining options before you even embark on your journey.
For example, check out the expert interview with Maria Tadic on eating healthy when dining out. The blog interview mentions choosing smaller portions and healthy side dishes when eating at restaurants.
Following blogs and gathering tips ahead of time will help you make healthy eating decisions even if healthy foods aren’t available. Many health food blogs even offer write-ups on nationwide restaurant chains with the healthiest entrées.
Research Online Reviews
One major benefit that social media has brought to the online table are firsthand customer reviews of just about anything, including restaurants. Sure, you can use review sites like Yelp to find out whether a restaurant is worth a try, but you can also use review sites to find out if certain restaurants are healthy.
Whether you’re vegetarian, vegan, or just a health-conscious foodie, reading nationwide reviews of restaurants will give you a better idea of healthy eating in your location.
Many reviewers are also posting pictures of dishes and menus, which is another way to help you decide if a restaurant is healthy or not.
Download a Restaurant App
If you take your smart phone and tablet with you wherever you travel, then downloading a healthy restaurant app is a no-brainer. There are a growing number of apps dedicated to eating healthy while dining out, such as HealthyOut and HealthyDiningFinder.
Location-based healthy restaurant apps are a great way to make sure you eat well while traveling.
Most restaurant apps on market also link to social media so users can post their own reviews and add healthy eateries to app search results.
Make Healthy Decisions
Sometimes you’re left with only a handful of dining options when traveling. If the healthy options are slim to none, you can connect to the United States Department of Agriculture’s MyPlate campaign on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
This social campaign helps followers make healthy food decisions when eating out. Likewise, the MyPlate campaign also provides tips on healthy eating at home as well as everyday physical fitness.
When you’re ready to hit the road, keep in mind the social pointers above and eat healthy while dining out.
About the Author: Adam Groff is a freelance writer and creator of content. He writes on a variety of topics including social media and personal health.
