Ohio restaurant owner puts focus on healthy, whole foods and 'trust'

Fox News

13-02-2025

An Ohio-based author, entrepreneur and restaurant owner told Fox News Digital he believes the growing Make America Healthy Again movement will have the ability to unite Americans despite ongoing political polarization, as he himself puts an emphasis on whole foods at his restaurant.
Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, "definitely goes past just food," Charlie Carroll told Fox News Digital.
Carroll owns Table 33 in Dayton, Ohio, and is the author of "Eat Like an Entrepreneur." He has launched more than 50 businesses, including a wellness boutique.
"I think both parties, both sides of the aisle, can get lost and we can forget that. The objective here is people feeling and being healthier," he said. "So, I think it takes a lot of intention. It takes a lot of patience."
Carroll prides himself on the use of local foods at his restaurants – and when he says local, he means that in the most literal sense.
"Our beef, our poultry … comes straight to the farm," Carroll told Fox News Digital. "On any given day, you'll see a farmer walking in with mud all over his boots with 10 or 12 dozen eggs that are coming straight from the farm into our restaurant."
The beef served at Table 33, he said, is raised "three miles away."
And the eggs don't have much longer of a journey, either.
"Our eggs are [laid] eight miles away," Carroll said.
Using local foods, he said, is a way to help build trust with his customer base.
"The average food item that goes through a packing facility or processing facility, by the time it gets to the customer [who] sits down at one of my tables, you're looking at anywhere from 25 to 35 pairs of hands that have touched that thing that they are going to put in their body and trust that it will make them better than worse," he said.
But with local foods and the foods made from scratch in his kitchen, "it's really only one to two pairs of hands that prepare that."
Carroll believes that "the least amount of human tampering" with food handling will result in products that are better overall for people.
"For example, our eggs are coming straight from the farm in here from just a couple of miles away to where one chef prepares them, gets them on a plate — and it goes from the plate to a server [who] drops it at their table," he said.
Carroll also emphasizes using high-quality ingredients in his restaurant, such as beef tallow instead of seed oils.
"You don't really have to have a bias of any sort to know that seed oils at high temperatures are not good for our biology," he said.
Conversely, "beef tallow is something that has a much higher smoke point, which basically just means it's healthier for you when you get it to higher temperatures to cook your French fries."
Carroll also prides himself on how his restaurant uses "whole foods" when making items, rather than relying on highly processed items.
"With French fries, when we're using them, we're creating them here at the restaurant," he said.
The use of fewer ingredients in foods, plus frying them in a healthier oil, results in a better, healthier product for customers, he said.
Food companies, Carroll said, have a "priority and an obligation" to provide profit for their investors, which means they cut costs whenever they can.
This is not the case for Carroll's businesses.
"I view it as community development. I view it as a very important part of trying to grow a community and keep [it] healthy and strong," he said.
"I view it as a very important part of trying to grow a community and keep [it] healthy and strong."
The use of local ingredients "gives people a lot of comfort" and increases the level of trust they have in the establishment, Carroll said.
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"Trust is something that I like to say is fluid, which helps us when it comes to some of the conversations we're having as a country today," he said. "Trust is not something that is one and done."
Carroll said he knows that trust in his restaurant's products is what keeps customers coming back.
"And when people ask me about the restaurant and what it's all about, I tell them that it's about trust, and we want to be trusted with their most important moments," he said.
Carroll continued, "Whether that's a hard time, a good time, whether they're celebrating or they're grieving, it's a matter of trust that they can show up and know that we care about them just as much as we care about ourselves."