The Ethical Guide to Eating Out

I hate to put you all on a guilt trip, but when you go to certain restaurants and see the way those workers are treated, the way they are paid..
Don't you worry that your restaurant dollars are helping create a system that exploits vulnerable people?

I encourage everyone to eat more home cooked meals. If you have a family it can bring you together and you have more control over your nutrition and calories.

But when we can't eat at home, wouldn't you prefer to avoid exploitive places and use your money to promote more ethical restaurants?

Utne Reader just published a great article about this very topic.
They refer to some hard facts published in Mother Jones, another great magazine.

So eat smart and show some love to the people who cook your dinner!

 

Those are some great links! My family has been cooking at home a lot more often (mostly for money/health reasons) but when we eat out we try to stick to mom n pop type places. And it is SO EASY to find veggie/vegan places now that are also very environmentally conscious.:daisy:

 

I just have to say, I saw the title and thought this was something else completely... :O

But in regards to what you wrote, I eat at home pretty much 99% of the time. I like making my own food.

 

Totally thought this thread was going to be about something else.

 

I didn't mean to ignore the issues of eating animals that were raised under stress in factory farms. Free-range chickens are obviously happier creatures.
Fish raised on a farm, while very humble creatures intellectually, are capable of suffering in overcrowded ponds. I am not totally against aquaculture, but we must be vigilent against abuse.

And I respect those who choose meatless diets.
If you don't want to do it forever, consider giving up meat for Lent.

 

I saw a show on Dr. Oz where it said by removing animal products from your diet you health will totally change to the better. Processed animal products are the reason of most peoples health ills.

 

Doctor oz.. lol turn off your TV

 

Or it could just be that I don't know people are inherently human and as we all know us humans have been known to get ill. As of now we have the highest lifespan our species has ever had, I even have a vegetarian friend and she's a hell of a lot less healthy then I am and I eat a respectable amount of processed meat!

 

I don't eat in restaurants. I have ethical problems with the food waste, the labor issues, and the money involved.

My food budget is around $3-4 a day. Grains, beans, veggies and fruits, seasonings, tea.

I have ethical problems with "Doctor" Oz as well. I wonder how much he gets paid on the side to push various "food cures" each week?

 

Maybe it was Dr. Drew, lol, point is animal products, especially the myriad of processes they go thru are healthy. The food pyramid was wrong when meat was the majority of the meal.

 

There is only food and non-food.
There is no such thing as food that is completely bad for your health. Humans are incredibly adaptable to a wide variety of food sources.

There are perfectly healthy people who eat almost exclusively animal products.(Inuit)
There are perfectly healthy people who eat almost no animal products.
take your pick.

Not that diet isn't important, but good health depends on far to many factors to focus just on food. Lifestyle and other factors will tend to dictate how well you do on any given diet.

 

As as far eating out is concerned, depends on what she looks like and how clean her.............ooops, wrong thread :redface:

I tend to agree with Wa Bluska's perspective concerning the obscene amount of waste, but I'm not militant about it, plus I just can't afford to eat at restaurants.
Though on the rare occasions that we do go out for a meal, my kids know to eat every damn scrap or else!

Anybody who has ever played the game Spore knows that an omnivore has a much greater survival success rate and can adapt and evolve faster.
Gee, it's almost as if nature fashioned itself after the game

Humans are omnivores, plain and simple, which in large part is why we have evolved to the point we have.

 

A restaurant uses more energy more efficiently than individuals do at home.
Consider the energy it takes to make 10 gallons of soup vs heating 2 cups of soup for yourself. Per serving, the restaurant uses less energy to heat the soup.

Yes, food is wasted, but that is not necessary. At the kitchen where I used to work, a farmer would pick up our leftovers to slop his hogs.
We had nearly zero food waste! The health codes may prevent this here in the city, but the farmer would not have slopped his hogs with our food scraps if it sickened them or killed them.

Restaurants are now selling or giving away spent oil to people whose trucks and cars are fitted to burn biodiesel.

I agree that it is cheaper to cook for yourself, but my work has put me so far from home so long, that I have not been able to cook for myself at times. I have tried to buy food from grocery stores when the motel had a kitchenette, but usually eating out is my only option on the road.

I have no opinion about Dr. Oz and kickbacks. Can't rule it out.
Didn't that runaway hot air balloon carry him back to Kansas from Oz?
I know that runaway hot air has carried him far in life.

 

Dr. Oz is ok, or at least he was until he became Oprahized and turned into another Oprah spin-off.

 

I was having some fun at Oz's expense. Seriously I have heard him give some timely advise, but I think the danger is: there is no second opinion on that show, is there? Isn't it just Oz giving his opinion and he has to be right all the time?

In the real world, wise people get second opinions for important life-changing decisions. Even a good doctor makes mistakes or is not aware of all the latest facts.

 

That 10 gallons of soup has to be kept warm all day. My bowl gets eaten.

My soup ingredients are not stored in a walk-in fridge. I do not have to light my kitchen for safety, or at all, since it has windows. I do not have to heat or cool a dining room for 10-100 customers.

Not all restaurants give away leftovers or spent oil. In fact, I have never seen one that does. That's Eastern Montana for you. That's why they have garbage cans.

Speaking of garbage cans, one way I cut my meal costs is to occasionally eat food that I found in one. I'm pretty sure most restaurants don't do that.

Money = energy. I worked very little for my one dollar meal, produced practically nothing. For a $10 meal I'd have to work considerably more, and make more crap. I'm hardly ever "on the road". Don't need to drive far to get to the kitchen . . .

 

Last week [or so] a customer came into the food co-op and wanted to buy pu-erh, white, and bilberry teas. Because Dr. Oz told her to.

She's going shopping for this stuff in a town of 5000 people in the absolute middle of nowhere. Right . . .

So to meet his requirements, the poor woman will have to go online and find all these exotica, pay x amount of $, plus shipping. Or drive 400 miles round-trip to Billings. If she can find them there.

Only to find out that pu-erh tastes kinda weird, and white tea tastes like nothing. Not sure what bilberries even are . . .

 

Not sure if they simmer all day. Where I worked, we took it out of the walk-in fridge and simmered an hour or two before lunch and through the lunch hour and same story before and during supper time.

You have to think of BTU's per person per day. Staying home and eating the way you do is obviously cheaper, but there's some fuel economy in feeding numbers, so it may not be as bad as you think.

I am sure that most don't do all they can. My point was simply that I knew firsthand of one place that had zero food waste. Hogs aren't picky.

Actually a local charity collects uneaten food from restaurants (but not what had been on customer plates) and donates it to a food pantry. Still not as efficient as your home system, but better than tossing it.

 

Try Dr Oz's new toad-skin elixir, packed with "anti-oxidents"

 

Maybe Oz lives in a little bubble that the rich elite all seem to inhabit.
You find your nutrition at your feet.
There are berries and wild herbs in many parts of the US, including Montana and they are loaded with antioxidants.

White tea is bland, but I guess you could doctor it up with some lemon juice or something else that is tangy.

Red sumac grows wild here and the berries are a great source of winter vitamin C-enriched tea, an old Cherokee favorite. They call it Qualla.

In Mexico, there is a similar drink made from dried red hibiscus flowers. It is called "Flor de Jamaica" and loaded with vitamin C.

Around here the blackberries are abundant in summer and a great source of antioxidants and C. In Michigan the raspberries and thimbleberries serve the same role. I guess these traditional foods are unknown to city folks like Oz.