Eating out at restaurants and food quality

[Roosh]

I recently sent some tweets concerning low restaurant quality:

Did you know that when you go to a restaurant or diner, you're almost certainly getting Sysco food? Sysco is like Walmart for restaurants, a HUGE company that restaurants use because they have the cheapest prices.

Sysco uses typical obnoxious ingredients in their products: seed oils, corn syrup, artificial colorings, preservatives, nitrites, carrageenan, and of course, soy. Unless the restaurant cooks from scratch, they're essentially serving you Walmart food.

Sysco is so dominant and cheap that restaurants have to use them to stay competitive, but they should use single-source products instead of the processed junk, especially with dessert items. Ask the waiter whether dishes are homemade or not. (The answer will usually be "no".)

Cooking your meals at home is the only way to eat clean. Use an app like Yuka to identity problematic ingredients. https://yuka.io/en/

 

[Tom Slick]

When you think about the overhead a restaurant has, the need to be competitive with the other guy who is racing to the bottom, and inflation, the area where more profit can be magically squeezed out of the business is by decreasing the quality of the food, which is sometimes disguised by adding copious amounts of things like MSG.

Eating out has been off the table for me since I became a little more strict in the letter of the law for Orthodox fasting, which increased my awareness of the various forms of junk in my diet and prompted me to prepare all my meals from scratch.

 

[joost]

I like to cook my own food and I like to choose all the ingredients.

I’m a merchant mariner. All food in the ship comes from Sysco. Every processed food is garbage and there’s no way to escape.

 

[SlickyBoy]

I know someone who works as a buyer for Sysco. He and his family are all very obese. That stuff is poison on par with the tobacco company products.

 

[mschef]

I'm a chef. Specifically I'm a private chef and focus on farm to table or at minimum, organic foods. I've spent nearly all of my career in the PacNW where local, organic, minimally processed, etc are all words we chefs created to separate ourselves before the main stream used them as marketing tools. Sisco, USFoods and others zero in on how to make a buck by making relationships with big-agro and processors, lowering the quality and pushing the industry in a terrible direction.
All I can say is, chefs are cattle unless they live by higher standards and don't work for large restaurant groups or food service companies. They have to break out on their own and either work for themselves or in high-end privately owned restaurants.

Grocery store labeling is lying to you. Restaurants aren't even required to tell you the truth. Very soon, lab-grown meats will be as commonplace as genetically modified foods already are. There are only 5 states currently fighting the c-19 vax in livestock.
You want solutions, hit me up! There are solutions. It's not easy.

 

[mschef]

First solution. There's an aggregator for local meat ranchers called the beef initiative. Look them up and support Texas Slim's work. He's going global.
Second solution. Grow your own! I can't stress this enough! If I can do it while raising a family and running a business, you can too. I've heard all the lame excuses. I don't care if you live in an apartment.. friggin grow a tomato plant! Baby steps Bob!
Third. Stop eating out. Simple. Not easy, but simple.
Fourth. You know that stupid little QR Code on the back of all your snacks and processed foods?... use it! It'll tell you if the food is bioengineered.
Fifth. Get to know who in your parish grows veggies, raises livestock and learn from them. Pretty soon, you're gonna have to make a decision on whether you're going to accept a new digital currency model. Have you drawn the line in the sand yet? Do you know your limits for Mammon? Are you getting prepared to live in a barter system? Hope so.

 

[SeekingTruth]

I'm pretty sure Sysco used to serve me all my school lunches including that cardboard "pizza" we all know very well. I wonder if that sludge is still circulating inside me.

 

[Tom Slick]

I'm pretty sure Sysco used to serve me all my school lunches including that cardboard "pizza" we all know very well. I wonder if that sludge is still circulating inside me.

Takes 7 years to fully exit, lol.

 

[get2choppaaa]

I recently sent some tweets concerning low restaurant quality:

Did you know that when you go to a restaurant or diner, you're almost certainly getting Sysco food? Sysco is like Walmart for restaurants, a HUGE company that restaurants use because they have the cheapest prices.

Sysco uses typical obnoxious ingredients in their products: seed oils, corn syrup, artificial colorings, preservatives, nitrites, carrageenan, and of course, soy. Unless the restaurant cooks from scratch, they're essentially serving you Walmart food.

Sysco is so dominant and cheap that restaurants have to use them to stay competitive, but they should use single-source products instead of the processed junk, especially with dessert items. Ask the waiter whether dishes are homemade or not. (The answer will usually be "no".)

Cooking your meals at home is the only way to eat clean. Use an app like Yuka to identity problematic ingredients. https://yuka.io/en/

My dad, when he was operating his restaurant, bought a lot from Sysco for a time. My brother worked there for a whole actually as a salesman before finding better work opportunities and going back to get a specialized certification.


Dad did note that over the last several years there meat quality and other "high quality" items had suffered... To the point he stopped buying from them except for a few items he got in bulk, the rest he got from local or specialty producers (mainly beer/deer/duck ECT)

Now we were a "fine dining" restaurant so this thing was particularly important for us... But many large chain restaurants it's all prefab/precut...

Just one step above Sodexo (.mil folks get it)

Once people go down the rabbit hole you'll see the "organic" food label is a total lie...rather it's a "marketing" designation and not a product quality differentiator.

I would recommend planting a small garden if you can...or shopping at a local farmers market.

Also, buy a half cow or quarter cow and put the rest of it in a deep freezer. You'll support the small farmer and get much better meat.

You will pay more... But you'll be healthier and happier supporting local businesses.

 

[mountainaire]

5 surprising things we feed cows

Care for a little sawdust with your steak?

www.motherjones.com

Ranchers report feeding their beef steers and dairy cows a variety of bulk candy, including gummy worms, marshmallows, hard candy, sprinkles, chocolate, candy corn, and hot chocolate mix. Candy provides sugar that cows would usually get from corn, giving them more energy and making them fatter. When corn prices skyrocketed, the practice became popular: In fall 2012, one candy supplier who sells farmers and ranchers “salvage” chocolate—that’s imperfect and broken chocolates—said the price of the stuff had recently doubled.

In some cases, ranchers found, the candy feed comes wrapped. Asked if he was concerned about his cattle eating plastic, one animal nutrition expert in Tennessee said he was not worried. “I think it would pass through just like excess fiber would.”

Even if you work hard at trying to avoid junk, we're still eating animals that were fed literal garbage. Some of that has to be making its way into us..

This is why I believe regular, hard fasting is necessary to maintain good health. Gives your body a chance to clear out all of the garbage being put inside.

 

[Cynllo]

Surprised this wasn't mentioned. I assume it's the same in the US. In the UK your meal will typically have been cooked in bulk, frozen and then reheated in a microwave. This is in your standard standalone pub-resturant. There aren't as many chain diners in the UK. Most people go to pubs or individual restaurants.

I say I haven't used a microwave since about 2002-3. But truth is I have probably glugged microwaved food many times in restaurants/hotels.

I don't know if there is anything wrong with microwaves. But it looks like it. It looks like the kind of thing a fluoride-head would use.

As mentioned in another thread, we are living in the first age when most people have the means and temptation to become obese. All of this sludge should be banned. There needs to be an elite that creates a good environment for eating, norms will follow. Instead we have an elite that deliberately creates a bad environment for food.

The idea I like the most is living in a community setting, where you eat all your meals in the community kitchen. No TV, no phones permitted, organised prayer. Most food to be grown on site.

I think you can eat good for less. Growing your own obviously. Some very easy and low maintenance options are leeks, onions and other alliums; celariac, turnips, swede; potatoes; OCA - oxalis tuberosa; kohl rabi - only easy brassica; fruit trees and bushes; raspberry canes; rhubarb; marrow, pumpkin; runner beans and other beans.
At least in my climate. May differ in others. I also used to grow a type of cucumber Crystal Lemon, which has a more delicate flavour and better texture, all year round. If started on 1 Jan, they will fruit by May.

To add to this I'd buy organic items in bulk. Pesto, red wine vinegar, 25kg of coconut, 25kg bag of red kidney beans etc. Buying those in bulk was cheaper than standard supermarket products.

 

[Roosh]

I'm a chef. Specifically I'm a private chef and focus on farm to table or at minimum, organic foods. I've spent nearly all of my career in the PacNW where local, organic, minimally processed, etc are all words we chefs created to separate ourselves before the main stream used them as marketing tools. Sisco, USFoods and others zero in on how to make a buck by making relationships with big-agro and processors, lowering the quality and pushing the industry in a terrible direction.
All I can say is, chefs are cattle unless they live by higher standards and don't work for large restaurant groups or food service companies. They have to break out on their own and either work for themselves or in high-end privately owned restaurants.

Grocery store labeling is lying to you. Restaurants aren't even required to tell you the truth. Very soon, lab-grown meats will be as commonplace as genetically modified foods already are. There are only 5 states currently fighting the c-19 vax in livestock.
You want solutions, hit me up! There are solutions. It's not easy.

How do you source difficult items without using Sysco/US Foods? Are you able to source locally for everything or use supermarkets for some things?

 

[Viktor Zeegelaar]

You guys in the US are truly under a constant barrage on your health. Europe is bad to a degree, but man the stuff they push in ''normal'' foods (and obviously the extreme amount of fastfood available) is off the charts. I'd be wary to buy any supermarket food if I was a US'er.

With regards to restaurants, well in general they'll add a bunch of salt, sugar, fat to attract your primordial taste. In general restaurant food will be excessive in these things hence bad for you overall compared with you cooking clean yourself. In Europe there's a big push for quite some years for healthy food though, in the big cities there's maaany small shops and restaurants that really zoom in on the health craze. Is that the same in the US or are you still eating almost solely like a churl?

 

[Papaya]

There's a local farmers market every weekend in the town I live where we can buy directly from the growers.

USDA has a portal where you might possibly can find farmers markets, growers, coops, etc near you (in the US of course)

https://www.usdalocalfoodportal.com/

 

[MKE-Ed]

It isn’t just restaurants that use and buy food products from Sysco, many major hotels and hospitals also buy from them. I know people that work in those two industries and they tell me that some of these organizations buy from Sysco because they get big discounts and the products are cheap. They get pre-made food products that they simply heat up and dress up with other items to make them look good. This is a very common practice in many hospitals and hotels.

 

[Blade Runner]

This makes the Paraguay/Argentina/Uruguay axis look even better.

 

[Tom Slick]

What's the difference between American food and a bioweapon?

Bioweapons don't require tips.

 

[murphykj930]

There’s this app that I use called Seed Oil Scout that lets you know whether a restaurant uses seed oils or not. There’s not many out there that don’t, but if they exist, they’re on the app.

 

[Gimlet]

I travel for work, often. I just stick to meat and vegetable dishes, like steak on a salad, vinegar no oil. Or sautéed vegetables, request butter. May not get it, but at least it's a minimal amount of oil. The more strict I am, the more my body rebels if I slip up due to sloth/allowing indulgences to rule mw. A couple days ago I ate "Nashville Hot" chicken fingers and suffered bowel pains the next day

 

[Northumber]

You guys in the US are truly under a constant barrage on your health. Europe is bad to a degree, but man the stuff they push in ''normal'' foods (and obviously the extreme amount of fastfood available) is off the charts. I'd be wary to buy any supermarket food if I was a US'er.

With regards to restaurants, well in general they'll add a bunch of salt, sugar, fat to attract your primordial taste. In general restaurant food will be excessive in these things hence bad for you overall compared with you cooking clean yourself. In Europe there's a big push for quite some years for healthy food though, in the big cities there's maaany small shops and restaurants that really zoom in on the health craze. Is that the same in the US or are you still eating almost solely like a churl?

It is a disaster in the US. There is a strange phenomenon where the urban people can appear (and probably in many ways are) more healthy than those in the rural areas. The rural areas are poorer and most rural people eat fastfood and walmart quality (or lower) food. The old school tough guy mentality (which I appreciate) that still exists in rural areas is unfortunately completely penetrated by destroying the food. They don't get it. It seems to be death by vax in the cities and death by food out in the country.