> We rely on the restaurant not serving bad food because of regulation.
I don't think you can rely on that being the only reason a restaurant doesn't serve bad food. I think it's better if they are motivated to serve good food rather than being afraid of being punished for serving bad food.
> So to be clear, we rely on other people and other people doing things for us all the time, so the discussion is not about relying on other people, but in this case what are work conditions which are acceptable.
I am not clear whether this negates your previous two sentences or not. I agree with this statement in isolation though!
> Cooks with experience in commercial kitchens never want to eat at a restaurant again.
Having done such work, this is absolutely untrue. I got a renewed appreciation for the hard work kitchen staff put in and the stringent requirements on cleanliness that kitchen staff has. I suppose this will change based on the country you are in, if you are in a country with bad sanitary checking you will have a bad time.
>Especially not in my butcher, brewer, or baker. Pure self interest gets you McDonalds, Bud Light, and Debi cakes. I consume exactly none of those things and have no desire to consume any of those things. They taste terrible, are bad for me, and the companies themselves are generally bad for their communities and the world.
Whoever you do buy your food from has recognized there’s a portion of the market that values what you do and is happily selling it to you, out of their own self-interest.
I, for one, like McDonalds and sometimes prefer a Bud Light.
> McDonald's has it easier to comply with food safety regulations than the cozy mom and pop cafe down the street. Would you be willing to shit your guts out because the ambiance is better there?
People cooking for themselves at home aren't required to comply with (the same) food safety regulations. Obviously, you never eat at home or at the home of a friend or relative either, right?
> Sure, a fancy expensive restaurant can afford to do this
Looks like a pretty humble vegetarian bistro to me? Far from fancy.
And I would have thought someone best places to have a huge impact here might be someone like McDonalds, with their supplier clout they could force suppliers to meet high standards and with their scale it could have a huge impact.
> different regulations for different sizes is due to the nature of the business
Bingo. The intent of the law is fine. But the administrative burden for small projects and teams is inappropriate.
In any case, you originally claimed “small restaurants need to follow hygiene standards just as the big chains” [1]. I was showing that is not true. They follow different rules stemming from common principles.
> Companies usually provide crappy shelf stable junk food.
I worked at a company that provided freshly sourced produce in lieu of chips/candy/etc, which was pretty badass. Hungry? Go cook up an omelette and make an espresso in the kitchen.
> The only difference that matters between friendly exchanges (cooking and room/board) and AirBnB or underground restaurants is that one set of actions threaten the existing power brokers who have the ear of City Hall.
I think it's a shame that most people are too cynical to understand why laws and regulations around food, housing, transportation, etc. exist. Odd in particular that you think preventing underground restaurants has anything to do with protecting the power brokers when there's a big public health case to be made for ensuring that food is prepared in a sanitary environment. I'm guessing you're in favor of a solution that let's people get sick/die and then let the free market enact it's revenge on the restaurant. Good thing we decided to leave that model out with the 20th century.
> When you go shopping for the cheapest sushi, you should expect worms.
No, I prefer paying a government taxes so they can hire restaurant inspectors who work to ensure the probability of being sold food with worms approaches 0%, regardless of how much the food costs.
I have no interest in keeping track of the price of sushi. My main concern is knowing the product being sold meets a very high probability of meeting a certain minimum standard, such as not being infested with parasites. Otherwise, I just opt out of the market and make my food at home.
>I imagine restauranteurs who welcome food safety regulations may do so out of a genuine desire for the restaurant business not to sicken the public.
If that is the real reason then maybe, but for instance where I live it is doubtful that that is the only reason. There are so many rules we have to comply with as a restaurant that blatantly point to protection of big companies that go under the name 'satefy' that I for one do not welcome them at all. 1% of those rules would prevent to sicken the public, the rest is just to protect big booze, meat, fish etc vendors.
> Did you actually cook those animal products at the vegan/veg restaurant? If so, that was very rude of you.
Yes, but two points: we shared a kitchen layout with our sister catering kitchen right next to us. So I used their equipment when I cooked, also we had a cleaning company come in daily to do a deep clean of the equipment.
I get the sentiment, but honestly you don't want to know how much cross-contaminated food you eat when you go to a restaurant. Its just the nature of the beast, especially when you share walk-ins and do prep with the same equipment etc...
> but I am mostly concerned from an environmental point of view because that laziness translates into huge amounts of perfectly good containers
I swear 99% of all trash I see relates to food take out. I would love some laws demanding that dishes need to be resusable and returend to the restaurant, just like glass coke bottles used to be returned to coca-cola.
> I prefer to eat at restaurants where I know they will not compromise on quality
The problem is that a customer couldn’t really tell that, short of a tour of the kitchen. There are plenty of restaurants where you will be convinced that they do not compromise on quality because the veg, the bread, etc. is superb, but at the same time they are using palm oil because (again) lots of restaurants today are.
Those clean rooms exist because of government regulations - not because of the existence of megacorps.
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