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There is little difference between "fast food chains" and "restaurants in general". Fast food chains make their food from prepared components that they buy in

There is little difference between "fast food chains" and "restaurants in general". Fast food chains make their food from prepared components that they buy in bulk through some sort of homogenized supply chain. So do most restaurants. Fast food chains involve a lot of plastic in their food preparation, even hot food and even while cooking. So do most restaurants. Fast food chains use food components that are optimized for shelf life, using whatever chemicals that the FDA said are "generally recognized as safe" in 1958. So do most restaurants. And so on. Places where the chef goes out to the farmer's market every morning, hand-selecting the ingredients, and then painstakingly crafts your meal using only metal and ceramic are the exception rather than the norm. Even one-off family restaurants where you get "good" food are doing most of this stuff, just because it is the norm, and they don't see anything wrong with it. If you don't believe me, just go in the kitchen of your favorite restaurant and observe what the chef does and read the ingredients on the big containers of "raw" ingredients.

goldenkey 9y ago
Isn't this like saying macro-nutrients are all that matters? Pop a vitamin and eat slop made from grounding up all the animal parts? In theory it makes sense but we haven't even begun to understand the millions of different hydrocarbons in a small piece of meat. So there is an unscientific albeit widely believed statement about quality ingredients. There isn't legislation to make sure only X is allowed in a processed food - there are only laws that exclude known harmful things like brain matter because of prions, or antibiotics if labeled as such, or pesticides if labeled as organic. /u/given even linked a study less than 2 weeks ago showing that an array of human vaccines tested had a slew of metal and other contaminants. The only vaccine tested that lacked contaminents was a veterinary vaccine for distemper..smh [1] The closest, one would think to getting pure macros, is plant or whey-based proteins, carbohydrates, and oils/lipids like coconut oil. But most of the pure plant protein powders and supplements have an even worse infiltration - high levels of metals from the soil the plants were grown in. Highly dependent on the country of origin. Now, I'd garner that if these companies cared enough and could spend more money, they'd be able to chellate or use ion-exchange filters, or maybe just mechnical methods like centrifugal separation / sub-micron filters, etc.. to remove the metals and other undesirables. Do biological contaminents in plants get even near the possible ones' in animals like cortisol? Does a poorly sunlit plant produce stress chemicals? I'd guess that because the animal kingdom is a divergent evolution to the plant kingdom, harmful compounds would be lesser. Yes, we have phytoestrogens from soy, and tobacco, hemp, poppy, and all kinds of poisonous plants out there. A side note, plant alkaloids serve two functions, to poison to protect the plant or to create desire for the purpose of spreading seeds; this is why poisons are often found on leaves, while desirable drugs or flavors are found on the fruit or seedbearing parts. It's not an easy distinction to make, poison vs drug - many substances we consider drugs are actually made by the plants to protect themselves, ie. tobacco or willow bark (aspirin). In any case, the chemicals naturally found in acceptable farmed plant species are likely to be less reactive in an animal body, than a poorly treated cortisol-filled animals' internal chemistry. It'd be awesome if there truly was a micron-filtered food supplement out there. But even Soylent isn't that. The protein powders on the market, pea, crickets, whey, etc.. all have the aforementioned issues with heavy metals or hormones. It's a grace of our generation to know most of the vitamins and minerals required by our bodies. To be able to eat just pure carbs, fats, and proteins, and pop a vitamin for the rest. But we still don't have food products that provide pure macros. When will we see the futuristic "slab" or "paste" that is literally only a single digit number of compounds? I think it's about time that we get something like this. I'm actually in the process of producing a bee-derived meal replacement shake that will feature sub-micron filtration. [2] Honey might be your first thought but bee pollen is the main ingredient - it's actually packed with tons of protein and isn't sweet. Let me know if you would be interested in a purely bee honey, pollen, royal jelly based meal replacement. I haven't gauged interest yet so it'd be interesting to see if HN is interested. Cheers. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27756430/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27756430/ [2] https://imgur.com/a/YFTTQ https://imgur.com/a/YFTTQ
- forgotmypw 9y ago
  I'm not sure if you thought I was defending fast food. I was merely saying that most prepared food that is not "fast food" is not great either. I think that the best we can do today is approximate as closely as possible the diet (and lifestyle) we have been evolving for in the millions of years prior to industrial agriculture. To me, that means a diet of mainly plants and a little meat, mostly raw, some cooked with direct heat, occasional fasting, sleep and rest as allowed by circumstances, lots of getting dirty, and not stressing about macro things we can't change. P.S. nih.gov links do not work without JS. I like your logo design.
  - origami777 9y ago
    Thanks for clarifying. That makes a ton of sense.
  - goldenkey 9y ago
    I agree with you. But I also don't think it's terrible to have macro isolates that are chemical-grade. Everyone wants pure water but we never think about purifying foods, only processing them which is a crude process. And I put the wrong link for the vaccine study. It is actually: http://medcraveonline.com/IJVV/IJVV-04-00072.php http://medcraveonline.com/IJVV/IJVV-04-00072.php
coldtea 9y ago
>Fast food chains make their food from prepared components that they buy in bulk through some sort of homogenized supply chain. So do most restaurants. Fast food chains involve a lot of plastic in their food preparation, even hot food and even while cooking. So do most restaurants. Fast food chains use food components that are optimized for shelf life, using whatever chemicals that the FDA said are "generally recognized as safe" in 1958. So do most restaurants. Depends if in "non fast-food restaurants" you include a TGIF or a Chipotle.
- forgotmypw 9y ago
  I'm including both corporate chains like TGIF and Chipotle, in addition to: * that sushi restaurant in the strip mall, that serves you rice cooked with fluoride water and soy sauce with sodium beonzoate * that "gourmet" deli that serves you sodium nitrate-laden on top of pesticide- and preservative-laden bread with a yellow #5 pickle. * that coffee shop that pours a hot beverage at 140F/60C into a plastic-lined, plastic-lidded cup. * that cafeteria in that corporate office that heats up frozen soup in a plastic bag before pouring it into the serving pot. * and so on Our food system resembles a Brave New World-esque intelligence test that most of us are failing.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    And again, this miniscule phthalate level increases matters why? (Even cumulative.) Please answer with solid evidence of morbidity. Guardian did not do the homework. The studies on phthalates are quite tenuous for adults. There are a few which link to developmental problems. This is a very different case from children chewing on phthalate containing foams or sleeping in such. Which has been quite clearly linked. The risk is mainly for pregnant women then? Regardless, most of the problems would be related to packaging. Ditch styrofoam and plastic. Use ones certified phthalate free. Oh and Guardian published this some years ago in a better way. Misrepresenting evidence then too. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/10/phthalates-plastics-chemicals-research-analysis https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/10/phthala... Sounds like some sort of agenda. The other quotes border on conspiracy theory.
marak830 9y ago
From my experience, it is pretty much down to how much you're willing to pay. When I was younger and worked in lower quality places, a lot would be purchased through a supplier (although very rare to see premade items purchased), where as now (I work at a fine dining establishment), the current head chef indeed goes to the farmers market once a month - he will go through their produce, and select which items he will want for that months menu (note we get deliveries daily, and check each for quality - anything subpar gets returned and if happens more than once we will find a different supplier). The same goes for our meats and seafood. As for those places that order in bulk, optomised for shelf life. They do not deserve to be called restaurants, they are just a fast food joint with a different name. (Source: 17 years as a chef).
- sametmax 9y ago
  Semantics. Restaurant are places where you eat. For most people, restaurants don't have star. In France, they mostly buy their stuff at Metro. That's why I pay more and more money to go to very good restaurant. But I care deeply about food, I love it, I cook, and I have money. That's not the usual situation.
  - marak830 9y ago
    I agree it is semantics, but it shouldn't be in my opinion. While it will never happen, I would prefer to call yourself a restaurant you would need to prove that you had hired qualified chefs and that you were producing all the for you sell. It's a major gripe of the industry that people like me do the work to create real quality food, and then get lumped in with places that use premade crap. I should probably stop my rant now, I could go on for a while haha.
    - p1esk 9y ago
      Well, now is the perfect opportunity to name your restaurant :)
      - marak830 9y ago

goldenkey 9y ago

Isn't this like saying macro-nutrients are all that matters? Pop a vitamin and eat slop made from grounding up all the animal parts? In theory it makes sense but we haven't even begun to understand the millions of different hydrocarbons in a small piece of meat. So there is an unscientific albeit widely believed statement about quality ingredients. There isn't legislation to make sure only X is allowed in a processed food - there are only laws that exclude known harmful things like brain matter because of prions, or antibiotics if labeled as such, or pesticides if labeled as organic. /u/given even linked a study less than 2 weeks ago showing that an array of human vaccines tested had a slew of metal and other contaminants. The only vaccine tested that lacked contaminents was a veterinary vaccine for distemper..smh [1] The closest, one would think to getting pure macros, is plant or whey-based proteins, carbohydrates, and oils/lipids like coconut oil. But most of the pure plant protein powders and supplements have an even worse infiltration - high levels of metals from the soil the plants were grown in. Highly dependent on the country of origin. Now, I'd garner that if these companies cared enough and could spend more money, they'd be able to chellate or use ion-exchange filters, or maybe just mechnical methods like centrifugal separation / sub-micron filters, etc.. to remove the metals and other undesirables. Do biological contaminents in plants get even near the possible ones' in animals like cortisol? Does a poorly sunlit plant produce stress chemicals? I'd guess that because the animal kingdom is a divergent evolution to the plant kingdom, harmful compounds would be lesser. Yes, we have phytoestrogens from soy, and tobacco, hemp, poppy, and all kinds of poisonous plants out there. A side note, plant alkaloids serve two functions, to poison to protect the plant or to create desire for the purpose of spreading seeds; this is why poisons are often found on leaves, while desirable drugs or flavors are found on the fruit or seedbearing parts. It's not an easy distinction to make, poison vs drug - many substances we consider drugs are actually made by the plants to protect themselves, ie. tobacco or willow bark (aspirin). In any case, the chemicals naturally found in acceptable farmed plant species are likely to be less reactive in an animal body, than a poorly treated cortisol-filled animals' internal chemistry. It'd be awesome if there truly was a micron-filtered food supplement out there. But even Soylent isn't that. The protein powders on the market, pea, crickets, whey, etc.. all have the aforementioned issues with heavy metals or hormones. It's a grace of our generation to know most of the vitamins and minerals required by our bodies. To be able to eat just pure carbs, fats, and proteins, and pop a vitamin for the rest. But we still don't have food products that provide pure macros. When will we see the futuristic "slab" or "paste" that is literally only a single digit number of compounds? I think it's about time that we get something like this. I'm actually in the process of producing a bee-derived meal replacement shake that will feature sub-micron filtration. [2] Honey might be your first thought but bee pollen is the main ingredient - it's actually packed with tons of protein and isn't sweet. Let me know if you would be interested in a purely bee honey, pollen, royal jelly based meal replacement. I haven't gauged interest yet so it'd be interesting to see if HN is interested. Cheers. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27756430/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27756430/ [2] https://imgur.com/a/YFTTQ https://imgur.com/a/YFTTQ

forgotmypw 9y ago
I'm not sure if you thought I was defending fast food. I was merely saying that most prepared food that is not "fast food" is not great either. I think that the best we can do today is approximate as closely as possible the diet (and lifestyle) we have been evolving for in the millions of years prior to industrial agriculture. To me, that means a diet of mainly plants and a little meat, mostly raw, some cooked with direct heat, occasional fasting, sleep and rest as allowed by circumstances, lots of getting dirty, and not stressing about macro things we can't change. P.S. nih.gov links do not work without JS. I like your logo design.
- origami777 9y ago
  Thanks for clarifying. That makes a ton of sense.
- goldenkey 9y ago
  I agree with you. But I also don't think it's terrible to have macro isolates that are chemical-grade. Everyone wants pure water but we never think about purifying foods, only processing them which is a crude process. And I put the wrong link for the vaccine study. It is actually: http://medcraveonline.com/IJVV/IJVV-04-00072.php http://medcraveonline.com/IJVV/IJVV-04-00072.php

coldtea 9y ago

>Fast food chains make their food from prepared components that they buy in bulk through some sort of homogenized supply chain. So do most restaurants. Fast food chains involve a lot of plastic in their food preparation, even hot food and even while cooking. So do most restaurants. Fast food chains use food components that are optimized for shelf life, using whatever chemicals that the FDA said are "generally recognized as safe" in 1958. So do most restaurants. Depends if in "non fast-food restaurants" you include a TGIF or a Chipotle.

forgotmypw 9y ago
I'm including both corporate chains like TGIF and Chipotle, in addition to: * that sushi restaurant in the strip mall, that serves you rice cooked with fluoride water and soy sauce with sodium beonzoate * that "gourmet" deli that serves you sodium nitrate-laden on top of pesticide- and preservative-laden bread with a yellow #5 pickle. * that coffee shop that pours a hot beverage at 140F/60C into a plastic-lined, plastic-lidded cup. * that cafeteria in that corporate office that heats up frozen soup in a plastic bag before pouring it into the serving pot. * and so on Our food system resembles a Brave New World-esque intelligence test that most of us are failing.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  And again, this miniscule phthalate level increases matters why? (Even cumulative.) Please answer with solid evidence of morbidity. Guardian did not do the homework. The studies on phthalates are quite tenuous for adults. There are a few which link to developmental problems. This is a very different case from children chewing on phthalate containing foams or sleeping in such. Which has been quite clearly linked. The risk is mainly for pregnant women then? Regardless, most of the problems would be related to packaging. Ditch styrofoam and plastic. Use ones certified phthalate free. Oh and Guardian published this some years ago in a better way. Misrepresenting evidence then too. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/10/phthalates-plastics-chemicals-research-analysis https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/10/phthala... Sounds like some sort of agenda. The other quotes border on conspiracy theory.

marak830 9y ago

From my experience, it is pretty much down to how much you're willing to pay. When I was younger and worked in lower quality places, a lot would be purchased through a supplier (although very rare to see premade items purchased), where as now (I work at a fine dining establishment), the current head chef indeed goes to the farmers market once a month - he will go through their produce, and select which items he will want for that months menu (note we get deliveries daily, and check each for quality - anything subpar gets returned and if happens more than once we will find a different supplier). The same goes for our meats and seafood. As for those places that order in bulk, optomised for shelf life. They do not deserve to be called restaurants, they are just a fast food joint with a different name. (Source: 17 years as a chef).

sametmax 9y ago
Semantics. Restaurant are places where you eat. For most people, restaurants don't have star. In France, they mostly buy their stuff at Metro. That's why I pay more and more money to go to very good restaurant. But I care deeply about food, I love it, I cook, and I have money. That's not the usual situation.
- marak830 9y ago
  I agree it is semantics, but it shouldn't be in my opinion. While it will never happen, I would prefer to call yourself a restaurant you would need to prove that you had hired qualified chefs and that you were producing all the for you sell. It's a major gripe of the industry that people like me do the work to create real quality food, and then get lumped in with places that use premade crap. I should probably stop my rant now, I could go on for a while haha.
  - p1esk 9y ago
    Well, now is the perfect opportunity to name your restaurant :)
    - marak830 9y ago