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You are aware that restaurants clean their food before cooking them? It's a major part of food safety. Indeed, because restaurants generally source their food

You are aware that restaurants clean their food before cooking them? It's a major part of food safety. Indeed, because restaurants generally source their food from better sources than a regular consumer can (many times, straight from the farm), restaurant food is arguably safer than "raw" food you can cook at home. Thus, french fries from a restaurant would be at least as safe as french fries you eat at home. Another paradox that would violate your heuristic: frozen fruits and vegetables are more nutritious, and cleaner, than "fresh" fruits and vegetables in the grocery store.

gigatree 3y ago
Where did you get that? Restaurants have paper-thin margins and strong incentives to use the lowest quality ingredients they can get away with.
- galdosdi 3y ago
  Agree, gamblor clearly has only eaten at restaurants, not worked at them. Restaurants definitely love using cheap nonstick pans and other plasticware for general convenience. I've heard of chef's tricks involving plastic wrap that make me cringe.
- Ntrails 3y ago
  "Restaurants" is a broad church, and has venues on both ends of the spectrum - sourcing either best possible quality or lowest possible price depending what you're buying. As an idle heuristic, i'd tend towards French Fries in restaurants being made cheaply though.
- gamblor956 3y ago
  When I was at a firm, my clients included a number of restaurants ranging from the high-end to the decidedly low-end (i.e., fast food), including a number of major restaurant chains HQ'd in the SoCal area. I can guarantee that I know more about restaurant finances than anyone on this thread other than an actual restaurant owner, because for years it was my job to know this stuff. But anyways: the number one operational cost that kills restaurants is leasing costs, not supplies or employee wages, because those latter costs can be managed based on the amount of business, time of year, etc. And the truth about "high quality" versus "low quality" ingredients is that at the restaurant scale, the price difference isn't that large; excepting meat, it can be as low as 10% (and in some cases, at least in SoCal it can be cheaper to buy organic produce than nonorganic). I' still close friends with a number of food purchasers and suppliers in the SoCal area, and you would be absolutely shocked at how little restaurants have to pay for their produce and fish. Consequently, their isn't much of an incentive for a restaurant to use the lowest-quality ingredients because their isn't a significant cost savings but there is a huge risk associated with using lower-quality ingredients. (However, the calculus is different for food manufacturers, who sell their products at wholesale prices and so have significantly smaller potential margins.)
  - lobocinza 3y ago
    So your experience is limited to SoCal at best. In my experience restaurants will unfortunately cut corners and deliver garbage because it is cheaper or easier.
galdosdi 3y ago
For the frozen ones, I'm willing to hem and haw and put them on an equal level. More processed in a sense (freezing) but less in another (travel and spoilage) Heuristics arent' meant to be perfect so finding edge cases isn't some kind of gotcha. Wikipedia has a good definition of the word if need be

gigatree 3y ago

Where did you get that? Restaurants have paper-thin margins and strong incentives to use the lowest quality ingredients they can get away with.

galdosdi 3y ago
Agree, gamblor clearly has only eaten at restaurants, not worked at them. Restaurants definitely love using cheap nonstick pans and other plasticware for general convenience. I've heard of chef's tricks involving plastic wrap that make me cringe.
Ntrails 3y ago
"Restaurants" is a broad church, and has venues on both ends of the spectrum - sourcing either best possible quality or lowest possible price depending what you're buying. As an idle heuristic, i'd tend towards French Fries in restaurants being made cheaply though.
gamblor956 3y ago
When I was at a firm, my clients included a number of restaurants ranging from the high-end to the decidedly low-end (i.e., fast food), including a number of major restaurant chains HQ'd in the SoCal area. I can guarantee that I know more about restaurant finances than anyone on this thread other than an actual restaurant owner, because for years it was my job to know this stuff. But anyways: the number one operational cost that kills restaurants is leasing costs, not supplies or employee wages, because those latter costs can be managed based on the amount of business, time of year, etc. And the truth about "high quality" versus "low quality" ingredients is that at the restaurant scale, the price difference isn't that large; excepting meat, it can be as low as 10% (and in some cases, at least in SoCal it can be cheaper to buy organic produce than nonorganic). I' still close friends with a number of food purchasers and suppliers in the SoCal area, and you would be absolutely shocked at how little restaurants have to pay for their produce and fish. Consequently, their isn't much of an incentive for a restaurant to use the lowest-quality ingredients because their isn't a significant cost savings but there is a huge risk associated with using lower-quality ingredients. (However, the calculus is different for food manufacturers, who sell their products at wholesale prices and so have significantly smaller potential margins.)
- lobocinza 3y ago
  So your experience is limited to SoCal at best. In my experience restaurants will unfortunately cut corners and deliver garbage because it is cheaper or easier.

galdosdi 3y ago

For the frozen ones, I'm willing to hem and haw and put them on an equal level. More processed in a sense (freezing) but less in another (travel and spoilage) Heuristics arent' meant to be perfect so finding edge cases isn't some kind of gotcha. Wikipedia has a good definition of the word if need be