Restaurant food is about as unhealthy as fast food

[jacob]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 105211.htm

"The United States is one of the most obese nations in the world, with more than one in three adult men and women in defined as obese," said Dr. Nguyen. "Just as obesity rates rise, there's been a marked increase in total energy consumption consumed away from home, with about one in four calories coming from fast food or full service restaurants in 2007. Our study confirms that adults' fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption was associated with higher daily total energy intake and poorer dietary indicators."

[Sclass]

Restaurant food is crack for chimps.

It's a business!

[Did]

I notice they didn't mention sugar/high GI foods (eg bread), which seems to be the latest thinking.

Fat's back.

[Ego]

Right now we're living in a place where there are a bunch of twentysomethings who are trying to be healthy. We have a kitchenette in our cottage. Everyone else shares a kitchen and fridge nearby. In the past week we've made every meal at home. Tempeh costs 20 cents and a kilo of bok choy goes for thirty cents. No one else has made anything except boiled water for coffee or tea. They all eat out because it is so cheap, faux-healthy (vegetarian) and it's something (fun?) to do. Every time I look at a menu I think, "I can make that healthier, tastier and cheaper."

Growing up in the sixties/seventies our families never went out to eat. It just wasn't done except for really special occasions. Fortunately, our parents inherited their ways from their depression era parents. It's funny how much of that is learned.

The world was relatively stable for so long and now it is changing faster than our minds can keep up.

[vexed87]

I notice they didn't mention sugar/high GI foods (eg bread), which seems to be the latest thinking.

Fat's back.

Don't take away my bread (home baked)

I have had to cut back already because having tasty fresh bread on tap was adding to my waistline!

It really doesn't surprise me that eating out is bad for you. I've seen what goes into a meal at a restaurant I worked at while a student... it wasn't just the ingredients that put me off but the preparation techniques.

[7Wannabe5]

In Edward Bellamy's utopian semi-socialist futuristic novel "Looking Backward: 2000-1887", he predicts that in the year 2000 most people will be eating most of their meals in public dining halls staffed by a young people putting in a few years of mandatory public service. The thing to bear in mind is that it is true that it is (or very readily should be) a much more efficient use of labor and natural resources to prepare and serve food in large quantities for a large number of people.

I find that I always tend towards cooking at home and from scratch more when I am responsible for feeding a number of other people, and eating out or purchasing more prepared foods when it is just me who needs to be fed. However, my personal correlation when it comes to BMI and number of meals eaten out would either be flat-line or even reversed from the above, especially when I am responsible for feeding picky-eaters or very large/muscular males. An acquaintance of mine who recently received her Master's degree in dietary science wrote a paper on the topic of caloric drift in which she correlates weight gain after marriage for females with maintenance level caloric intake of husband. There is a natural tendency to follow the eating habits of those with whom we usually eat.

Of course, the other strong correlation that goes right along with the study above is the percentage of mothers in the workforce. I put in around 6 years of full-time job, lengthy commute, cook dinner 6 nights out of 7, take kid to ballet class duty ;and it s*cked rocks. I started having fantasies about locking myself into anonymous rest-stop woman's room stall where nobody could find me. I have nothing but empathy for any woman who finds herself in this situation and chooses to pick up takeout for her gang more often than I did.

[C40]

Since I travel for work so much, I eat at restaurants a lot. Sometimes I buy food at a grocery store to eat, but I still eat, at least, lunch while at work (whatever they bring in, or we go out somewhere).

For me, there are two huge differences in eating out vs. at home:
1 - It is so much harder to make a good choice. When I go to the grocery store, I just need to make the right choice(s) one time - and that supplies me with food for many meals at home. At a restaurant, you have to make the choice every time you eat. Also, cost is much less of a concern (since my meals are all reimbursed by my company). So I eat things like 12oz steaks. I've never cooked a steak for myself at home in my entire life. That shit is way too expensive.

2 - I have much less control over ingredients and preparation methods. I can't even know for sure what is in the food you're eating. Cooks an chefs have all kinds of tricks to make the food taste better, and many of those are not good for me.

[Ego]

There is a natural tendency to follow the eating habits of those with whom we usually eat.

Reminds me of one of my favorite sayings.

Jim Rohn — "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."

Choose wisely

[jacob]

In Edward Bellamy's utopian semi-socialist futuristic novel "Looking Backward: 2000-1887", he predicts that in the year 2000 most people will be eating most of their meals in public dining halls staffed by a young people putting in a few years of mandatory public service.

Accurate if not precise.

[7Wannabe5]

@Jacob- Bellamy also predicted that goods would be delivered to households from centralized locations through an infrastructure of pneumatic tubes. I don't have any clue about the engineering difficulties, but it seems to me that would have been a better idea than delivery trucks for the internet economy. OTOH, he had his female characters still wearing long skirts.

Ego said : Reminds me of one of my favorite sayings.

Jim Rohn — "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."

Choose wisely

Likely true, and I think it applies to the books you read too. That's why totally illiterate people are often less scary than people who have only really read one book. Variety is important when you are attempting a happy average. For instance, I don't read here for fashion advice, but I wouldn't trust Anna Johnson (author of "Savvy Chic: The Art of More for Less) on the topic of global climate change.

[jacob]

Pneumatic tubes for fast delivery were very popular in the US and Europe (google rohrpost) in the late 19th and up to mid 20th century and already existed in Europe in 1877.

Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic ... _York_City
As far as I recall the NYC system delivered mail 7 times per day and delivery was almost instant compared to the system of cars that eventually replaced it.

There are still some applications in existence today ... even food
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMM8 ... _McDonalds