Restaurant Wars and Birth Wars

Imagine the year is 2035.  People rarely cook at home anymore for a few different reasons.  They have gotten too busy and because of subsidies from the food industry eating at a restaurant is less expensive.  They actually pay more out of pocket to eat at home.  Many people look back and remember, “People actually prepared meals AT HOME!  It is amazing that they were willing to go through all that time and energy and that so many survived.” 

 

There are of course a few “natural” people who still eat at home.  There is a renewed interest in examining this practice, when a celebrity makes a movie called the Buisness of Eating Out, examining the risks of doing so and reminding parents about the option of eating at home. 

 

The ACRE (American College of Restaurants and Eateries), feels threatened by this resurgence in home cooking.  So they play the bad-parent card to try to scare moms.    

“A woman, who chooses to cook at home, puts herself and her child’s health and life at unnecessary risk.   Choosing to cook at home… is to place the process of cooking over the goal of having a healthy family.”  

 Some people may nod their head and say, “That makes sense.  They are TRAINED to prepare food.  They have to follow certain safety guidelines to keep everything sanitary and safe.” 

 

But many will recognize the truth.  There are risks to preparing food and eating both at home and at restaurants.  Restaurants want you to believe it is safer to eat there, or they would lose business.  But many different studies have proven that it is no safer to eat in restaurants than at home.  In fact restaurants are more likely the primary source and the greatest risk of food borne illness! 

The chances of these things happening in a busy restaurant is much greater than at your home. At home, you or the person doing the cooking is most likely preparing only one meal at a time and it is served immediately after it is ready. Preparation and processing at a restaurant are very different. (Food Poisoning Prevention) 

ACRE disputes those studies because they are not “randomized, controlled studies”.  The challenge is you can not have randomized controlled studies, because who would be willing to participate? 

You HAVE to eat at home.

You HAVE to eat out.  

It is too personal of a decision.  In every other modern county they agree that good quality observational studies are the best way to determine the safety of where to eat.  They find that it is just as safe if not safer to eat at home.  But ACRE doesn’t want to lose control.  Even though it is a small number of people who are interested in eating at home, they are scared. 

 

Today as we read this account of Home Cooking versus Restaurant it seems so far fetched.  It is absurd and it seems apparent that ACRE is overstepping their bounds.  When it comes down to it, families should look at the research and know that eating is a personal decision and they are smart enough to make the decision that is best for THEM!  They won’t let a group whose job is to protect the restaurants use fear to dictate their choice.  For some families eating out is best and for some eating at home is.  That is fine.  That is the beauty of America.  Freedom of choice!

 

Well today in America there is a Birth War going on.   ACOG and other groups are trying to make homebirth illegal.  A mom I know, shared this quote by her husband with me.  It is what inspired this post.  

 

“How can they tell us that a natural physical process is illegal to do at home? 

That’d be like the restaurant industry getting a law passed that it was illegal to cook at home.”

 Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?