United States - Fatty Food Heaven?

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Does eating bacteria-laden food constitute eating meat? Is this against vegetarian and unber-vegetarian guidlines? Just curious.

 

Of course it doesn't. There is bacteria in everything. Bacteria is neither sentient nor capable of suffering, and microbiologists do not even consider bacteria to be a living entity. In other words, broccoli is actually more alive than bacteria. Since vegetarians have no qualms about eating broccoli (unless they just don't like it), they won't be worried about bacteria either. While you'll find the occasional Jainist who avoids root vegetables and the like because of the high presence of microbial life found in them, this is actually the exception (even among Jainists, these people are considered extreme)...not the rule.

 

The most important thing with meat is that it is fresh when you cook or fry or roast it. After that, it is good for a while. One of the worst things to happen with supermarket meat is that the cooling chain has been interrupted, so the meat melts on transport and freezes again and so forth, or that it is stored too warm, and of course, too long. This causes meat to be really bad, and storing leftovers for a few days in the fridge should be much less a concern.

 

Yeah I remember a scandal in Sweden a few months ago when stores were actually selling old minced meat by just replacing the labels with new expiration dates. More than a few individual stores seemed to be guilty of this.

 

That story about the meat with replaced expiration labels is utterly repulsive, Morgoroth. I'd bet that sort of $ first, customer health later sort of attitude is not limited to Sweden, sadly enough . . .

As for food poisoning, I've often been of the opinion that in many cases (not all, mind you) there is another factor involved in the person getting sick. I've left casseroles and cooked hamburger on the stove overnight and eaten it the next day and not had a problem. However, When my 80+ year old father has done this sort of thing, he gets sick. I'd say that's because of his age and otherwise weakening constitution rather than JUST the food.

I also wanted to mention about putting food straight from the oven into the freezer, unless you're talking about REALLY hot food and a really inefficient freezer, I cannot imagine that the hot food would be able to thaw the food already in a freezer to such a degree that the frozen food would be in the "danger zone" for contamination. At the same time, though, it sounds kind of silly to me to move the food that quickly.

 

I assume Jains don't eat root vegetables, since to obtain the root of a plant requires you to kill the plant. Now there's a philosophy I can respect. As for the rest of you evil plant killers, fie on ye I say!

 

You have to kill the plant for more than just root vegetables. The reason some Jainists avoid them is the high concentration of microbial life found in them.

 

That's ridiculous.

 

1. It'll never pass.
2. Were it to pass, there's no way to enforce it.

This is nothing but another desperate attempt to call attention to the problem.

And then there's this approach...

 

But how many people could you stop? And how many restaurants would actually want to ban their best customers?

 

Pretty much every restaurant that has an all you can eat buffet...

 

Good point, Drew...

 

I've always thought all-one-can eat buffets were (unless all they were serving was raw unseasoned lettuce and brown rice crackers) a bad idea anyway.
Ingesting a small amount of nasties is good for your immune system. Quite a few new studies point to excessive cleanliness as a factor in several (pretty nasty) illnesses.
Regarding the edibility of soup, the easiest way to make sure it keeps is to spoil it from the beginning. Round here, the most common way to do that is to add bran vinegar (verjus, alternatively) and lovage to it. The acid in the vinegar and the mildly antiseptic compounds in the lovage act as natural preservers. Of course, the taste seems a bit odd for a first time eater. Heavily spicing it (with fresh pungent herbs like tarragon) also helps increase edibility 'lifespan'.

 

It comes down to an ideological argument. Are people responsible for what they do? Or is the state responsible for everything? Now, I'm putting it into overly simplistic terms, but that's kind of what it boils down to. I most certainly DO NOT want the government telling me what I can and cannot eat. Drugs are one thing that can have societal consequences, but food is different by an order of magnitude. If I serve someone food, it is not my responsibility to tell them when to stop eating that food.

Now in the case of the all you can eat place, they're just trying to turn a profit! I know some people eat more than "X" amount of food and some people eat less, but let's be realistic here and say that if a fellow consistantly eats 4 times "X" he's hurting the business and under those terms they have every right to ask the guy to not return, as it is not a good business situation for the owners. By brother and his friends were asked not to come back to an all you can eat place in Japan for this very reason.

 

Food is not actually that much different, if you eat enough to become obese the probability for all sorts of health issues increases and may lead to disablities and make you unable to work normally. This probably leads to the state having to take care of you anyhow. Now you might argue that the state should not be responsible to do so but I for some reason very much dislike the idea of leaving people to die with their disabilities even if they were caused by their own obsessions.

 

I hardly think my post advocated letting obese people die in the street without any help. By the same token, do you really relish the idea of the government coming at you with calipers and telling you what to eat?