http://www.3fatchicks.com/deli-meats-is-there-a-nutritional-difference-between-fresh-cut-and-pre-packaged/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/ask-a-health-expert/is-deli-meat-actually-bad-for-you/article9559850/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/ask-a-health-expert/is-deli-meat-actually-bad-for-you/article9559850/
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The restaurant business is one of the most competitive fields you can enter. There are constantly new restaurants opening up throughout the city. This puts loads of pressure on a restaurant to perform perfectly, if somebody doesn’t like the food they’re served they have countless other places to go. When I started working as a pantry chef I was completely unprepared. I figured it couldn’t be that stressful, and all these chefs are just playing it up. Approximately 3 weeks after I started, we were expecting a $25,000 night. That night showed me all I ever needed to know. When you have over 40 things to make, the smallest thing will push you over the edge. We have immense pressure from our superiors to be absolutely perfect. In my station alone we have 24 things to know by heart. We need to know what order to put the ingredients in, and exactly how many ounces per item per size (sub, small or large). On a not-too-busy night we get something called flavour profiling. This is where the general manager will tell us a dish to make, purely to see how we do it. Everything we do is under close inspection, the main focus is portions. I make it sound like a horrible place to work, though to me it’s quite the opposite. There’s nothing better than hearing “Beautiful plating on that cheesecake”, or receiving compliments from a customer on the food you made. I love making food, and my absolute favourite dish to prepare is the goat cheese garlic. This is an appetizer containing melted goat cheese with caramelized brown sugar on top, and caramelized garlic. It gets some focaccia bread toasted, spread with a special herb-oil then sprinkled with parmesan cheese. On the side we have arugula in a house-made lemon chardonnay dressing. Lastly we put two ramekins of cranberry-corn relish, and fig jam. Every night, at the end of the night we throw out the excess food we prepared. Sauces, cut veggies, meat etc. all have a few days before being thrown out, and therefore are most of the time used up instead of thrown away. However, mashed potatoes, rice, quinoa, bacon, sausages, pancakes, french toast and cooked vegetables are all thrown out in excess amounts every single night. If there was a banquet on that night, there’s a bunch more food that gets thrown away. I can say that the food is completely fine, it just isn’t good enough to serve to paying customers. There are plenty of things we could do with that food, many homeless people wander around Milestones, however we throw out the food because it wouldn’t look good to our customers to have homeless people outside the kitchen. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, more than $31 billion worth of food is thrown out yearly in Canada alone (2014 study). Looking at how much a single restaurant throws out nightly, I can say this fact doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. I believe we could put that food to good use in some way. If the food bank had a way to collect leftovers from restaurants and store them that would be a great way to reduce thrown out food. Close to half of all food produced throughout the world is wasted, either in transport, manufacturing or in a restaurant/house itself. Households throw out loads of food each year too, approximately 215 kilograms per year per household. Why is it that we as Canadians always look for a way to solve problems for other places in the world, while ignoring our own?
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