Food trucks. Are you really getting what you want? Are your foods really allergy-free? Are all the foods fresh and are they good quality? Is the food really clean and are the workers hands really washed? The answer to the questions are always unknown but for some reason people still love to eat from food trucks. The first known food truck was an army wagon which contained dried beans, coffee, cornmeal, bacon, salt pork, beef, and other easily-preserved foods. It was invented to feed cattlemen and people traveling. After this, the US Army mobile canteens were commonly used to feed the U.S. troops. This is one of the many reasons food trucks are so popular, because it was so easy to feed people when they were busy doing other things. I think the reason it is so popular in today’s time is because it is a very convenient way of buying food that is close to easily accessible places. The real question I have is, are we really getting the food that we are asking for? For example, the photo in the top right of this page was a food truck that sold tacos. There was a twist however, although the tacos were delicious people were getting a bad vibe because something was not right. After a bit of investigating, the food truck was shut down for selling tacos with a side of meth. Hundreds or even thousands of people could’ve eaten these tacos without even known that they were getting high, even children. Even though this certain food truck is not like every single food truck, you can not be guaranteed food that is safe for you if you have dietary restrictions. If you do not tell the people that are serving your food that you are vegan/vegetarian or have allergies they will never know and your food can be contaminated. The last problem I am going to talk about is sanitation. How do we know if the workers are constantly cleaning the surrounding around the foods or how often they are washing their hands. We also do not know if our food has been dropped on the floor because they can cover it up really easily. I have learned this from personal experience. I was working on a food truck at an outside concert. The co-worker I was working with dropped an ice cream cone. It didn’t break or look dirty and she was concerned with how many cones we had left so she used it. We both don’t know the last time someone washed the floor. My Question: If you heard all the stories from workers about how they actually prepared your food and the steps they take towards sanitation, would you eat the food? Links to history, videos and horror stories about food trucks: http://mobile-cuisine.com/business/history-of-american-food-trucks/ http://globalnews.ca/news/1578597/food-truck-busted-for-selling-tacos-with-a-side-of-meth/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/travel/how-america-became-a-food-truck-nation-99979799/ At a family barbeque last summer, as I sat with my family under the sun and drooled for the burgers being prepped inside, I found myself stumped by a conversational topic about the trend, the myth, the legend: the almighty Gluten-free diet. My uncle, curious about the latest trend in the fitness world being someone who leads an active lifestyle, posed the simple yet puzzling question; “Okay, but what actually is gluten?” At the time, all I was aware of was that it had something to do with bread and I was a firm believer of bread, a carb aficionado if you will, so this sudden widespread intolerance towards the concept was troubling as I scarfed down another handful of tortilla chips. My cousin, a young chef in the local culinary scene, has known his fair share of diners claiming to be allergic to anything in order to avoid having it on their plate whether or not this aversion is genuine. For example, a party once insisted they were allergic to celery until the chef explained it was a vital component to their desired dish and they had to admit they weren’t actually intolerant, they just hated the vegetable. However, nothing had spread so quickly and become so popular than the necessity for everything to be gluten-free. Although Celiac disease, an autoimmune disease which prevents the absorption of some nutrients in the small intestine, is estimated to affect 1 in 133 Canadians (Canadian Celiac Association) and is a genuine medical condition along with less extreme Gluten Sensitivity, the adoption of a Gluten-free lifestyle as simply a fad or method to lose weight is highly controversial. Now with more knowledge on what gluten actually is – a combination of proteins found in barley, rye, and some grains which effects things like the elasticity and chewiness of food – I find it interesting that some people have jumped onto the latest bandwagon because they assume gluten is bad without any further information to back up their assumptions; prejudice fueled by marketing campaigns, various celebrity endorsements, and ideals that avoiding gluten will help you lose weight. In reality, for people with genuine Gluten intolerance, this sought after diet trend is a necessary lifestyle for their medical wellbeing, making it irritating that some are buying into the lifestyle as an advertised simple solution for good health. Since gluten-free diets are often highly restrictive and cut out high calorie foods, they may have some slimming effects that leave celebrities like Miley Cyrus advocating that gluten should be avoided. However, for people who do not suffer from Celiac disease or sincere gluten sensitivity, cutting out gluten may result in a lack of nutrients like calcium, iron, zinc, and magnesium.
What is your take on this controversial dietary trend? Do you think the gluten-free diet is a practical weight loss method or will it be eventually left in the diet trend dust along with other experimental fads of the past?
Sources http://www.celiac.ca/?page_id=882 http://www.livescience.com/53265-what-is-gluten.html http://www.eatingwell.com/nutrition_health/nutrition_news_information/unraveling_the_gluten_free_trend 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?
Rosa’s Fresh Pizza | 25 South 11th Street | Philadelphia, PA 19107 What started out as a small pizza shop, has now transformed into a shop where less fortunate ones can go to, to feel full from pizza and kindness. Pay it forward pizza at Rosa’s all began with one customer, one dollar, and a post-it note. In an interview, owner Mason Wartman talks about how this all started. “The first day of the pay-it-forward program kinda started when a gentleman walked in and asked if a homeless person ever came in short, and he offered to pre-purchase a slice of pizza for the next homeless person. So, he gave me a dollar, I ran out, got post-it notes, put one up on a wall behind the register, told more people about it, eventually a couple days later a homeless person came in, he had like 65 cents on him, and we told him to just keep the change, it was already paid for. He redeemed one of the pre-purchased slices, so now we’ve given away almost 10,000 slices of pizza.” Philadelphia is the poorest largest city and the city with the worst deep poverty rate, with approximately 185,000 people surviving on incomes that are less than the federal poverty line. Owner Mason Wartman tells of a story where a regular homeless customer disappeared for a while. Wartman was wondering to himself if he was doing well and days later, the homeless customer showed up and turns out he had got himself a job and he wanted to pay-it-forward just like how others had done for him. Wartman also said, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that customers who benefit from the pay-it-forward system had told him that the pizza helps them avoid committing small crimes in order to get money for food. “I knew it saved people money,” Mr. Wartman said. “I hadn't considered that it stopped people from committing crime.” According to Upworthy, Rosa’s is doing much more than just feeding customers.
This inspiring story just really shows how food is much more than just…food. It can connect people within communities together in so many different ways and also help others get back on their feet with just one little act of kindness.
Sources: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/portfolio/2015/01/17/Portfolio-Philadelphia-pizza-shop-clients-pay-it-forward-buy-slices-for-homeless/stories/201501170028 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, By Daniel Kelly, January 17, 2015 http://www.upworthy.com/a-customer-walked-into-his-pizza-shop-and-changed-philadelphia-with-1-and-a-single-post-it-note Upworthy, By Maz Ali, March 04, 2015 http://www.upworthy.com/remember-that-pizzeria-that-was-feeding-the-homeless-see-what-happened-when-you-shared-their-story Upworthy, By Maz Ali, July 12, 2015 |
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