If you are new to reading my blog, maybe you haven't heard me write about food, but I love food, I love cooking food, I love eating food--well good food. I'm not a subscriber to Food and Wine, but I know good food when I'm eating it and I definitely know when the food is not good, and I also know when it is the same-same food.
What is same-same food? I like to call it Sysco. Sysco is probably the largest supplier of food goods to restaurants/hotels/convention centers/etc, if not in the US, then definitely in Kansas. Today at Red Lobster, which is owned by Darden, which also owns Longhorn Steakhouse (where I worked for 9 years), and Olive Garden, I noticed that their food is just the same as Longhorn. Seriously their Key Lime Pie, I guarantee is the same Key Lime Pie at Longhorn. And that wonderful Chicken Parmesan at Longhorn is the same as the Shrimp Parmesan at Olive Garden. Honestly it made me kind of sick to think about. What has society become that we accept homogenized food? (This is not a slam to Sysco, Darden, etc--otherwise why would I have worked there for 9 years?).
This whole debate of Pink Slime (Finely textured meat substitute something) is what we have forced the food industry to do. If society really wants Pink Slime to go away, then society would have to stop going to ALL fast food establishments, stop buying canned meat items, and whatever else that that stuff goes into. The food industry did not set out to work with a product that is so gross, but the fast food industry demands a product that can be molded and sold for 97 cents.
We as consumers have a choice when we spend the mighty dollar, if Pink Slime grosses you out, then eat at home and get meat from a local meat locker. And if same-same food leaves doesn't work try a local mom and pop restaurant. I don't know when I'll eat at Red Lobster again, or if I even will...just left me wanting real food.
True, true. I can remember the days of very few restaurants and most of them were go in, sit down, and wait. We have become not just a fast-food society, but a fast everything. We are paying the price--physically, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. It's not a pretty picture!
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