Thursday, October 22, 2009

Social Responsibility

Many popular food chains are advertising on their websites that they are socially responsible. But upon closer look, I start to question how could someone call themselves being socially responsible when they serve food that has calorie laden food that should be considered socially unethical. We scanned through many of these sites only to find food so high in calories that it would make up your one total meal requirement for the day. How is this being socially responsible? Its actually disgusting. My wife and I love to go out and eat, but honestly what can we eat that will be considered healthy from us from the major chains. Im sure I can go to these places and pick through the menu and search for a meal that could be healthy. But it would seem to me that a company that is claiming social responsibility should already consider these issues and try to do what they can to curtail the problems. I understand that eating fresh organic food can only be purchased at really nice restaurants, so I start to wonder, why in the world would I want to eat anything else and since it costs too much to eat at most of these places, I would rather cook myself. So it looks like there will be no more dinner and movie for us. We will just go to the movie. But wait, there is that Popcorn washed with fake butter and a soda Issue, that cost wayyyyyyyyyy more than the movie. I'll talk about that at another time.......

5 comments:

Kenneth Moore said...

The deeper I get into my "being sustainable and healthy" journey, the less I find that I am able to eat out. A product or organization being socially responsible isn't an end--those who make up society must inform themselves of what they find important and determine whether such social-responsibility claims are supported. If they think they find "socially responsible" products to be important, they will, like you, do research and find out for certain whether claims are up to their standards. If they don't, well, it's not that important to them.

Our society is one of "do for me 'cause I'm too busy." Did people really have three meals a day cooked at home in previous decades/centuries? I can't imagine that--I had a full-time mother at home, and she only cooked one meal a day, if that. Preparing all of your food from scratch with organic, locally produced products...? It's intimidating to many people. But it's the only way to ensure that you are getting quality and truly socially responsible meals.

Social responsibility is just as encumbent upon the consumer as it is upon the provider--so kudos to you, for actually digging for that information.

Sue said...

When hubby and I are out on the road, it's difficult to find restaurants serving good, healthy food. And unfortunatly, we've seen to many of those feed lots and KNOW where the meat comes from that supplies the restaurants....
Ugh. What to do???
Restaurants focus so heavily on meats, etc. We find ourselves roaming the grocery stores to get fruit and yogurt. But you NEED a good hot meal once in awhile.

Wendy said...

We stopped eating fast-food and from chain restaurants years ago. It wasn't because of the calories in the food, but rather where they sourced their food. I agree that it is socialy irresponsible to serve such high-calorie food, but even more so, the fact that many of these places get the cheapest meat from the most unethical producers (like Smithfields and Tyson). Like Sue said, feedlots are pretty awful places, and I won't support them by buying any food from places that get their meat from them.

Cooking at home using locally-sourced food doesn't have to be intimidating. It's only so, because society tells us we should be doing other stuff. I work from home and homeschool, and most of what we eat is grown/produced locally. It was hard, at first, but now, it's just part of the day.

ATW said...

Kenneth, Sue and Wendy thanks for the comments and providing some great insight into how you live your lives everyday. Many people that I talk to really want to start there own kitchen garden and would really like to eat fresh healthy food. But many of them don't know how to prepare home grown food; because as I suspect, there taste buds may be a bit off tilter about what food should taste like. It's a shame because sometimes we really would like for someone else to cook for us and eating out is the only way we can achieve that. But I just hate that I have to run a marathon first in order for me to eat at a restaraunt, Big Sigh:(

Kenneth Moore said...

You may be on to something there, ATW!

There's been a lot of flutter in the past few days about humans running--apparently, we're built to be one of the world's best long-distance running machines. With physiology designed for such calorie-burning activity, it's a wonder any of us stay fit!