Posted on 06/04/2009 7:46:20 AM PDT by GonzoII
Catering to gluttony is big business these days. Practically every restaurant — including all the popular chains that you and I and every other American dines at, now and then — goes way overboard in the super-sized portions they dish up and the bad-for-your-health ingredients in the food. For example, check out what one recent scientific study discovered about some dishes served at a very popular Italian food restaurant chain.
(Excerpt) Read more at patrickmadrid.blogspot.com ...
What? no VooDoo Donuts for you ?
If you would provide an applicable example or three of supply and demand WRT portion sizes, then there would be something for me to use for that demonstration. So far, you haven’t.
And you’re missing the point, which I have made plain. Keep digging.
Do Crab Rangoons actually have crab in them? Or are they just named for their shape? All I ever find inside is sweet creamcheese.
Considering that some 90% of restaurants fail, I'd say the proof is pretty evident.
>>This is silly. If you care about healthy food why would you eat out?<<
Yep. My wife and I have gone to the old paradigm. It is a nice treat and a change that we do every couple of months or so.
And we have not darkened the doorway of a fast food restaurant (with the exception of occasional Subway sandwitches on road trips) since the mid-1990’s. I consider fast food to be pretty much poison. Tasty poison, but poison. Slow acting.
Our family stopped eating at the Cheesecake Factory some years ago because of this problem. When we eat out, each of us often likes to have an appetizer, maybe a salad, and an entree. And if we’re not too full, maybe a dessert. We also like variety, and each of us like to order different things, and then we share them.
But at the Cheesecake Factory, I remember once ordering a pasta dish with chicken, and it came out looking like they’d cooked a pound of pasta and added two steroidal chicken breasts! With all the other appetizers/entrees similarly sized, we easily had enough food for our family of four to feed ten or fifteen people.
I don’t mind bringing leftovers home and eating them the next day, but from this trip we had enough food for the better part of a week.
We prefer restaurants where we can choose selections that better match our appetites at a given meal, on a given day.
>>A proven fact, huh?<<
Yes. a retail outlet that offers for sale a thing that nobody buys will either disconinue the item or go out of business. It is pretty much econ 101.
Of course, the more important point is that people will not simply stop buying the items so the point is really moot.
Sin is all about “why”. So the answer is that eating “bad” foods is a sin in some circumstances and not in others.
you are going to have to break apart SJS’s sentence and see what he/sh really said- not how you think it was written
It’s a Fact.
Unless the Restaurant is subsidized in some way to offset losses.
I added the “content” part as a personal note.
Another example - restaurants have already started offering half portion (Friday’s, IIRC) because the larger salads stopped selling. The half-sized salads aren’t 1/2 the cost, but they’re pulling customers from the full-sized salad.
What more proof do you need?
The economic theory holds true and I’ve provided two examples where people stopped buying huge items and the items were either removed or substituted with smaller and cheaper items.
Surely, you have a point?
“As long as the vice of gluttony has a hold on a man, all that he has done valiantly is forfeited by him: and as long as the belly is unrestrained, all virtue comes to naught.” But virtue is not done away save by mortal sin. Therefore gluttony is a mortal sin. (Summa Theologiae, II-IIae, Q. 148, a. 1 & 2).
“Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man: but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” (Jesus)
Yes, but usually VERY little. Cheaper places will sometimes use “krab” instead.
Ever hear of a “doggie bag”? It’s not like the restaurant makes you eat everything on your plate.
:)
Here’s my question: Why does it really matter?
I presume all restaurants do some sort of analysis to determine what to charge, etc. It’s based on market, economics and customer habits, all of which are variable. Maybe this can be done scientifically, may not. But what do we care? Restaurants have menus, and we buy what we want. The restaurant owner has no further accountability in that regard.
As to what is sinful and not sinful, with respect to dining out, is rarely up to the bystander. In any event, the voluntary activity that is sinful or not is the consumers, not the restaurants (unless they are negligent or reckless in how they prepare and serve the food, which is a topic for another discussion).
Now, let me get back to my double meat Jimmy John’s Vito sub.
Not saying why that is the case. Just saying that's what I've observed.
I did have one friend - skinny as a rail. When we went to the all-you-can-eat place, we'd be there for hours. I don't know where he put it all, and I have no idea why he was so skinny. His work wasn't particularly physical, and his favorite sport was watching TV. Guess he was just one of those lucky ones with a raging metabolism.
Yep, very little.
They are easy to make though and are simply delectable with smoked salmon.
“You close lid! You close lid now!”
At the one near me, they say “You been here fo owa. You go now!”
The issue is portion size. To prove the original point, proof would have to be provided that customers first stopped buying the items because the portion size was too large.
If you confuse the other factors, perceived value, taste, presentation, then you cannot prove the customers stopped buying simply because of portion size.
Now you’re getting closer. Well done.
However, you have more work to do. What proof do you have that Fridays began offering the smaller salads because the larger ones were not selling?
I could sooner believe that customers began ordering the smaller salads instead of the larger ones. IOW, the smaller salads were offered as an alternative (with the larger salads remaining on the menu) BEFORE the customers stopped ordering the larger ones.
But until I see the proof that lays out the events in chronological order, we can’t know the difference between cause and effect.
Also, there are the factors of perceived value, and substitute items ordered. You need to rule those factors out before you can determine if customers rejected the larger portion size FIRST simply because of the portion size. That was your original point, if you’ll recall.
But you’re on the right track now, I think.
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