Posted on 03/22/2014 8:39:25 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
It will make good tasting food for the vast majority almost out of reach. Your suggestions (above) may be do-able in the large, noisy chain restaurants that move 'em in and shove 'em out the instant customers have wolfed down their flash-frozen, microwaved burgers, steaks or battered fish. But overregulation like this, combined with the inevitable calorie-disclosure regulations soon to come, will absolutely suppress or destroy the ability to make a profit of sandwich shops, mom'n'pop diners, bakeries-with-tables and artisan chef's first restaurants.
In fact, the Food Network ought to sue the state of Maryland for even thinking of such a thing.
http://www.berkshireahec.org/page.php?PageID=2636&PageName=MA+Food+Allergen+Certification+Training
Here is the onerous training, it’s online, costs ten bucks, takes 30 minutes, and only one person needs the training. This is less training than bartenders need to have.
THIS is why all the restaurants in MA closed! (this was put into place because of the Bertucci wrongful death suit. If you put a line in your menu requiring people to say what allergies they have, and have one trained person, then it’s harder to sue).
Now if we could get rid of all the state-mandated sanitation laws, restaurant freedom and profit would increase by leaps and bounds!
People whose allergies must be that fastidiously mitigated against constitute probably less than one percent of the population. I'm speaking as the parent who raised a child with food allergies. Yet muslims constitute more than one percent of the population in the U.S. Shall we then require all restaurants to install foot baths and prayer rooms, and whipping posts for women who do not wear the hijab or who show their ankles?
Tyranny of the minority is no better than tyranny of the majority. When we went to restaurants with our chlld, whose food allergies were severe enough to warrant "the shots" every few days, we asked a few questions, took his inhaler, and taught him to push any dangerous morsels aside.
“It will make good tasting food for the vast majority almost out of reach.”
How expensive and intensive is the Md required training? I could not find that out, maybe you did?
Hell, no. What is this -- a trick question?
You know, that is a good idea. Someone could conceivably make a business out of this kind of thing, including a frozen line for mass marketing. Unfortunately, in today's litigious society, a trash lawsuit would soon follow and put them out of business for not accomodating the one super-rare allergy that escaped their formula.
In addition to the $10 dollar training course, putting THIS poster up in the kitchen will drive any good restaurant right down the tubes!
“People whose allergies must be that fastidiously mitigated against constitute probably less than one percent of the population.”
It’s about 8%.
There are many foods I have an aversion (allergy) to but I never make a big deal about it at a restaurant. For example, I hate sour cream so when I get it as part of a dish, I just push it to the side and eat around it (other people I am dining with are welcome to scoop it up). Ditto for cole slaw, horseradish, sauerkraut and other smelly condiments that make me gag. No big deal, I just push all the undesirable stuff over to the side. I don't need to make big pronouncements to the waitstaff and demand that they prepare my dish special.
Uh, servers get paid LESS than the minimum wage, and depend on tips to make up the difference. The average employee car mechanic makes $15 to $25 an hour, with master mechanics and repair-shop owners making more, sometimes much more.
Thus ruining the lives of artisan chefs and preventing any gastronomic enjoyment by the vast majority. There'll be underground gourmet events, like Prohibition, only with food instead of liquor. Various government initiatives are already trying to shut down home gardening, or allowing farm family chilldren to work farm chores. Soon, dinner parties in one's own home will be required to provide "the pamphlet" -- full disclosure to your personal family members and guests before each meal. It is discrimination against Italian mothers! Where does it end?
If it cannot end in the voting booth (and in the permanently-Democrat state of Maryland, it cannot), then it must end in the logical extreme our constitution was written for.
There's a reason why God told Moses that covetousness is a sin. Those of us with allergies in our families must not let our envy of the allergy-free justify stealing their enjoyment of their food.
That's very interesting. I had that feeling while being "twilight" anesthetized for a surgical procedure.
Muslims can tell that their rogan josh does not contain a footwashing station. They can’t see if it has cashews, though.
What does income inequality have to do with food allergies? lol
It's not the cost of the training, it's the ruination of the business model, by shifting medical liability from the person with the allergy to exercise reasonable caution when eating out onto the restaurant provider; and the inevitable rise in lawsuits and insurance against lawsuits.
This is one reason your medical costs have kept rising, resulting in the current fascist "healthcare law." Without tort reform, lawyers kept suing and suing doctors and hospitals for unpredictable outcomes, defending consumers who drank, smoked and sat in front of the television and then sued over a bad medical outcome alongside persons with legitimate complaints -- but to whom juries awarded lifetime payouts far in excess of common sense.
As a result, malpractice insurance has become so expensive that doctors and hospitals and insurers kept raising their rates. Worse, the cost of malpractice insurance guarantees that docs who are near retirement age or who are mothers wishing to take a reduced schedule for a year or two cannot afford to do so, draining our nation of valuabe resources whose expensive educations and experience must go to waste because the business model has been destroyed by greedy lawsuits. Yet you don't see a word in the 2700-page, lawyer-friendly Unaffordable Care Act about tort reform.
When government do-gooding attempts to pass laws to prevent dried leaves without understanding that the roots need water, many mighty oaks are destroyed.
Tagline typography correction. Apologies. Lately, FR’s system has been having trouble with the keyboard option commands when some types of coding are copied and pasted. Hmm.
Debatable; nevertheless constituting a small minority seeking impose costs and burdens on the 100%.
That said, I don't believe the fact that there are such sufferers should be able to use the power of the state to dictate how a restaurant open to the GENERAL PUBLIC cooks a meal; only that a restaurant should not purposefully misrepresent the presence of allergens with intent to cause a medical crisis. It is the stuff of murder mysteries like CSI to suspect that a murderer may have fed his victim peanuts unaware; but it can happen.
Oh, I did not realize that you are probaby working for the Maryland legislature or the Trial Lawyer's Association. My mistake. Over and out.
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