> When you eat at a restaurant, are you making an informed choice?
Given that they don't give me a tour of the kitchen, and that I can't actually verify that they haven't been using meat knives to cut my salad, no.
I take it on faith that the food inspectors will ruin their business[1] if they are regularly pulling those kinds of stunts. I take it on faith that the staff have regulations to lean on when they push back on systemic unsanitary practices.
And no, Joe Somebody complaining on reddit that Earl's gave him food poisoning last week and that we should stay away from Earl's doesn't actually inform me that I should avoid Earl's. I don't know Joe, I have no reason to believe him. For all I know, he's just a disgruntled shill who is just making stuff up. Or maybe Earl's bought a batch of contaminated products from further upstream. Or maybe he caught a stomach bug from somewhere else, and is blaming them. Or maybe he's right, but Earl's actually has a lower incidence of food poisoning than the chicken joint across the street, and they just got unlucky.
I have a lot more confidence in an inspection, than in some noise someone's making on the internet, or in some celebrity endorsement on the TV.
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But there is some aspect of eating at a restaurant where I do make an informed choice.
Does the food look good? Does it taste good? Is it cheap?
These are the easy to observe bits of information about it. I can actually meaningfully express my preference there, and make an informed decision.
And guess what? There aren't any inspectors for any of that. My town doesn't employ a taste comissar, or an art critic for their FoodSafe team. Because I can tell at a glance which I prefer.
I can't tell at a glance which restaurant is less likely to have the kitchen staff poison me.
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[1] In practice, they'd much rather work with the business to bring it into compliance. You know, positive-sum sort of interactions that leave everyone who is acting in good faith better off.
Given that they don't give me a tour of the kitchen, and that I can't actually verify that they haven't been using meat knives to cut my salad, no.
I take it on faith that the food inspectors will ruin their business[1] if they are regularly pulling those kinds of stunts. I take it on faith that the staff have regulations to lean on when they push back on systemic unsanitary practices.
And no, Joe Somebody complaining on reddit that Earl's gave him food poisoning last week and that we should stay away from Earl's doesn't actually inform me that I should avoid Earl's. I don't know Joe, I have no reason to believe him. For all I know, he's just a disgruntled shill who is just making stuff up. Or maybe Earl's bought a batch of contaminated products from further upstream. Or maybe he caught a stomach bug from somewhere else, and is blaming them. Or maybe he's right, but Earl's actually has a lower incidence of food poisoning than the chicken joint across the street, and they just got unlucky.
I have a lot more confidence in an inspection, than in some noise someone's making on the internet, or in some celebrity endorsement on the TV.
---
But there is some aspect of eating at a restaurant where I do make an informed choice.
Does the food look good? Does it taste good? Is it cheap?
These are the easy to observe bits of information about it. I can actually meaningfully express my preference there, and make an informed decision.
And guess what? There aren't any inspectors for any of that. My town doesn't employ a taste comissar, or an art critic for their FoodSafe team. Because I can tell at a glance which I prefer.
I can't tell at a glance which restaurant is less likely to have the kitchen staff poison me.
---
[1] In practice, they'd much rather work with the business to bring it into compliance. You know, positive-sum sort of interactions that leave everyone who is acting in good faith better off.