Video Vault: How Fresh Is Your Favorite Restaurant Or Grocery Store’s Food?

Once I saw this on The Today Show, I knew I’d have to share it here:

Now, I don’t remember everything from my time working in a restaurant, but the [not-so-funny] thing about this is cooking your meats only kills the bacteria that speeds up the rotting process, no? It doesn’t necessarily kill the bacteria that could grow within the product and make you ill.

This is another reason why trying to eat locally (and support restaurants that purchase their ingredients locally) – minimal transfer and transporting time. There’s nothing more traumatizing than hearing “they do it on purpose – running the refrigerator costs more fuel.”

The fact that the second day of investigations yielded NO law-breakers lets us know that they are capable of abiding by the rules… they’re just not.

So what can you do?

• You can start with trying to support your local farms via CSAs (community supported agriculture) and farmers’ markets.
• You can follow up with visiting well-kept grocery stores that support local agriculture – that way, even if they are, for some strange and foolish reason, still only importing food without refrigerating it, it won’t have had to travel two thousand miles to get there.
• Support mostly restaurants that make it a point to talk about how they get their produce from local sources.
• And, lastly, cut down on the amount of out-of-season fruits and veggies you consume. Please don’t think your avocados in December are being home-grown in Snowville, USA. It’s just not financially wise nor is it sensible.

Thoughts?