Tag Archive for restaurant

Nothing Fishy About this Free App

When in a restaurant or at the store, choose fish that is delicious yet friendly to our environment. Download Seafood Watch, the free app designed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium that helps you at restaurants and markets so you can choose sustainable seafood and sushi.  Download at https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/seafood-watch/id301269738?mt=8.

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[For more easy, money-saving, Earth-friendly tips, download a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/view/7000 or your favorite e-book seller and download to your computer or e-book device. Totally free, with no strings attached.]

A Tip About Tips

Ever been a restaurant server? If you or a loved one has, you know how hard the work is and that this is one of the worst-paid professions–often below minimum wage. You wouldn’t be able to make ends meet if you didn’t have tips.

Take  away those tips and give them to the owners. That’s what wealthy restaurant owners, represented by the National Restaurant Association, has been trying to do for many years.  And this year–in time for Christmas!–they have a good chance of success.

Why should we care if we aren’t part of that working group? Because the majority of restaurant workers are women and people of color who put up with frequent sexual harassment.  Because of where the practice of tipping started–after emancipation, it was a way to avoid paying Black workers.

Only since 2012 has it been law that tips belong to the workers themselves.  Now, though, the Dept. of Labor is pushing to give tips to the owners to keep or “pool” (meaning they dole out however much to whichever workers they choose).

Tell the Dept. of Labor that you think this is unfair and would hurt people who are struggling to make a living already.  There’s a petition at https://act.credoaction.com/sign/tiptheft?t=7&akid=26387%2E7078302%2EA0Dubn

Can I Please Have a Side of Poison with my Pasta?

Do you have any idea how much antibiotics you’re eating with  your burger, taco, pizza, pasta, buffalo wings–in any restaurant food, really? How much can you depend on your favorite restaurants to have food and policies to protect our health–Applebee’s, Olive Garden, Chipotle, Panera, Dominos, Dairy Queen, IHOP, Dunkin’ Donuts…and all the rest.

Read the informative article, Restaurant Report Card: How Healthy is Your Fast Food Meat?  You’ll be pleased by some of your favorite eating spots–and horrified by others.

Trouble with the ADA

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a bunch of hooey.  Disabled people are being too pampered.  They should learn to adjust.

This attitude does exist.  Many people believe that the ADA makes everything accessible by law.  However, restaurants are a good example of how the ADA is either being ignored, is minimally (therefore uselessly) adhered to, or simply doesn’t cover problems people with disabilities have in trying to live regular lives.

Consider reaching up to get food from a high counter, the attitudes of restaurant employees, space at tables to “park” a wheelchair or scooter, tight space to negotiate between tables, being ignored and disrespected. And don’t get me started on the supposed “accessible” bathrooms!

Eater has issued a report called “Restaurants Haven’t Lived Up to the Promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act.”  You might find it interesting, especially if you or a family member or friend has a disability.

 

How Green is Your Seafood?

For today’s Sensible Saturday, I invite you to take a little quiz.  It’s only 10 questions, and the answers are at the bottom.  It’s on a webpage that I maintain, so, as with everything I do over cyber-space, you don’t need to sign up for anything and your mail address won’t be tracked.

Take the short quiz, How Green is My Seafood?, at http://holyfamilysanjose.org/documents/2014/9/How_Green_is_My_Seafood.pdf.

 

Not Just the Water in the Glass

I live in California, where we have a drought. Yet I get water automatically delivered to my table at restaurants.  Which brings me to this week’s Sensible Saturday hint.

Even if you aren’t living in drought conditions, you know that water–especially clean drinking water–is too precious to waste.  If water just shows up at your table, suggest to the restaurant manager that patrons be asked first if they want it so that water is not wasted. Remind him that it isn’t just the un-drunk water in the glass, but the water it takes to clean and sanitize that glass.  You can also make this suggestion on those comment cards or spaces for comments on your bill.

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[For more easy, money-saving, Eco-friendly tips, download a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/ view/7000, choose a format, and download to your computer or e-book device. Or download a free copy from your favorite e-tailer.]

Bag It!

This time of year we tend to eat out more–a quick bite in the midst of shopping or leisurely dinner after a tiring day.  Carry a couple of baggies in your purse for use as doggie/people bags so you avoid using a restaurant’s single-use plastic or Styrofoam containers.  The bags can be washed out, turned inside out until thoroughly dried, and returned to your purse or car glove box (remember to grab them on the way in to eat).

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[For more easy, money-saving, Eco-friendly tips, download a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/ view/7000, choose a format, and download to your computer or e-book device. Or download a free copy from your favorite e-tailer.]

Restaurant-Goers Lament: Leftovers

Cities are starting to ban Earth-harming Styrofoam from restaurants (San Jose starting 1/1/14). That shouldn’t cause us leftover-lovers any grief, though.  In fact, we can get in the habit now of bringing small reusable containers with us to our meals out. We can carry them (empty or full) in a decorative, washable draw-string cloth bag. Sharing with the dog later is optional.

 

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[For more easy, money-saving, Eco-friendly tips, download a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/ view/7000, choose a format, and download to your computer or e-book device. Or download a free copy from your favorite e-tailer.]