What is the case for chain restaurants? And I’m referring to national or multi state chains, not regional. Why are we eating at chain restaurants? I don’t see the upside. In fact, there is tremendous downside. Let’s start with the fact that These are unhealthy places. The food is unhealthy. Why? Because chain restaurants need to standardize.
So you’re getting standardized food, which means it’s basically food product. And that is in part because the restaurant in California has to taste the same as the restaurant in Maine. And so we have highly processed ingredients. We have frozen food and we have a loss of nutritional value when anything is reheated.
So the nutrition is horrible. And then one other consideration is that high fat, sugar and salt are commonly used because these are cost effective ingredients. And they also, if there’s, if you’re looking at the sinister angle, they could be incorporated into your food because these ingredients trigger.
Your, your brain’s pleasure centers, so it really creates a potential addiction to this food. Now, beyond nutrition, it’s not going to be, the taste isn’t going to be there. It’s not going to be fresh food. And again, we’re back to standardization. So you’re not going to get the local food. You’re not going to get the fresh homemade from scratch food.
You are going to get the food product, the standardized food. Remember, this food, the ingredients are being purchased in bulk. So you are not getting the farmer’s choice. You are getting the manufacturer’s output. Also, if you want to consider the dining experience, it’s unlikely you would establish rapport with your local national chain restaurant, but you may have an actual relationship with a local eatery.
Also, as far as your dining experience, There may be, you may feel rushed at a chain restaurant because again, they are in the process of making money. Like they are maximizing profit at every turn. And so they want to turn tables as fast as possible. So you might feel rushed or you might feel less relaxed during your dining experience.
And then one more consideration is that this is potentially bad for the economy, bad for local businesses. Because. Corporations are, are already eating away at small businesses. And so it’s better to support your, to support small business anyway. And furthermore, corporations. commonly have bad labor practices, including low wage, low wages, no benefits and bad hours.
So it’s really bad for the local economy in the sense that people are working at these chain restaurants. And for the most part, or let’s just say that it’s commonly known that some of these corporations treat their employees poorly. But with small businesses at least the money is going back in to the surrounding community.
So those are the considerations I have and I really don’t see the point to going to a chain restaurant given all of those considerations. So