Classic Rant #176 (January 20, 2010): Stop Complaining, Just Eat!

I am sick and tired of people complaining about what they are eating when they go out to restaurants, including fast food sites.

Yesterday, at work, there was a "white noise" discussion in our office about the amount of salt in one offering from a local Tex-Mex place. People were shaking their heads, and asked, "How can they sell something with that much salt?"

Well, the reason they can sell that product, and many others, is simple--

Because people are buying it!

If no one bought these things, then I think these restaurants would take them off the menu.

On top of the fact, I don't think that if you go out to eat at certain places that you should expect everything to necessarily be healthy for you.

We, as a country, are on this health kick, which overall, is probably a good thing. We eat too much, and we eat too much stuff that we really should not be eating.

However, nobody is forcing us to eat it. And certainly, if I go to my local fast-food restaurant chain, I am not going there for a healthy meal. I am going there because I am hungry.

These chains offer healthier options, not necessarily healthy choices, but healthier than the normal fare. I am sure people eat these things, and I think it is probably good business to have them on the menu.

But to think that you are eating healthy when you eat at these places is a pipe dream.

And the people at my work, the same ones complaining about the salt content of the Tex-Mex item, are the same ones that are eating donuts and bagels and candy and other junk during the work day.

This nonsense harkens back to those idiotic lawsuits in the 1990s where "concerned parents" were suing fast-food chains because their children ate too many hamburgers and got fat. Sure, it was the chains' fault that their kids became Chubbsy Ubbsies, wasn't it?

Now, in many restaurants, at least here in New York but I am sure elsewhere, the content of many of the things they offer are posted for everyone to see. So, if you find there is too much salt in something, and it bothers you, just don't eat it.

But I guarantee that other people will, and that is why it is on the menu.

Better yet, save your money, and eat at home. I am sure that if you are so concerned about what you are getting in restaurants, you are even more concerned about what you are putting on your own table.

Maybe you can post the content of what you are eating at home on your refrigerator.