I wonder if things like tipping culture will encourage people to eat at home and be more mindful about their consumption. I hate being extorted for 25% tips and then told if I can’t afford the 25% then I shouldn’t be eating out.
Kind of how the hatred of dealing with printer companies and their extortionist ink prices accelerated the shift to paperless.
So maybe we’ll get to a better state, perhaps not through the means we expected.
I bet current US government's economic policies will be even more effective at reducing food waste. Food waste will be radically reduced when the prices skyrocket, and the masses can barely afford their groceries, let alone eating out. Tariffs combined with deportations of agricultural labor will likely lead to that outcome.
I used to wait tables. With that said, I also don't like that wait staff costs are hidden from the menu price of a meal. It also seems very rich person cosplay to decide how much I should pay my servant wench after a meal. Even more irritating is the request to tip now for almost any food purchase and to-go order at the register. One doesn't even know where that tip goes. The food prep person? Cook? Expo? Split? To the restaurant? Who knows?
I'm not sure that eating out solves the food waste problem. I'll agree that in theory centralizing food preparation could lead to increased efficiency, but in practice eating out is most often either a luxury or convince experience and emphasizes those two things much more than cost or efficiency. Maybe one day automation can reduce labor costs allowing restaurants to sell cheaper food, but no one has seemed to figure out that problem yet.
In addition to price (which is a function of efficiency), I wouldn't shift any more of my eating behavior to out of the house until the following problems are solved.
* Portion sizes. I usually eat 600-800 calories in a sitting at home. This portion size is considered a light meal in restaurants, and generally has less appealing options and ordering it sends weird social signals.
* Healthier food. Most restaurants use more oils and salt than my preference. The vegetables and fruit are usually less fresh than even Walmart/Kroger offers.
* Time investment. I can cook and clean maybe 25 different dishes in less than 20 minutes of focused work at home. Much more if you count semi-prepared foods that come frozen or in boxes. The only thing that competes with time investment is hot food delivery, which comes at about a 8x price premium compared to cooking.
Another problem is you have no transparency with what ingredients restaurants are really using. Even if you know today, with certainty, you can't be sure tomorrow. Usually small chains will start out very high on the quality scale for suppliers and ingredients, and then swap them out as they scale/suddenly need to not lose money.
Food is tricky because once you have food processed or prepared, and you don't have the raw ingredients, you really have no fucking clue what you are ingesting. Most people act, and assume that they do.
I don't remember where, I think the reason 25% sticks in my mind is because I usually do 20% and tend not to think about it. I did stop going to restaurants because of it but I would still go to fast food / take outs and then they started requesting tips before they even made the food. The increased in cost on top of the tip felt like small scale extortion - what are you going to do to the food if I don't pay. So now I just cook at home and save a bunch of money and I wonder how many others are doing the same.
It was in 1995. We briefly flirted with 18%, but it's 20% now. At least for restaurants, taxis, and barbers. I've been prompted for tips at self checkout kiosks and tip a generous 0%.
Kind of how the hatred of dealing with printer companies and their extortionist ink prices accelerated the shift to paperless.
So maybe we’ll get to a better state, perhaps not through the means we expected.