The best Restaurant & Food Industry books: Reddit reviews

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I highly suggest you take a look into reading Jonathan Safran Foer's "Eating Animals." It directly addresses this cultural/emotional component you're bringing up.

I used to be obese. 320 lbs at my worse. It's been 6 years since my BMI crossed into the overweight range and now is on the edge of normal and overweight.

I think the biggest problem for me (and several others I've spoken to) is that the American diet is just really unhealthy. Nobody cares when an "average" weighted person goes to Burger King or Taco Bell for lunch everyday.

When you're fat though, everyone has an opinion. "Eat a salad bro..." Becomes something you hear all the time. OK, I get a salad, now what? Oh, the weight just doesn't fall off? Meanwhile the salad has cheese, fried chicken, ranch dressing, etc... All the low calorie stuff.

There's a societal problem with what we consider "healthy". I really recommend the book Salt, Sugar, Fat. It's really eye opening as to how foods are called healthy and really shouldn't be.

I also think skinny people who have never had a weight issue really need to take a step back, even if they have the best intentions. It's often more damaging than anything because they usually give terrible advice. They have no idea how hard it is and how addicted to types of food most obese people are. It's not a chemical addiction so it's harder to understand for a lot of people, but it's there.

Anyone who has an attitude of, "I can't wait to eat that again when I'm done with this diet" isn't going to lose any weight. Those people ALWAYS put the weight back on because they go back to their poor eating choices as soon as they've hit a goal.

You're not missing anything. Besides the gross hot dogs that are overpriced and not even as good as they used to be, this book cites a DNA test that found 0% crustacean DNA in their "lobster roll" (it's 100% white fish). So, I figure it's a safe bet that they're lying about what everything else is, too.

There’s also a whole lot of negative health effects from animal farms that don’t get talked about. I wanted to link that book, just in case you wanted to check it out. It’s not preachy, and follows three American families and their food. https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-What-We-Eat-Choices/dp/1594866872/ref=nodl_

You can try "the case against sugar" its a pretty good book if you want to understand more about sugar and the impact on the brain and body.

https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Sugar-Gary-Taubes/dp/0307701646

Personally I still have sugar, I found that having regular candy on hand at least prevents me for reaching for the chocolate.

The great news is your goals and dreams are super realistic. Even a home on the smallest amount of land can be turned into a farm.

There are lots of good books on the subject, but check this one out.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0865717656/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_P6xlFbG6FJHFF

Personally, I've turned my small lot into raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and grapes. All super low maintenance and all super rewarding with how much they produce.

Cheetos are supposed to be a really well designed junk food.

 

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us - Michael Moss

“This … is one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure,” he said, ticking off a dozen attributes of the Cheetos that make the brain say more. A key one is the puff’s uncanny ability to melt in the mouth like chocolate. “It’s called vanishing caloric density,” Witherly said. “If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it, and like popcorn, you can just keep eating it forever.”

And your counter argument was that eviscerstion doesn't happen. I could stand on how probability works, that no system is perfect, mistakes happen, things get missed, and that the faster things move, the more mistakes will happen. If that's not good enough, there's also Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser or The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (if you want your information way out of date). Short version is that the business needs of mass meat production have turned our slaughter process into a horror show.

I don't doubt that at least the people on the line try not to make the animal suffer, but this is what businesses do: throw everything under the bus in order to keep the business running. Get the work done or they find someone who will.

Hey there! So the broad fork is a tool used by a lot of organic and no-till/low-till to avoid conventional tilling and more destructive practices. After a few seasons of broad forking and proper compost amendments a lot of growers find the soil structure has improved so much they can retire the broad fork. The broad forks loosens the soil to about 8-9inches, but it doesn’t churn or turn it. Doesn’t destroy soil organisms and doesn’t expose underground carbon to the air, thus stopping the soils ability to sequester carbon.

I highly recommend doing some reading into the broad fork, or grelinette as it’s originally known as. Definitely check out The Market Gardner by Jean-Martin Fortier, a well known organic no-till farmer from Quebec. And The Living Soil Handbook by Jesse Frost, a well-known no-till farmer from Kentucky, he is also the host of the No-Till Market Garden podcast and YouTube channel.

Both sources talk about no-till/low-till and how the broad fork/grelinette fits in to those systems.

My personal background is in organic/sustainable production horticulture and ag.

https://www.amazon.ca/Market-Gardener-Successful-Handbook-Small-Scale/dp/0865717656/ref=asc_df_0865717656/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292984809546&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5254386317196992908&hvpone=&hvptwo=...

https://www.notillgrowers.com/livingsoilhandbook/d9z5gkf1bbnhu0w5xxb3trngiqhwgo

100%

It’s not possible to be fat without consuming large amounts of carbohydrates. It’s principally an issue of appetite regulation.

Obesity was basically non-existent in the 1800s and only started to increase in incidence when populations started to consume more sugar and simple, refined carbohydrates.

The Case Against Sugar is a very good read.

I boken Salt, Sugar, Fat viser forfatteren hvordan matindustrien hooker oss på usunn mat. En strategi er å ha sterke merkevarer med et flaggskip-produkt, og så i regelmessig avstand lansere "crazy varianter" som stort sett bare kjører i begrenset tid. Poenget er ikke å lage noe godt, men å friske opp interessen for produktet og sørge for at forbrukeren fortsetter å være hooket på salt, sukker og fett.

Tenker alltid på det avsnittet når jeg ser disse "nyhetene" :)

I mean, a good setup is key. I actually really like the way Jim Meehan thinks through it because there's a ton to consider when you're building out a space. You might not need to do a prebuilt station like this but you should definitely invest in an architect/designer who will maximize the value of your space. That said, while I haven't worked with that particular setup it does look similar to setups I've seen at many of the craft places I've worked at. Lots of good design ideas, some of which are maybe a bit excessive. Also worth checking reviews for this because I'm willing to bet some of the shit here breaks fairly easily and that could be a huge pain in the ass.

There is a great book called “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us”

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/0812982193

Video of author speaking on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c13hXuBbj9o

Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss does a great job in detailing this. Food company's entire existence is dependent on our willingness to eat whatever they push toward us.

Have you read “Eating animals”? It’s relatable, sad, and funny. Jonathan Safran Foer got a lot of praise for his balanced approach to the issue.

Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser. This is an eye-opening book and should be required reading for your project.

Wikipedia Overview

Amazon Link

You might also watch the movie based on the book, though I cannot recommend it over the book.

The fact that we’ve been doing something wrong for a long time doesn’t mean that we should continue doing it. I don't understand why others continue to do it, how they can not care or not think about how they're eating dead animals. That being said, people are starting to wake up, and there's more non-meat options being offered. Also great strides in production of synthetically grown meat. There is a great book on this subject, https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884

Check out the Meehan Bartender’s Manual. It has a detailed discussion of layouts and considerations for bar design. If I were building a bar that’s where I would start.

https://www.amazon.com/Meehans-Bartender-Manual-Jim-Meehan/dp/1607748622

While I agree that modern food and the ease of obtaining it has led us to sedentary life that is highly unhealthy for us as species I don't agree with your assessment of the lack of disease in ancient civilizations & modern day tribes.

The food industry is just plain evil in the way they go about creating useless foods that damage our health for no other reason than profits.

Here is a link to a fantastic book that I read about the corruption & complicity in the large food corporations that proves there is a cartels within the many companies.

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812982193/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_AFSMAHHFDZQ717M31QBC?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

I would highly recommend at least checking some of the ideas by this guy and his great book:

Jean Martin Fortier - The Market Gardener

“Grow better not bigger with proven low-tech, human-scale, biointensive farming methods

Making a living wage farming without big capital outlay or acreages may be closer than you think. Growing on just 1.5 acres, Jean-Martin and Maude-Helene feed more than 200 families through their thriving CSA and seasonal market stands. The secret of their success is the low-tech, high-yield production methods they've developed by focusing on growing better rather than growing bigger, making their operation more lucrative and viable in the process...”

That's good, exercise is the #2 best thing you can do for yourself so all props to you for that, but the #1 is diet. I recommend you reading Fat Chance from Dr Robert Lustig

Yes, there's a good book on this. The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming https://www.amazon.com/dp/0865717656/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glc_fabc_X864GB7VGS8M5F1R2J9Y?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

From what I've seen, cut flower gardening is more profitable than vegetables, mainly because it's more difficult. I'd start with what you know, and expand from there.

Best of luck, this is a true sign of personal strength. Something that helped me further get away from sugar was reading about how it is processed inside our body, and no one lays it down better than Dr. Robert Lustig, I recommend beginning with Fat Chance

If you haven’t referenced it please take a look at “Meehans Bar Manual” by Jim Meehan. Mr. Meehan is an award winning bar tender, bar owner and writer. He references some of the best bars in the world and how they are layer out.

Meehan's Bartender Manual https://www.amazon.com/dp/1607748622/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_J4CB8J2GHJZXDSW31G25

Great luck on your endeavor and welcome to the club.

The. Nina Study and How Not to Die have already been mentioned which are really good contenders. So just to add something different to the mix I’d suggest Eating Animals.

I will for sure! Will likely post to /r/homesteading, but that's not for a while to come yet, haha.

A book that is well worth reading for small scale farming is The Market Gardener. Although much of this book is geared towards food production for sale, there is a wealth of information in there about how to manage weeds, improve soil, and maximize production without any use of synthetic additives (fertilizers, herbicides, etc).

To reduce your weed pressure, you might consider placing a large, black tarp over your growing area for a period of time. If you cover for 2 weeks, that should be enough time for many weed seeds to germinate, but then fail to grow because of lack of sun.

Just something to consider to work smart instead of hard!

Yep, but it's more than that. The source of metabolic disease is self-reinforcing. More than just being an addicting drug, sugar acts to numb the satiating hormone and rewire the brain's response to the vagus nerve.

https://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beating-Against-Processed/dp/0142180432/ref=pd_lpo_14_img_0/147-6666141-5097904?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0142180432&pd_rd_r=34d72212-ba3d-4305-bd8f-5d0e2a54df43&pd_rd_w=LisRc&pd_rd_wg=sqxpK&pf_rd...

Highly recommend this book.

U/nightwing2000 mentioned this book https://www.amazon.ca/Case-Against-Sugar-Gary-Taubes/dp/0307701646 in this post earlier, I think it's the book you mean. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ihoh14/what_do_you_think_the_wait_smoking_is_bad_for_you/

https://www.amazon.ca/Case-Against-Sugar-Gary-Taubes/dp/0307701646

Interesting book. Problems started when we started extracting sugar in industrial quantities. Societies with obesity problems generally seem to be high sugar-consuming societies. Not to mention Type II diabetes which is unheard of before sugar.

The suggestion is that sugar triggers insulin which triggers storing the calories as fat. large bursts of sugar is bad, moderate bursts as we process starch are much less bad.

Also goes through the case how the sugar industry (like tobacco) recognized the health problem; but they deflect by sponsoring studies that have over the last few decades blamed fat, not sugar. So we eat fat-free foods, specifically formulated to still taste good - by adding sugar.

As far as operations behind the stick go, I know of nothing better than Jim Meehan's Meehan's Bartender Manual. As for managing and running a bar, the best book I've ever read is Ramona Shah's Straight Up: Real World Secrets to Running a Killer Bar.

~Good luck!