For our fifth fieldwork, Stella, Alice and I went to a restaurant called Maysville. Maysville is a 4.5 star restaurant, and we wanted to see and hear about the healthiness of food from a different perspective other than just from our eyes. Many people just assume that fast food restaurants are unhealthy while fancy restaurants are healthy. We wanted to know more about what goes into the food.
We met with with the manager and head cook of Maysville and interviewed them on their cooking and their restaurant. They seemed really interested in our topic, and had a lot to say on the unhealthiness of food.
Maysville buys their fruits and vegetables from organic farms and the Union Square Farmers Market right around the corner. Cooks go their themselves to buy their food. They go with a cart and buy food from the stands themselves. This gives them an opportunity to get to know the people working there and where the food actually comes from.
They buy their animals whole; whole cows, whole pigs, and use every piece of the animal. Instead of just buying hamburger patties or separate pieces of meat, they buy the whole animal and get it shipped to their restaurant whole. Then, they sue every piece of the animal as they can, not just using some and throwing away the rest. They cut off and serve every piece of meat, every edible piece, so they don’t have to waste certain pieces of meat or animal.
I learned that the healthiness and unhealthiness of food isn’t just about what restaurant it comes from. Yes, processed food is much worse for you than organic food, but that’s not just what makes the food unhealthy. For example, a McDonald’s hamburger will be more unhealthy than a hamburger from Maysville, but in a different way. The hamburger from McDonald’s is packed with preservatives. Depending on what you put on the Maysville hamburger, the calorie and fat intake will be much different. If you put bacon on the hamburger, the fat intake will go up. If you have a plain burger, you intake less fat. It all depends on what is in and on the hamburger.
I learned a lot at Maysville, and it was very interesting to see what other restaurants and other people have to say on the healthiness of food.
