The China Buffet Syndrome
I start every morning reading the newspaper over breakfast. Of course before I do that, I have to wake up, get dressed, prepare the twins’ bottles, let Abbie out of her room, feed the twins, change the twins, change Abbie, feed Abbie, and prepare my breakfast. But then I enjoy a leisurely read over a bowl of cereal while the twins sit quietly in their chairs and Abbie plays nicely elsewhere. Sometimes I even make it all the way to the B-section before someone screams for my attention.
Reading the newspaper gives me a chance to catch up with the news at my pace. I get world news (Guns N’ Roses will open for the Rolling Stones on two German concerts) national news (Nicole Richie says she’s “too thin”) and local news. It was the local news that caught my eye this morning, specifically this item.
For those who don’t want to read the original story, here’s my summary: A mother, her two children ages 7 and 5, and her boyfriend are regulars at a local $5.95 all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. On their most recent visit, an employee told them they were no longer welcome at the buffet because they waste too much food. The woman says kids will be kids and it’s hard to make them clean their plates. The restaurant manager says they leave too much on their plates; that they’ll dump an almost full plate of one dish, and go back to the buffet to grab another plate of that same dish before dumping it too.*
My first thought was “$5.95 is a pretty good price for a Chinese buffet, I’ll have to go there sometime. My second thought was “Where do my sympathies lie? With the wasteful family or the cheapskate restaurant?”
On one hand, I’ve been known to visit the occasional Chinese buffet, and I have three food wasters in training. I’d be mortified if a buffet told us to never return because one of my kids left a plate full of Moo Goo Gai Pan after taking one bite and declaring it to be icky. The story never says the restaurant had previously warned the group about their wastefulness too, which would seem to me a logical first step to me before leaping to lifetime banishment.
On the other probably correct hand, boy that’s rude on the family’s part. This family must be in the 99.99th percentile of food wasters to be the first people I’ve ever heard of banned from a buffet for said offense.
It’s rude to the other patrons. A cashier says, “They take four egg rolls and Crab Rangoon, take one bite of egg roll and throw the whole plate.” If I want an egg roll but you’re ahead of me in line and grab the last four, that’s my tough luck. But if you take one bite out of one egg roll and throw away the other three untouched, that’s inconsiderate towards me and the up to three other people who wanted a tasted of fried, rolled cabbage and pork goodness.
It’s rude to the restaurant. $5.95 is a pretty good price for a buffet, and repeatedly wasting the same food cuts into their profits. Eventually the restaurant will have to raise their prices because you can’t teach your kids not to fill a plate with a new food, which brings us back to the inconsiderate to the other patrons part.
It’s offensive to my sensibilities about wasting food. I’m embarrassed to leave any amount of food on anyone’s plate because we took more than we could eat. I’d be horrified if one of my children took a bite of garlic chicken, decided they didn’t like it, and grabbed another plate of garlic chicken to see if they liked that batch any better. While I don’t buy for a second that the story’s implication that the restaurant is concerned about this family wasting food while “hungry women and children don’t have enough to eat,” it’s still a valid point.
It’s rude to the family’s 7-year-old. I mean, he’s 7; the fact that his family was kicked out of a buffet has to be all over his school. That has to put him ahead of the funny-smelling kid as the school’s Most Likely to be Ostracized.
Maybe most importantly, sympathizing with the family would put me in agreement with the anonymous internet commenter who was printed in the newspaper as saying “this is America the last time I checked. Good for her.” Like the Declaration of Independence guarantees life, liberty, and taking all you want without eating all you take.
I could probably go on, but someone started screaming before I could think of more. Abbie was eating chinchilla food, and I was screaming “Why do you do that?”
* This was a front-page story by the way. Some state capitals have stories about murder or corruption filling the front page of their newspapers, Des Moines has stories about people being kicked out of a buffet.
Reading the newspaper gives me a chance to catch up with the news at my pace. I get world news (Guns N’ Roses will open for the Rolling Stones on two German concerts) national news (Nicole Richie says she’s “too thin”) and local news. It was the local news that caught my eye this morning, specifically this item.
For those who don’t want to read the original story, here’s my summary: A mother, her two children ages 7 and 5, and her boyfriend are regulars at a local $5.95 all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. On their most recent visit, an employee told them they were no longer welcome at the buffet because they waste too much food. The woman says kids will be kids and it’s hard to make them clean their plates. The restaurant manager says they leave too much on their plates; that they’ll dump an almost full plate of one dish, and go back to the buffet to grab another plate of that same dish before dumping it too.*
My first thought was “$5.95 is a pretty good price for a Chinese buffet, I’ll have to go there sometime. My second thought was “Where do my sympathies lie? With the wasteful family or the cheapskate restaurant?”
On one hand, I’ve been known to visit the occasional Chinese buffet, and I have three food wasters in training. I’d be mortified if a buffet told us to never return because one of my kids left a plate full of Moo Goo Gai Pan after taking one bite and declaring it to be icky. The story never says the restaurant had previously warned the group about their wastefulness too, which would seem to me a logical first step to me before leaping to lifetime banishment.
On the other probably correct hand, boy that’s rude on the family’s part. This family must be in the 99.99th percentile of food wasters to be the first people I’ve ever heard of banned from a buffet for said offense.
It’s rude to the other patrons. A cashier says, “They take four egg rolls and Crab Rangoon, take one bite of egg roll and throw the whole plate.” If I want an egg roll but you’re ahead of me in line and grab the last four, that’s my tough luck. But if you take one bite out of one egg roll and throw away the other three untouched, that’s inconsiderate towards me and the up to three other people who wanted a tasted of fried, rolled cabbage and pork goodness.
It’s rude to the restaurant. $5.95 is a pretty good price for a buffet, and repeatedly wasting the same food cuts into their profits. Eventually the restaurant will have to raise their prices because you can’t teach your kids not to fill a plate with a new food, which brings us back to the inconsiderate to the other patrons part.
It’s offensive to my sensibilities about wasting food. I’m embarrassed to leave any amount of food on anyone’s plate because we took more than we could eat. I’d be horrified if one of my children took a bite of garlic chicken, decided they didn’t like it, and grabbed another plate of garlic chicken to see if they liked that batch any better. While I don’t buy for a second that the story’s implication that the restaurant is concerned about this family wasting food while “hungry women and children don’t have enough to eat,” it’s still a valid point.
It’s rude to the family’s 7-year-old. I mean, he’s 7; the fact that his family was kicked out of a buffet has to be all over his school. That has to put him ahead of the funny-smelling kid as the school’s Most Likely to be Ostracized.
Maybe most importantly, sympathizing with the family would put me in agreement with the anonymous internet commenter who was printed in the newspaper as saying “this is America the last time I checked. Good for her.” Like the Declaration of Independence guarantees life, liberty, and taking all you want without eating all you take.
I could probably go on, but someone started screaming before I could think of more. Abbie was eating chinchilla food, and I was screaming “Why do you do that?”
* This was a front-page story by the way. Some state capitals have stories about murder or corruption filling the front page of their newspapers, Des Moines has stories about people being kicked out of a buffet.
posted by Matt at
11:12 PM
1 Comments:
Don't feel bad, our state capital has frontpage news stories about high school kids joining the local university football team.
By
Anonymous, at 9:23 AM
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