And no matter what we want, we want to be loved

“Aurene” 1329 AE, Tarir

- Prepared foods sitting out on display are a breeding ground for bacteria. This can be minimized by keeping them above or below a certain temperature range, but it's just how things work.

- Food accessible to customers is doubly at risk of contamination. People touch the food, cross-contaminate utensils, sneeze, cough... Someone once dropped their whole ass phone in our mac'n'cheese.

- Food directly handled by a customer has to be assumed contaminated. Even if they only picked up the sample for a second. Even if they definitely used the little tongs. You don't have control over them or a guarantee that they're following food safe handling procedures, you can't give that item to someone else.

- It went out of date, out of temp, etc. It might still look fine and maybe you'd still eat it if it was in your fridge, but when you're operating on a business-sized scale it's better to be safe than to risk one person getting badly sick.

- It was mistakenly prepared wrong. Recipes tend to be strict in commercial kitchens because if you tell someone specific ingredients are in a dish and then sell them something else, that's an allergen risk.

Bad stupid reasons food gets thrown out that you should absolutely be mad about:

- Some companies expect you to over-produce to guarantee a certain amount of product gets thrown out, because it guarantees that no potential sale was lost on a sold-out product, and the cost of ingredients and labor for the amount being discarded is less than the profit made on whatever sold. I promise everyone in the kitchen thinks it's as infuriating as you do.

assorted concept art for my cyberpunk/scifi lesbian romance comic crossing wires (2023) about two bitter exes stuck together. you can still grab this one on my ko-fi if you'd like :3

Tekno the Robotic Puppy (2000)