The Weight of Your Waiter Will Affect How Much You Eat!

A fascinating new study has shown that if you are trying to keep in trim and lose weight you are more probable to fall off the bandwagon and eat unhealthily if you go to restaurants where the waiters are overweight or obese. Another interesting finding was that normal weight individuals who were not looking out for their diet were more likely to eat healthily when they saw the overweight waiting staff.

The research which was done by three American universities namely University of British Columbia, the University of Arizona and Duke University.  This research which was deliberately designed to see how people in restaurants were affected by the weight of the waiters serving them will be of great interest to fast food companies and other restaurants around the world.

The study team even made use of student volunteers wearing special body suits which could make them look very overweight in order to correlate their research.

In particular they noted that when one particular normal weight waitress went to take food orders she would come back with less food than when she was asked to wear the special suit which put her up to Size 16.

We have reported at Ukmedix News previously on the power of peer pressure to influence how much you eat but we were unaware that it extended to waiting staff too. This research should make you stop and think and examine who and what are influencing you to eat healthily or unhealthily.

If you are of a normal weight maybe you should stick to that restaurant where the staff are overweight to remind you what you will appear like if you eat unhealthily, and if you are on a diet make sure you any hang out at restaurants with skinny staff!

Story from the ukMedix News.

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How Many F'in Emails Do I Have?

I was off for 2 days in a row, Sunday and Monday.  When I returned on Tuesday I had 61 emails in my in-box.  WTF!

Like the banquet manager has time to answer this shit, let alone even read them.  I've got 6 groups in-house today and my schedule is due.  


I need a REAL job!




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Screw Trip Advisor!

Here's the latest crap I gotta deal with...

Now we've gotta kiss ass even more since we had a few "bad reviews" on that f'in Trip Advisor web site.  The 2 bad reviews were bullshit but it doesn't matter.  We now are asked to give away the farm, "100% satisfaction, make sure everything is perfect", I'm told.

The reviews had nothing to do with my banquet department.  They were from a few people that apparently had a "bad experience during check-in".  Yeah sure, they probably had to wait in line for 5 minutes to check-in, then they bitch and moan.

You ain't getting an upgrade.  You ain't getting a free continental breakfast tomorrow, you ain't gonna speak with the manager.

Stop bitching you bastards.  We do a pretty good job around here.  Don't go screwing it up and rant about your stay on some dopey website for the world to see.

And stop messing with the banquet manager!
 

 
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No BEO...Then YOU Staff the F'in Event!

Give me the damm BEO (Banquet Event Order), and I'll staff your party.  It's as easy as that.  But NOOOOOOO, the sales chick can't get me the BEO 'cause she can't get in touch with the customer to get the final details.  Small details like, the menu, if they want a hot breakfast or not, how many to set the room for, what time the event starts, what's the guarantee...you know, just some small details like that.

So I'm supposed to just wait around for your lard-ass to issue the BEO on Tuesday for the event on Wednesday?  Do you think that's the way to work around here?  If you do then maybe all of us should be as incompetent as you.

I'll just wait until Tuesday afternoon, to get your BEO, then I'll call around to get staff for your event.  What if no waiters pick up their phones?  What do we tell the customer?  Maybe I first try to set the meeting room Tuesday night.  Oh, the event is for 110 people, sure no problem.  Just get your Dunkin Donut-eating, skirt-riding-up-your-ass body down here and start moving the tables around bitch!

If you can't do your job and get the BEO ready for us for our Tuesday or Thursday BEO meetings then you need to get out of the business, period!

I need a REAL job!





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You Better Not Be Calling Out Now

It's Saturday around 3:45pm and I making photocopies of the BEO's for my wait staff that are coming in at 4pm for tonight's VIP dinner.  Then the phone rings..."Hi Banquet Manager, it's me Mary".  

I know by now that every time Mary calls me it's a problem, and usually it's a BIG problem.  Today's no different.

"I'm sorry but my blah, blah, blah..."

Who gives a shit what her story is, its always a story as to why she can't come in.  Now we have this VIP event and I'm down 1 waiter.

I gotta kick her ass out once and for all...





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Designer Salt...WTF?

PLANO, Texas—Later this month, at a pilot manufacturing plant here, PepsiCo Inc. plans to start churning out batches of a secret new ingredient to make its Lay's potato chips healthier.

PepsiCo develops a designer salt to cut sodium in snacks. WSJ's Betsy McKay joins Kelsey Hubbard in the News Hub with more.

The ingredient is a new "designer salt" whose crystals are shaped and sized in a way that reduces the amount of sodium consumers ingest when they munch. PepsiCo hopes the powdery salt, which it is still studying and testing with consumers, will cut sodium levels 25% in its Lay's Classic potato chips. The new salt could help reduce sodium levels even further in seasoned Lay's chips like Sour Cream & Onion, PepsiCo said, and it could be used in other products like Cheetos and Quaker bars.

At an investor conference Monday in New York, the company said it is committed to cutting its products' average sodium per serving by 25% by 2015 and saturated fat and added sugar by 15% and 25%, respectively, this decade.

The designer salt is one of the latest and most intricate efforts yet by a food company to vault ahead of concerns among government officials about the possible health effects of the widespread use of sodium in processed foods.

Eating too much salt can contribute to high blood pressure, increasing the risk of heart disease. Most Americans consume about twice their recommended limit daily, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pressure is growing on U.S. food companies to act, because most of the salt Americans consume is in processed foods. In January, New York City, as well as other cities and health organizations, called for restaurants and makers of packaged foods to cut salt 25% within the next five years.

Sodium intake recommendations may also be lowered substantially in new U.S. dietary guidelines this year. And First Lady Michelle Obama is pressing food companies to cut fat, salt and sugar in their products.

The new salt represents PepsiCo's latest step to cut back on unhealthy ingredients in big sellers like soda and potato chips. The company has also switched from frying its potato chips in transfats to using sunflower oil, and it has boosted spending to $414 million in 2009 from $282 million in 2006 for product development. To lead the research effort, it has hired health experts and scientists, including Mehmood Khan, a former Mayo Clinic endocrinologist, and Derek Yach, a former World Health Organization chronic diseases chief.

By 2015, PepsiCo aims to cut sodium in its salty snacks 25%. "What we want to do with our "fun for you" products is to make them the healthiest "fun for you" products," Chairman Indra Nooyi said. "We want our potato chips to be fried in the healthiest oils with the lowest salt."

Cutting salt out of foods is difficult because it adds body to foods as well as enhancing flavor. In addition, little is understood about how salt is perceived on the tongue.

PepsiCo said it has had to dig deeper than other food makers that have reduced sodium by gradually removing salt, using salt substitutes or grinding salt into small particles that contact the tongue in more places.

That's because salt is one of only three ingredients in Lay's Classic potato chips (the others: potatoes and oil). Reducing the amount or using substitutes would alter the chips' flavor, said Greg Yep, a global research and development vice president.

So PepsiCo had to come up with a way to deliver the same saltiness while reducing sodium. Prodded by a U.K. government salt-reduction campaign, it first slashed sodium 25% in its seasoned Walkers crisps in 2006, replacing some of the salt with other seasonings and using smaller salt particles.

But those methods couldn't be used on plain Lay's chips, which couldn't mask the changes with seasonings. The smaller particles gave a hit of saltiness that was intense but too fleeting.

Instead, working with scientists at about a dozen academic institutions and companies in Europe and the U.S., PepsiCo studied different shapes of salt crystals to try to find one that would dissolve more efficiently on the tongue. Normally, only about 20% of the salt on a chip actually dissolves on the tongue before the chip is chewed and swallowed, and the remaining 80% is swallowed without contributing to the taste, said Dr. Khan, who oversees PepsiCo's long-term research.

PepsiCo wanted a salt that would replicate the traditional "salt curve," delivering an initial spike of saltiness, then a body of flavor and lingering sensation, said Dr. Yep, who joined the company in June 2009 from Swiss flavor company Givaudan SA.

"We have to think of the whole eating experience—not just the physical product, but what's actually happening when the consumer eats the product," Dr. Yep explained.

The result was a slightly powdery ingredient that tastes like regular salt. Small groups of U.S. and U.K. consumers couldn't tell the difference when comparing the two salts on chips last summer, PepsiCo said. PepsiCo declined to give details while the new salt is in development.

PepsiCo is gearing up pilot manufacturing at its Frito-Lay headquarters so that it can conduct wider consumer testing and fine tune the technology.

It could take two more years before the new salt is introduced, Dr. Yep said. In the meantime, PepsiCo is reducing the salt in new versions of seasoned Lay's such as Sour Cream & Onion this year by an average of 25% by switching to natural ingredients and rebalancing other flavors so that less sodium is needed.

Link to original article

What's next?  Designer butter or oil that you can't digest and leaks out of your butt?  Oh, I forgot, they already tried that!


Next Post: You Better Not Be Calling Out Now!





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Do You Want The Damm Dirty Dishes Cleaned Or What?

Leading up to the corporate group of 30 people coming in last week, the banquet manager (that's me) needed to get involved in the planning.  "How many servers will you have working", was one question.  "Will there be many interruptions during the meeting", was another.   "Will the food be ready early just in case they break earlier than planned", you see how this is going.  

The group had their inhouse "meeting planner" setup the event and she was nervous as all get-out.  She was still a newbie at this.

I answered all her questions and made her feel more comfortable in knowing that we will take good care of her boss when he comes next week with his group.  Other than that no big deal, the usual stuff.  Only that this is a "high profile meeting" and they need quiet and no interruptions.  Woop-tee do for you.

The big day arrives, just a regular day for us, and the meeting planner was on edge all day.  She checked the room early in the morning.  She checked all the food items against the BEO.  She checked the inroom phone, all the usual planner stuff.  Apparently she was happy...until we tried to clear the dirty dishes during their working lunch.

"You can't go in there" she snapped.  "That is a private meeting and they can't be disturbed" came next.  Now my waiters are looking at me for the ok to slap her around!  No no not that easy.

"I didn't know that you didn't want my staff to go inside the room to clear the dirty dishes" I said.  "Well, you should have expected this when I said it was a high-profile meeting".  Now I wanted to slap-the-shit outta her.

"Well that's fine with me if its ok with you to leave all the dirty dishes, glasses and napkins in front of your boss and his guests" I mentioned.  "After a while the leftover food on the plates will start to smell and might be offensive to them" came next.  "And what about all the food in the chaffing dishes"?

"No no just leave it all there and come back at 2:30pm when their afternoon break is planned, you can clean it all up then" she finished.  So I took my cue, packed-up our traystands and my waiters and left.  I knew this wouldn't sit well with the rest of the group but as she was our contact, I did as she asked.

At 2:15pm my waiters and I arrived to make one big sweep of the room to not only clear all the crap from lunch but to set out the pm break.  Outside the room I saw our fabulous meeting planner getting chewed-out from the boss...he was giving it good to her.  Then the boss goes inside the room.

Our planner extraordinaire walks up to me and whispers, "Can you PLEASE clean the room up really fast and as quiet as you can, my boss is upset that we left the dirty dishes and all the food out until now".  "I'm in a lot of trouble".

Well, we're fine today but she's up shit's creek tomorrow.

Don't you love it when you're right?


Next Post: Designer Salt...WTF?




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Gotta Get This Off My Chest...

                                                                             There you go, now I feel better!





Next Post: Do You Want To Damm Dirty Dishes Cleaned or What?

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Captain's Report - Easter 2010

Date: April 4, 2010
Banquet Manager: Me
Time: 11am (First Seating), 3pm (Last Seating)
Covers: 614
Staffing: 16 servers, 5 food runners, 1 bartender, 2 captains, 2 hosts, 2 cashiers
Weather: Beautiful (I shoulda been home)
Food Issues: For the most part, the kitchen did a pretty good job (Horray!).  Of course, around crunch-time of 12:30-1:30pm the desserts got hammered, but the kitchen was able to keep up.  Food presentation was stepped-up since the GM broke my chef's nuts earlier in the week.
Service Issues: Really none, staff did a great job.  Each and every one of these large holiday brunch events we try something different to make improvements and again it worked.  No tables had complaints (except the one that said the band was too loud.  A few free Mimosas smoothed the way).  No "comps" and no arguments over the ages of the kids (for the reduced price).
Challenges: Should have ordered more colored linen.  Rental company shorted us on the yellow napkins.  Otherwise that's it.
Bed Time for the Banquet Manager: 8:47pm (my feet were aching)


How was your Easter?




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Happy Easter...Have You Seen Pete?

Happy Easter

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Food Trivia - #3 Answer

Originally made as a high-energy field snack for American soldiers, because "they melt in your mouth, not in your hand." M&M's were named after Forrest Mars and Bruce Murries the inventors.  

Red M&M's were discontinued for 11 years from 1976 to 1985 after the FDA banned Red Dye No. 2, even though M&M's did not contain this dye. They have always used Red #'s 3 and 40!

A student at the U of Tenn. started a society for the Restoration and Preservation of Red M&M's. In 1985 Focus groups decided the new proportions of 30% brown, 20% red, 20% yellow and 10% each of orange, green and tan for plain M&M's.

Well you all got this one.  Maybe it was too easy.  I'll see if I can do better next time.  Thanks for playing along.

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