Many articles lament the restaurant industry’s struggles with the pandemic.

What’s so great about restaurants? Fewer restaurants doesn’t mean fewer jobs or business, just shifting them to other areas—people have to eat, after all. People would cook at home more, where they would eat healthier, connect with family more, and pollute less.

I would probably like a restaurant from decades ago, when they cooked from scratch, not all so-called comfort food. Nearly all restaurants serve mostly doof, not food. They design menus for comfort and entertainment, not health, nutrition, or local economies. Now kids can’t identify vegetables.

Here are some articles among many on how doof vendors get more of your money for less food or health.

• From WebMB: Fast Food No Worse for Health Than Sit-Down Meals: Salt, cholesterol consumption higher at sit-down restaurants, researchers find
• From the LA Times, Is fast food better for you than a sit-down restaurant meal? Study suggests yes.
• Fast-Food and Full-Service Restaurant Consumption and Daily Energy and Nutrient Intakes in U.S. Adults

I may not be an insider to the restaurant industry, but I’m not an outsider either. A team was forming over the fall and winter to start a series of pop-up events featuring my famous and varied no-packaging vegetable stew. I give corporate and community workshops on acting on one’s environmental values, normally food-based. I was invited to give another series of talks in Europe and to start a pop-up restaurant with a top-50 chef there.

The pandemic took away all those food preparation activities. I cook at home instead—saving money and time, creating food I like more.

So I wouldn’t mind seeing the number of restaurants closing, given how many doof-based restaurants I see making people sick in the long term.