Manure in your salad in an NJ restaurant? You better prove it (Opinion)

Every time you read the news today, you hear about somebody who found something disgusting in his food. Could be a Band-Aid, an animal limb, worms, or various other objectionable foreign objects. The latest story is about a man who claims to have found manure in his salad at a famous restaurant chain which I will not even name.

And it’s not that I don’t believe that these things happen- it’s just that there’s no way to prove that these claims are true. How will you ever know for sure if a disgruntled employee decided to place something into the food to make the restaurant look bad? Or how will we ever know if somebody’s just looking to score a few bucks in a lawsuit settlement? Or just a pull a prank? It’s been done.

In this age of social media, a business’ reputation can be ruined overnight. That’s why I think we have to stop giving attention to these accusations and stop allowing them to be taken seriously by our judicial system. Perhaps you could ask someone who claims to have found something offensive in his food to prove that it actually came from within the kitchen. But I think that that would be almost impossible to do, not to mention a huge waste of time.

I propose that from now on, when you eat at a restaurant, consider it a very, very unlikely side effect of eating out. If a bug or a piece of plastic gets into your food, it was an accident that could not be helped and was not done to intentionally harm you. Push it to the side, send back your plate and I’m sure the owner will be happy to give you a free meal the next time. Or simply exercise your right not to eat there anymore. But to destroy a business because an unfortunate accident happened to you is selfish and stupid.

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