Government Regulations and Quality of Church Life
The government, in its infinite wisdom, has solved another problem that doesn’t exist.
Churches and church organizations are accustomed to government inspectors checking church kitchens to make sure refrigerators are cold enough, etc. Now they are dictating the way food is served, imposing restaurant regulations on venues that have very little in common with restaurants.
For decades, church camps served food family style. Reports of food-borne illnesses resulting? Well, let’s not wait for disaster to strike before we take precautionary action.
Meals at church family camp were short but pleasant in that the food of decent variety and quality was placed before a family for 25-minutes of togetherness without the concerns of cooking and minimal clean-up. A respite for every parent.
Typically, serving bowls were placed on tables seating eight or so. In some camps there was no need to get up. A request for more food was met when someone held the empty bowl high for camp staff to grab and refill. In others, one person might carry the empty bowl to the kitchen window where it was either refilled or a new bowl of food was supplied. No fuss. Families at camp could spend the short meal time in pleasant conversation.
Now the government has decided this must change. Food could potentially go bad in 25 minutes of unregulated heat. (How long does food sit on your table at home when you are hosting a dinner party?)
This year at family camp. The half-hour alloted for meals was spent waiting to wait in line, then waiting in line, then scrambling to sit down with people still waiting in line brushing against your table. The remainder of the time, about 15 minutes if luck prevailed, was spent quickly scarfing down the food, which seemed to be of poorer quality—perhaps because of the atmosphere. Parents in charge of multiple small children had the joy of balancing plates, while watching the children. It was chaotic. The group couldn’t even focus for the traditional table grace, something restaurants don’t have to worry about.
The food, heated over sterno flames that heat only the center of the huge foil pan, was scooped onto each plate by a worker clad in plastic gloves. Across the room, campers were permitted to serve themselves at the salad bar protected by a regulation sneeze guard. (Shh! The sneeze guard is too high to guard against children’s sneezes). But at the main serving table — even at snack time—campers couldn’t so much as reach into a bowl of potato chips without plastic gloves or oversight of kitchen staff.
This is camp?
Regulations, meant for restaurants where food sits out on buffet bars for undetermined amounts of time and are open to strangers, have been applied to camps where meals, start to finish, are less than 30 minutes and the population is known to one another.
Government regulations met. Quality of mealtime gone.
How did we ever get by without them?!
Let’s hope the government doesn’t start attending church pot lucks and saving us from more potential disaster!