Restaurant Ratings

Have you seen the new report ranking the top American restaurant chains?  It’s been posted and reposted on Facebook the past week.  If you haven’t taken the time to read it, I suggest you do.  Click here for the full report.

Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council, Consumers Union, Food Animal Concerns Trust, Keep Antibiotics Working, and Center for Food Safety all contributed to research and writing for this report.

Of the top 25 chain restaurants only five have limited routine antibiotics use: Chipotle Mexican Grill, Panera Bread, Chick-fil-A, Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s.  Only Chipotle, Panera, Chick-fil-A and Dunkin’ Donuts have antibiotics use policies that apply to all the meat they serve. While McDonald’s prohibits use in chicken of antibiotics important in human medicine.

Only two restaurants, Chipolte and Panera report serving a majority of their meat from animals raised without the routine use of antibiotics and stand out for being the most transparent.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ” Antibiotics are widely used in food-producing animals. This use contributes to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in food-producing animals. These resistant bacteria can contaminate the foods that come from those animals, and persons who consume these foods can develop antibiotic-resistant infections. Scientists around the world have provided strong evidence that antibiotic use in food-producing animals can have a negative impact on public health through the following sequence of events:

• Use of antibiotics in food-producing animals allows antibiotic-resistant bacteria to thrive while susceptible bacteria are suppressed or die;
• Resistant bacteria can be transmitted from food-producing animals to humans through the food supply;
• Resistant bacteria can cause infections in humans; and
• Infections caused by resistant bacteria can result in adverse human health consequences.”

We have a choice of what and where we eat.  Support farmers who raise their animals humanely without  antibiotics and hormones, ask restaurants where their meat is from, and don’t support those who continue to put your health in jeopardy to feed their own bottom-line.