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Comment by Steve44 | Hacker News Reader

This only seems to be a correlation between people reporting having eaten out and the test levels. I can't see why restaurant food would be that much different to home cooked food unless there was something very wrong with the supply chain or kitchen practices.

The newspaper article does not mention if they have looked at following the source of these phthalates back up the chain to see where they actually come from.

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My theory is that most affordables restaurant don't make food anymore, they assemble it. So it comes from multiple packages. Add the fact there is a lot of take away / doggy bags, which means repackaging the finished product, and stronger hygiene regulation, which mean detergent used in contact with the food, and you have more opportunities for phthalates to come by.

While at home, you may very well cook it from more raw ingredients, with less packaging, put it on a plate, and just quickly wipe the table and plate when you're done.

You will also cook a big meal for the entire house, while a lot of restaurant are just fast food, preparing one meal per person.

Remember, for most families, they won't go to a michelin restaurant. They will got to Scramblz', Chipotle or the local "italian".

About restaurant-packaged foods - around here, they still cook (Iowa). I'm thinking back on the last dozen restaurants I've visited - they all cook I think! And I eat lunch at a different place every day.

Trick is, avoid the chains I guess? I choose various hole-in-the-wall Indian, Mexican, Texas, Japanese eateries and diners.

I think this may be US-specific. In the UK, there are certainly chains that 'assemble' food, but there are also a whole bunch of similarly priced chains amd independent resturants that cook fresh food. It's not michelin star quality, but it's fresh. In general I think resturaunts tend to add more seasoning (such as salt, sugar, etc) than most people cooking at home would.

I wouldn't be too sure it's just the US...there was a somewhat-recent controversy in France: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/french-restauran...

Whaaat? Restaurant food can be very different than home cooked food because restaurants apply tricks to dress up a dish in ways you will never do at home. Excessive corn starch in Asian soups, humongous amount of butter in every meal, higher amounts of salt, using old and dangerously suspect stored food to cook with, using substandard cuts of meat, stale sea food, using colors to boost the appearance of freshness ( use packaged tomato puree plus color instead of doing old fashioned tomato way at home), general hygiene issues in kitchen etc etc. Restaurant kitchen delivery system is drastically different than a home kitchen.

Might I suggest actually reading the article where they suggest the culprit is the phthalate-containing plastic containers commonly used in fast food.

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