How Much Slop is in Your Slop?

Odds are “fifty-fifty” when you flip a coin, but what does that mean?  First: if you flip it enough times, about half will be heads, about half tails.  That’s one part of statistics: repetition to produce average results.  Second, other things besides the coin can affect the outcome (i.e., is it bent?).  Finally: you cannot perfectly predict what the next flip will be.

Statistical variations creep into any process.  The final outcome (in our case, menu nutritional values) can be affected by many factors.  Let’s consider some of the things that influence the nutritional content of the next entree to leave your kitchen.

• How specific is your recipe?  Consider “milk” versus “2% milk”, “ground beef” versus “80% lean”, “slow oven” versus “two hundred degrees”, “shredded” versus “chopped”.
• Do you use repeatable units such as ounces and cups, or dollops and handfuls?
• Whole items have two obvious sources of variance.  First, just how large is a “large onion”?  Then how much refuse do you cut away?
• Do you have a complete list of ingredients?  When was it last updated?  Have your suppliers changed?
• Nutritional values can vary over a wide range with seasons (winter tomatoes versus summer) or regions (California versus Florida)?  Also, some vegetables change their values as they age a few days, especially under lights.

Next is the process of cooking, or executing the recipe:

• Does your staff follow recipes to the letter, or do they improvise?
• Did the customer improvise on the order (“hold the mayo”) ?
• Are accurate measurements taken, or is “eyeballing it” good enough?
• Different members of your staff will probably introduce variances.  Alice may chop the celery to a different size than Bob.
• Cooking time and temperature has an effect.

As a final variance, the FDA has rules for “rounding the numbers”.  For example, calories should be expressed to the “nearest ten” above fifty.  So an  item that’s calculated to 54 calories will be listed as 50.  That’s actually an eight percent error.  As it turns out, you shouldn’t really worry about it.
Statistics deal with generalities.  In general, over time, your entrees will have an average nutritional value that closely matches a database analysis.   Some will “go high”, some will “go low”, and the average will probably stay in the middle.  But always take those numbers with a grain of salt.
Header Photo Credit: Upapa4me