[runarberg]

The tool makes the food taste bad in ... say ... 20% of the cases, and in 5% of the cases it contaminates the food with salmonella.

Yes you can have the chefs taste the food before serving, and test it for salmonella. But it would be completely reasonable for a regulator to ban such a tool, and even more reasonable for restaurants to have a strict policy against using this tool.

[prologic]

You may as well ban every technological advancement in society then. There are risks to everything we do, build and support. Ban 'em all! Let's go back to the dark ages where everything is safe!

[sanxiyn]

WTF. Food safety is just a reasonable thing for a mature civilization to do. It has nothing to do with banning technological advancement.

[prologic]

Let's just put this argument to bed shall we? Let's consider another case. Leatherman pocket knives. It has a ~20% chance of cutting you, a 5% change of killing you if it pieces the wrong place in your body. I'm speaking from experience, where I sliced my thumb open (by accident of course!), but it was quite bad that I severed a nerve.

Needless to say, I don't feel compelled to take a moral or ethical stance on the use of such tools -- in this case; pocket knives and their inherent dangers.

Every time no matter how sophisticated or the no. of safeguards you put in place, can still inherently pose risks.

I'm not even arguing about food safety. Just think about the many restaurants that prepare and cook up the Japanese pufferfish. That's not even a tool problem right there, that's a skill and trianing problem. That shit™ will can can kill you if not done right.

[eichin]

At least in the US, no, not many, and the fish itself is very import restricted to keep the toxic parts from reaching the market. Hmmm.