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How we're scammed into eating phony food

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Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#291

Post by imtringued »

wildmusings wrote: post #184
pizza234 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public is not made only/mainly of science-challenged people as you're subtly implying. There are other reasonable motivations for labeling GMO, ie. political and environmental (not all environmental reasons are "GMO is frankenstein food"). Moreover, the GMO scaremongering will last, as any other fad, for a limited amount of time. The part of public who rejects GMO for shallow (no) reasons, will quickly forget and…

I'm not so sure. People are still sure that MSG will slowly kill them, when it's actually been proven to be 100% harmless as far as we know. You still see "No MSG" labels on tons of food. Mandatory labeling gives the impression that it's relevant information. Whether your food is GMO is totally without consequence. I don't see why the government should burden and mislead the rest of us so you can more easily wage you…

This might not be obvious but the primary problem with GMO is that as a farmer you have to buy (in FSF terms) proprietary seeds and fertilizers. After the first harvest the the soil has been "contaminated" with GMO seeds. Even if you stop using the GMO seeds immediately you can still be sued by the seed manufacturer.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#292

Post by tim333 »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #253
CalRobert wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I live Ireland and moved here after 30 years in the US. I agree that the TTIP is a terrible idea (and feels a bit like imperialism chasing after me as I exit). Food on the continent is a sheer delight for the senses. However, if you visit this fine emerald isle, you will find the US has no monopoly on bland, mildly sweet food. (To be fair, we _do_ have some pretty great cheese)

I'm ethnically Indian, and grew up in London. So I'm used to having good Indian food both at home and in restaurants. I recently visited Dublin for the first time, and picked an Indian restaurant based on Yelp ratings/reviews. I've never eaten worse Indian food than I did that day. I don't believe that the restaurant operators are unable to make OK food. They were Indian themselves. Perhaps they had to change their f…

I had a friend who was French and ran a French bistro in Galway. He said his Irish customers didn't really appreciate good food and were more into cheap booze and chips so maybe they cater to their market. That said there are some very good restaurants here.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#293

Post by Millennium »

7sigma wrote: post #268
pipio21 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is that nobody knows if GMO are healthy or not. This is like saying that "machines are safe". It makes not sense, there all all kind of machines you can design. You should study a specific machine case by case. Gene modification is enormous, and open to all kinds of unintended consequences. Just because we don't understand it yet it does not mean it is safe(we modify genes without really understanding what t…

You can never prove that any food is safe beyond a doubt. You can only say whether it riskier or not than other types of food or breeding. In the case of GMOs, it has been shown to be no less risky than conventional or mutagenic breeding. "we modify genes without really understanding what they really do with detail" Except that with genetic engineering, we know precisely what they do. Ironically previous ways of chan…

>You can never prove that any food is safe beyond a doubt.

Ultimately, this. You can test for very, very small numbers, but you can't test for zero. This is why, for example, even though lead has no biological function, extremely small "acceptable levels" are specified in regulations rather than simply saying zero lead. You can prove that, for example, lead levels in the air are less than 0.15 µg/m^3, or that they are not. You cannot do that for zero (nonzero is easy to verify, but zero is not).

There is also, of course, the fact that no food is safe in all scenarios. Even pure water is toxic at high enough doses. For that reason, it makes no sense to hold GMO food to even higher standards than non-GMO food: equal standards certainly make sense, but not higher.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#294

Post by stephenr »

twoodfin wrote: post #269
stephenr wrote: post #212

I see a lot of Americans claiming that respecting origin naming laws is "stupid". Im guessing this is partly the general "disrupt" mentality At work, and partly because based on your bread, beer and cheese, you clearly have long ago "evolved" to have no tastebuds. Having seen what Americans insist on calling pizza, I can't imagine what you lot would do to other foods.

Of all the foods to call out, you choose pizza?? Name any pizza joint outside of Naples, and I bet I can find half a dozen in the US that have a superior take on the style.

Pizza is a good key here in my mind because if you consider what americans call 'deep dish' pizza - the rest of the world calls that a flan/quiche/tart/pie. And then there is the insistence on calling all pizzas, 'pizza pie'. Pizza and Pie are two different foods, with very little in common besides dough and an oven.

> superior take on the style.

Im sure there are people who would tell me the same about american beer, or american cheese, or american bread, or any other food. I'm sure there will be people who claim american-style Thai food is better than authentic Thai food.

I've been to a few countries, and literally the only food I've found that is consistently the same experience is Indian food.

However, even taking that into account, America somehow manages to make its own 'versions' of food just so much worse compared to the rest of the world. The obsession with quantity, and the ridiculous use of corn syrup probably plays a factor here.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#295

Post by jshelly »

yitchelle wrote: post #75

This story reminds me of the episode on This American Life on doppelgangers, specifically on Calamari Rings. A warning, if you like Calamri Rings, ignorance is bliss. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/484/d...

That illustration of the pig is priceless

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#296

Post by epimetheus »

wtbob wrote: post #289
coldtea wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what ways? Where in the world do they care for British cuisine?

> Where in the world do they care for British cuisine? Ever eaten pot roast? That's British food. Ever eaten a roast potato? That's British food. Ever eaten cheese, mushrooms, roast beef or rabbit? Those are all British foods. British food, properly done (i.e., not the result of WWII rationing or Victorian institutionalisation) is savoury and earthy: roasts, onions, cheeses, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, turnips. It…

>Ever eaten pot roast? That's British.

Not according to Wikipedia, which states:

"Pot roast is an American variation of the French dish boeuf à la mode, modified by influences from German and Jewish immigrants."

Roast Potatoes? Also American (not necessarily US though), you didn't have Potatoes until you came to the Americas.

Cheese, mushrooms, and rabbit? How are these British? Did you invent them? Hey, we eat pasta here in the US, must be US national cuisine...

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#297

Post by ricksplat »

true_religion wrote: post #282
ricksplat wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a really good example of food differences between USA and Europe. Something as simple as eggs: http://www.thejournal.ie/refrigerate-eggs-usa-europe-1809120... TLDR: European regulations force more stringent regulations on producers of eggs; therefore eggs are cleaner and you can store them for weeks without refrigeration. IMHO they've also got a much nicer colour.

This is why eggs in Denmark (as of my last visit) cost approximately 1.5x to 2.0x as much as eggs in the USA. There is a cost to having free-range eggs. There's a cost to controlling egg-quality so they can remain unwashed, and unrefrigerated for days. Now in the US, you can choose if you want to pay that cost and thus shop at different supermarkets that cater to your tastes. In the EU countries, you must pay the cos…

Denmark isn't a great comparison because it's one of the places in Europe with the highest cost of living. Also these regulations aren't just to do with free range eggs but any battery farming facility.

You might be on to something, that you should have the right to cheaper food, even if it notionally means poisoning yourself.

The problem is though that you are not always in a situation where you can make an informed choice. Even if all the necessary information is provided at the point of sale (an exhaustive list of the details of the production of the food).

You don't always consume at the point of sale: You may be buying sandwiches or be in a restaurant. Perhaps you could have regulations about the point of consumption having to declare all details there. I can imagine that becoming quite tiresome in Starbucks.

If you have that, how do you enforce it? How much do you spend? How much time do you spend updating these rules to cover all the new permutations that an evolving market produces every day.

Effectively this has what has happened with eggs in USA by transferring the cost of producing clean eggs onto stores and consumers who must now bear the cost of refrigeration.

There is an environmental cost to all this energy used as well, in storage and transportation. Then there is food wastage because these eggs spoil more easily. So it's not even all about "your" choice any more ...

By enforcing standards at point of production it drastically reduces the amount of red tape required to ensure consumers get a certain quality product.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#298

Post by wyager »

ricksplat wrote: post #161
zzen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because currently the USDA and FDA equivalents in EU actually work, and the laws that require food inspections are stricter. The worry is that TTIP market access policies will force uniform, lowest-common-denominator rules, eliminating european food QA policies.

Here is a really good example of food differences between USA and Europe. Something as simple as eggs: http://www.thejournal.ie/refrigerate-eggs-usa-europe-1809120... TLDR: European regulations force more stringent regulations on producers of eggs; therefore eggs are cleaner and you can store them for weeks without refrigeration. IMHO they've also got a much nicer colour.

You can store European eggs for longer because they're unwashed, precisely because they're dirtier. It's a value judgement, and I don't think it should be regulated either way.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#299

Post by jfim »

13of40 wrote: post #199
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is a huge worry for me. The quality of food in the US is atrocious. When I was there, almost nothing tasted as it should, everything tasted bland and mildly sweet. The only way I found to get decent meat was to buy ultra-posh organic stuff at ridiculous prices, and then it would be no more than on par with the cheapest meat I could buy in Spain. Even chocolate is affected! TTIP is one of the worst things th…

I'm from the US, and currently vacationing in Spain. My wife and I typically only eat at restaurants once or twice per vacation, so we've got ample opportunity to try local groceries. In my experience, the food here is superb. Some tomatoes we've bought are quite bland, but eggs are good. Preserved meats tend to be good (I mean tasty, maybe not good to eat all the time), and raw meats seem to be good quality and hygi…

Just a heads up, Carrefour actually is a very large multinational hypermarket chain, not a local grocery. It's one of the top ten retailers, on roughly the same scale as Walmart and Costco. They just don't have a presence in North America.

Mind you, the food they sell is still significantly better than an equivalent low cost grocery in the US.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#300

Post by hvidgaard »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #111
mikekchar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is crazy, but you can taste it :-) Of course, most people don't know what olive oil should taste like, but it really has a wide flavour range. Buy a selection of small bottles and simply taste them (possibly with some nice bread and a little salt if you don't like drinking oil straight up). I highly recommend trying olive oil from other countries as well. It's really an eye opener. Once you get some exper…

Yeah it's like going to Greece and eat a ripe cucumber. Even in italy they sell watery, acidic stuff that would never comare to the real thing. I've never eaten one again anywhere else in the world.

To be fair, most contries have good cucumbers, if you buy them in season. The last part is the important part.
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