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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

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everywhere. I haven't stayed in a single hotel anywhere that doesn't serve English Breakfast. And I'm sure a lot of people are enjoying a Sunday Roast or a Chicken Tikka Masala every now and again. But of course, I know there are a lot of ignorant people in the world, which is why I admit the myth persists.

Chicken Tikka Masala

That's not British though, it's Indian.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#342
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In fairness, Galway is a big student town. I think you'll find similar sentiments in student towns around the world.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#343
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, if you visit this fine emerald isle, you will find the US has no monopoly on bland, mildly sweet food. Well, apart from whisky, nobody ever considered Ireland a place for good food. For UK of course it's even worse, they're actively known for the bad taste and cuisine.

> For UK of course it's even worse, they're actively known for the bad taste and cuisine. As someone from the UK I take offense at that, sure we might not be on the same level as Italy or France (but really, who is?) but we have some great traditional food. Pies of all kinds, fish 'n' chips, traditional sausages, good old roast dinners, chicken tikka masala and of course the healthiest breakfast in the world. Tasty s…

I mean, I don't think there's room to argue the "actively known for" claim. British food is absolutely known for being bland, fatty, and overcooked (at least in America); it's even the punchline in that "in hell the cooks are British" joke.

As for whether its true, that's a much harder sell. I can buy that Britain has quite a bit of bad food; 'British' mass-market food can be a bit shoddy, since it tends to be traditional dishes like fish'n'chips and pies that respond terribly to low-quality ingredients and lengthy storage. The restaurant stuff is much better, but it can certainly seem rich and heavy to those unfamiliar (partly because it's special-occasion food being served every night).

But to sincerely claim that the Brits don't have good food is a bit absurd. It seems to be born of either ignorance or ahistoricism. People know "fatty pies", but not cullen skink or any of the other more specialized delicacies, and they seem to have gotten their sense of what's available in around 1945, which was understandably not a high point in British cuisine.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#344

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.

well the WTC ruled against the US using COO naming recently in the beef trade and it probably occurred elsewhere. So how do you label without having someone claim its unfair trade practices?

Can you provide some kind of reference so I know what the heck you're talking about?

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#345
post #268

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…

Except that with genetic engineering, we know precisely what they do

No, we don't. At best, we know a few of the reliable consequences of that gene locus. We know nothing of the proliferation that gene may have in a wild population, or how our modification will help or hamper the organism to adapt to a changing environment.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#346
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to Italy once and it opened my eyes on how I should have higher standards on what I eat, when I come back home Edit: english

Eating out in the UK is all about the location. if a restaurant is trendy people will go. In Spain people go for the food. There are often queues outside restaurants in which the surrounding look terrible (chairs that look like they are taken from a school 40 years ago). Spanish people understand food in a way that most Brits don't.

Same situation in NYC. Great location, trendy expensive interior decor? Prepare to be disappointed unless the cost is $300pp.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#347
post #145
post #18

Has anyone ever sent anything to a lab to be examined? How would I get started For the escolar example, would we need to do genetic testing or is there something cheaper?

> would we need to do genetic testing or is there something cheaper? I would assume that DNA sequencing services are pretty cheap nowadays. You would need to understand basic genetics to be able to request them to sequence sites that suit your needs, and then you would need to interpret the results yourself when you get the data. 23andme does a pretty comprehensive profile for $199, and to figure out the species of a…

23andme does SNPs, not large scale sequencing. I don't think it knows what to do without a library.

I have actually researched full genome sequencing. That is why I asked if there was a cheaper way to do it.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#348

That's why EU people are protesting against TTIP. We're worried that the lower standards that are common in USA, will prevail, and any resistance will be trampled in private arbitrage courts.

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 get decent meat from my neighbor, who raises hogs and cattle. Bud dresses it for a reasonable price. Make my own horseradish from plants I inherited from my father. Hot as I like it. Chocolate from my sister's shop, who gets it from the Winan family who have been making it for 4 generations - they temper their chocolate only with more chocolate so no wax or junk. They get their chocolate liquor from their Nicaraguan plant that processes beans on site. Doesn't cost any more. My brother makes wine from grapes grown on my southern hillside.

But I live in rural Iowa (USA). Not everybody can live this way.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#349
My company[1] builds machine learning and AI based quality control and production optimization for food manufacturing...

Would consumers be interested in a food verification service?

For the most part, we don't / wouldn't deal in food-safety, but we could do things like verify the age and provenience of wine, or the terroir of coffee.

Discuss here or shoot me an email[2]!

[1] www.Gastrograph.com [2] jasonCEO [at] ^

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the default American approach to assume that a failed implementation equals a failure of a concept.

To be fair to our American friends it's not solely their bias; a lot of the pro-Brexit voters have a similar feeling about the EU.

You don't really know how many of the voters voted against the implementation, and how many voted against the concept, do you?
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