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The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

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Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#121

Post by maxerickson »

dredmorbius wrote: post #117
maxerickson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm impugning your claim that the price of oil is too low. I asked you to complete the information required to back up the claim and you rejoined with some aside about how there were multiple ways to interpret one of the words in my question.

Answering your question above: no, it is not.

Sure it does. If it becomes trivial to conjure the equivalent, then it doesn't matter if oil is gone.

My framing is sloppy (because I only talk about the future value of oil rather than the cost of obtaining the equivalent), but I think the point survives it, because the value of oil would drop to the cost of obtaining the equivalent.

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#122

Post by stouset »

dhfhduk wrote: post #116

I lived not too far from where Red Delicious was originally bred, and I can say from personal experience the original Red Delicious is not the Red Delicious that is typically sold in the grocery store. Of course, I've never had the original one, but the heritage Red Delicious apples from multiple small orchards within a certain radius of where it was developed all taste totally unlike the ones in large groceries else…

I don't think circumstances around your anecdote leave room for it to be factual. "Red delicious" isn't simply a breed of apple — they're all trademarked clones. The offspring of an apple tree won't produce anything like the fruit of the original apple. In fact, the overwhelming majority will be inedible and only suitable for cider. Genetic drift isn't really plausible because there's no mechanism by which these trees would drift genetically.

New apple strains are, as far as I know, not really bred for. They're found in the wild.

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty confident that an apple that isn't a strict clone of red delicious can't be marketed as a red delicious. It's also possible that growing conditions now have changed enough to alter the fruit, but I'm not positive that it would be a large enough difference to notice.

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#123

Post by twothamendment »

artursapek wrote: post #4

My son and I have settled on Gala and Fuji as our go-tos are the farmers market. I actually arrived at the same conclusion as this article about "Red Delicious" - it certainly is red and that's the most that can be said of it.

Yes, we have the same list of go-tos. I've always called the subject of the article Red Undelicious. My dad always took one in his lunch so we always had Red undelicious around, but that only taught me I didn't like apples. Then one day I grew up and bought my own apples. There are so many to try.

I recently found a tree of unknown variety next to a Forest Service road in the mountains near me. I'm sure someone thew an apple core out the window many years ago. I had several people try them and all kinds of names were thrown out, but none of use could nail down what it was. Whatever it is, it is good!

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#124

Post by twothamendment »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #99
aetherson wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get the love for Honeycrisps. I mean, they're better than Red Deliciouses, sure. But they're still too... blandly sweet, I guess, for my tastes. I like Pink Ladies, and I like Granny Smiths. That sharper, more acidic taste, I suppose.

Funny. The Honey Crisps I have had I would never have thought of as "blandly sweet". They were tangy and delicious. Reading these comments, though, does make me want to try Pink Ladies.

Yes, I'm hungry for an apple now, maybe a few if there were several to pick from!

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#125

Post by bruce_one »

kleiba wrote: post #3
baldfat wrote: post #2

I HATED Red Delicious as a kid! Honey Crisp Apples are the best tasting apples I have ever eaten but they cost almost triple the price. Pink Ladies are also phenomenal. My 6 and 10 year old like them better then candy.

Unfortunately, though, a large percentage of Pink Ladies offered in stores around here (Germany) come from New Zealand... and that even though apples are among the fruit that grow well in Germany. I like Pink Ladies, especially for the texture, but I prefer to buy fruit that does not have to be shipped half way around the globe.

I know some cafes (and markets etc) near where I live have started pushing [food miles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles) as a bit of a differentiator (in a similar vein to being 100% organic; eg showing the food miles of goods, or guaranteeing that the food mileage is less than X, etc) which would be the kind of movement that aligns with your concern, if of interest.

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#126

Post by hexane360 »

cryptarch wrote: post #103
cmurf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies show that sugar and salt increase consumption. So they add these things to increase sales. People aren't making a decision that's in their best interest, this is a biological hack that favors one party disproportionately compared to the other.

Corn syrup represses the feeling of being full and is also extremely cheap to produce, it might actually make the applesauce cheaper to produce.

>Corn syrup represses the feeling of being full

Small correction, but that study (and I believe there was only one) indicated that fructose metabolism produced less satiation than glucose, not that it actually prevents it. If you add fructose to a food and eat it, you'll still be more full than if you hadn't added fructose, just less full than if you had added glucose.

I think the reasoning was more like this: "Focus groups show that kids like their applesauce sweeter. What's a cheap sugar?"

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#127

Post by wordupmaking »

civilian wrote: post #35
kleiba wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, though, a large percentage of Pink Ladies offered in stores around here (Germany) come from New Zealand... and that even though apples are among the fruit that grow well in Germany. I like Pink Ladies, especially for the texture, but I prefer to buy fruit that does not have to be shipped half way around the globe.

Why? If they're shipping Pink Ladies from New Zealand, and there's an efficient market, can't we imply that it's a better allocation of resources to get Pink Ladies from New Zealand? I mean, they're probably cheaper _even though_ they're getting shipped halfway across the world. What the market is saying is that: the highly skilled population of Germany is probably better off doing more advanced things than growing a…

And if someone buys a child prostitute, is that the market saying that's the most efficient allocation of resources and the best way for the predator to outlive their dysfunctions? Insert a less polemic example if you want, same point; it's a total non-sequitur.

edit: if you can downvote, you can answer the question. I did my fair share of hard thinking about this, I come prepared, so until anyone has anything, this stands, and you'll either have to step up or live with that.

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#128

Post by pfranz »

oasisbob wrote: post #104
cooperadymas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've made apple sauce a few times for near-immediate consumption (over the course of maybe a week). There is a big, notable difference in taste and quality from the store-bought. Might be time to try canning it for longer term consumption. However, stores near here do carry a no sugar added bottle of applesauce. That's all we ever buy, and I can't imagine why they would even consider adding sugar/corn syrup. I like m…

> I can't imagine why they would even consider adding sugar/corn syrup Just about any commercial fruit processing is going to need a plan for standardizing brix. That usually will involve some form of sugar. In theory you could have very stringent requirements of your suppliers, but that will get expensive, and even if brix is good, you may need to deal with abnormal acidity in a batch.

Simply Orange Juice seems to do it using "a computer-modeled blending of orange juice sources, intending for the consumer to have a uniform taste year-round"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simply_Orange_Juice_Company

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#129

Post by colordrops »

throwanem wrote: post #79
mikeash wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that your life sucked in many other ways is irrelevant. Having fresh fruit growing on plants near your house which you can eat is a privilege that most people do not have. I'm not saying, "your life was privileged, and you suck." I'm saying, "your situation of having fresh-off-the-tree apples was an unusual privilege." Am I wrong, or do you just object to the one word, and want me to know a bunch of other th…

To reiterate from my prior comment, I understand exactly what you're saying. The problem I have is that you're not listening to what I'm saying - which, again, is that it doesn't matter what you're saying, because when you use this rhetoric to express it, you piss people off even if in spite of yourself, and the rhetoric is therefore actively inimical to the purpose in whose service you employ it. It's not that compl…

The flowery baroque language you use to obfuscate your words is in contradiction with your point.

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#130

Post by wordupmaking »

bsk26 wrote: post #86
maxerickson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it elitism to say that the 99% of the variety that people actually eat suck? I would think the elitism is insisting that the only way to truly judge them is straight off the tree (after a spell of opportunistic weather).

I guess that's exactly why I thought it was a bit snobby ... internet folks trashing the preferences of 99 percent of the population. Having a tree is pretty hard where I live now but pretty normal back in the Midwest.

That makes it even more important to point it out. Most people would otherwise have no clue there's anything to miss out on. As some people above said, making their own apple sauce made "store bought inedible". The flip side of that is, to make cheaply and badly mass produced things sell, people can't know good things. Once stuff is gone and purged from the archives, it's gone. The feelings of anyone who happens to be around currently, including ourselves, are not even a matter compared to the dangers of that.

We can't remain at the point where our problems with coping with emotions restrict our intellectual movements. This isn't asking anyone to run 50000 miles, or go a week without sleep or a year without food, it's just saying "this thing you think is good is actually kind of shit, and if you knew this actually good thing that would be immediately obvious to you, please don't die now". And while most people (including me) can't have a tree, everybody but the very poorest could save up some money to buy just one "real" apple to at least confirm this. Or maybe buy two, and give one to a poor person, just so they know how bad the apples they sometimes eat are. And then the question is "what does this mean, how can this be improved", etc., and not "how do I live with this blow to my ego". Please, don't take this as me being upset at your comment at all, it triggered me, you could say. I read Fahrenheit 451 recently and since then every HN discussion has aspects that remind me of it.

If people didn't personally identify so much with what they know and do etc., there wouldn't even be any hurt feelings to overcome, but I'm not even going there. Let's assume it's real offensive to be corrected or put down a peg: yes, and, so, what? That should motivate us to head off others at the pass, and to smoothly inspect their lessons and take them on board without blinking should they have merit, to become good at it, instead of attempting to ban it.

> internet folks trashing the preferences of 99 percent of the population

vs. article:

> His words contain the paradox of the Red Delicious: alluring yet undesirable, the most produced and arguably the least popular apple in the United States. It lurks in desolation. Bumped around the bottom of lunch bags as schoolchildren rummage for chips or shrink-wrapped Rice Krispies treats.

Maybe it's a bit rich coming from me after going on such tangents, but still, it takes some mental gymnastics to turn complaints about "ramming [these apples] down the throats of American consumers" into "being a snob for thinking lowly of people for liking these apples so much". No, everybody would be able to tell the huge difference, but as you said, most people don't get the chance. That's the problem, not the solution.

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