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The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#251

Post by mseo »

iagooar wrote: post #162
jacquesm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quality has a price. If you buy the cheapest tomatoes you get the lowest grade, if you're prepared to spend more you get better quality and more taste. The Germans are extremely interesting in this respect deriding the lowest quality Dutch vegetables with all kinds of name-calling ('waterbombs') but at the same time they keep buying them because they are cheap. If you want quality you will simply have to be prepared…

Germans are not willing to pay money for food. They expect food to be cheap, they don't care too much about the quality of it (in general, of course). Germans sometimes joke about themselves that some of them will spend +1000€ for a barbecue without a problem, yet they'll put the cheapest 0.50€ sausages on it.

I could not disagree more. I actually never met a german who joked about being cheap with food. Quite the opposite is true.

Also the per capita household expenditure on food[1] is above the average of European countries. Higher for example than in the UK or Austria, which have comparable incomes.

[1] https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/per-capita-hou...

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#252

Post by sambe »

Pica_soO wrote: post #169
sambe wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reference for this? Never heard of it before, and doesn't sound likely on the surface.

Waterstress: https://www.growingformarket.com/articles/Improve-tomato-fla... Fungi-Symbosis: http://orgprints.org/12844/1/12844.pdf But yes, i was wrong on the water tomato. They simply have been bred to look good and be transportable, disregarding taste.

These don't seem especially strong - an opinion piece and a presentation? The second actually states no effect.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#253

Post by ido »

cirrus-clouds wrote: post #10

Here in the UK, tomatoes from the Netherlands are the most common sold in British supermarkets. Unfortunately, they are quite flavourless. The type of tomato (and price) makes no difference (organic, vine-ripened, salad). Most of them are usually semi-ripe. Even if you allow them to ripen at home for a few days, they are still quite tasteless. Presumably, Italy keeps its best tomato produce for themselves and I don't…

Here in northern Germany if you go to the supermarket and look at the origin of vegetables, most of them seem come from Spain & Italy.

Interesting, as the Netherlands would be closer geographically! But maybe the UK is just far enough from the south-med to make shipping vegetables from there not as economical.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#254

Post by ido »

mseo wrote: post #251
iagooar wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germans are not willing to pay money for food. They expect food to be cheap, they don't care too much about the quality of it (in general, of course). Germans sometimes joke about themselves that some of them will spend +1000€ for a barbecue without a problem, yet they'll put the cheapest 0.50€ sausages on it.

I could not disagree more. I actually never met a german who joked about being cheap with food. Quite the opposite is true. Also the per capita household expenditure on food[1] is above the average of European countries. Higher for example than in the UK or Austria, which have comparable incomes. [1] https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/per-capita-hou...

I live in Berlin and used to live in Vienna - I hear such jokes all the time, that Berliners will eat just about anything as long as it's cheap and won't immediately kill you.

You don't have to go far to see the difference either: Austrians and south Germans are already much more "food-oriented" than north Germans, so this may be a regional thing rather than encompassing the whole country.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#255

Post by cyphunk »

Oh my, NL tomatos taste like water sponges. This fact depresses me more than it should :/ They are the predominate tomato sold in DE, UK and others. Really, try a tomato from southern europe or some places in eastern europe, preferably while in southern or eastern europe.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#256

Post by timje1 »

deepGem wrote: post #244
cirrus-clouds wrote: post #10

Here in the UK, tomatoes from the Netherlands are the most common sold in British supermarkets. Unfortunately, they are quite flavourless. The type of tomato (and price) makes no difference (organic, vine-ripened, salad). Most of them are usually semi-ripe. Even if you allow them to ripen at home for a few days, they are still quite tasteless. Presumably, Italy keeps its best tomato produce for themselves and I don't…

As an Indian, who has lived and worked in USA, UK, Singapore and LatAM, I can attest that produce in supermarkets in all these geographical regions are tasteless. Mostly because, as someone mentioned below they are now bred for ease of shipping. Even in India, vegetables are slowly going the tasteless route, particularly chillies and garlic, but they are a lot more flavorful than their western world counterparts. I r…

Devil's advocate: It's possible your sense of smell and taste is less sharp than what it was when you were a kid.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#257

Post by mseo »

ido wrote: post #254
mseo wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not disagree more. I actually never met a german who joked about being cheap with food. Quite the opposite is true. Also the per capita household expenditure on food[1] is above the average of European countries. Higher for example than in the UK or Austria, which have comparable incomes. [1] https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/per-capita-hou...

I live in Berlin and used to live in Vienna - I hear such jokes all the time, that Berliners will eat just about anything as long as it's cheap and won't immediately kill you. You don't have to go far to see the difference either: Austrians and south Germans are already much more "food-oriented" than north Germans, so this may be a regional thing rather than encompassing the whole country.

I live in Berlin, too. But I never heard someone joking about deliberately eating cheap and/or bad food. Who would do this anyway?

I guess you're talking about various prejudices of others. But that's a whole other topic.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#258

Post by hellofunk »

aluhut wrote: post #153
hellofunk wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just buy any of the many other tomatoes available at a Dutch grocery other than the cheapest option.

I live in Germany and this was a general statement (even though we get very much from the Netherlands). Most of them taste like nothing. Sometimes even those who are especially marked as "something something sweet" taste like nothing most of the time. I rarely buy the cheapest option. Most of the times we get the most expensive Bio (organic) ones. This legend needs to die. Just like the one that says that marked as "…

I have definitely noticed a big difference in flavor among the common different tomato varieties available at a typical Dutch grocery.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#259

Post by pjc50 »

ars wrote: post #179
pjc50 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you got them confused with Iceland, or are thinking of wind energy?

I saw this in the article: "The growing environment is kept at optimal temperatures year-round by heat generated from geothermal aquifers that simmer under at least half of the Netherlands."

Wow, today I learned: http://www.thermogis.nl/general_info.html

Not as hot but definitely useful for greenhouse direct heating.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#260

Post by Fnoord »

edwinjm wrote: post #242
Fnoord wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two types of chickens: the ones grown for their meat, and the ones grown for their eggs (I'm not aware of the English terminology on either). There have been campaigns for both types of chicken to improve their quality of life. Here in NL they were conducted by an NGO called Wakker Dier. There's the campaign against the 'plofkip' (huge chicks who are unable to move, and are force fed) so that grocery stores…

Ah, so farmers never can do good. And when they do good, it's an "propaganda picture".

I gave two plausible options each explaining the picture. I find both of those explanations more plausible than tons of empty cages. YMMV.

I never said farmers are 'evil' people. Farmers can do good (and if you read my post well you'd have seen my examples), but we live in a capitalist world where profit is an important factor, if not the most important factor. So we need others to force the farmers to keep checks and balances: consumers, NGOs, and the government. Case in point: the fipronil scandal, where ChickFriend was a cheap solution to a problem, and where the government (NVWA) failed to look into an anonymous tip in november 2016. If they did, we'd have a lot less economic damage as well as less potential health damage. Another example is as I explained how Wakker Dier's campaign stimulated the sales of free range eggs of type 2 and 3 (although first and foremost in fresh eggs; not products containing eggs), and how they managed to reduce the amount of 'plofkip' in grocery store.

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