Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam • Hacker News Board

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#11

Post by heyjudy » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 7:11 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #6

I seriously wish I knew how to buy B grade food. Slightly misshapen tomatoes at a discounted price? Sign me up. I feel like I'm not the only one too.

Farmers markets that have actual farmers selling produce they grow. It's primarily the supermarkets and corporatized/lazy markets that sell primarily pretty cardboard.

Also, grow your own.. anyone with at least a balcony and sunlight in California has no excuse to grow tomatoes and peppers in the summer.

Grocery Outlet sells hydroponic Live Lettuce for cheap, including the mixed varieties box, at least here.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#12

Post by jeswin » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 7:11 AM UTC

feross wrote: post #3

> The "eat ugly fruit!" movement is classist as FUCK. You've got to have a debilitating level of ignorance to assume that if Whole Paycheck Market doesn't stock ugly fruit, it must be getting "wasted." It is possible to not know much about the agricultural industry without being "classist as fuck." There are an infinite number of things one can learn about and a finite amount of time. While the content is interesting…

I guess the author was upset that a great many people parroted the 'ugly fruits get disposed' line without doing any research. I might have mentioned it myself, because it was all over the news. I can understand why someone who works in the industry would find this frustrating - it's basically just fake news and the damage is real. A rebuttal would get nowhere near the press the sensationalist original story would get.

The lesson from this is - share stories only within your area of expertise.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#13

Post by starpilot » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 7:12 AM UTC

nightfly wrote: post #9

godelski wrote: post #6

I seriously wish I knew how to buy B grade food. Slightly misshapen tomatoes at a discounted price? Sign me up. I feel like I'm not the only one too.

"Know what happens to most of the produce that's edible, has enough shape to survive in transit, but looks funny? IT GOES TO THE GROCERY STORES THAT POOR PEOPLE SHOP AT"

Read: ethnic markets, 99 ranch, h-mart etc

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#14

Post by philwelch » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 7:12 AM UTC

feross wrote: post #3

> The "eat ugly fruit!" movement is classist as FUCK. You've got to have a debilitating level of ignorance to assume that if Whole Paycheck Market doesn't stock ugly fruit, it must be getting "wasted." It is possible to not know much about the agricultural industry without being "classist as fuck." There are an infinite number of things one can learn about and a finite amount of time. While the content is interesting…

If you start a massive flame war, you get a bigger audience. People come for the drama and once they're there, they're listening to you.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#15

Post by woolvalley » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 7:14 AM UTC

starpilot wrote: post #13

nightfly wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Know what happens to most of the produce that's edible, has enough shape to survive in transit, but looks funny? IT GOES TO THE GROCERY STORES THAT POOR PEOPLE SHOP AT"

Read: ethnic markets, 99 ranch, h-mart etc

Other candidates are foodmaxx and grocery outlet.

I've been to all of those places and other than the decor and maybe freshness they didn't seem that misshapen or blemished to me.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#16

Post by TulliusCicero » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 7:16 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #6

I seriously wish I knew how to buy B grade food. Slightly misshapen tomatoes at a discounted price? Sign me up. I feel like I'm not the only one too.

I think there are some services that do this, e.g. https://www.imperfectproduce.com

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#17

Post by pizza » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 7:17 AM UTC

feross wrote: post #3

> The "eat ugly fruit!" movement is classist as FUCK. You've got to have a debilitating level of ignorance to assume that if Whole Paycheck Market doesn't stock ugly fruit, it must be getting "wasted." It is possible to not know much about the agricultural industry without being "classist as fuck." There are an infinite number of things one can learn about and a finite amount of time. While the content is interesting…

The author is just expressing their frustration of having to constantly correct this particular strain of naivete. Contained naivete (e.g. keeping incorrect opinions to oneself) is mostly harmless to everybody, but if naivete spreads that's bad.

Of course, there's also the "outrage gets you likes" aspect, but I guess if I were in the agriculture field I might have reason to genuinely be somewhat outraged.

I probably wouldn't call it classist af for someone to not understand efficiencies of agricultural logistics, though..

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#18

Post by smsm42 » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 7:20 AM UTC

danaur wrote: post #8

Twitter posts like these have an interesting bullet point writing style you don't see in most places. I personally enjoy this style

It would be much better as a once-piece article. I am still at loss at why people use twitter to write long forms. I mean, you know it's going to be long. Put it on Medium (or whatever, I don't care where it is) and if you need Twitter audience, post a link.

Yes, I know threaders exist. But that's solving a problem that shouldn't have existed at the first place.

OTOH, in my eyes, posts like that is pretty much the only redeeming feature Twitter have left by now...

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#19

Post by heyjudy » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 7:22 AM UTC

One of my roommates in college was from Michoacan MX, and worked Washington state, Oregon and California's Central Valley/Watsonville growing up. At fruit stands this was standard practice.. inedible/bad fruit was tossed out but damaged fruit went into pies, salads and other products because it wouldn't sell as well, even 30-40 years ago.

The problem is manufacturers and retailers optimizing a deep supply-chain for what's easiest and most consistent: picking fruit green so it lasts a long time and doesn't get damaged.

There's a difficult-to-defend market for almost as beautiful but insanely delicious produce that can shorten the supply-chain and deliver just-in-time... hydroponics and gentler processing may help. How much would you pay for an apple or tomato if it were 3-8x better than the generic produce aisle? (People also want organic non-GMO if they're paying more.)

Finally, there's a good deal of issues around monoculture risks, especially with cloned products like bananas, that already had to be reengineered once and about to be tweaked again because of pest and disease evolution.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#20

Post by caymanjim » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 7:23 AM UTC

feross wrote: post #3

> The "eat ugly fruit!" movement is classist as FUCK. You've got to have a debilitating level of ignorance to assume that if Whole Paycheck Market doesn't stock ugly fruit, it must be getting "wasted." It is possible to not know much about the agricultural industry without being "classist as fuck." There are an infinite number of things one can learn about and a finite amount of time. While the content is interesting…

Ignorance is no excuse. You might not be classist if you're too ignorant to understand the thing you're passionately protesting, but you're many other voluntarily bad things.