Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 193 posts

Re: How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food

#91

Post by SolaceQuantum »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #55
squish78 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's OK if there's not a universal definition of every concept. Some things in life are culturally subjective - especially cuisine. However, I think an intelligent person can look at string cheese and say that's fake food. I've started realizing that there is very little space for nuance and subjectivity in discussing things on HN

Anything frozen & prepared seems to be taboo -- like a frozen pizza. But frozen peas and berries are fair game. Everything else seems to come down to branding. I've seen premade refrigerated pizza fly off the shelf. I've seen drinks with all kinds of highly processed ingredients sell like hotcakes. I've seen condiments with a list of ingredients as long as a phone book purchase by plenty of people that eat only "real…

"Anything frozen & prepared seems to be taboo"

This sort of thing always seems super american centric to me personally. It's common in chinese households to have a stash of frozen dumplings prepared in-kitchen, or frozen steamed buns, or various other frozen prepared foods that are kitchen staples. I get that if it's from a restaurant or big processing plant you might find things questionable, but if you prepare your own pizza and decide to freeze it for later I don't think anyone should besmirch you as suddenly less healthy compared to eating the pizza as soon as you made it.

Re: How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food

#92

Post by cowmoo728 »

viburnum wrote: post #75
asdf21 wrote: post #3

Pretty amazing this entire article never mentions trans fats.. which cause approx 500,000 premature deaths worldwide each year. For decades, Original Crisco had four grams of trans fat per tablespoon.

It's insane. Crisco was basically an industrial product disguised as food. It took almost ninety years for science to figure out that trans fats caused heart disease. Whenever somebody tells me how safe a new food product is, I think about how many people were killed by trans fats before anyone knew how bad they were.

The history of crisco is also eye-opening. It was a waste product from cotton production - chemists were given the task of finding ways to extract money out of left over cotton seeds. Cottonseed oil was previously used to make lamp oil and candles, but that business was dying out. They came up with partial hydrogenation to make it look close enough to lard, and then marketed it as a food product even though very little was known about it at the time. It was also shortly after Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, so people were excited about a vegetarian alternative to potentially contaminated animal products.

Re: How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food

#93

Post by superkuh »

cowmoo728 wrote: post #92
viburnum wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insane. Crisco was basically an industrial product disguised as food. It took almost ninety years for science to figure out that trans fats caused heart disease. Whenever somebody tells me how safe a new food product is, I think about how many people were killed by trans fats before anyone knew how bad they were.

The history of crisco is also eye-opening. It was a waste product from cotton production - chemists were given the task of finding ways to extract money out of left over cotton seeds. Cottonseed oil was previously used to make lamp oil and candles, but that business was dying out. They came up with partial hydrogenation to make it look close enough to lard, and then marketed it as a food product even though very litt…

> It was also shortly after Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, so people were excited about a vegetarian alternative to potentially contaminated animal products.

History just keeps on repeating itself. The same kind of anti-animal product fashion trend right now is making industrially processed vegetarian and vegan 'meat'-like products viable.

Re: How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food

#94

Post by NikolaeVarius »

namdnay wrote: post #86
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

String cheese is another great example. Most people would identify it as a clear example of "fake food", but it's literally just mozzarella stretched in a particular way. I have no objection to nuance and subjectivity. There's nothing wrong with someone saying "I like fresh salads and fish and tofu, but string cheese and Big Macs aren't for me". Certainly I wouldn't say that you must eat string cheese unless you have…

The ingredients for mozzarella are: buffalo milk, salt and rennet (and a bit of leftover whey for the bacteria). I’m sure there is far more in a packet of “cheese strings” than that

Lets test the claim out.

https://www.frigocheeseheads.com/en/products/everyday-snacki...

> INGREDIENTS: Low moisture part skim mozzarella cheese (pasteurized part skim milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes)

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Mozzarella-String-Che...

> Ingredients: Pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes

https://www.sargento.com/our-cheese/string-stick/string-chee...

> Pasteurized Reduced Fat Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes, Vitamin A Palmitate.

Nope, not checking out

Re: How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food

#95

Post by dragontamer »

kop316 wrote: post #85
dragontamer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people really need Ghee specifically? Or do people need "clarified butter" If you just want "butter that doesn't burn", here's what I do. 1. Melt butter in a pot. This separates butter into its three fundamental parts: solids (floating at the top), oil (in the middle), and water. 2. Heat until all the water at the bottom vaporizes. 3. Pour remaining mixture through a coffee filter. This removes the solids (which e…

To be honest, I didn't know there was a difference. I was more looking for a substitute for shortening, which I think clarified butter can do? Or just ghee?

All fats can substitute for each other depending on recipe. It will taste different but it's really fun to replace fats with other fats.

Ex, bacon grease works in more recipes than you'd expect.

Just memorize their smoke points, the point where a fat begins to burn. Shortening has a very high smoke point, but that is only relevant if you expect the temperature to go above 400F, such as the mallard reaction (aka the taste of fried / saute food).

You'll learn pretty quick when a fat burns quickly. Olive oil and bacon grease burn at really low temperatures and will create a thick cloud of smoke as it burns.

Look up the smoke points of fats if you are worried.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_cookin...

Re: How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food

#96

Post by autokad »

open-source-ux wrote: post #87
somurzakov wrote: post #71

quick rule of thumb I developed - if product has long shelf life and does not require refrigeration - it is probably unhealthy. fruits and veggies get optimized for heavier weight per piece and longer shelf life, instead of taste. Same thing for every other grocery product.

"if product has long shelf life and does not require refrigeration - it is probably unhealthy" There are a lot of exceptions though: dried lentils and pulses, pasta, ground spices (and to a less extent whole spices). Tinned fruit, vegetables, beans and pulses are often fine too. Some vegetables, like onions and potatoes, can be stored for many weeks in a cool environment (not in the refrigerator). Also, UHT milk has…

honey, water, legumes, etc. Among diet rule of thumbs, its not a great one.

Re: How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food

#97

Post by DiabloD3 »

trianglem wrote: post #78
athenot wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar rule of thumb: if it's not part of any culture's traditional cuisine, it's probably unhealthy. Long shelf life is not necessarily an issue; I've eaten home-made canned cherries & plums that were 10 years old. Wine can also have a long shelf life (though most don't). But your point stands with the varietals optimized for appearance and tolerance to shipping as opposed to flavor. I've come to realize w…

I doubt that. Pretty much all of Northern European preserved meats are terrible for you.

Except they kind of aren't.

Northern Europeans used the same techniques that many other cultures used across the globe: remove as much water content as possible, use herbs that have certain bacteria-inhibiting properties that also taste good, apply liberal salt. Everything is some evolution of this.

You may wish to provide an example as to what you mean, because I suspect whatever you are referring to is more modern (ie, in the past 300 or so years).

Re: How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food

#98

Post by ericd »

dragontamer wrote: post #95
kop316 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I didn't know there was a difference. I was more looking for a substitute for shortening, which I think clarified butter can do? Or just ghee?

All fats can substitute for each other depending on recipe. It will taste different but it's really fun to replace fats with other fats. Ex, bacon grease works in more recipes than you'd expect. Just memorize their smoke points, the point where a fat begins to burn. Shortening has a very high smoke point, but that is only relevant if you expect the temperature to go above 400F, such as the mallard reaction (aka the t…

Really interesting, thanks for the brain dump! What do you look for to know when your pan is preheated enough to eg sear meat well if you don't wait for a little smoke?

Re: How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food

#99

Post by ericd »

saganus wrote: post #83
ofcrpls wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how Ghee is made in my house. 0. Be from a family line that consumes gallons up gallons of curd/yogurt weekly. 1. Curd Process - Boil whole milk, let it cool down a bit, and add some older curd, let it sit overnight in your oven with the light on. 2. The next morning, put the container in the refrigerator. 3. At night, you'll notice a think layer of creamy butter on top of the curd. Scrape that layer off the…

Interesting. What's the point of leaving the ove light on? is it to keep the stuff at a mild temperature?

Not the OP, but guessing it's to keep it a bit warmer than room temp to help the cultures do their thing.

Re: How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food

#100

Post by buckminster »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #39
squish78 wrote: post #8

The agro-industrial complex in general convinced Americans to buy trademark branded products instead of real food

I'm not convinced that there's a coherent concept of real food. Most real food advocates I've seen are happy to eat, say, tofu. They'll admit that technically it's processed, in the sense that it's industrially manufactured by pulverizing soybeans beyond recognition then adding chemicals to the big holding vats. But people say it's not highly processed, or it hasn't lost the natural essence of soy, or whatever. I jus…

The NOVA classification system adds some rigour. And there is growing evidence that ultra-processed food is particularly bad for you.

https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova

Post reply on HN