Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible • Hacker News Board

Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible

#51

Post by wombatmobile » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:16 AM UTC

smegger001 wrote: post #45

koyote wrote: post #24

I think it's quite interesting that it's taken so long for a lackluster tasting food to decline in popularity. When I moved to the US from Western Europe, the relative difference in food quality was quite apparent and I distinctly remember noticing this first with the apples: At first I thought I might have chosen a bad batch, but after a couple of more buys I realised that these apples looked 'perfect' but always ta…

Its not just the perfect look that Red Delicious was bred for but shelf life. Those things take forever to rot compared to other apples and hide bruising, but they end up with dry mealy texture and very thick waxy skin. They were optimized for apple sellers not apple eaters.

> They were optimized for apple sellers not apple eaters.

The American food industry is optimised for sellers, not eaters [1].

It is that way because the scalar nature of capital in America favours national businesses, not local businesses (or nutritional well being).

Consumers fit in with this model out of necessity because they are workers who cannot allocate enough time to food shopping, preparation, and cooking. Instead, they minimise the time spent on food procurement by going to the supermarket, which is the ultimate expression of scalar capitalism.

[1] Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us ISBN1400069807 (ISBN13: 9781400069804), Michael Moss, Random House, 2013

Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible

#52

Post by ggm » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:17 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #31

ggm wrote: post #16

Apples, like Tomato are textbook examples of what mechanised volume production and warehousing does to "tasty". You can either have cheap food, or you can have good food, but good cheap food (where good means nutritious, delicious) is a lot harder and Cheap generally beats out good anyway, for most people. Remember in context, we probably waste over 30% of the produce along the supply chain, seeking absolutely "perfe…

The interesting thing is that tomatoes first declined with mechanization and breeding for longevity and rose again. Once the mechanization process was done, they could be bred for taste again. Note: link about effort to revive tomato taste. That they succeeded is my personal judgement - ie, I think tomatoes taste good again. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/geneticists-qu...

Another counter-example to my argument would be farm-frozen peas. They're unquestionably better in every sense, than canned peas, or dried peas, or peas which were not snap frozen at picking time. So not all food is worse for being industrialised. And as you point out now food handling methods have improved and food storage at scale through warehousing and distribution, there's every chance of quality coming back in as a price differentiator.

Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible

#53

Post by throwawayboise » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:18 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #2

> “It turns out that a lot of the genes that coded for the flavor-producing compounds were on the same chromosomes as the genes for the yellow striped skin,” Traverso explains, “so as you favored the more consistently colored apples, you were essentially disfavoring the same genes that coded for great flavor. This is also why so many cultivars of tomato and cucumber taste like moist cardboard. Once you taste what the…

With tomatoes, I thought it was more that most are not ripened on the vine, they are picked green so they ship better, then ripened artificially with ethelene gas. They turn red, but don't develop the same flavor or texture as a real ripe tomato.

Same with strawberries.

Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible

#54

Post by smegger001 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:19 AM UTC

axguscbklp wrote: post #43

I agree that supermarket fruits and vegetables often seem to lack in flavor but to my taste, Red Delicious is not worse than any other supermarket apple. All supermarket apples, even the sour ones, pretty much just taste like slightly different variants of sugar water to me - the sourness of the sour apples just rides on top of the sugar water taste without really displacing it. I do not know why Red Delicious specif…

because it doesn't even have the sugar water taste going for it. it been so over optimzed for appearance shape and shelf life that the texture has become unpleasant, the flavor is non existent, and for years it was "The Apple" you have generations that had one of those awful thing sent in their school lunch every day (and usually threw it away without a single bite), that have grown up had enough of this garbage apple and it is now emblematic of bad flavorless fruit and vegetable in stores.

Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible

#55

Post by wombatmobile » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:20 AM UTC

axguscbklp wrote: post #43

I agree that supermarket fruits and vegetables often seem to lack in flavor but to my taste, Red Delicious is not worse than any other supermarket apple. All supermarket apples, even the sour ones, pretty much just taste like slightly different variants of sugar water to me - the sourness of the sour apples just rides on top of the sugar water taste without really displacing it. I do not know why Red Delicious specif…

Here in Australia the supermarket apples can be excellent. Tasty, crisp, juicy, sweet/tart, consistently reliable, and beautiful to look at.

Do you have Jazz apples? They are the best.

Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible

#56

Post by throwawayboise » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:22 AM UTC

Clewza313 wrote: post #38

wyldfire wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remember in context, we probably waste over 30% of the produce along the supply chain, seeking absolutely "perfect" blemish free apples in a tray, wrapped in plastic, cheaper than before. over the last fifty years (or more?) grocery stores have evolved to have onsite bakeries/etc that take food that looks unappealing or would otherwise spoil soon and make them into prepared foods. Ready to eat meals, prepped ingred…

Really? I had always assumed that unsold food gets thrown away (or maybe at a best case donated), and supply chains for bakeries etc are 100% separate by design.

The local supermarket sells whole roasted chickens that you can buy hot and ready to eat. The ones that don't sell are deboned and shredded and used for chicken salad, barbeque "pulled" chicken, etc.

Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible

#57

Post by throwawayboise » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:23 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #39

I thought it was just me that hated the Red Delicious. The Fujis and Granny Smiths seem to be going downhill fast. The Galas are ok. I planted my own apple tree 20 years ago. Some years I get some fruit that the deer missed, and those are awesome.

I like Granny Smith sliced with peanut butter. They are also pretty good for cooking.

Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible

#58

Post by irrational » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:25 AM UTC

Good article, but the author’s conclusion is flawed. Pink Lady is the best eating apple ;-)

(Before anyone brings up Honeycrisp - I do think it is the best saucing apple.)

Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible

#59

Post by smegger001 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:28 AM UTC

wombatmobile wrote: post #51

smegger001 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not just the perfect look that Red Delicious was bred for but shelf life. Those things take forever to rot compared to other apples and hide bruising, but they end up with dry mealy texture and very thick waxy skin. They were optimized for apple sellers not apple eaters.

> They were optimized for apple sellers not apple eaters. The American food industry is optimised for sellers, not eaters [1]. It is that way because the scalar nature of capital in America favours national businesses, not local businesses (or nutritional well being). Consumers fit in with this model out of necessity because they are workers who cannot allocate enough time to food shopping, preparation, and cooking.…

oh absolutely and it is all most economically optimal and rational thing to do for everyone involved. It is just soulless and dismal. each step of the way is rational in isolation, its when it all together that it becomes an awful abomination .

Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible

#60

Post by TrispusAttucks » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:54 AM UTC

addicted wrote: post #33

ggm wrote: post #16

Apples, like Tomato are textbook examples of what mechanised volume production and warehousing does to "tasty". You can either have cheap food, or you can have good food, but good cheap food (where good means nutritious, delicious) is a lot harder and Cheap generally beats out good anyway, for most people. Remember in context, we probably waste over 30% of the produce along the supply chain, seeking absolutely "perfe…

I don’t think this is correct. We can have good food, and cheaper food than we have now without changing anything. At least as far as vegetables are concerned. The problem here is that groceries are tailoring their product not for the eater of the food, but for the buyer of the food. That results in a lot of vegetables/fruits being thrown away even after they’ve been selectively bred to look good vs tasting good. If…

Storage shelf life is also an important artificial selection pressure.

The best vegetables are ones that are fresh out of the garden and ripened appropriately.

That scenario really isn't compatible with the types of places tomatoes find themselves to be for sell at. Which is to say probably in a city very far from where they were grown.