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Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

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Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#71

Post by sandyarmstrong »

AlexandrB wrote: post #55
sandyarmstrong wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to other brands available in the supermarket, my family finds that Boar's Head deli meats consistently taste better. There is something "cheap" that I find hard to quantify in the taste of generic grocery branded deli meats. I'm not educated enough to know what the difference is here, but I don't think the fact that Boar's Head costs more is entirely a marketing device.

Not to discount your experience, but taste is so context sensitive and subjective that just believing that you're consuming a higher quality product is often enough to make it "taste better". There's a great Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode that illustrates this phenomenon for fancy water[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2qydjVbLJk

Yup, that's completely true. But as somebody who typically prefers to buy "cheap" brands, and is usually completely satisfied by them, the fact that I experience such a wide gulf between Boar's Head and other brands makes me think it's not a marketing mind trick.

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#72

Post by sandyarmstrong »

mock-possum wrote: post #53
sandyarmstrong wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to other brands available in the supermarket, my family finds that Boar's Head deli meats consistently taste better. There is something "cheap" that I find hard to quantify in the taste of generic grocery branded deli meats. I'm not educated enough to know what the difference is here, but I don't think the fact that Boar's Head costs more is entirely a marketing device.

> There is something "cheap" that I find hard to quantify in the taste of generic grocery branded deli meats. They tend to be watery and under seasoned. I can only assume it’s to make them as inoffensive as possible to accommodate the widest possible audience - but there’s no character to cheap deli meat, no striking taste.

Watery, yes, that's definitely a component of it!

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#73

Post by SllX »

dan_quixote wrote: post #38
Suppafly wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I used to swear by Boars Head and would choose the store I am going too based on if they carried it. This, we used to get meat from the 'good' Kroger because their deli had a better selection than the one in our neighborhood. If the premium brand is poison, I'm not sure what that says for the budget brands.

I think your perception of "premium" is flawed in this case.

People keep saying that in this thread, but Boar’s Head does taste better than the crap that was more common before it. I’ve since found better deli meats, but even if I never eat another Boar’s Head product again, I’ll never eat Oscar Meyer or the other crap that was on the shelf next to it either again, or whatever Safeway was selling in its deli before they did their whole rebrand to serving Boar’s Head (actually I don’t shop there either anymore but for unrelated reasons).

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#74

Post by from-nibly »

vkou wrote: post #56
datavirtue wrote: post #44

How do you come back from this? Their whole schtick is absolute, unadulterated quality. Perfection. From this they garnered extremely high prices. They had it in the bag.

Easy. Just keep spending on marketing and bribing stores to give them preferential placement. You think they were a premium brand, that did not compromise on quality. Do you have any evidence of this? Or did you believe it because they told you they were, and because they charge more? This is the beauty of unregulated free markets. With no actual baseline for quality, it's often easier to dupe people into believing t…

It wasnt unregulated though. We have this thing called the FDA. Problem solved right?

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#75

Post by monkeyfun »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #62
AyyEye wrote: post #50

Buy your food from a local farmer. It is healthier and tastes better (and doesnt support big agra corps). For everyone that thought boars head was 'premium' you'll be blown away. Even the lowest quality local farms are usually going to be better than the best industrial producers. You can often buy a whole (or half or 1/4) animal. They will have a butcher to process the animals for you. Search for "community supporte…

This discussion is about deli meat. Are you implying that Frank the Farmer down the road making baloney in a bathtub is "healthier and tastes better" than processed deli cuts made in a USDA inspected factory? Not excusing what happened here at all but this assertion and all "buy local" hysteria is simply subjective hippy nonsense. A few years back some "local" cheese makers got busted with plenty of food safety and q…

Could you link to an article on those local (to where, btw?) cheesemakers?

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#76

Post by AyyEye »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #62
AyyEye wrote: post #50

Buy your food from a local farmer. It is healthier and tastes better (and doesnt support big agra corps). For everyone that thought boars head was 'premium' you'll be blown away. Even the lowest quality local farms are usually going to be better than the best industrial producers. You can often buy a whole (or half or 1/4) animal. They will have a butcher to process the animals for you. Search for "community supporte…

This discussion is about deli meat. Are you implying that Frank the Farmer down the road making baloney in a bathtub is "healthier and tastes better" than processed deli cuts made in a USDA inspected factory? Not excusing what happened here at all but this assertion and all "buy local" hysteria is simply subjective hippy nonsense. A few years back some "local" cheese makers got busted with plenty of food safety and q…

This discussion is about industrial food processors making food products at-scale in factories.

> you implying that Frank the Farmer down the road making baloney in a bathtub

The farmers almost never do the processing, Certainly none of the farms I have seen do.

But that's a nice misdirection and mental picture you tried to paint there. Let me try doing the same thing: Do you think the Thiel and Vc funds slopping bulk meat paste around a factory with underpaid temp workers who don't even all know each other is more sanitary than a second generation butcher with only a single room and no large factory equipment to maintain?

Do you think a bunch of animals fed bulk food waste of unknown origins while kept in sunlight free boxes and bred to grow so fast they have heart attacks are healthier than animals that can wonder around outside and eat what they like?

> "Buy local" has zero relationship to food safety or quality.

"Buy industrial" absolutely has a negative relationship to quality. Both the animals and the processing are done with as many corners cut as they can get away with because something thats simply not worth doing for a local farmer becomes extremely valuable when done at factory scale.

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#77

Post by efrggdrgg »

AyyEye wrote: post #76
wannacboatmovie wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This discussion is about deli meat. Are you implying that Frank the Farmer down the road making baloney in a bathtub is "healthier and tastes better" than processed deli cuts made in a USDA inspected factory? Not excusing what happened here at all but this assertion and all "buy local" hysteria is simply subjective hippy nonsense. A few years back some "local" cheese makers got busted with plenty of food safety and q…

This discussion is about industrial food processors making food products at-scale in factories. > you implying that Frank the Farmer down the road making baloney in a bathtub The farmers almost never do the processing, Certainly none of the farms I have seen do. But that's a nice misdirection and mental picture you tried to paint there. Let me try doing the same thing: Do you think the Thiel and Vc funds slopping bul…

[dead]

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#78

Post by AyyEye »

Log_out_ wrote: post #68
AyyEye wrote: post #50

Buy your food from a local farmer. It is healthier and tastes better (and doesnt support big agra corps). For everyone that thought boars head was 'premium' you'll be blown away. Even the lowest quality local farms are usually going to be better than the best industrial producers. You can often buy a whole (or half or 1/4) animal. They will have a butcher to process the animals for you. Search for "community supporte…

eu sabotaged local butchers and hunters with strict requirements for dissasembly of animals

Food regulations are often written with bulk producers in mind. When you have millions of pounds of meat from farms all over the country you are taunting disease. (Too many inputs to control. Farms all over the country, large facilities, long time between steps (harvest, processing, shipping, distribution, sale)). It's a miracle they are able to do this at all.

Your typical family is able to be far less sterile than any factory and nobody gets sick largely because it's not done at-scale (more pathogens from more places) with long delays between steps to give the pathogens time to replicate. The un-sterilized corner of my kitchen floor isnt going to make it into my food but the machines covered in meat paste might end up getting a bit back into the vat.

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#79

Post by gamblor956 »

AyyEye wrote: post #76
wannacboatmovie wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This discussion is about deli meat. Are you implying that Frank the Farmer down the road making baloney in a bathtub is "healthier and tastes better" than processed deli cuts made in a USDA inspected factory? Not excusing what happened here at all but this assertion and all "buy local" hysteria is simply subjective hippy nonsense. A few years back some "local" cheese makers got busted with plenty of food safety and q…

This discussion is about industrial food processors making food products at-scale in factories. > you implying that Frank the Farmer down the road making baloney in a bathtub The farmers almost never do the processing, Certainly none of the farms I have seen do. But that's a nice misdirection and mental picture you tried to paint there. Let me try doing the same thing: Do you think the Thiel and Vc funds slopping bul…

The farmers almost never do the processing, Certainly none of the farms I have seen do.

Which defeats the point of buying the foods at issue from a farmer, unless you are suggesting that everyone buy the equipment they need to make deli meat at home from the quarter-cow they just purchased.

Both the animals and the processing are done with as many corners cut as they can get away with because something thats simply not worth doing for a local farmer becomes extremely valuable when done at factory scale.

This discussion is about processed meats, primarily deli meats. You are not buying deli meats from a local farmer, because as you have also stated, they don't do the processing.

But if you meant to say, buy from a local butcher then yes, by all means do that because they will buy from the local farmer and process the meat for you.

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#80

Post by vkou »

from-nibly wrote: post #74
vkou wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy. Just keep spending on marketing and bribing stores to give them preferential placement. You think they were a premium brand, that did not compromise on quality. Do you have any evidence of this? Or did you believe it because they told you they were, and because they charge more? This is the beauty of unregulated free markets. With no actual baseline for quality, it's often easier to dupe people into believing t…

It wasnt unregulated though. We have this thing called the FDA. Problem solved right?

When regulators can't shut a plant down for a violation like this, it's not actually regulated.

People watch historic documentaries (like HBO's Chernobyl /s) and ooh and aah about how stupid the Soviet safety and bureaucratic culture was, without a shred of self-reflection about how our systems also make ruinous outcomes inevitable.

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