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How refrigeration changed our food

nytimes.com

21–30 of 86 posts

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#21
post #4

Hmm isn't frozen food - even veggies - very close in content to fresh food? The real problem being not how the veggies are stored on their way to us, but how they're grown industrially?

A friend started growing vegetables, and I got some as a gift at the end of the season. Just regular stuff like potatoes, carrots, celery root, parsnip and such. Now when I got them I was very busy, so they sat in a cool and dark place for a couple of weeks before I had time to use them. First thing I did was make a simple vegetable soup using only the vegetables I got from her, and it completely blew me away with th…

Yep, the difference in taste is remarkable.

I'm vegetarian and I've noticed there's an assumption made by many people that vegetarian or vegan food comes with sacrifice and is somehow lacking in pleasure. I can only assume this is because they have only tasted cheap supermarket vegetables or maybe just don't know how to prepare and cook them. I became vegetarian for ethical reasons but I stay for the flavour. I could never go back.

It's no surprise to me that the top vegetarian countries in the world (by percentage of population) have historically been countries like India, Mexico, Italy. All countries with long growing seasons. In India (again, historically, things are changing everywhere), they basically didn't even store food. Vegetables were harvested and eaten right away. Can't get fresher than that.

As with everything, though, you have to choose what to do with your life. Growing vegetables takes time (and money). Given the choice I think most people would opt to buy their vegetables from someone else so they have time to do other things. The problem comes when the quality of those veggies is slowly eroded over time in pursuit of profits. This problem isn't exclusive to vegetables, though.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#22
post #4

Hmm isn't frozen food - even veggies - very close in content to fresh food? The real problem being not how the veggies are stored on their way to us, but how they're grown industrially?

Yes, but refrigeration enabled us to produce at massive scale and then ship large distances. Prior to that, you only ate locally (or what could be preserved through pickling and other methods).

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#23
post #4

Hmm isn't frozen food - even veggies - very close in content to fresh food? The real problem being not how the veggies are stored on their way to us, but how they're grown industrially?

Exactly... the real problem is how they're grown. Frozen vegetables are less nutrient rich compared to fresh vegetables, because they lose nutrients while being frozen. And to be honest, frozen vegetables are frozen in the first place because those vegetables would have gone to waste otherwise. So not only is their original state already compromised, they're then even more so when they're frozen.

Freezing itself does not lower nutritional value.

Furthermore, if a produce purchaser is going to freeze, they freeze as soon as they possibly can to limit any spoilage or degradation, which hurts their overall profit. Frozen fruits and vegetables have typically retained their nutrition much better than "fresh" ones that were shipped from out of state.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#24

The home refrigerator is barely a century old When the article was written, it turned 110: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOMELRE I somewhat follow the vintage refrigeration community (owning a mid-30s Frigidaire myself) and still believe this is the only one of them known to be in existence today: https://www.coolingpost.com/features/ashrae-displays-first-e...

Home refrigeration is quite a bit older than electric refrigerators though. Iceboxes, kept cool by chunks of ice, were also called refrigerators and started being produced for home use in the 1840s.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#25

> we have lost “diversity and deliciousness" I sincerely doubt that the chilled stock in a local Irish supermarket makes my food options LESS diverse than they were a century ago. Grapes, blueberries, strawberries everywhere at any time of year, frozen fish from halfway around the planet, frozen pizzas, even ice cream for God's sake. Perhaps the cucumbers are worse, but I can always get them, and don't have to suffer…

The fridge door one came up some time ago on HN with actual data to back it up from "smart" fridges. Some people with kids said it was opened well over 100 times a day which shocked me. If TV/film/YouTube is anything to go by the habit of leaving the door open for extended periods is common too. That one really grinds my gears. I just can't understand a brain that doesn't tell you to minimise the amount of time the d…

100 times a day might be bursts of many times in short succession, which is definitely preferable to leaving the door open for what might be a longer cumulative time.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#26
post #24

The home refrigerator is barely a century old When the article was written, it turned 110: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOMELRE I somewhat follow the vintage refrigeration community (owning a mid-30s Frigidaire myself) and still believe this is the only one of them known to be in existence today: https://www.coolingpost.com/features/ashrae-displays-first-e...

Home refrigeration is quite a bit older than electric refrigerators though. Iceboxes, kept cool by chunks of ice, were also called refrigerators and started being produced for home use in the 1840s.

We stored meat in cold conditions back in the paleolithic. All you need really is to know how to dig a hole.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#27
Frozen fish and peas can be a lot fresher then even bought direct from local markets. A lot of the worst offenders for flavour loss, like Tomatoes, are from picking before they are ripe, which favours automation but dosn't really require refrigeration.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend started growing vegetables, and I got some as a gift at the end of the season. Just regular stuff like potatoes, carrots, celery root, parsnip and such. Now when I got them I was very busy, so they sat in a cool and dark place for a couple of weeks before I had time to use them. First thing I did was make a simple vegetable soup using only the vegetables I got from her, and it completely blew me away with th…

Yep, the difference in taste is remarkable. I'm vegetarian and I've noticed there's an assumption made by many people that vegetarian or vegan food comes with sacrifice and is somehow lacking in pleasure. I can only assume this is because they have only tasted cheap supermarket vegetables or maybe just don't know how to prepare and cook them. I became vegetarian for ethical reasons but I stay for the flavour. I could…

India is up there because many of them are vegetarian for religious reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_and_religion

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#29
post #27

Frozen fish and peas can be a lot fresher then even bought direct from local markets. A lot of the worst offenders for flavour loss, like Tomatoes, are from picking before they are ripe, which favours automation but dosn't really require refrigeration.

Unless you live in front of the sea, frozen fish is almost always better.

Tomatoes can improve substantially if left without refrigeration, it's one of those fruits that continues to ripen after being picked.

Re: How refrigeration changed our food

#30
post #27

Frozen fish and peas can be a lot fresher then even bought direct from local markets. A lot of the worst offenders for flavour loss, like Tomatoes, are from picking before they are ripe, which favours automation but dosn't really require refrigeration.

Unless you live in front of the sea, frozen fish is almost always better. Tomatoes can improve substantially if left without refrigeration, it's one of those fruits that continues to ripen after being picked.

I think there was a Good Eats episode, that tomatoes actually lose flavor if refrigerated - some chemical change, don’t remember the details.
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