La Ruche qui dit Oui • Hacker News Board

Re: La Ruche qui dit Oui

#31

Post by InclinedPlane » Wed, Jun 17, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

stangeek wrote: post #18

InclinedPlane wrote: post #7

This is pretty common in the US, it generally goes under the name "community supported agriculture" (CSA) or "farm-shares". People usually pay a yearly fee or pay a monthly subscription and get a weekly box of produce and whatnot mostly from one or a few local farms.

No, it's not the same at all. Here you get to select online the product you want to buy, you are not "forced" to receive a box of produce. And there is no monthly fee at all, you just pay for what you buy.

Apologies if I elided mention of how they are different, I didn't mean to do so. This sort of thing is a pretty big innovation and offers the potential to increase the reach of direct to consumer local farm produce sales.

Re: La Ruche qui dit Oui

#32

Post by cactusface » Wed, Jun 17, 2015, 9:25 PM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #28

cactusface wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I wouldn't say the downsides of the old ways were that the food was non-local, low quality, or unhealthy. A lot of the food regulations were necessary because when you try to do things on a large scale you run into quality and health problems. The downsides are more like people ate way less meat because it was too expensive, there was much less international variety, and there were a lot more farmers, l…

The main point you're missing is that people were tied to local produce. Cold snap during summer? Potato blight? Sorry, you're going to starve. Even when the harvest came through, staying healthy through the winter and spring was a major problem, with all sorts of vitamin deficiency diseases like scurvy, beriberi, pellagra and rickets endemic.

There's definitely more food now. Most of it is lower quality than what was eaten before, when it was eaten of course. For survival reasons, I would choose availability over quality any day. However, we have more than enough food to survive, so much so that we throw it away. So maybe quality could go up a bit. Like say by banning the use of antibiotics and growth hormones in milk producing cows.

Re: La Ruche qui dit Oui

#33

Post by maxerickson » Wed, Jun 17, 2015, 9:34 PM UTC

cactusface wrote: post #32

jpatokal wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main point you're missing is that people were tied to local produce. Cold snap during summer? Potato blight? Sorry, you're going to starve. Even when the harvest came through, staying healthy through the winter and spring was a major problem, with all sorts of vitamin deficiency diseases like scurvy, beriberi, pellagra and rickets endemic.

There's definitely more food now. Most of it is lower quality than what was eaten before, when it was eaten of course. For survival reasons, I would choose availability over quality any day. However, we have more than enough food to survive, so much so that we throw it away. So maybe quality could go up a bit. Like say by banning the use of antibiotics and growth hormones in milk producing cows.

Antibiotics are banned in dairy cows (at least, in the US and EU). They can be used to treat illness, but the milk produced while they are used must be discarded.

Growth hormones are banned in the EU, not in the US, but many US dairy producers advertise the fact that they produce milk without using them.

Re: La Ruche qui dit Oui

#34

Post by cactusface » Wed, Jun 17, 2015, 10:09 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #33

cactusface wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely more food now. Most of it is lower quality than what was eaten before, when it was eaten of course. For survival reasons, I would choose availability over quality any day. However, we have more than enough food to survive, so much so that we throw it away. So maybe quality could go up a bit. Like say by banning the use of antibiotics and growth hormones in milk producing cows.

Antibiotics are banned in dairy cows (at least, in the US and EU). They can be used to treat illness, but the milk produced while they are used must be discarded. Growth hormones are banned in the EU, not in the US, but many US dairy producers advertise the fact that they produce milk without using them.

Sorry, I thought there were antibiotics in US milk.