Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam • Hacker News Board

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#101

Post by krustyburger » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 9:59 AM UTC

ryanlol wrote: post #91

lucideer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The offputting tone wouldn't be quite as objectionable (imo) if the argument wasn't so FUCKing wrong. > Most "ugly" produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam, ice cream, etc. You think that stuff gets made from the pretty fruit & veggies?! jeebus, think about it for a minute I've thought about it, and yes, that stuff gets made from the pretty fruit & veggies. Sure, a LOT of it gets made from the rejected "ug…

>This sentence from the same person who just used the phrase "classist as fuck"!? There's nothing classist about acknowledging the fact that poor and rich people often shop in different stores.

The notion that frugality implies poverty is classist, not to mention inaccurate.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#102

Post by Dylan16807 » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:11 AM UTC

mijamo wrote: post #59

travisjungroth wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never done this, and I gently suggest you stop. Do you really need those extra few days of milk expiration? If the milk with the soonest expiration date was the only one available, would you buy it or just walk out without milk? A good rule to avoid tragedy of the commons situations is to think “what if everyone did as I do?”. This is a pretty classic example here.

Depends where you live and your household consumption . In Sweden milk expires usually 3-7 days after you buy it. If you are alone and don't drink that much, it does make a big difference buying the one that expires in 7 days vs the one in 3-4 days (there is no discount except if it expires 1 day after purchasing)

> In Sweden milk expires usually 3-7 days after you buy it.

What's the typical date on it, relative to purchase and expiration?

In the US milk is usually given a sell-by of three weeks after pasteurization, and actually lasts almost a week beyond that.

Though it depends some on fridge temperature, could...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15553644 https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/65579/why-do-fri... https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1541-4337.12... huh.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#103

Post by ewoodrich » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:15 AM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #40

veridies wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Her examples really don’t have very ugly produce in my experience. Like, all the stuff at Grocery Outlet or the Dollar Tree looks pretty damn good, although it’s often not very fresh. The only time I see really misshapen or bruised fruit is at the farmer’s market in discount bins. Is my experience abnormal?

My experience with Grocery Outlet leads me to think that their produce is usually stuff that's close to expiring, rather than things that are blemished.

Agreed. I buy about half my groceries from Grocery Outlet and it's more likely you'll sell slimey lettuce in bags nearing expiration, or nonperishable products that have been phased out, but from the same brands as "regular" stores. The fresh produce isn't even that much cheaper than say, a Kroger store and the quality is comparable.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#104

Post by crispyambulance » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:16 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #69

pizza wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is just expressing their frustration of having to constantly correct this particular strain of naivete. Contained naivete (e.g. keeping incorrect opinions to oneself) is mostly harmless to everybody, but if naivete spreads that's bad. Of course, there's also the "outrage gets you likes" aspect, but I guess if I were in the agriculture field I might have reason to genuinely be somewhat outraged. I probably…

> The author is just expressing their frustration of having to constantly correct this particular strain of naivete Why do they have to "constantly correct" it? What is their business? Besides, it's not really "naivete". Eating uglier fruit and vegetables is still good advice, to not get sucked buyinh tasteless but nice-looking produce that selectively breeds for size and color over taste, and even uses BS tricks lik…

    > Eating uglier fruit and vegetables is still good advice...

The OP was describing the "naive" people who shop at Whole Foods (or other premium grocery stores) and then complain about the wasted or missing "ugly" produce. They're thinking that if the ugly stuff isn't at their fancy grocery store it must have been thrown away when, in fact, the "ugly" produce has merely been diverted away to other vendors and uses which they're simply not aware of.

The irony that is lost upon them is that by walking into their fancy grocery store, they're basically signalling to the grocery store that they're willing to pay a high price for what the grocery store and their demographic has deemed "unblemished" produce that meets certain criteria for size and appearance.

In a sense it is totally fair to call out such naivete. Instead of complaining to Whole Foods, these folks should just shop elsewhere. The price will be lower, the flavors will be different (usually better), and yes, there will more blemishes and unexpected size and appearance.

To actually find that "ugly" produce one needs to go to the discount/ethnic groceries. In the Northeastern US, that just means finding the Asian and Hispanic produce vendors and going there for produce. There are _some_ other vendors which are beginning to catch on, "Produce Junction" comes to mind.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#105

Post by kamaal » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:16 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #10

The ugliest fruits never make it to the market. Step-son of greengrocer here. Really, the most clear example to me is the fact that perfectly good fruits and vegetables get 'turned over' during harvest season because they do not fetch the minimum amount and are turned into cattle feed.

In India, it goes beyond that. Supply chains are extremely ineffective, and farmers basically sell to middle men. Often these are sold in chain to several other people before they go to the market.

Many times the farmers are given such a low ball offer, that is basically expecting them to sell for loss. The farmer does the obvious. Takes their produce, dump in a lake near by as garbage, because it often doesn't economic make sense to take it back.

Sometimes its worse than that. They just take their lorry and drive over the produce in the market and just take a bus back.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#106

Post by beaconstudios » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:17 AM UTC

jchw wrote: post #51

feross wrote: post #3

> The "eat ugly fruit!" movement is classist as FUCK. You've got to have a debilitating level of ignorance to assume that if Whole Paycheck Market doesn't stock ugly fruit, it must be getting "wasted." It is possible to not know much about the agricultural industry without being "classist as fuck." There are an infinite number of things one can learn about and a finite amount of time. While the content is interesting…

I think it's pretty simple: People absolutely love drama. Calling someone out feels good, and people love to follow along. It gets irritating when people make super broad accusations like this, but I believe it's in a similar vein to how politics on Twitter is mostly people trying to out snark everyone else. In this situation I'd say the consumer is the victim of being misled, but you stir up a lot more people by acc…

This is a pernicious problem in modern politics in general. Sell the easy-to-react-to emotional story to people and they'll turn it into some big movement without stopping to check the facts. This leads to people believing lies and advocating for existing sensible systems to be changed because they believed those lies.

> Of course, but most people don't accidentally make broad accusations of problematic isms, either.

Have you been on twitter before?

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#107

Post by skookumchuck » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:19 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #94

skookumchuck wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a bakery operator who said the health code required throwing away unsold baked goods with butter content at the end of the day, when I asked him about donating to the homeless. It's not evil or stupid. It's the law.

I'd want to see a specific law citation before I believe that. I'm sure you're trying to report what he said accurately, but he may have been misleading or mistaken.

"The food shall be cooked and served, served if ready to eat, or discarded within 4 hours from the point in time when the food is removed from temperature control;"

https://www.ehso.uic.edu/UserFiles/Servers/Server_82316/File... pg 36

It's in a different state (each has their own code), but it'll do.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#108

Post by Dylan16807 » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:23 AM UTC

ryanlol wrote: post #96

iNerdier wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a farmer who makes apple juice of various varieties. He used to use raspberries that were ‘seconds’ which wouldn’t fit supermarket criteria for selling by themselves. He pressed and used them for juicing for one variety he made. As of last year the farm he bought them off no longer bothers to harvest seconds because it’s not worth it to them in the cost of labour to pick, sort and sell them. So yes in cert…

>So yes in certain cases this fruit is being wasted and people paying more for it would cause less of it to rot. So how do you know they wouldn't just plant more if people paid more?

Why would you plant more when you can satisfy all your ugly customers with your existing production?

If the total demand is stable then you'd need less perfect crop and you could actually plant less to sell the same amount at the same price.

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#109

Post by User23 » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:23 AM UTC

Let's not forget the old favorite: burn it in an alembic and drink it!

Re: Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam

#110

Post by dankusmcmeme » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:24 AM UTC

feross wrote: post #3

> The "eat ugly fruit!" movement is classist as FUCK. You've got to have a debilitating level of ignorance to assume that if Whole Paycheck Market doesn't stock ugly fruit, it must be getting "wasted." It is possible to not know much about the agricultural industry without being "classist as fuck." There are an infinite number of things one can learn about and a finite amount of time. While the content is interesting…

>Are there advantages to this communication style that I'm missing?

Wokeness points