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Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#121

Post by tzot »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #67

I realized when I started traveling extensively how tasteless the food is. In thailand I just assumed they just knew how to better prepare the ingredients. Then I went to greece and had a proper greek salad. If you don't think you like greek salad, Let me tell you. A Greek salad is only going to taste good in greece. Why? because all the ingredients that make up a greek salad are local and in season around the same t…

> The flavors were sublime with tomatoes rich in umami intermingling with spicy olive oil and savory farmer's cheese.

And then you can dip bite-sized chunks of fresh bread, one by one, in the mixture of the olive oil and the vegetable/cheese juices; the sensation is more-or-less indescribable. The price of Greek salad used to be low (compared to main dishes) in restaurants some decades ago, but after noticing that lots of tourists just ate a salad plus the provided bread, the tourist industry raised the price.

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#123

Post by tzot »

camhart wrote: post #7
MattGaiser wrote: post #2

Well, who here buys their vegetables based on nutrition? Who even knows how nutritious their particular vegetables are (probably not if you have a lab)? Companies optimize for what customers will pay for, and everything else falls by the wayside.

Strawberries in the USA are huge. Sometimes they remind me of an Apple. Go to Denmark--they're small but packed full of flavor. I would much rather have the smaller ones. I wonder if the large, crisp, apple-esc strawberries really sell better. They're certainly bigger.

I remember a joke from my childhood, where an American tourist is browsing a local farmer's market commenting how small everything is compared to American produce, so when the tourist sees watermelons and asks “and what are these?”, the annoyed vendor just says “oh, they're just peas”.

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#124

Post by dr_dshiv »

thdrdt wrote: post #120
colechristensen wrote: post #55

There’s a cognitive bias where if you tell a certain kind of person a negative story about an environmental issue they will believe it, regardless of its content. If you read the article, none of the quoted sources say anything about depleted soil. It says it in the title, that’s it. Bait. What it actually says is plant breeding and other agricultural practices caused the nutritional decline. You breed plants for sto…

In the Netherlands we grow a lot of bell peppers on 'water'. Those sweet pepers are much larger than the ones grown on soal. But the only difference is the taste and the thickness of the skin. They might even be a little more healthy because they were grown in a lab like controlled environment. Imho the taste is a big trade-off, but growing them on water takes way less space and also makes a failed harvest less likel…

I am often shocked by the tastelessness of food in the Netherlands -- in contrast to anywhere I have ever lived. But the future is promising, as there is so much room for optimization.

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#125

Post by [deleted] »

FrojoS wrote: post #29
petargyurov wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am certain that a vast majority of people have never tasted a "real" tomato. Here in the UK (though I'm sure this applies globally), tomatoes sold in supermarkets taste like plastic. Reason being is that they are picked when they are green and they "ripen" by the time they get to the store shelf. This is done because tomatoes are almost impossible to transfer safely in large quantities, because when they are ripe t…

Can confirm. Does this also apply to canned Tomatos or are those allowed to ripe on soil, because damage didn’t matter? I think they taste better and I’ve Heard- than many top chefs prefer them over “fresh” tomatoes for cooking.

[deleted]

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#126

Post by FreekNortier »

I do garlic at commercial scale with fertilizers but my own food is grown 100% organic. There is a big difference in taste. What we should keep in mind though is that organic is difficult/expensive to scale. I doubt that it will be possible to feed the entire global population with 100% organic food. So that tasteless tomato that you buy at the store might not be the best but it does feed you.

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#127

Post by xwdv »

I have a hard time figuring out the point of vegetables. They are so low calorie that I’d have to eat a massive amount of them to have them contribute any significant amount to a meal, more than what is really practical. They are not really an efficient source of protein, carbs or fats the way lean meat, grains and beans and nuts are. So what’s the point? Vitamins and minerals?

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#128

Post by Theodores »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #67

I realized when I started traveling extensively how tasteless the food is. In thailand I just assumed they just knew how to better prepare the ingredients. Then I went to greece and had a proper greek salad. If you don't think you like greek salad, Let me tell you. A Greek salad is only going to taste good in greece. Why? because all the ingredients that make up a greek salad are local and in season around the same t…

I was once told by someone that watches TV all day that the Greek Salad originated as a mandatory menu item in Greece, hence this 'Greek Salad'. I researched this online and found no evidence for it. There was no grand dictator that once decreed that every restaurant must have salad on the menu.

If anyone can correct me on that with verifiable sources that would be appreciated.

I am with you on the taste of American produce. In the UK our fruit and veg is not to the standards you would get in sunny parts of the world, however, it is a cut above the bland fruit and vegetables that are sold in the USA. Also, American produce isn't actually that cheap considering that you might expect it to be the land of plenty.

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#129

Post by bonzini »

habosa wrote: post #112
tweetle_beetle wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reason being is that they are picked when they are green Is that really true any more? The supply chains are incredibly fast now and I can't imagine there's enough time for this process to take place - even tomatoes from southern Spain are probably on shelves in a few days. It's not like shipping bananas from the Caribbean. I think it's more that the watery tomatoes are the varieties that grow the fastest and offer…

I've heard that bananas can be caused to ripen rapidly by exposing them to ethylene gas. This means you can transport them green so they don't bruise and then quickly turn them yellow when they arrive at the destination for sale (like in the last warehouse). I'd imagine you can do the same with tomatoes?

Yes, but fruits and vegetables that are quickly ripened with ethylene remain much less tasty than those that ripened on the plant.

(As an aside, some fruits including apples also produce ethylene a they ripen. This is why putting an apple and an avocado in a plastic bag will cause the avocado to ripen faster. It is also the origin of the saying "one bad apple spoils the whole basket", because bad apples produce a lot of ethylene and causes the rest of the basket to quickly overripe. More info can be found at https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2018.00016 for example).

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