161–170 of 204 posts
Isn't it a bit... terrifying to buy and eat food, when nobody wants to tell you what that food actually is??
What on earth is in a Cheeto? Far more mysterious than this snack, which is clearly some plant matter with some salt and spices that other people eat regularly without falling over dead.
I read this article elsewhere. I don't quite get why it says no one know's, then it's genetically and visually matched to a type of agave, and then they go back to not knowing? It seems some of the counter argument is assuming that "Agave" are all the same when specific types will have specific traits. Otherwise it's an interesting read.
Hi. I am the author of this article :) To sum up, most research as of now points to Agave but botanists who did the DNA barcoding don't want to commit to Agave. For two reasons: 1) It is 89% close to Agave, the Sisalana variety but 11% is open to doubts and research. 2)The Agave expert, who tried to make a beverage out of it and has worked on it for years, says it's can't be agave. He has eaten both the snack, as wel…
Considering that a human's genetic similarity to a cat is 90% and even to a banana is about 60%, 89% doesn't sound like all that much.
> "We are professors, busy between teaching and administrative work, so we rely on existing literature to come to conclusions" Is this really what academia is like?
Isn't it a bit... terrifying to buy and eat food, when nobody wants to tell you what that food actually is??
What on earth is in a Cheeto? Far more mysterious than this snack, which is clearly some plant matter with some salt and spices that other people eat regularly without falling over dead.
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For both of those, you can put them through some chromatography/spectrography/etc. and figure out essentially what's in them — what ingredients, in what ratios. What you won't find out is the particular process required to get those ingredients "formatted" the right way to taste like the result. (E.g. Coke apparently does some fancy, hard-to-replicate-at-home kind of micronized emulsification to the flavoring oils th…
When I was in college in the 70's we went to a Miller brewery where they told us about some blue liquid they poured into Miller High Life that allowed them to ship the beer in clear bottles instead of brown. It came in tanker cars full; they claimed the FDA didn't know what it was (don't think I believed them).
meta: how can atlasobscura.com operate legally in Europe when the only cookie option is 'confirm'?
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Not to mention the use of plasticizers in their bread (the same kind used in car tires.) And most importantly, factory farmed meat, contributing both to climate change and immense sentient suffering.
No, the wellness scammer who started the rumors about "yoga mat chemicals" successfully managed to pressure Subway to remove azodicarbonamide from their bread. I'm sure they replaced it with some other equally harmless dough conditioner.
Azodicarbonamide has been banned in quite a few countries. It's only listed as safe at 40 parts per million. It has possible carcinogenic products in the form of other carbazides. It doesn't have a large amount of research/testing on it. It is a known lung irritant and caused respiratory issues in factory workers who produce it.
You may be okay with random hydrocarbons being added to your food. But not everyone is as naive as you.
Notice, you changed the topic to a kook and then invoked ad hominem. Very bad intentions. Much lack of substance. Dishonest attempt to convince others through baseless assertions. So shameful.
As mentioned it could be Maerua oblongifolia Here is a scientific paper: https://www.ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT1892916.pdf
This looks like a giant variety of 'Pachyrhizus erosus' or Jicama, which is also a street snack widely sold in Mexico. I'v never seen ones as large as the one in the article, but the watery texture and how it's condimented (lemon, sugar, salt, chili powder) is exactly like Jicama. Seems wikipedia has a reference to ones as large as 2 meters and 20 kg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachyrhizus_erosus so it may be like…
Edit I feel like I should explain the snark. The comment I'm replying to is coming from a classic flaw in human reasoning. "This looks kinda like this other thing I'm familiar with. So clearly it must be some variety of that!" Then it's couched in some authoritative sounding words so folks nod sagely and say "yes, that must be it" and press the upvote button. The fact that the commenter is hypothesizing a heretofor-unknown giant variety of a major world food crop is, well, sometimes sarcasm is the appropriate response.
Meanwhile, the actual article tells us a lot more about the thing including a bunch of evidence for why folks think it's a variety of agave. Along with some mysteries, yes! But none saying "oh maybe this is actually jicama".
Also if you're going to go with "this reminds me of this other vegetable" it might be useful to have a bit more breadth of understanding of the world's food staples. There are more than quite a few stachy tubers, roots, and stems like this. Cassava, taro, about six different things all called "yam" in English, potato, turnip, radish. There are many, many cultivated plants like this. The distinguishing characteristic of this one is its huge size. Something that jicama doesn't have.
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If paying enough to incentivize vendors to share the secret works, and why wouldn’t it, how is that not a ”real” solution?
I’m not sure where you’re coming from in this discussion. Nobody is saying bribery won’t work in such situations. But you do understand that the author is a journalist (1), and really just aiming to research for an article that presents some intriguing material, right? Not a roadside snacks competitor, with a large budget to spend on getting these sellers to exfiltrate supply chain intel. (1) https://www.atlasobscura…