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How we're scammed into eating phony food
171–180 of 475 posts
Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food
#172Food in the US is sh*t. There are great things in the US and UK( from where it comes from), but food is so wrong there.
I lived some years in Japan, I enjoyed the food. China, not so much, but is is so big you can find anything, they have gastronomical culture that is different and you have to get used to new flavors.
The US totally lacks gastronomical culture. Everything is about money, and quantity.
As an Spanish that lives in Germany I am so worried about TTIP and Americans telling us(Europeans) what to eat. Their way of eating is making a big part of the population obese with arteries clogged.
Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because in the EU there are laws that say that if something is labeled as virgin olive oil, it has to be olive oil and nothing else. Greek Yoghurt has to be made in Greece and nowhere else. Lobster meat has to be lobster meat, and Kobe beef absolutely has to be Kobe beef. TTIP basically(in extreme simplification) says that if something is allowed in US it should be allowed in any other signatory country - which would…
> Greek Yoghurt has to be made in Greece and nowhere else. This is a really stupid regulation though. It's just protectionism for Greece, like the regulation that you can't call it "champagne" unless the grapes were grown in Champagne, France. There is no reason to expect this; consider Cheddar cheese, Peking duck, French toast, and Hamburgers.
There is reason to expect this if you want some expectation of eating what you're being sold. It's an extension of reasonable labelling.
It's interesting you pick out cheddar. Consider Cheddar cheese - much of it was so direly awful as barely meeting requirement to be called edible let alone cheddar. Labelling your cheese "cheddar" should give me some expectation of production process (it can't be cheddar if it's not been cheddared or aged) taste and texture just as labelling Fire Engine Red paint gives me expectation of colour inside the tin. Would it be stupid protectionism to be disatisfied that I received pale pink paint in the tin?
Fortunately there's an EU PDO protection for Cheddar - "West Country Farmhouse Cheddar", so this is what I now usually buy. It requires a minimum aging of nine months and that the milk come from the same farm producing the cheese. It's a dramatically better product.
Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I said - incidents happen. And if the last scandal you have found is dated back to 2013, that only confirms my point.
Sorry, I thought you were claiming that fake food was not widespread. ("because every EU country has its own FDA equivalent that provisions much smaller market") > if the last scandal you have found is dated back to 2013, that only confirms my point. Words fail me at your reasoning. How closely do you think I follow foreign food purity issues?
Well if you don't follow foreign food purity issues (closely) then, please, try to comment a little bit more humble. Maybe asking instead of definitive statements?
Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's not just protectionism. If I buy Bleu d'Auvergne (it's a French cheese) in the Netherlands, I want to be sure I get the real deal, as a consumer.
But what if someone outside France is able to produce equivalent cheese using the same formula? Why do you care where it's from?
That someone can call it the same - Cheese just like France but produced somewhere.
It is about representing the right information.
Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes it really could be a conspiracy. http://imgur.com/W7AcUDV Medieval peasants ate 4000 - 5000 calories per day. As late as the 40s, it was recommended that people eat 3000 calories per day and many men ate 4000 calories per day. Now it is recommended we eat 2250 calories per day. Neither of the first two groups are known for being fat. Actually the opposite. They look amazing in photos, all of them. This is d…
>I'm not confident that is the case. It sounds wrong to me because although I accept that our grandparents were far more physically active than we are it is known that exercise burns calories at a low rate. Exercise has always been a bad way to lose weight. It has always been easier to lose weight by eating less. You could skip the gym for two days by neglecting to eat half a mars bar. I don't want to call you out fo…
> I'd bet money that the increased caloric intake of our ancestors is entirely explained by their increased physical activity.
I'd bet that there were other factors involved, like parasites (worms) and lower quality food (inedible/rotten food tends to leave our intestines quickly).
Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
EU laws aren't being enforced. All the fake olive oil is coming out of Italy. If you want real virgin olive oil in the US, you have to buy the California ones. It was also reported that Kobe beef was being sold at European restaurants even when Europe had a ban on Japanese meats during the Mad Cow Scare. Those are things just off the top of my head, i bet if you actually dug in, Europe has many examples of where fake…
Did Japan have incidences of Mad Cow disease? I thought it was a British thing.
The UK had by far the worst problem, but there were at least 20-30 other countries that had BSE outbreaks.
Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
But is tea distinguished by its terroir (like wine), or is it just a matter of cultivars (like bananas)? I.e. is Sri Lankan "Darjeeling" blind-taste-test-equivalent to Darjeeling from Darjeeling? I can support a concept of "growing regions" for foods where the growing region matters ; but otherwise, it's just bald monopolism.
I don't know how much tea flavor is from terroir. With wine, studies have debunked that concept, much to the chagrin of the French. However, naming food and drink after the region from which it originates is not monopolism, but proper labeling. Calling sparkling wine from California Champagne is false advertising, as is calling tea from Sri Lanka Darjeeling. The name is describes where the product came from. No one i…
Interesting that you use Mexican "Milwaukee Cheddar" as an example, considering Cheddar itself originates in a place called Cheddar in the UK. Milwaukee Cheddar itself is an example of what you're attacking.
Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Greek Yoghurt has to be made in Greece and nowhere else. This is a really stupid regulation though. It's just protectionism for Greece, like the regulation that you can't call it "champagne" unless the grapes were grown in Champagne, France. There is no reason to expect this; consider Cheddar cheese, Peking duck, French toast, and Hamburgers.
I don't see it as stupid at all! To me, Greek Yoghurt has to come from greece, that's what I expect as a customer. Any non-Greek Greek yoghurt is simply labeled as "Greek-style Yoghurt" and that's easy enough, when I go to the shop I know exactly what I'm getting.
That's a interesting example – I totally agree with you in the general case, but I'd actually always thought of 'Greek yoghurt' the same way I thought of 'French fries'!
Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Food is not like building a car in a factory. It's not a formula like chemistry. The milk matter, cereal matter, where cow live matter. The whole supply chain. it's really difficult/impossibile to replicate that. You can have something similar, but call it with the generic name. In Italy you can get really good food everywhere. But i can assure you, you can feel the difference between location. For that we get DOC, D…
It can get even more subtle than that. Speaking with a restaurant owner in a tiny village on the Pyrenees, I told him he would make a killing if he opened in a restaurant in Barcelona. "It wouldn't work. The animals would have to be transported. They would sweat and that affects the taste".
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