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Food Scientists Are Getting Fed Up with Picky Eaters

wsj.com

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Re: Food Scientists Are Getting Fed Up with Picky Eaters

#21

Post by w323898 »

chabes wrote: post #3

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think it’s great that processed food manufacturers are trying to replace synthetic ingredients with actual food. I don’t see a problem here.

Sometimes it's just dumb. Nitrides are no more hazardous than maillard reaction products like acrylamide, yet we're sabotaging our pastrami because of it. Totally irrational.

Having a culture where people consider organic Pop tarts to be somehow healthy is a problem. It's superstition and leads nowhere good.

Re: Food Scientists Are Getting Fed Up with Picky Eaters

#22

Post by fenwick67 »

perlgeek wrote: post #5
chabes wrote: post #3

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think it’s great that processed food manufacturers are trying to replace synthetic ingredients with actual food. I don’t see a problem here.

It would make sense if the deciding factor would be consumer's health. Instead, it's the appearance of being "natural", which is not in itself better than something synthetic or modified: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

I think consumers are honestly trying to be healthier, but the amount of effort required to understand food science is way too high.

What consumers are told is healthy vs unhealthy changes from year to year. First, saturated fat was considered bad for you so they were removed in favor of trans fats. Then trans fats were considered unhealthy so manufacturers replaced them with palm oil. Then we found out palm oil isn't great, so they use coconut oil instead. Who knows if that will hold up.

Ultimately consumers want a pattern they can follow to get healthier foods. "Natural" or "organic" are these patterns for some people. I don't know what a good alternative would be.

Re: Food Scientists Are Getting Fed Up with Picky Eaters

#23

Post by booleandilemma »

w323898 wrote: post #15
Charlyzzz wrote: post #4

"food scientists" being fed up with untrusting "eaters" should have said food scientists wonder why said eaters lost trust in the products they make. Could this have anything to do with the shit they've put for years in industrial products while not under scrutiny? Rapists not raping anymore because someone is following them everywhere can't brag about their rape-free attitude.

Are you literally comparing guar gum with rape?

Isn’t it called canola nowadays?

Re: Food Scientists Are Getting Fed Up with Picky Eaters

#24

Post by 21 »

ardit33 wrote: post #9

From Albania here, (2nd world European country, aka still developing). Due to its mediterranean weather (1), everything raised locally tastes better. Local food is full of flavor, and things made artisan-ally and locally are still good. Even something simple like a 'Tiramisu' tastes better there, most likely because things are still made to be consumed within a day, and not last for ages. Other countries are similar…

> The more north you go, the blander/crappier the food gets, mostly due to the weather.

It's more complicated than that. Cultural reasons are a huge factor in why Western food is so bland:

> Serving richly spiced stews was no longer a status symbol for Europe's wealthiest families — even the middle classes could afford to spice up their grub. "So the elite recoiled from the increasing popularity of spices," Ray says. "They moved on to an aesthetic theory of taste. Rather than infusing food with spice, they said things should taste like themselves. Meat should taste like meat, and anything you add only serves to intensify the existing flavors."

> The rest of Europe soon adopted this new style. "It's a redefinition of what elegant is," Freedman says. "It's sort of like — in fashion — for a while having more frills, more jewelry was fashionable. But then someone said that a basic black dress with some pearls is much better."

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/26/394339284/ho...

Re: Food Scientists Are Getting Fed Up with Picky Eaters

#25

Post by cwyers »

evincarofautumn wrote: post #13
perlgeek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would make sense if the deciding factor would be consumer's health. Instead, it's the appearance of being "natural", which is not in itself better than something synthetic or modified: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

A good example of this is meats like bacon and pepperoni cured with “celery juice powder” or “celery extract” instead of “nitrates”, when the former contains just as much of the same carcinogenic nitrate salts they would’ve used, but it’s “natural”.

It can in fact be MORE nitrate salts, because there's a minimum level needed to cure meats, and since celery salt or whatever celery-based product you're using is less consistent in the amount of nitrate included, you have to use enough to guarantee that everything gets enough nitrate, which means that some of what you make will have substantially more nitrate than foods that aren't labelled 'nitrate free.'

Re: Food Scientists Are Getting Fed Up with Picky Eaters

#26

Post by rafiki6 »

I feel the underlying cause of this is the continuing stupidification of Western Societies. It ties in well with the fact that most people just aren't well equipped to navigate complex issues and are easy prey for unscrupulous marketers. Companies take advantage of that fact just as much as politicians do. It's easy to tell people to be afraid of complex sounding ingredients just as much as it's easy to tell voters to be afraid of complex scientific phenomena like climate change. And then you can push your unscientific agenda (whether it's climate change denial or it's marketing your food as natural and your competitors as poison and thus charging your customers double or more for it).

Re: Food Scientists Are Getting Fed Up with Picky Eaters

#29

Post by toast0 »

fortenforge wrote: post #7
chabes wrote: post #3

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think it’s great that processed food manufacturers are trying to replace synthetic ingredients with actual food. I don’t see a problem here.

What exactly is the benefit of replacing Red #40 with red cabbage extract?

Some of the numbered red dyes are a migraine trigger for my wife. Naturally sourced dyes don't seem to trigger that reaction, although I'm sure that some people are sensitive to cabbage extract as well.

I'm a bigger fan of not adding colors to things that don't need it, but I still appreciate naturally sourced colors.

Re: Food Scientists Are Getting Fed Up with Picky Eaters

#30

Post by rafiki6 »

exabrial wrote: post #17

I truly think this is because picky eaters are easy to market to; they pay attention to flashy advertising rather then hard science. We have an entire generation of people that think GMOs are somehow harmful and also ignore the tremendous environmental impact of so called organic foods. The same people taking birth control are reaching for grass fed hormone free milk and beef.

I think it's a cognitive reaction to safety. Fear is certainly there due to the unknown. People will retreat to what they feel is safe and easy to understand i.e. "natural" food. Little do they know natural food is GMO! The crops that survived today did so by natural genetic mutations for the crops that had the best ability to survive. Humans just took advantage of that fact and sped up the process a bit to our advantage.
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