Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

bonappetit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 107 posts

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#21

Post by francoisdevlin »

jbay808 wrote: post #13
chime wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I often feel like the focus groups must just not include people like me. I'm sure they do. That's why they came out with the baked chips, hundreds of non-sugar diet drinks (e.g. slightly flavored 0 calorie water). We all eat. We all get addicted. They just need to find your poison and optimize it. > I hope they're starting to learn their lesson. As this article shows, they've got an entire industry to learning…

The slightly flavoured water is a very new development -- the la croix I mentioned. When I had it, I thought for once, they've finally found something I like. But why did it take so long?

It sounds like your tastes are an outlier, and didn't present a good ROI

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#22

Post by csours »

hoka-one-one wrote: post #18
curuinor wrote: post #4

If you read the papers on palatants and food processes destined for animals, they'll increase consumption by 20, 30% easily. Check out this patent for a horse nugget, for example: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/63/5b/ef/5e6b6bd... So if you take that and realize there's more money in palatants for humans than in animals, that'll explain an entire obesity epidemic entirely without any other explanations.…

I can eat like a King every day, and do less physical labor as well. Celebration foods have become everyday foods, especially in the United States.

> "You'll need a LOT of data to support the general hypothesis that humans who eat 20% more of any food will get fat,"

But that's just the thing, theoretically I could choose to eat any number of healthy things, but guess what I think about when I get hungry?

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#23

Post by gsk22 »

markbnj wrote: post #11

> That’s a mural I saw in the Frito-Lay headquarters in Plano, Texas. I was there! My pilgrimage to the pinnacle of potato chips! Oh I think not... for that you would need to visit Nottingham, PA ;). https://www.herrs.com/visit-us/

Frito Lay vs some company no one's ever heard of? I'd say the original statement stands :)

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#24

Post by [deleted] »

csours wrote: post #22
hoka-one-one wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can eat like a King every day, and do less physical labor as well. Celebration foods have become everyday foods, especially in the United States. > "You'll need a LOT of data to support the general hypothesis that humans who eat 20% more of any food will get fat," But that's just the thing, theoretically I could choose to eat any number of healthy things, but guess what I think about when I get hungry?

[deleted]

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#25

Post by GuiA »

marmaduke wrote: post #7
curuinor wrote: post #4

If you read the papers on palatants and food processes destined for animals, they'll increase consumption by 20, 30% easily. Check out this patent for a horse nugget, for example: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/63/5b/ef/5e6b6bd... So if you take that and realize there's more money in palatants for humans than in animals, that'll explain an entire obesity epidemic entirely without any other explanations.…

To be fair the best French baguettes are crunchy and soft at the same time and have only water, flour, salt, sugar? and yeast, so nothing much to be afraid of there.

And they require an immense amount of skill to make, which means you can only find really good bread in communities where a baker artisan can run a sustainable business. In the age of home grocery delivery, it's an uphill battle.

The number of bakers in France has steadily gone down over the past half century or so. It's been going up a bit recently due to the new phenomenon of upper class white collar workers who quit their job in their 30s to find meaning in their life to do something more "noble" like baking, but it remains to be seen what the long term impact of this will be.

You can manufacture Twix and Cheetos at scale, but not baguettes.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#26

Post by sjf »

GuiA wrote: post #25
marmaduke wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair the best French baguettes are crunchy and soft at the same time and have only water, flour, salt, sugar? and yeast, so nothing much to be afraid of there.

And they require an immense amount of skill to make, which means you can only find really good bread in communities where a baker artisan can run a sustainable business. In the age of home grocery delivery, it's an uphill battle. The number of bakers in France has steadily gone down over the past half century or so. It's been going up a bit recently due to the new phenomenon of upper class white collar workers who qu…

I disagree, since the 90s in Ireland every convenience store big enough to have a deli counter has been selling Cuisine de France baguettes. Usually as the popular breakfast roll or chicken fillet roll. They are mass produced and crispy, they are cooked in store by staff with no special training.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#27

Post by brians »

xbryanx wrote: post #6

One of my favorite(only?) bits of sci-fi/food-engineering trivia is that Gene Wolfe (The Book of the New Sun) was the mechanical engineer who developed the machine that cooked the first Pringles chips: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pringles#History

And EE “Doc” Smith of the Lensmen invented tech critical to Krispy Kreme.

Food science is important work—it took a LOT of attention relative to comms in the first half of XXc.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#28

Post by adventured »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #14
quadrifoliate wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if you take that and realize there's more money in palatants for humans than in animals, that'll explain an entire obesity epidemic entirely without any other explanations. Well, that's what you get when the economy's health is measured by broad and sweeping measures like GDP. In the current American economy, the fries company makes 20% more, the doctor treating the obese person eating too many fries or the surg…

How does socialized healthcare change food manuf incentives? I do also wonder about where it makes sense to draw the line when it comes to nutrition policy. We all share finite healthcare resources, especially as it becomes more socialized. I think at the very least it becomes even more obviously predatory for you to make money off peddling addictive junk food to the masses. I would start there when thinking of helpf…

It doesn't change much in fact. That's why several prominent socialized healthcare nations are extremely obese just like the US.

That includes: Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Israel.

All have adult obesity levels around or over 25%. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain are among the most obese nations on the planet - despite having world-class socialized healthcare systems.

When it comes to adult obesity among major nations (ie not Tuvalu or Tonga), New Zealand is #11, Canada is #13, Australia is #14, Britain is #20.

The only way you can really control that as the parent was trying to imply, is through direct government control of all food consumption and production.

Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy

#29

Post by brians »

sjf wrote: post #26
GuiA wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they require an immense amount of skill to make, which means you can only find really good bread in communities where a baker artisan can run a sustainable business. In the age of home grocery delivery, it's an uphill battle. The number of bakers in France has steadily gone down over the past half century or so. It's been going up a bit recently due to the new phenomenon of upper class white collar workers who qu…

I disagree, since the 90s in Ireland every convenience store big enough to have a deli counter has been selling Cuisine de France baguettes. Usually as the popular breakfast roll or chicken fillet roll. They are mass produced and crispy, they are cooked in store by staff with no special training.

What makes you think they have only those five ingredients? I’d bet on more gluten, malt, potato starch, a couple exotic salts, and more.
Post reply on HN