201–210 of 387 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suppose it would not be bacon without curing. But I suppose uncured bacon would be thinly cut pork belly... For curing you really need only salt(or nitrite or sugar). Nitrates do have benefits in longer processes.
You can go to any Asian grocer and get thin-sliced pork belly and cook it up yourself to see the difference. It is not subtle. For American bacon flavor, you need nitrites (nitrates are a slow-release source of nitrites).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They exist but are a small minority of the shelf. You have to really look for them.
This begs the question - is it reasonable for the consumer to put in a little work - reading labels and doing research outside of the grocery store? I find that you do the research once, and then you know what to buy next time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean there are things you can reasonably do better than the grocery store but something things are unrealistic. Like "just go to a gourmet cheese store" is not something you can do in most of the country. I live in one of the largest metro areas with quite a few Michelin star and recommended eateries, lovely food culture, and we love our dairy. I think there are two dedicated cheese mongers you can walk into in the…
I think dedicated cheese mongers are a lot more accessible than you are envisioning based on your experience. I live in Denver, which is a large city but by no means one of the largest in the country. We have no Michelin star restaurants that I know of, we don't have a dairy industry or anything like that. We still have multiple dedicated cheese stores in the area that one can get to. It's not that niche to enjoy goo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label. Antibiotic resistance is a concern but the FDA has made progress in that area. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/antimicr... The EU bans routine antibiotic use for promoting animal growth but antibiotics are still widely used for other purposes. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/n…
They exist but are a small minority of the shelf. You have to really look for them.
People in the US are so trained by the food industry, that they do not know what good food is. Yogurt for example. Here is an experiment you can do at home if you want to disbelieve my statement. Step #1 Make good yogurt and eat it. 1. Go buy a quart of milk, full fat. 2. Buy some yogurt culture. Bulgarian preferred. 3. Follow the directions. You need to keep the temp at around 110F, warm water bath, heating pad, hot…
Still, almost every grocery store I've been to (even the lower-cost ones in my region, like King Soopers) has a fresh bakery area. It's such a profitable product to sell, it really makes no sense not to add it if you have any space at all to spare. Even Target has one.
I'm cheap, so I go like 30 minutes before closing time and get the bread for like 80% off because it doesn't have the shelf-stabilization stuff, so it will go bad in a couple days.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look up food deserts. Access is absolutely a problem.
I know - the extreme majority of them are in rural areas where you'd have to drive a couple hours to get to a grocery store. My MIL lives in one. Guess how they get most food? All that super-cheap rural land.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They exist but are a small minority of the shelf. You have to really look for them.
Look? As in open your eyes? It's literally right on the front of the package in large letters. You can see exactly what you're getting without even squinting at the fine print on the back.
Glad you're hear to tell people they are dumb and they should work around systemic problems instead of trying to fix the system.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean there are things you can reasonably do better than the grocery store but something things are unrealistic. Like "just go to a gourmet cheese store" is not something you can do in most of the country. I live in one of the largest metro areas with quite a few Michelin star and recommended eateries, lovely food culture, and we love our dairy. I think there are two dedicated cheese mongers you can walk into in the…
I think dedicated cheese mongers are a lot more accessible than you are envisioning based on your experience. I live in Denver, which is a large city but by no means one of the largest in the country. We have no Michelin star restaurants that I know of, we don't have a dairy industry or anything like that. We still have multiple dedicated cheese stores in the area that one can get to. It's not that niche to enjoy goo…
edit: https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/colorado/denver_1261491/res...
This all has very big "uncured bacon" energy to me (if you didn't already know: there's no such thing; vendors of uncured bacon performatively drive the same chemical nitrite reaction using vegetable extracts). For example: yogurt becomes a UPF simply by dint of adding carrageenan, which is on the order of calling dashi a UPF because of the kombu. It's not that there isn't a very legitimate issue underneath all this:…
> which is on the order of calling dashi a UPF because of the kombu when you use a comparison like this, you choose an example that people will understand so they can then, by analogy, extend that understanding to the point you are trying to make... like the kombu in the dashi, you say? dash-it-all, that's a combunation I hadn't considered!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that to a European citizen this is a bit unexpected. In Europe, in all countries, you can find roughly the same level of "safeness" of food across all tiers of stores. Go to a cheapest one and the most expensive one, and the yogurt, tomatoes or meat would be approximately the same quality and have the same nutritional components. The only difference would be that expensive store would additionally carr…
Romanian here: the tomato quality varies by a lot. All stores have crappy "plastic" tasting tomatoes. It's not that easy to find really good tomatoes (in summer you can find them at local markets, in winter... Fancy imports I guess).