Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#391

Post by herbst » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:06 AM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #279

DubiousPusher wrote: post #172

I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a thing there as I was growing up. (Very, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.) We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting. We got produce…

I’d trust a good can of tomatoes before I touch the borderline unappealing off season strawberries they have in those markets. Happy that you’re trying not to judge but looks like you still have a ways to go before getting off a high horse. As oogway says, “one often meets their destiny on their path to avoid it.” When I remember the solid research showing people taking multivitamins die faster I keep thinking what m…

Sure they are fresher (if the fruit accepts being frozen) however I don't see why they would have less chemicals. Most chemicals people try to avoid are used for growing and not packaging. The only way to avoid these is buying trustable organic labels.

Please don't build a illusion of fair, non organic farms somehow working in a natural way when they actually are just as profit oriented as any other big company.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#392

Post by burnished » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:07 AM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #326

burnished wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Like your railing on frozen food. You realize frozen food is far fresher and less likely to have “chemicals” or whatever is your choice enemy right? I think you're making stuff up here.

No, the sentiment about frozen food being superior is on the mark although the exact argument isn’t correct. Frozen produce is harvested at peak, frozen nearby, and then transported. The texture suffers, but in other respects this is far superior to the “fresh” produce you get, which has to survive transportation at room temperature. Whether you would prefer frozen depends on what you are getting and how you prepare…

I've had good luck with frozen edamame, and I understand that freezing improves fish by killing parasites. Fun stuff.

Thank you for the information. To clarify, I had intended to convey that they were effectively making stuff up by accusing that other person of some sort of squeamishness.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#393

Post by herbst » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:09 AM UTC

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #280

DubiousPusher wrote: post #172

I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a thing there as I was growing up. (Very, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.) We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting. We got produce…

One of the problems with Americans and food is that we've been conditioned to have sugar in absolutely everything, and the 80s made it worse because of the low-fat fad (they just increased sugar content to maintain mouthfeel). Ask any Gen Xer and they'll regale you with nightmares of the dominance of oat bran in 80s cuisine. On the one hand, you get a muffin. On the other hand, it tastes like cardboard flavored with…

To be fair for a real Italian tomato sauce ala bologna you need a form of sugar to make to tomatoes taste great.

However a little bit of milk already does the trick. No need for whatever sugars people throw in there. The Industrie would never use milk for several reasons.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#394

Post by AngusH » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:09 AM UTC

steve_gh wrote: post #301

fredley wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right. For example in EU supermarkets you will typically find, separately: white onions, brown onions, sweet onions etc. In the UK: onions. Maybe sometimes also 'large onions'. Same goes for most other produce. It's chicken and egg, as the demand for this won't materialise without awareness and the awareness won't arise without the knowledge there even are different types of onions, I imagine most Brit…

Depends where you are. Food deserts exist, even in relatively affluent countries. The range of goods at a supermarket is different in Bath (affluent) to Maerdy (poor).

Also size and population though?

Bath, being a major city, has far more residents and visitors than Maerdy, a small rural village.

My guess in Maerdy is that the residents probably drive somewhere (Aberdare?) with a supermarket. I'm not sure I'd live there without a car...

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#395

Post by bongoman37 » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:14 AM UTC

cbhl wrote: post #319

jandrewrogers wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American grocery stores have become absolutely amazing in my lifetime, from a pretty poor start (also growing up in the rural west). The diversity of fresh, high quality foods available most of the year is astonishing. And that is just your average suburban supermarket. Bigger cities have an incredible range of boutique food purveyors to meet the demands of every obscure desire or requirement. This is linked back int…

"Appreciate" is, perhaps, not the right word. Maybe "worry"? Younger generations grew up on a message of climate change and it can be disconcerting to walk into a grocery store and find the entire produce department to be a geography lesson. This from Peru, that from Mexico, the other from Alaska, all flown and trucked in on a cold chain straight from some far-away monoculture farm. If anything I suspect the increase…

No post body was provided.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#396

Post by herbst » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:14 AM UTC

GiorgioG wrote: post #256

noirbot wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all going to depend on where you are. Bread seems like a big division - shelf-stable bread is a lot less of a thing in Europe, likely because of a longer tradition of bakers. If you're in a major US city though, I've never had an issue finding French/German style breads, and usually at a normal grocer, if not at a specialty baker.

> shelf-stable bread is a lot less of a thing in Europe, likely because of a longer tradition of bakers. I don’t think tradition of bakers has anything to do with it. In France going to buy a baguette every couple of days is the norm (or was when I lived there as a kid). In the US, we generally do one weekly grocery shopping trip, so shelf-stable bread becomes the convenient default.

But that's why bakers were relevant. When I was young there was bakery reachable by foot near anyone's home. Kids would get fresh bread on Sunday, the bakery was a place where you met people.

That changed. They all closed. But as you said people still consume their bread fresh here in central Europe.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#397

Post by herbst » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:15 AM UTC

Thorentis wrote: post #188

Australia has the best supermarkets in the world, hands down. Why? Because we grow and produce almost all of our fresh produce, dairy, meat, and seafood. There are some exceptions for seasonal things, but the Australian climate allows for almost everything we eat to be grown here. The solution to this problem in the US and the UK is less globalism, not more.

To be fair we have these kinds of supermarkets in Switzerland too. They just don't have a lot of stock or choice :)

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#398

Post by rejor121 » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:18 AM UTC

s5300 wrote: post #343

rejor121 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And water, which is becoming more and more scarce

Carve out a giant semi-cone into the oceanside, acting as a static water inlet/basin. Line surface area of cone w/heavy mirror array. Desalinate thru concentrated sunbeams. Or something like that.

California zoning laws wouldn’t allow that. And changing it would take decades of bureaucracy.

I wish I was joking.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#399

Post by herbst » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:22 AM UTC

Anyone else basically stopped using supermarkets?

I buy my diaries from my neighbors (there are fridges with pay qr codes everywhere), meat in big packages directly from organic farmers via postal service, fruits and vegs from farmer markets (mostly digital ones these days) and every day things like oil, flour, sugar whatever directly from a local organic distributor.

Buying this way, and buying enough for a month I literally pay less (mostly) for organic/directly from farm than the cheapest supermarket option. Maybe thats just a Swiss thing however.

And I don't have to waste time & petrol shopping anymore.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#400

Post by Spivak » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 9:25 AM UTC

seoaeu wrote: post #348

bufordtwain wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience almost none of the US supermarket breads are decent. They almost all have added sugar and don't taste good compared to UK/French/Italian bread. There is one brand called "The Rustic oven" that has come out recently that has no added sugar and isn't bad, but that's the exception.

That sounds like mostly just catering to local tastes

Yeah, complaining that Americans on the whole prefer their bread sweeter is like being mad at the French for liking bread with big air pockets.

Like it’s a super weird thing where American food culture is almost universally shit on despite being just as rich, rooted in history, and varied as any other. Like if the story was that say Albanians preferred sweet breads the preference would be respected to the point of being mythologized but for American’s it’s just “oh those fat uncultured Americans with unrefined taste.”