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How we're scammed into eating phony food

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Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#51

Post by culturestate »

gambiting wrote: post #43
foota wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but that doesn't make sense to me, why would the quality of food there decrease?

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…

This is a great argument to whip people into a frenzy, but it's a little bit of a straw man. The US has labeling laws as well - it's not that the government doesn't care, it's that they're nearly impossible to enforce at scale. Without genetic analysis of literally every shipment, how is a regulatory authority to know what's what if the paperwork is otherwise "in order?"

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#52

Post by DasIch »

foota wrote: post #40
polskibus wrote: post #38

That's why EU people are protesting against TTIP. We're worried that the lower standards that are common in USA, will prevail, and any resistance will be trampled in private arbitrage courts.

Sorry, but that doesn't make sense to me, why would the quality of food there decrease?

Free trade requires harmonized regulation. If the EU adopts the less strict US regulations, the quality of food decreases.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#53

Post by nimos »

I've always been frustrated by the lack of government involvement in situations like this. Not specific to food but businesses in general.

I leave my car parked for an hour past when I'm supposed to - harming no one really - and I get a ticket. Meanwhile blatant fraud gets ignored?

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#54

Post by derefr »

dagw wrote: post #42
mavelikara wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not certain about this, but I think Sri Lanka is one of the largest exporters of Darjeeling Tea.

Darjeeling is a region in India. So darjeeling tea is like champagne in that if it isn't from that region it isn't actually Darjeeling.

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.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#55

Post by cel1ne »

alphabetam wrote: post #47
jjcm wrote: post #15

Is there an app or a site that tracks brands and tests their claims of what's in their food? I'm always curious especially when buying olive oil if what I'm buying is actually real. I think the biggest issue is consumers have no way of knowing what's actually in the food they eat. If the information were readily available it'd be much harder to push food substitutes.

In Italy, a bottle of proper extra-virgin olive oil is roughly 10 euros per liter. If you're paying less than that, it's not real.

That seems a bit too much.

In Greece, when you buy unlabelled bottles (dark green and sooo tasty) directly at a farmer's you pay about 8€. And that's probably a tourist-price.

I imagine that price is even lower when produced industrially, here austrian supermarkets you pay 3-5€ per bottle.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#56

Post by derefr »

alphabetam wrote: post #47
jjcm wrote: post #15

Is there an app or a site that tracks brands and tests their claims of what's in their food? I'm always curious especially when buying olive oil if what I'm buying is actually real. I think the biggest issue is consumers have no way of knowing what's actually in the food they eat. If the information were readily available it'd be much harder to push food substitutes.

In Italy, a bottle of proper extra-virgin olive oil is roughly 10 euros per liter. If you're paying less than that, it's not real.

Ah, but that's only a one-directional test. Cheap oil is obviously not olive oil, but that doesn't help you choose in the supermarket aisle if the expensive oil is also not olive oil.

(And, in fact, the expensive oil being the fake is rather the whole point: the Italian Mafia wants to sell something cheap as something expensive and capture the margin; there's no point in just selling something cheap as something cheap.)

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#57

Post by marak830 »

lucaspiller wrote: post #9

Not quite the same, but earlier this year I was working in Italy for a few months. I went back to the UK last week and it really surprised me how poor the quality of food is there. I don't mean in restaurants, but the actual ingredients you get in supermarkets. In Italy you can go into even the cheapest supermarkets and get tomatoes that smell like actual tomatoes, where as in the UK they just have no smell. Even tom…

I had the same effect, moving to japan. It's insane how much better the food is here, compared to Australia.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#58

Post by foota »

gambiting wrote: post #43
foota wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but that doesn't make sense to me, why would the quality of food there decrease?

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…

Okay, thank you. I'll have to read a summary of the thing so that I know more.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#59

Post by csydas »

jjcm wrote: post #15

Is there an app or a site that tracks brands and tests their claims of what's in their food? I'm always curious especially when buying olive oil if what I'm buying is actually real. I think the biggest issue is consumers have no way of knowing what's actually in the food they eat. If the information were readily available it'd be much harder to push food substitutes.

Not really, and I can't say I blame them - the amount of work, resources, and various research fields you'd need in order to maintain such a database would be pretty big. Plus, it seems like it'd be a legal nightmare, even if the site was in the right 100% of the time legally and scientifically.

Basically, as much as I would like something like that, it seems to me that the cost would be too great to maintain well and the necesary knowledge for the site to have would also be great. Even if they relied on volunteer research, it's still a lot to aggregate, and also probably easily subverted with UPC updates, brand switching, and consumer apathy. Plus, I'm' not entirely sure that it would have the intended effect of making people demand higher quality food.

I'm trying to find the report, but I recall reading that after being on a diet of canned and other low quality foods for a long time, a person can become averse to fresh foods, preferring the taste of the lower quality foods just because it's what they're mentally used to - a peach tastes like "this" (canned in syrup), not like a fresh peach. Spinach is "bad" because it's slimy and has no texture (frozen spinach), not like good fresh and tasty spinach.

Given how used we are to the olive oils and fish and such, I do wonder if we'd have the otherworldly experience or if we'd more wonder why our olive oil has a weird taste and why our sushi tastes different.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#60

Post by misja111 »

foota wrote: post #40
polskibus wrote: post #38

That's why EU people are protesting against TTIP. We're worried that the lower standards that are common in USA, will prevail, and any resistance will be trampled in private arbitrage courts.

Sorry, but that doesn't make sense to me, why would the quality of food there decrease?

Because TTIP is heavily influenced by the lobbying of big multinationals, the Monsanto's and the likes. As a result it favors the big food companies over small local producers. Eventually TTIP will lead to less local variety of food products and more food that is imported and therefore less fresh.
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