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Bananas Don't Taste Like They Used To. Here's Why

epicurious.com

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Re: Bananas Don't Taste Like They Used To. Here's Why

#51

Post by kelipso »

arghwhat wrote: post #46
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #34

>> Consumers these days expect year-round availability of a product, which is consistent every time a person buys it, eats it, and cooks with it. It's like a fairy tale witch cursed us all for our greed: you will have any food you like any time you like it, but it will taste bland and boring and you will long for a taste you have never known. That's why people get so protective of their food culture, even their food…

> we'll all end up eating food that it is just nutritious enough to keep us from starving That's not a problem with "big food" - the food is far too nutritious and abundant . Sugary cereals for children and big macs can't be described at "just keeping us from starving". We want restricted (but complete) nutrition that is just enough to keep us from starving, so that we maintain our size and don't end up with an energ…

There are different meanings or measures of what nutritious and taste mean, which I feel like is contributing to miscommunications here.

Nutrition as you define it seems to be purely calories. Another definition would be complete micronutrient profile.

Taste as you define it seems to be fat, sugar, salt. Another definition would be complexity of taste.

Big food currently optimizes for the first definitions of above which is bad for long term health. Second definitions of above would be better for long term health.

Re: Bananas Don't Taste Like They Used To. Here's Why

#54

Post by fuzztester »

Propelloni wrote: post #37
fuzztester wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

almost exactly opposite in a geographical sense, is the Rub' al Khali (The Empty Quarter): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub%27_al_Khali i don't kid. it's huge, and mainly empty. I first read about it in an English children's novel about Arabia, as a kid.

Amazing! Thank you for the link.

De nada. Punno intendedo. ;)

Re: Bananas Don't Taste Like They Used To. Here's Why

#55

Post by fuzztester »

simonblack wrote: post #49
fuzztester wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is not a one-off. this is commonly done in India. in fact people even put a branch of bananas into a steel storage drum full of raw rice to help them to ripen. I don't know the science behind it.

Ripening fruit/veges give off ethylene oxide which causes further ripening. If you trap that ethylene oxide by putting the fruit or veges in a closed plastic bag, they will ripen even faster. Here in the tropics fruit ripens very quickly (chemical reactions proceed faster with increased temperature). I try to slow that down by keeping the stuff cold in the fridge. (But the fridge traps the EtO anyway!)

interesting. I think I remember reading that fruit producing companies use ethylene gas to artificially ripen some types of fruit. but I did not know that it can also happen naturally.

good to know. I guess that explains why the traditional Indian method works.

>If you trap that ethylene oxide by putting the fruit or veges in a closed plastic bag, they will ripen even faster.

but why would you want to do that? trap that, I mean? i would have thought you would want to use a fan to blow away the naturally occurring ethylene gas, so that it does not cause the fruit to ripen fast / further.

Re: Bananas Don't Taste Like They Used To. Here's Why

#56

Post by fuzztester »

fuzztester wrote: post #55
simonblack wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ripening fruit/veges give off ethylene oxide which causes further ripening. If you trap that ethylene oxide by putting the fruit or veges in a closed plastic bag, they will ripen even faster. Here in the tropics fruit ripens very quickly (chemical reactions proceed faster with increased temperature). I try to slow that down by keeping the stuff cold in the fridge. (But the fridge traps the EtO anyway!)

interesting. I think I remember reading that fruit producing companies use ethylene gas to artificially ripen some types of fruit. but I did not know that it can also happen naturally. good to know. I guess that explains why the traditional Indian method works. >If you trap that ethylene oxide by putting the fruit or veges in a closed plastic bag, they will ripen even faster. but why would you want to do that? trap t…

btw i said ethylene gas but you said ethylene oxide. need to google if they are the same or not.

a few minutes later:

I just checked it. they are different.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene

Re: Bananas Don't Taste Like They Used To. Here's Why

#57

Post by fuzztester »

fuzztester wrote: post #25
actionfromafar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid I will love Hawaii itself too much if I go there to visit. :)

that Hotel Hawaii song ... "you can never leave" :) https://genius.com/Eagles-hotel-california-lyrics

my god, the number of insane downvoters on hn. they even downvote you for an innocuous comment like mine above. I can only guess that they are losers or haters or retards or are hurting heavily for some reason, so they feel the need to strike out blindly, to get some kind of pathetic relief from whatever it is that they are hurting from. it could be job loss, or lack of money, no SO, etc. See Maslow.

Re: Bananas Don't Taste Like They Used To. Here's Why

#58

Post by simonblack »

fuzztester wrote: post #56
fuzztester wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

interesting. I think I remember reading that fruit producing companies use ethylene gas to artificially ripen some types of fruit. but I did not know that it can also happen naturally. good to know. I guess that explains why the traditional Indian method works. >If you trap that ethylene oxide by putting the fruit or veges in a closed plastic bag, they will ripen even faster. but why would you want to do that? trap t…

btw i said ethylene gas but you said ethylene oxide. need to google if they are the same or not. a few minutes later: I just checked it. they are different. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene

You're quite correct. It's ethylene and not ethylene oxide that does the ripening.

Sometimes you don't want to have to wait days for a fruit to ripen, that's why it's faster to use the plastic bag trick.

Re: Bananas Don't Taste Like They Used To. Here's Why

#59

Post by arghwhat »

kelipso wrote: post #51
arghwhat wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we'll all end up eating food that it is just nutritious enough to keep us from starving That's not a problem with "big food" - the food is far too nutritious and abundant . Sugary cereals for children and big macs can't be described at "just keeping us from starving". We want restricted (but complete) nutrition that is just enough to keep us from starving, so that we maintain our size and don't end up with an energ…

There are different meanings or measures of what nutritious and taste mean, which I feel like is contributing to miscommunications here. Nutrition as you define it seems to be purely calories. Another definition would be complete micronutrient profile. Taste as you define it seems to be fat, sugar, salt. Another definition would be complexity of taste. Big food currently optimizes for the first definitions of above w…

Nutrition is to me all the nutrients we need to consume. The same rules apply to them all - we need a certain amount of them all, all non-engineered foods only cover some subset of it (hence needing to eat “balanced” to even things out), and we handle abundance of any of them very poorly. “Big food” is not problematic because of what it lacks (getting more of any time of nutrition is easy in modern society), but because of what it has too much of (hard to uneat something). Hence too nutritious. I won’t argue against there being other definitions, but I find this one most appropriate and indicative of the problem. :)

No, your assumption of my definition of “tasty” is not right. Did you like the taste? Then it is tasty. Eating tasty foods is pleasurable, and therefore addictive. And what home cook wouldn’t try to make their food more tasty?

Fats, sugars and salts are shortcuts to maximizing primitive tastiness because “tasty” is meant to drive a search for nutrients and a guidance away from dangerous foods (especially salt giving how rare it can be - ever seen what animals do to get to a salt lick?), but that’s all.

Complexity is itself not tastiness. If a “complex” taste does not make you want to eat more, I’d argue that the food was not at all tasty, but just an interesting experience. Like seeing an art piece that was not beautiful and certainly not something you’d ever consider buying, but still worth having a look at once on a special day.

Re: Bananas Don't Taste Like They Used To. Here's Why

#60

Post by simonblack »

christkv wrote: post #14
simonblack wrote: post #5

I recently bought a batch of six bananas from a local farmer's market - they were very fresh and very green and smaller, having just been picked. I let them ripen at home over the next 3 days. They tasted very much better than my usual rather tasteless supermarket-bought bananas. I'm going to try the exercise again tomorrow to check whether this was a one-off or not. After reading the article, I'm going to check with…

Might be dwarf Cavendish which is what they grow on the Canary Islands in Spain. It's abut 1/2 the size of the full Cavendish and to me taste slightly better.

Went back to the market this morning:

Those bananas were dwarf Cavendish. And the farmer said " .. and we don't treat them with (ethylene) gas."

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