51–60 of 81 posts
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I see this all the time with bananas that go from green to brown without turning yellow, I always heard people blame the bananas getting too cold during shipping.
I lost it when I moved but we used to have a chart on the fridge that said which fruits you should or should not store together because they make each other ripen faster.
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From the wikipedia article: "As an example of where the paradox did not occur, large improvements in farming productivity (including the Third Agricultural Revolution) led to lower food prices but did not result in increased demand for food. (Demand for food is inelastic.) This instead led to lower employment in the farming sector, which declined from 40% of Americans in 1900 to less than 2% in 2024.[14]" But general…
Thank you for pointing out that food demand is inelastic, that does shift my perspective somewhat. A complication about demand for food is that American culture promotes luxury and overindulgence. Still not elastic, but more food waste than is "normal". In general, buying more food should cause more food waste. > But generally, I don't see the relevance. Jevon's paradox is about lowered costs driving further demand;…
what are the long term effects of consuming such a banana daily?
> We’re eating today the same bananas as our grandparents were eating in the 1950s. No, we're not. Back in the 1950s our grandparents were eating Gros Michel bananas. Now, we're eating (by all accounts) inferior Cavendish bananas. https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/history-of-the-gros-m...
But the reasons we are eating these two bananas is that their skin colors align with the ripeness of the fruit in a way that the human brain thinks makes sense. And because we are monocropping, the same family of fungi are now successfully attacking the Cavendish that took out the Gros Michel. All the other species of bananas tend to turn brown almost immediately after or around the time they are fully ripe, and that…
Side note: Let us avoid pseudoscientific and pseudophilosophical language like this bit. It is suggestive of the homunculus fallacy, it misconstrues the nature of perception, and ignores the role of habit and cultural influences. It's also artificial, stylistically stodgy, and comes off as pretentious in a gauche, pop sci kind of way.
Most banana varieties actually taste best and last longer as they start to brown (ripen). The Cavendish—the dominant grocery store banana—is one of the few that turns mushy and unpleasant when it does.
Unpleasant for eating as a banana but quite pleasant for baking. I always buy more banana's than I can possibly eat before they get overripe, eat them raw until they get mushy then make banana bread with the remainder.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I lost it when I moved but we used to have a chart on the fridge that said which fruits you should or should not store together because they make each other ripen faster.
Bananas speed up avocado ripening, I know that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the reasons we are eating these two bananas is that their skin colors align with the ripeness of the fruit in a way that the human brain thinks makes sense. And because we are monocropping, the same family of fungi are now successfully attacking the Cavendish that took out the Gros Michel. All the other species of bananas tend to turn brown almost immediately after or around the time they are fully ripe, and that…
> in a way that the human brain thinks makes sense. Side note: Let us avoid pseudoscientific and pseudophilosophical language like this bit. It is suggestive of the homunculus fallacy, it misconstrues the nature of perception, and ignores the role of habit and cultural influences. It's also artificial, stylistically stodgy, and comes off as pretentious in a gauche, pop sci kind of way.
The market demands bananas that are not brown when they are ripe.
Other research teams are working on lettuce that wilts more slowly, bruise-resistant apples and potatoes and identifying the genes that determine how quickly grapes and blueberries shrivel. Pro tip: Buy your grapes, take them home, rinse them and promptly remove them from the vine. They will last up to a week in the fridge if the plant they grew on isn't desperately trying to stay alive longer with zero hope of survi…
Other research teams are working on lettuce that wilts more slowly, bruise-resistant apples and potatoes and identifying the genes that determine how quickly grapes and blueberries shrivel. Pro tip: Buy your grapes, take them home, rinse them and promptly remove them from the vine. They will last up to a week in the fridge if the plant they grew on isn't desperately trying to stay alive longer with zero hope of survi…
Trying to prevent food waste is silly. There is plenty of food where people are organized and no food where they are not. Agriculture needs stability, you need to be sure that after one year of work, you can reap the benefits of that work. This does not happens in places where any guy with an AK can come and steal your crop. It's like a comedian (sightly obese) said: "my Mom said there are hungry children in Africa s…
"No food is wasted" is another way of saying "we are in the middle of a famine and people are eating everything they can."
Food waste is a deliberate government policy decision to prevent famines in lean years. This is explicit for some products, but the benefit still exists for other products.