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What Big Food Did to Ice Cream

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Re: What Big Food Did to Ice Cream

#61

Post by cyberax »

alanwreath wrote: post #49
safety1st wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far be it from me to defend Big Food, but let's play devil's advocate for a moment, just facts with no LLM slop. Hyperbole aside they created a new product category which has less milk fat, and adds more air and gum/gelatin. It tastes similar to ice cream at half the calories, not so insignificant in a world where obesity is the #1 public health crisis. Their labeling is technically compliant with regulations but con…

Problem isn’t with “tastes better and at half the calories”, no, it is actually for providing filler when the initial sell was using genuine simple ingredients. The software analog is like a certain Italian company that buys SaaS companies and waters down the initial product, firing then very ingredients that made the product good in the first place in an effort to: - extract maximum profit - ride the coattails of tr…

> Problem isn’t with “tastes better and at half the calories”, no, it is actually for providing filler when the initial sell was using genuine simple ingredients.

So "ice cream desserts" use fake gelatin?

Re: What Big Food Did to Ice Cream

#62

Post by cyberax »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #53
seszett wrote: post #18

> Perfect for feeding 20 hungry four-year-olds who wouldn’t know the difference. But few adults were fooled Setting aside the fact this was written by an LLM, I think this line of thought (which wasn't invented by the LLM, I mean it's something people actually think) is the very origin of this problem. The 4 year olds don't know better, but it's because they are learning what ice cream (and everything) is. And if you…

I don't think that's sufficient. You need to be there and tell them why the other one is shit. I love pistachio gelato (artisanal), and it's my easy way to spot if the gelato being served is good or sucks. I give it to my daughter, so she tried many different pistachios (good and bad), but she still can't properly distinguish between the two (sometimes the difference is very big). Me and a bunch of my friends have a…

> You need to be there and tell them why the other one is shit.

Why? Are you sure that the kind that you're eating is not shit?

Re: What Big Food Did to Ice Cream

#63

Post by throwaway173738 »

onion2k wrote: post #28
roadbuster wrote: post #6

3000 words which can be distilled down to 10: "Cream and egg yolk are expensive; industry tightens its belt."

"industry worked out a way to sell you air at the price of cream and eggs" would be a more accurate distillation. They haven't reduced the quality of the product because the ingredients got expensive; they've reduced the quality because they worked how to sell you less for the same money, which results in more profit. If the law banned 'frozen dairy dessert' they'd go back to selling the higher quality product, proba…

Or we could break up Unilever, which only requires anti trust enforcement.

Re: What Big Food Did to Ice Cream

#64

Post by razmatazzle »

Not getting a LLM vibe from this article, other than I don't see a lot of mistakes. Almost surely cleaned up with AI, but who doen't anymore?

The narrative has enough spikes/detours that it sounds like human thinking to me, not an LLM, which proposes a thesis and then just funnels down to the predictable reiteration of a conclusion.

Re: What Big Food Did to Ice Cream

#65

Post by razmatazzle »

freak42 wrote: post #38
seszett wrote: post #18

> Perfect for feeding 20 hungry four-year-olds who wouldn’t know the difference. But few adults were fooled Setting aside the fact this was written by an LLM, I think this line of thought (which wasn't invented by the LLM, I mean it's something people actually think) is the very origin of this problem. The 4 year olds don't know better, but it's because they are learning what ice cream (and everything) is. And if you…

Why was this written by a LLM?

I dunno. That's a "When did you stop beating your wife" question.

Unless you can show me some sort of "proof" this is LLM writing, it doesn't read that way to me. And I read a lot of obviously LLM-generated content. I'm 100% sure it was cleaned up by an LLM, because I don't see any glaring mistakes (grammar, spelling, article mistmatch, etc.). But it doesn't have that "prompt-> article" AI-slop feel to me. And some of the lines, like the ice cream frog being boiled, are things you'd never have an LLM suggest.

IF you can "prove" otehrwise, I'm all ears (eyes).

Re: What Big Food Did to Ice Cream

#66

Post by lowbloodsugar »

haakon wrote: post #46
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #21

The USA is poor now. The problem is not that companies are enshittifying ice-cream. The problem is that people are so poor that enshttified ice-cream is all they can afford.

Hot take, but enshittified food is just another expression of inflation.

Literally true. The basket of goods for US inflation metric used to include steak. Then it was changed to ground beef. You used to buy ice-cream, now you buy “frozen dairy deserts”.

Re: What Big Food Did to Ice Cream

#67

Post by IAmBroom »

voakbasda wrote: post #10

We have a milk cow. We prep our ice cream from scratch in about 5 minutes: two cups of raw milk, 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1t-1T vanilla, 1/4t salt, and 6-8 raw egg yolks. Blend everything in a quart jar with an immersion blender and pour into a Cuisinart ice cream maker. AFAIK, you literally cannot buy anything close to this good. As a small farmer, I have nothing good to say about the USDA or FDA. I would rant further,…

> I have nothing good to say about the USDA or FDA.

They have saved thousands or millions of US lives. But hey, they've inconvenienced your profit lines, so boo on them.

Re: What Big Food Did to Ice Cream

#68

Post by IAmBroom »

telesilla wrote: post #36
msftgreed wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't... heat it? Egg yolks change their role in ice cream when heated, increasing their emulsifying power and creating a richer ice cream.

An immersion blender like the Vitamix heats as it blends because of high friction, on high settings. I make soup with mine. https://www.vitamix.com/us/en_us/what-you-can-make/hot-soups

OP didn't say they blended until it was cooked to custard. It's a non-trivial step you added.

Re: What Big Food Did to Ice Cream

#69

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

cyberax wrote: post #62
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's sufficient. You need to be there and tell them why the other one is shit. I love pistachio gelato (artisanal), and it's my easy way to spot if the gelato being served is good or sucks. I give it to my daughter, so she tried many different pistachios (good and bad), but she still can't properly distinguish between the two (sometimes the difference is very big). Me and a bunch of my friends have a…

> You need to be there and tell them why the other one is shit. Why? Are you sure that the kind that you're eating is not shit?

Because I ate a lot of pistachio gelato and the one she told me "I think it's good" tasted like coffee (reported by multiple family members), so I had to explain her what good pistachio is.

I can totally make mistakes in which one is the best, but identifying which ones are egregiously bad is way easier

Re: What Big Food Did to Ice Cream

#70

Post by cyberax »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #69
cyberax wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need to be there and tell them why the other one is shit. Why? Are you sure that the kind that you're eating is not shit?

Because I ate a lot of pistachio gelato and the one she told me "I think it's good" tasted like coffee (reported by multiple family members), so I had to explain her what good pistachio is. I can totally make mistakes in which one is the best, but identifying which ones are egregiously bad is way easier

You might be surprised, but a lot of people actually like "bad" versions more.

I don't like regular ice-cream it's just too rich for me. I experimented with making aerated (well, nitrogenated) ice-cream myself 20 years ago when I had access to a lab.

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