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It's a shame that so many people fall for the trope of the anti-science hippie when it comes to criticism of modern farming. Believe it or not, most of us who
by noam87 11y ago
It's a shame that so many people fall for the trope of the anti-science hippie when it comes to criticism of modern farming.
Believe it or not, most of us who criticize industrialized farming techniques are not tinfoil-hat antivaxers, and understand very well what you describe. Thing is, there's no reason why modern techniques can't be used to produce foods that are more varied, nutritious and flavourful.
Instead we're getting bland produce, all the same two or three varieties, and increasingly devoid of any nutritional value because our backwards practices are destroying the very soil we use (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and...).
It's like in terms of food, we're moving towards an "everybody wears a silver onesie" future... scientific progress doesn't have to mean monotony.
In fact it's not progress. It's laziness on an industrial scale, and it's costing us our health (and one of life's greatest pleasures: food with real friggen flavour). So many of us have never tasted a real vegetable or piece of meat. (Ironically, in poorer, less industrialized countries like in South America, the meat is absolutely delicious -- visited last year with some friends; it was like they had never tasted meat before. Then I realised... they really hadn't!)
For a glimpse into what is possible using modern techniques, while still embracing flavour and variety, I highly recommend the Chef's Table episode on Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture.
I believe it's the second episode of the first season (available on NetFlix right now... the whole series is worth watching really).
- maerF0x0 11y agoIts no surprise, most people pay by the lb. If there was some way to price by nutrition maybe people would optimize that way. Eg: 20c per 1000mg Vit C .
- tiglionabbit 11y agoSome words and standards can indicate quality. "Pasture Eggs" for example, are more expensive but also a better product. Also, going to a farmer's market and buying from producers directly instead of a supermarket is one way to shop for quality. I wouldn't want to use nutritionism as the definition of quality, because so far nutritionism has been too reductionist to capture the full picture. There's a wide variety of micronutrients that turn out to be useful, but are easily depleted from the soil in a monoculture. Are you getting your Vitamin K12? Selenium? Zinc? Copper? Choline? Are the animals you eat getting theirs?
- maerF0x0 11y agoWhile I agree with the idea that nutritionism is reductionist of complex systems, I see price per nutrition to be an improved model over price per lb. Maybe once upon a time price per lb made sense because not everyone could get enough lbs. But now we can get plenty of lbs, but not everyone can get enough nutrition. On the nutritionism note, I also think we'll increasingly improve the model to a point where something like Soylent v315 will actually be superior nutritionally to any complex diet that a human could eat. Right now its so simple that you can do better with a chicken salad, but someday soylent may encompass phytonutrients, chemical supplements, nanorobots, pre/probiotics, factors based on your genetics, medicines prescribed etc etc... IMO the complexity of nutrition will eventually outstrip the typical human's ability (or will) to eat very complex "meals".
- cylinder 11y agoAmericans have bland palates so the producers get a way with this. In other countries, people wouldn't buy the tasteless tomato.
- eli_gottlieb 11y agoIn Israel we would mostly get tomatoes or peppers that were considered too misshapen to export, but holy God they were freaking delicious. The heavily vegetable-based diet over there makes perfect sense when you consider how their vegetables contain actual flavor and nutrition.