3 ms·

What always amazed me is why Americans rely so much on processed foods? It seems like a cultural thing - you go out and buy a bunch of packages and then heat th

What always amazed me is why Americans rely so much on processed foods? It seems like a cultural thing - you go out and buy a bunch of packages and then heat them instead of just cooking a meal from natural ingredients like we (mostly) do in Europe. And food companies bend over backwards to make everything even more processed. What's wrong with fresh tomatoes? Why don't you buy fresh vegetables and make a nice meal at home? Is it about saving time? I could never understand it.

nerdponx 9y ago
Is it about saving time Yes. Time and effort.
- elcapitan 9y ago
  Effort is really mostly a bit of training and understanding of preparation. For example, I make a kind of base mixed salad 2 times a week, that costs me 5 minutes each time to cut a few vegetables and mix them with oil and vinegar. But I have that base salad to mix with fresh leaves every day then for zero preparation time. Similar can be done with warm food that you can store and warm up for multiple days, for example soup. The effort argument often reminds me of people who have incredibly inefficient workflows in their computer tasks, simply because they never learned how to do it right in the first place.
  - tyfon 9y ago
    In Norway, cooking, nutrition and house work is a subject in school called heimkunnskap (Home knowledge) or at least we used to have it. Not sure about todays kids. So everyone here has learned how to do basic cooking and what a healthy diet should consist of. It's not like everybody are doing it but at least the basic knowledge is there. Sometimes making food from scratch is actually easier too than making it from store bought packages.
    - elcapitan 9y ago
      > In Norway, cooking, nutrition and house work is a subject in school called heimkunnskap (Home knowledge) or at least we used to have it. Not sure about todays kids. That's really great. Of all the things constantly added to the expectations on schools, this is one that can have such a massive impact on many levels.
      - mantas 9y ago
        We have same thing in Lithuania. I also learned some basic woodwork. The lessons were super lame though due to few resource to have hands-on work. It was pretty much a useless lesson that everybody saw as OK to skip if you felt like it. Fun thing is, I hated those lessons. I fell in love with this kind of work later on though. Now I want a wood workshop in my garage. Need to afford a garage first though... Anyhow, this kind of lessons is definitely helpful. I see them as sort of compilation of "how to X" Youtube videos. With a teacher to help you with more complicated steps.
        tyfon 9y ago
        That is also a subject here containing woodwork, knitting and sowing among things :) The woodworking/mechanics part is called "sløyd" and the other is "forming" (shaping).
    - dictum 9y ago
      > In Norway, cooking, nutrition and house work is a subject in school called heimkunnskap (Home knowledge) In the US, the equivalent subject was called Home Economics, and was focused on women. This article goes through the history of the field: https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/what-happened-to-home-economics-history-feminism-education https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/what-happened-to-home-eco... (keep in mind that the publication is biased, as all are) > in the 1950s and ’60s [...] in many cases, home ec departments were eliminated, renamed, or folded into other departments, and funding was cut (although administrators’ salaries typically rose). “Administrators, all male then, held skeptical and hostile attitudes toward home economics, even as they expressed unabashed ignorance about the field,” Margaret W. Rossiter writes
- wiz21c 9y ago
  it's not saving time/effort : it's trading time/effort for better food. A bit nitpicking, but for me there is a very conscious choice. Time/effort are not a bad consequence of cooking; they're an integral part of it.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  I was expecting this answer as it's consistent with what my friends say. It's like someone managed to convince the whole nation that cooking takes an enormous amount of time and effort - so huge that people prefer to eat inferior quality of food just to avoid a bit of cooking.
iMerNibor 9y ago
> What's wrong with fresh tomatoes? They're super bland most of the time (unless you're willing to pay a premium for the more flavourful varieties and those can be hit and miss aswell) - I usually just get canned ones unless I specifically need fresh ones I do get your point though, making a meal from scratch can be so much better, both taste and health wise, with a bit of practice - not to mention it's relaxing to do the actual chopping & cooking usually
- wiz21c 9y ago
  You do realize that if you live in a place and time where tomatoes are super bland, the question of having tomatoes does not even exist. Eat local food :-) I'm like you : tomates in ca only, cos anything else in my country is not tomato : it's a reddish thing that tastes absolutely nothing.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Mine aren't. From the plants in the garden - super tasty, colorful and prodigious. Fill the freezer every summer, use them in cooking all winter. Spring sucks though - freezer is empty, waiting for the new plants to deliver the first cherry tomatoes.
- kstenerud 9y ago
  Beefsteak tomatoes are super bland, as is iceberg lettuce, because they are selected for volume, not taste (it's the best way to make a profit while keeping end-consumer prices low). Same goes for most large varieties of produce. Try getting some heirloom tomatoes from a farmer's market, or grow your own. You'll be shocked at the difference. Tomatoes (real ones) have a distinctive and delicious taste!
- malkia 9y ago
  They could be, as are the tomatoes I can find in Los Angeles, but there are some very tasty kinds (though never remember what what is). Back in Bulgaria, in my father in-law's village house the veggies are always tasty (it could be something else happening in my brain that makes them so, but that's how I started eating more hot peppers, by first trying his own ones, then liking it more and more).
pjc50 9y ago
Coincidentally this rant from British food writer Jack Monroe in defence of the ready meal in the context of poverty and insecure living situations just passed my twitter: https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/02/17/my-ready-meal-is-none-of-your-fucking-business/ https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/02/17/my-ready-meal-is-... (hilariously that URL is blacklisted from HN "submit")
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  Well, but that's about a very specific situation: how many people can't cook because they can't use any kind of stove or oven?

nerdponx 9y ago

Is it about saving time Yes. Time and effort.

elcapitan 9y ago
Effort is really mostly a bit of training and understanding of preparation. For example, I make a kind of base mixed salad 2 times a week, that costs me 5 minutes each time to cut a few vegetables and mix them with oil and vinegar. But I have that base salad to mix with fresh leaves every day then for zero preparation time. Similar can be done with warm food that you can store and warm up for multiple days, for example soup. The effort argument often reminds me of people who have incredibly inefficient workflows in their computer tasks, simply because they never learned how to do it right in the first place.
- tyfon 9y ago
  In Norway, cooking, nutrition and house work is a subject in school called heimkunnskap (Home knowledge) or at least we used to have it. Not sure about todays kids. So everyone here has learned how to do basic cooking and what a healthy diet should consist of. It's not like everybody are doing it but at least the basic knowledge is there. Sometimes making food from scratch is actually easier too than making it from store bought packages.
  - elcapitan 9y ago
    > In Norway, cooking, nutrition and house work is a subject in school called heimkunnskap (Home knowledge) or at least we used to have it. Not sure about todays kids. That's really great. Of all the things constantly added to the expectations on schools, this is one that can have such a massive impact on many levels.
    - mantas 9y ago
      We have same thing in Lithuania. I also learned some basic woodwork. The lessons were super lame though due to few resource to have hands-on work. It was pretty much a useless lesson that everybody saw as OK to skip if you felt like it. Fun thing is, I hated those lessons. I fell in love with this kind of work later on though. Now I want a wood workshop in my garage. Need to afford a garage first though... Anyhow, this kind of lessons is definitely helpful. I see them as sort of compilation of "how to X" Youtube videos. With a teacher to help you with more complicated steps.
      - tyfon 9y ago
        That is also a subject here containing woodwork, knitting and sowing among things :) The woodworking/mechanics part is called "sløyd" and the other is "forming" (shaping).
  - dictum 9y ago
    > In Norway, cooking, nutrition and house work is a subject in school called heimkunnskap (Home knowledge) In the US, the equivalent subject was called Home Economics, and was focused on women. This article goes through the history of the field: https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/what-happened-to-home-economics-history-feminism-education https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/what-happened-to-home-eco... (keep in mind that the publication is biased, as all are) > in the 1950s and ’60s [...] in many cases, home ec departments were eliminated, renamed, or folded into other departments, and funding was cut (although administrators’ salaries typically rose). “Administrators, all male then, held skeptical and hostile attitudes toward home economics, even as they expressed unabashed ignorance about the field,” Margaret W. Rossiter writes
wiz21c 9y ago
it's not saving time/effort : it's trading time/effort for better food. A bit nitpicking, but for me there is a very conscious choice. Time/effort are not a bad consequence of cooking; they're an integral part of it.
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
I was expecting this answer as it's consistent with what my friends say. It's like someone managed to convince the whole nation that cooking takes an enormous amount of time and effort - so huge that people prefer to eat inferior quality of food just to avoid a bit of cooking.

iMerNibor 9y ago

> What's wrong with fresh tomatoes? They're super bland most of the time (unless you're willing to pay a premium for the more flavourful varieties and those can be hit and miss aswell) - I usually just get canned ones unless I specifically need fresh ones I do get your point though, making a meal from scratch can be so much better, both taste and health wise, with a bit of practice - not to mention it's relaxing to do the actual chopping & cooking usually

wiz21c 9y ago
You do realize that if you live in a place and time where tomatoes are super bland, the question of having tomatoes does not even exist. Eat local food :-) I'm like you : tomates in ca only, cos anything else in my country is not tomato : it's a reddish thing that tastes absolutely nothing.
JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Mine aren't. From the plants in the garden - super tasty, colorful and prodigious. Fill the freezer every summer, use them in cooking all winter. Spring sucks though - freezer is empty, waiting for the new plants to deliver the first cherry tomatoes.
kstenerud 9y ago
Beefsteak tomatoes are super bland, as is iceberg lettuce, because they are selected for volume, not taste (it's the best way to make a profit while keeping end-consumer prices low). Same goes for most large varieties of produce. Try getting some heirloom tomatoes from a farmer's market, or grow your own. You'll be shocked at the difference. Tomatoes (real ones) have a distinctive and delicious taste!
malkia 9y ago
They could be, as are the tomatoes I can find in Los Angeles, but there are some very tasty kinds (though never remember what what is). Back in Bulgaria, in my father in-law's village house the veggies are always tasty (it could be something else happening in my brain that makes them so, but that's how I started eating more hot peppers, by first trying his own ones, then liking it more and more).

pjc50 9y ago

Coincidentally this rant from British food writer Jack Monroe in defence of the ready meal in the context of poverty and insecure living situations just passed my twitter: https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/02/17/my-ready-meal-is-none-of-your-fucking-business/ https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/02/17/my-ready-meal-is-... (hilariously that URL is blacklisted from HN "submit")

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
Well, but that's about a very specific situation: how many people can't cook because they can't use any kind of stove or oven?