8 ms·

Reminds of all those times we are told that 'customers demanded X', as if we all stood outside supermarkets with placards saying, "We demand huge strawberries t

Reminds of all those times we are told that 'customers demanded X', as if we all stood outside supermarkets with placards saying, "We demand huge strawberries that don't taste of anything". The market does what helps the market, it often isn't good for people or the planet they inhabit - that's the story of our current era and customers need to demand change on that basis.

jimhi 7y ago
We did demand X though. The supermarkets had both tasteless strawberries and organic ones and we made our choice. Many supermarkets still have organic ones and we still pick the cheaper, larger, less tasty one.
- Retric 7y ago
  Except, they don’t actually give you a way to judge taste. With apples people learn of better tasting variety, but strawberries are unlabeled.
  - enriquto 7y ago
    aren't they? here in France there are a few labelled varieties (not as many labels as apples, though)
    - Retric 7y ago
      At least in the US it looks like this: https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-fresh-fruits-berries-fruit-stand-market-nectarines-cherry-strawberry-blueberry-rashberry-apricot-public-stall-image94655473 https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-fresh-fruits-berries-... You don’t actually know anything about the strawberries in the bottom left other than their organic.
      - Glawen 7y ago
        In France they show the country of origin (region when it is from France) and the variety. Sometimes they state if it is organic. Generally, the French fruits are more expensive but tastier. But when it is the high season of the fruit, like july/august for melon, then the french one are also cheaper.
  - ravar 7y ago
    I don't do this, but I do notice that in super markets lots of people do try the fruit before they it. So there are ways of making sure you get good fruit.
- sarcasmOrTears 7y ago
  More than one time I bought organic and there wasn't a big difference. Fruit quality and taste is so random that in the end I buy the cheapest
  - samatman 7y ago
    This is in fact among the best signals, because ripe fruit is a perishable commodity that floods the market in season. When I'm casing a supermarket looking for fruit I tend to start with price and then check the goods.
    - r00fus 7y ago
      This is the same reason that popular non-fast food restaurants have better tasting food in general. The flow allows you to have more fresh produce. I only buy organic when it’s not in some ghetto due to pricing.
- nck4222 7y ago
  Organic doesn't mean more flavor. Tasteless strawberries are around for a few reasons 1) you can't try before you buy. bigger, redder strawberries look better, so sell better, so are grown more, and so on until that's the expectation. if varieties are cultivated for their looks, that means they're not cultivated for their taste or sugar content 2) bigger strawberries are easier/faster to pick, which means they're cheaper to pick 3) people want strawberries in winter, which means for a lot of us that means we're accustomed to buying strawberries that have been shipped thousands of miles and not picked recently. https://www.npr.org/2012/05/17/152944880/bigger-means-better-not-with-strawberries https://www.npr.org/2012/05/17/152944880/bigger-means-better...
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    > Organic doesn't mean more flavor. It doesn't formally mean that, but often it means that in practice. I think some of the success of organic food is that it can in practice be a marker for attractive features that otherwise have nothing to do with "organic". Consumers learn the association and use it, even if they don't buy into the organic philosophy.
    - bryanlarsen 7y ago
      There are much better labels than "organic" to indicate flavor. "Heirloom", "local", "in-season", "small plot", "not greenhouse grown", "small", "picked ripe", "picked today" are all labels that are more likely to indicate flavor than organic, IMO. But the best is to find a producer or label that prioritizes flavor. Organic produce has monopolized the premium section of supermarkets. Without organic, supermarkets would find some other way to sell higher margin produce to less price conscious consumers. That dimension would probably be taste (or locality, which I have another rant about).
    - mikeash 7y ago
      Maybe they should try advertising this. For me, "organic" is a marker for "bullshit label that's used to convince people to pay more." If they actually do taste better, I might buy the stuff.
  - 7y ago
- nobodyandproud 7y ago
  I pay a premium for tasty, often seasonal fruit like strawberries and peaches because the difference in taste is night and day. One tastes better than candy. The other will teach kids not to eat fruit. A tip: Use your nose to sniff and distinguish between what’s ripe and tasty and what’s merely visually appealing.
  - bamboozled 7y ago
    Same, I often don’t bother buying alcohol or chocolate and spend that money on better quality produce, a good piece of fruit is better than any other desert in my opinion.
  - LargeWu 7y ago
    I think you've touched on an important point here: Not only do we demand perfect looking produce, we demand it out of season, and we demand it to be shipped in from all over the world on a daily basis. The reason we use pesticides is because farmers need to increase yields to meet demand. But what if we didn't demand asparagus in winter. What if we didn't demand apples in spring? What if people in northern climates didn't eat pineapple or coconut or bananas regularly? What if we bought food from the store that had bruises or imperfections?
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Why don't we care that fruit that is "better than candy" was genetically engineered over centuries to be full of unhealthy amounts of sugar? Modern grocery fruits are not naturally healthy.
    - nobodyandproud 7y ago
      The fiber, the general high water content, pectin, and vitamins make ripe fruit a superior choice.
- bamboozled 7y ago
  I just want to share an anecdotal story with regards to "tasteless" produce from super markets. I used to absolutely despise eating salad, I never knew why but I always just thought it was boring and I'd rather eat anything else; However, my girlfriend and I wanted to buy produce that wasn't wrapped in plastic so we started to shop at a local market held each week. There we meet a Tongan farmer who grew everything using traditional methods, the biggest difference he said was that he used absolutely minimal irrigation (unless absolutely required due to drought at planting) and he also said that what made vegetables bitter was pesticides and it turned people off them (so I'm assuming he dind't use them). He said that the lack of pesticides and excessive water is what made his stuff taste so great, and his groups had to be a little tougher to survive so he believed they were healthier crops. Anyway the guy was legit and he and his wife often held weekends where you could visit his farm and see everything, it was real deal. The main point I wanted to make was that, while we were being produce from this guy, I noticed that I actually loved eating the salads, like became quite addicted to them, he even sold the flowers from all the vegetables and told us the best nutrients are found in the flours, they were delicious. Ever since we moved away and no longer had access to this guys produce, I went off them immediately again. I really dislike standard supermarket produce.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    With all respect, that's a load of magical thinking and placebo effect.
    - GlenTheMachine 7y ago
      Maybe but not clearly so. The produce I grow in my garden does in fact taste much better than the produce in the supermarket. There are good reasons for this. I grow heirloom varieties that were bred for taste and not shelf life. Watermelons and tomatoes in particular really do taste much better when they are under water stress. A watermelon that has been given too much water looks fabulous and has almost no sugar. I pick them when they’re ripe not a week before that. IDK whether pesticides make produce bitter. But the rest of the post checks out.
- hourislate 7y ago
  Organic only means that the grower can't use synthetic pesticides, so Organic Foods are not pesticide free. The Government has allowed various Organic Pesticides that growers can use. I still choose Organic for most of my food whether that makes a difference or not. Getting back to the Original story, the Pesticides used in Organic Farming still kill insects. Here is a link with more information. http://npic.orst.edu/ingred/organic.html http://npic.orst.edu/ingred/organic.html
  - shims 7y ago
    Many organic pesticides are synthetic. The organic label in the US doesn't mean much.
- adrr 7y ago
  Organic doesn’t mean pesticide free. The pesticides used are “natural” instead of man made. Organic also means manure based fertilizer which means risk of food borne diseases like Ecoli 157h and salmonella.
- rhacker 7y ago
  This is a huge pet peeve of mine specifically with Organic Strawberries. Somehow this company called "Driscoll's" has started showing up nationwide for berries. Straw, Blue, Black, Rasp, etc... It must be a conglomerate at this point. But some people at various Whole Foods corporate and other outlets have just started bowing down to them. The offer the most tasteless organic strawberries in the world.
taneq 7y ago
Yeah but when faced with the choice between the tomatoes that were $8.50/kg and really nice but would go off in 2 days, vs. the tomatoes that were $4.50/kg and still nice and red and lasted a whole week but were pretty tasteless, you bought the latter, didn't you? Customers demand things by paying money for them.
- bbddg 7y ago
  Customers in many cases don't have the information to know the potential long term damages of buying the $4.50/kg tomatoes. It's insane to put that burden on the end user as opposed to the tomato grower. How in the world is the customer supposed to know what pesticides are used and what the damages could be? Trying to flatten all these problems into the failings of individual customer decisions completely obfuscates the actual cause of these problems. Which is generally an economic system that puts private profits above everything else.
  - neom 7y ago
    What's extra weird is that everything got really cheap, yet most people don't have any money, and the environment is in disarray. I'd imagine history is not going to look kindly on the wealthy.
    - bbddg 7y ago
      puts every imaginable fruit and veggie in a store at extremely low prices Why are people buying this food that is harming the planet??
      - neom 7y ago
        Probably because those that produced and distributed goods and services (be it red meat, pesticides, prescription medications, airline tickets or Tupperware) did not clearly understand (or did and chose not to) and spell out the true cause and effect for the average consumer.
    - bilbo0s 7y ago
primroot 7y ago
It'd be more accurate to say 'commoditization favoring economies of scale for the sake of anti-competitive oligopolization demands X.' It then takes some PR money to make people 'demand' all the crap. Addded: the mindless commoditization is abetted by subsidies, including the subsidy of not having to price in negative externalities.

jimhi 7y ago

We did demand X though. The supermarkets had both tasteless strawberries and organic ones and we made our choice. Many supermarkets still have organic ones and we still pick the cheaper, larger, less tasty one.

Retric 7y ago
Except, they don’t actually give you a way to judge taste. With apples people learn of better tasting variety, but strawberries are unlabeled.
- enriquto 7y ago
  aren't they? here in France there are a few labelled varieties (not as many labels as apples, though)
  - Retric 7y ago
    At least in the US it looks like this: https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-fresh-fruits-berries-fruit-stand-market-nectarines-cherry-strawberry-blueberry-rashberry-apricot-public-stall-image94655473 https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-fresh-fruits-berries-... You don’t actually know anything about the strawberries in the bottom left other than their organic.
    - Glawen 7y ago
      In France they show the country of origin (region when it is from France) and the variety. Sometimes they state if it is organic. Generally, the French fruits are more expensive but tastier. But when it is the high season of the fruit, like july/august for melon, then the french one are also cheaper.
- ravar 7y ago
  I don't do this, but I do notice that in super markets lots of people do try the fruit before they it. So there are ways of making sure you get good fruit.
sarcasmOrTears 7y ago
More than one time I bought organic and there wasn't a big difference. Fruit quality and taste is so random that in the end I buy the cheapest
- samatman 7y ago
  This is in fact among the best signals, because ripe fruit is a perishable commodity that floods the market in season. When I'm casing a supermarket looking for fruit I tend to start with price and then check the goods.
  - r00fus 7y ago
    This is the same reason that popular non-fast food restaurants have better tasting food in general. The flow allows you to have more fresh produce. I only buy organic when it’s not in some ghetto due to pricing.
nck4222 7y ago
Organic doesn't mean more flavor. Tasteless strawberries are around for a few reasons 1) you can't try before you buy. bigger, redder strawberries look better, so sell better, so are grown more, and so on until that's the expectation. if varieties are cultivated for their looks, that means they're not cultivated for their taste or sugar content 2) bigger strawberries are easier/faster to pick, which means they're cheaper to pick 3) people want strawberries in winter, which means for a lot of us that means we're accustomed to buying strawberries that have been shipped thousands of miles and not picked recently. https://www.npr.org/2012/05/17/152944880/bigger-means-better-not-with-strawberries https://www.npr.org/2012/05/17/152944880/bigger-means-better...
- pfdietz 7y ago
  > Organic doesn't mean more flavor. It doesn't formally mean that, but often it means that in practice. I think some of the success of organic food is that it can in practice be a marker for attractive features that otherwise have nothing to do with "organic". Consumers learn the association and use it, even if they don't buy into the organic philosophy.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    There are much better labels than "organic" to indicate flavor. "Heirloom", "local", "in-season", "small plot", "not greenhouse grown", "small", "picked ripe", "picked today" are all labels that are more likely to indicate flavor than organic, IMO. But the best is to find a producer or label that prioritizes flavor. Organic produce has monopolized the premium section of supermarkets. Without organic, supermarkets would find some other way to sell higher margin produce to less price conscious consumers. That dimension would probably be taste (or locality, which I have another rant about).
  - mikeash 7y ago
    Maybe they should try advertising this. For me, "organic" is a marker for "bullshit label that's used to convince people to pay more." If they actually do taste better, I might buy the stuff.
- 7y ago
nobodyandproud 7y ago
I pay a premium for tasty, often seasonal fruit like strawberries and peaches because the difference in taste is night and day. One tastes better than candy. The other will teach kids not to eat fruit. A tip: Use your nose to sniff and distinguish between what’s ripe and tasty and what’s merely visually appealing.
- bamboozled 7y ago
  Same, I often don’t bother buying alcohol or chocolate and spend that money on better quality produce, a good piece of fruit is better than any other desert in my opinion.
- LargeWu 7y ago
  I think you've touched on an important point here: Not only do we demand perfect looking produce, we demand it out of season, and we demand it to be shipped in from all over the world on a daily basis. The reason we use pesticides is because farmers need to increase yields to meet demand. But what if we didn't demand asparagus in winter. What if we didn't demand apples in spring? What if people in northern climates didn't eat pineapple or coconut or bananas regularly? What if we bought food from the store that had bruises or imperfections?
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Why don't we care that fruit that is "better than candy" was genetically engineered over centuries to be full of unhealthy amounts of sugar? Modern grocery fruits are not naturally healthy.
  - nobodyandproud 7y ago
    The fiber, the general high water content, pectin, and vitamins make ripe fruit a superior choice.
bamboozled 7y ago
I just want to share an anecdotal story with regards to "tasteless" produce from super markets. I used to absolutely despise eating salad, I never knew why but I always just thought it was boring and I'd rather eat anything else; However, my girlfriend and I wanted to buy produce that wasn't wrapped in plastic so we started to shop at a local market held each week. There we meet a Tongan farmer who grew everything using traditional methods, the biggest difference he said was that he used absolutely minimal irrigation (unless absolutely required due to drought at planting) and he also said that what made vegetables bitter was pesticides and it turned people off them (so I'm assuming he dind't use them). He said that the lack of pesticides and excessive water is what made his stuff taste so great, and his groups had to be a little tougher to survive so he believed they were healthier crops. Anyway the guy was legit and he and his wife often held weekends where you could visit his farm and see everything, it was real deal. The main point I wanted to make was that, while we were being produce from this guy, I noticed that I actually loved eating the salads, like became quite addicted to them, he even sold the flowers from all the vegetables and told us the best nutrients are found in the flours, they were delicious. Ever since we moved away and no longer had access to this guys produce, I went off them immediately again. I really dislike standard supermarket produce.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  With all respect, that's a load of magical thinking and placebo effect.
  - GlenTheMachine 7y ago
    Maybe but not clearly so. The produce I grow in my garden does in fact taste much better than the produce in the supermarket. There are good reasons for this. I grow heirloom varieties that were bred for taste and not shelf life. Watermelons and tomatoes in particular really do taste much better when they are under water stress. A watermelon that has been given too much water looks fabulous and has almost no sugar. I pick them when they’re ripe not a week before that. IDK whether pesticides make produce bitter. But the rest of the post checks out.
hourislate 7y ago
Organic only means that the grower can't use synthetic pesticides, so Organic Foods are not pesticide free. The Government has allowed various Organic Pesticides that growers can use. I still choose Organic for most of my food whether that makes a difference or not. Getting back to the Original story, the Pesticides used in Organic Farming still kill insects. Here is a link with more information. http://npic.orst.edu/ingred/organic.html http://npic.orst.edu/ingred/organic.html
- shims 7y ago
  Many organic pesticides are synthetic. The organic label in the US doesn't mean much.
adrr 7y ago
Organic doesn’t mean pesticide free. The pesticides used are “natural” instead of man made. Organic also means manure based fertilizer which means risk of food borne diseases like Ecoli 157h and salmonella.
rhacker 7y ago
This is a huge pet peeve of mine specifically with Organic Strawberries. Somehow this company called "Driscoll's" has started showing up nationwide for berries. Straw, Blue, Black, Rasp, etc... It must be a conglomerate at this point. But some people at various Whole Foods corporate and other outlets have just started bowing down to them. The offer the most tasteless organic strawberries in the world.

taneq 7y ago

Yeah but when faced with the choice between the tomatoes that were $8.50/kg and really nice but would go off in 2 days, vs. the tomatoes that were $4.50/kg and still nice and red and lasted a whole week but were pretty tasteless, you bought the latter, didn't you? Customers demand things by paying money for them.

bbddg 7y ago
Customers in many cases don't have the information to know the potential long term damages of buying the $4.50/kg tomatoes. It's insane to put that burden on the end user as opposed to the tomato grower. How in the world is the customer supposed to know what pesticides are used and what the damages could be? Trying to flatten all these problems into the failings of individual customer decisions completely obfuscates the actual cause of these problems. Which is generally an economic system that puts private profits above everything else.
- neom 7y ago
  What's extra weird is that everything got really cheap, yet most people don't have any money, and the environment is in disarray. I'd imagine history is not going to look kindly on the wealthy.
  - bbddg 7y ago
    puts every imaginable fruit and veggie in a store at extremely low prices Why are people buying this food that is harming the planet??
    - neom 7y ago
      Probably because those that produced and distributed goods and services (be it red meat, pesticides, prescription medications, airline tickets or Tupperware) did not clearly understand (or did and chose not to) and spell out the true cause and effect for the average consumer.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago

primroot 7y ago

It'd be more accurate to say 'commoditization favoring economies of scale for the sake of anti-competitive oligopolization demands X.' It then takes some PR money to make people 'demand' all the crap. Addded: the mindless commoditization is abetted by subsidies, including the subsidy of not having to price in negative externalities.