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To me, it's less about new products and more about people's tastes. People are eating very different things now because of new popularity in some cuisines (Indi

To me, it's less about new products and more about people's tastes. People are eating very different things now because of new popularity in some cuisines (Indian, Thai, and Mexican come to mind) and the popularity of "superfoods" (Avocado, Acai berry... ever notice there are never any animal-based superfoods?).

simonsarris 7y ago
> ever notice there are never any animal-based superfoods? In my circles it's tallow, A2 milk, and beef liver that are huge in popularity but I agree mainstream goes for coconut water, oat milk, etc. Those are a function of big ag ad dollars I imagine, more than decisive tastes or the actual super-ness of any food.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  > Those are a function of big ag ad dollars I imagine, more than decisive tastes or the actual super-ness of any food. Perhaps, but when you look at what's behind "A2 milk" (I hadn't heard of it before), it's basically a single company promoting their brand with largely BS statements. The Wikipedia article has plenty of details: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2_milk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2_milk
SomeOtherThrow 7y ago
> ever notice there are never any animal-based superfoods? This must be a marketing gimmick; eating animals is very nutritious—it's just not sufficient. However, this is the same as Avacado/acai berry/whatever. I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit.
- YinglingLight 7y ago
  Lean meat like chicken is has an INSANE protein ratio and vitamin B content /per calorie.
- geddy 7y ago
  > I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit. Might have something to do with the billions spent on marketing meat and dairy. Pretty big industries with pretty big financial contributions to our wonderful politicians, for decades now.
  - SomeOtherThrow 7y ago
    While the dairy lobby is 100% real, I haven't seen anything that comes close to an analogue of dairy outside the animal kingdom. The combo of high calorie sugar, protein, and fat is pretty hard to beat without explicitly enriching the food. Even after enriching it's quite difficult to hit that calorie density and have something that you want to drink/eat. I would probably be fine with replacing it with a lighter version of soylent (it's too thick to serve as milk), but the idea that we drink milk because of marketing, or that they're artificially inflating the nutrition you get out of milk, is laughable. The plant "milk" lobby, on the other hand tries to trick me into buying their product every time I'm at the damn store by redefining "milk" to mean "that white liquid".... https://plantbasedfoods.org/plant-based-foods-association-tells-fda-that-efforts-to-restrict-milk-labeling-would-be-unnecessary-costly-and-unconstitutional/ https://plantbasedfoods.org/plant-based-foods-association-te... > Companies selling dairy alternatives are using easy to understand, clear, descriptive, and truthful language on labels. Our members and others in this category, are using common English words that consumers understand: milk, cheese, yogurt and butter. To our members, and to consumers, these words represent functionality, form and taste, not necessarily the origin of the primary ingredient. That's bullshit and they know it. If you ask for butter, or cheese, or yogurt at the store and they give you a vegan product you'd be right to be annoyed. They approximate the food only at the shallowest level of perception and are very different foods to work with in the kitchen. Also, I do like almond milk—just not as a milk replacement.
    - Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
      > but the idea that we drink milk because of marketing, .. milk, is laughable. What? "Got Milk"? Milk mustaches on famous people and athletes? Come on. > plant "milk" lobby, on the other hand tries to trick me into buying their product every time Au contraire! That pesky, evil, plant milk lobby! Are you really that confused when it says "soy", "milk", "oat", "almond" right before "milk"?
- Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
  > eating animals is very nutritious—it's just not sufficient. No. It's not. I like Dr. Fuhrman's equation: H=N/C. This equation expresses the concept that your health (H) is predicted by your nutrient intake (N) divided by your calorie intake (C). There's not a lot of nutrients in meat (all you get really is protein and iron), whereas in vegetables/fruits you get a whole vast assortment of proteins, vitamins, fiber, phytochemicals, antioxidants, etc. Meat also has the problem of being a carcinogen, per the WHO [0]. > I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit. Nope. It's not. Milk has a ton of sugar, lactose is not well-tolerated by something like 80% of the population, and the proteins in milk are potentially carcinogenic. [1] Anyway, and that's just the nutrition angle - not even getting into the horrific ethics problems and environmental problems. We need to move away from meat. We can do better. 0. https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/ https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/ 1. https://nutritionstudies.org/provocations-casein-carcinogen-really/ https://nutritionstudies.org/provocations-casein-carcinogen-...
  - whenchamenia 7y ago
    I cannot even begin to point out all the falsehoods in your post. If you made it in good faith, please examine your views, otherwise stop trolling.
    - Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
      It sounds like I've upset you. Could you actually make the effort and point out a 'falsehood'?
  - phonypc 7y ago
    >There's not a lot of nutrients in meat (all you get really is protein and iron), whereas in vegetables/fruits you get a whole vast assortment of proteins Your whole post is ill-informed, but this is particularly nonsensical. Go look up nutrition information for any muscle meat and you'll see plenty more than just iron, to say nothing of organ meat. Regarding protein, you get a broader amino acid profile from animals, but this doesn't really matter.
mizzack 7y ago
Liver is _the_ superfood.
nabnob 7y ago
Sure, if you're looking only for foods labelled "superfoods". But there's also the popularity of low-carb diets like paleo and keto that treat animal fat as healthy.
- Relys 7y ago
  Eh, there's a lot of "dirty keto" diets out there. I think it's more important to eat whole foods (unprocessed) and source most macro nutrients (and healthy fats) from a plant based diet + the occasional fish and chicken.
nightski 7y ago
Ahh yes, these super-foods that get transported half way around the world for us to consume. Much better for the environment.
- superpermutat0r 7y ago
  These super foods are grown in such minuscule amounts that the impact is incomparable to the soybeans from Argentina being fed to pigs in Denmark, or Brazilian soy raising billions of chickens, pigs and cows in China. Energy wasted on growing plants that feed humans directly is feeding a 1st order process. Energy wasted on growing plants that feed animals that feed humans indirectly is feeding a 2nd order process. Animals need to keep their body warm, grown their body, have immunity, give birth, grow offspring inside their body and then after all that they give you milk and meat. Incomparable.
- deevolution 7y ago
  Buy local. Takes a second to glance at the distributor location - though it's not always clear when buying fresh unpackaged fruit and veggies where they were sourced from. Personally I'd like to see more of that information available at supermarkets and online.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
jsinai 7y ago
Salmon is usually considered a superfood

simonsarris 7y ago

> ever notice there are never any animal-based superfoods? In my circles it's tallow, A2 milk, and beef liver that are huge in popularity but I agree mainstream goes for coconut water, oat milk, etc. Those are a function of big ag ad dollars I imagine, more than decisive tastes or the actual super-ness of any food.

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
> Those are a function of big ag ad dollars I imagine, more than decisive tastes or the actual super-ness of any food. Perhaps, but when you look at what's behind "A2 milk" (I hadn't heard of it before), it's basically a single company promoting their brand with largely BS statements. The Wikipedia article has plenty of details: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2_milk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2_milk

SomeOtherThrow 7y ago

> ever notice there are never any animal-based superfoods? This must be a marketing gimmick; eating animals is very nutritious—it's just not sufficient. However, this is the same as Avacado/acai berry/whatever. I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit.

YinglingLight 7y ago
Lean meat like chicken is has an INSANE protein ratio and vitamin B content /per calorie.
geddy 7y ago
> I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit. Might have something to do with the billions spent on marketing meat and dairy. Pretty big industries with pretty big financial contributions to our wonderful politicians, for decades now.
- SomeOtherThrow 7y ago
  While the dairy lobby is 100% real, I haven't seen anything that comes close to an analogue of dairy outside the animal kingdom. The combo of high calorie sugar, protein, and fat is pretty hard to beat without explicitly enriching the food. Even after enriching it's quite difficult to hit that calorie density and have something that you want to drink/eat. I would probably be fine with replacing it with a lighter version of soylent (it's too thick to serve as milk), but the idea that we drink milk because of marketing, or that they're artificially inflating the nutrition you get out of milk, is laughable. The plant "milk" lobby, on the other hand tries to trick me into buying their product every time I'm at the damn store by redefining "milk" to mean "that white liquid".... https://plantbasedfoods.org/plant-based-foods-association-tells-fda-that-efforts-to-restrict-milk-labeling-would-be-unnecessary-costly-and-unconstitutional/ https://plantbasedfoods.org/plant-based-foods-association-te... > Companies selling dairy alternatives are using easy to understand, clear, descriptive, and truthful language on labels. Our members and others in this category, are using common English words that consumers understand: milk, cheese, yogurt and butter. To our members, and to consumers, these words represent functionality, form and taste, not necessarily the origin of the primary ingredient. That's bullshit and they know it. If you ask for butter, or cheese, or yogurt at the store and they give you a vegan product you'd be right to be annoyed. They approximate the food only at the shallowest level of perception and are very different foods to work with in the kitchen. Also, I do like almond milk—just not as a milk replacement.
  - Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
    > but the idea that we drink milk because of marketing, .. milk, is laughable. What? "Got Milk"? Milk mustaches on famous people and athletes? Come on. > plant "milk" lobby, on the other hand tries to trick me into buying their product every time Au contraire! That pesky, evil, plant milk lobby! Are you really that confused when it says "soy", "milk", "oat", "almond" right before "milk"?
Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
> eating animals is very nutritious—it's just not sufficient. No. It's not. I like Dr. Fuhrman's equation: H=N/C. This equation expresses the concept that your health (H) is predicted by your nutrient intake (N) divided by your calorie intake (C). There's not a lot of nutrients in meat (all you get really is protein and iron), whereas in vegetables/fruits you get a whole vast assortment of proteins, vitamins, fiber, phytochemicals, antioxidants, etc. Meat also has the problem of being a carcinogen, per the WHO [0]. > I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit. Nope. It's not. Milk has a ton of sugar, lactose is not well-tolerated by something like 80% of the population, and the proteins in milk are potentially carcinogenic. [1] Anyway, and that's just the nutrition angle - not even getting into the horrific ethics problems and environmental problems. We need to move away from meat. We can do better. 0. https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/ https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/ 1. https://nutritionstudies.org/provocations-casein-carcinogen-really/ https://nutritionstudies.org/provocations-casein-carcinogen-...
- whenchamenia 7y ago
  I cannot even begin to point out all the falsehoods in your post. If you made it in good faith, please examine your views, otherwise stop trolling.
  - Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
    It sounds like I've upset you. Could you actually make the effort and point out a 'falsehood'?
- phonypc 7y ago
  >There's not a lot of nutrients in meat (all you get really is protein and iron), whereas in vegetables/fruits you get a whole vast assortment of proteins Your whole post is ill-informed, but this is particularly nonsensical. Go look up nutrition information for any muscle meat and you'll see plenty more than just iron, to say nothing of organ meat. Regarding protein, you get a broader amino acid profile from animals, but this doesn't really matter.

mizzack 7y ago

Liver is _the_ superfood.

nabnob 7y ago

Sure, if you're looking only for foods labelled "superfoods". But there's also the popularity of low-carb diets like paleo and keto that treat animal fat as healthy.

Relys 7y ago
Eh, there's a lot of "dirty keto" diets out there. I think it's more important to eat whole foods (unprocessed) and source most macro nutrients (and healthy fats) from a plant based diet + the occasional fish and chicken.

nightski 7y ago

Ahh yes, these super-foods that get transported half way around the world for us to consume. Much better for the environment.

superpermutat0r 7y ago
These super foods are grown in such minuscule amounts that the impact is incomparable to the soybeans from Argentina being fed to pigs in Denmark, or Brazilian soy raising billions of chickens, pigs and cows in China. Energy wasted on growing plants that feed humans directly is feeding a 1st order process. Energy wasted on growing plants that feed animals that feed humans indirectly is feeding a 2nd order process. Animals need to keep their body warm, grown their body, have immunity, give birth, grow offspring inside their body and then after all that they give you milk and meat. Incomparable.
deevolution 7y ago
Buy local. Takes a second to glance at the distributor location - though it's not always clear when buying fresh unpackaged fruit and veggies where they were sourced from. Personally I'd like to see more of that information available at supermarkets and online.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

jsinai 7y ago

Salmon is usually considered a superfood