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Henry Heinz used ketchup to improve food safety
- arkades 7y agoEven with the Web link, all I get is a “subscriber exclusive” splash page.
- kresten 7y agoI find it disturbing how long ketchup lasts. It’s not natural.
- imglorp 7y agoIt kind of is natural: tomatoes, vinegar, and salt all have anti-microbial properties. The rest of the ingredients are sugars and flavors. No preservatives needed, in this product at least (Heinz). https://edrugsearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/heinz-ketchup-ingredient-label.png https://edrugsearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/heinz-ket...
- NikolaeVarius 7y agosugar also has anti-microbial properties
- Scoundreller 7y agoAt high enough concentrations. But that's true of anything. Having a lot of salt or sugar (or any small molecule really) in something makes it impossible for cells to retain enough water to function. Which is why your sauce/jam doesn't go bad (except at the top, where a layer of condensed water doesn't have the high concentration of sugar or salt).
- swiley 7y agoHave you never bought tomatoes? They go bad faster than any other kind of fruit I’ve ever bought.
- AlexeyBrin 7y agoKetchup is not raw tomatoes! Home made tomato juice with pulp is usually boiled and canned. It can be stored up to two years.
- cobookman 7y agoPickles also last a long time. As do other fermented goods.
- wavefunction 7y agosomething something ph levels at the acidic/basic extremis
- jacquesm 7y agoPickles are literally pickled, that's a food preservation method.
- agumonkey 7y agoFood chemistry is somehow subtle. Rooster sauce/sriracha is also very 'resilient'. On the other side bolonese and similar spoil fast.
- skyyler 7y agoCommercial rooster sauce has potassium sorbate in it. If you mixed sugar, chilies, and garlic without vinegar or other preservatives, it would spoil as fast as bolognese.
- buckminster 7y agoTraditionally you don't add preservative, you ferment the mixture (though without the sugar). This has the advantage of producing more complex flavours but it's more expensive to manufacture because it takes longer. Or you can do it yourself. I make sauerkraut and it is very straightforward.
- Scoundreller 7y agoA big problem with bolognese is that it's not homogenous. So the protection you get from your preservation process isn't the same throughout.
- agumonkey 7y agoWhat forbids bolognese brands to add a similar preservative ?
- skyyler 7y agoThe way meat reacts to most preservatives + time. It would ruin the texture of the sauce. Imagine bolognese made with hot dogs.
- tyingq 7y agoSome restaurants refill ketchup bottles, which I've seen lead to some kind of fermentation where they spew when opened.
- londons_explore 7y agoA common teenage prank is to add a spoon of baking soda to a glass ketchup bottle, put the lid on, and shake. The next person to open it will have ketchup all over the ceiling and walls... My guess is you saw that rather than a refilled bottle.
- tyingq 7y agoI don't know, I saw it many times over a fairly long time period. I suppose it could have been a long running prank.
- neonate 7y agohttp://archive.md/51kkA http://archive.md/51kkA
- jacquesm 7y agoThere are a number of possible origins for the name, not just the Chinese one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup#Etymology This article is a nice study in regulatory capture.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoGood example of how good regulation is good for capitalism.
- duelingjello 7y ago“Protections” is a more concrete word indicating benefit rather than derisive “regulations,” which implies costs, burdens and barriers without a clear benefit. Paraphrasing an idiom from potentially-dangerous industries: Safety protection rules and laws are almost always written in blood.
- evgen 7y agoNo, that is only the case if you start from a particular viewpoint that is popular among right-wing Americans and almost no one else. From the perspective of first-world countries regulations are rules that we apply to processes where the dangers and externalities are diffuse enough that one or more parties may seek to ignore them for short-term gain; protection is the consequent of regulation, they are not simply synonyms.
- SQueeeeeL 7y agoGood for consumers, sure. But under a pure capitalist system it creates waste by people needing to spend time with quality control (presumably good things, but not ESSENTIAL to producing and selling a product, also makes starting a competing business harder)
- dr_dshiv 7y agoWhat is a pure capitalist system? Do you mean one without government or one with the more functional market? My point was that government can make a stronger, more profitable market.
- hayksaakian 7y agoIs this a "submarine piece"? It reads less like a documentary and more like a biography http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- graeme 7y agoI don't think so. The article openly says it's adapted from the book. It's just marketing. Submarines were hidden. This was in the article: "ESSAY DRAWN FROM THE POISON SQUAD BY DEBORAH BLUM, PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN PRESS, AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN PUBLISHING GROUP, A DIVISION OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, LLC. COPYRIGHT © 2018 BY DEBORAH BLUM."
- mmmBacon 7y agoWe think we invented startups and startup mentality but you can read about how someone like Heinz hustled and did things others didn’t; preservative free ketchup, clear pickled goods. Sounds trivial to us today but in context these ideas were pretty revolutionary.