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Blueberries that taste the same but are transparent in the middle. Tomatoes that tase water. Cucumber that look great and almost tasteless. You don't know what
by punnerud 6y ago
Blueberries that taste the same but are transparent in the middle. Tomatoes that tase water. Cucumber that look great and almost tasteless. You don't know what you are missing if you have never tasted the "real" deal.
- kleiba 6y agoSure, but this is not about taste in the first place, it's about the nutritional value of your produce. After all, eating fulfills more than one purpose.
- stinos 6y agoWouldn't be surprised if there's a relation between taste and nutritional value though.
- kleiba 6y agoWell, taste is subjective - nutritional value less so.
- stinos 6y agoTrue, but that's orthogonal. You could still set up double-blind studies comparing taste, I think.
- kleiba 6y agoOf course, if you average subjectivity out, it's not longer there. But what's the point?
- coldtea 6y agoThe kind of taste changes we're talking about here are not subjective though. E.g. they're not about "I like it more or less" but e.g. about the taste changing from sweeter to less sweet. For example tomatoes (it's covered in a few books on the subject) have lost a large part of their sugar content after the 80s due to mass market techniques and genes that yield more and less quickly riping ones, but of lower taste.
- 0-_-0 6y agoTaste is subjective only to a very small degree. Most people would dislike the taste of rotten meat or spoiled milk. If taste would be fully subjective it could serve no purpose and there would be no reason for its existence.
- kleiba 6y agoI know you cannot be serious. If taste was not subjective there would hardly be the variety in meals we see all over the world. And yes, if you go to extremes like rotten meat, there is of course little dispute. However, many cultures have developed certain dishes that they consider delicacies while outsiders would find them revolting. But even from everyday experience, I'm sure even you will reassess your position if you think about it a bit more. Have you never had the experience that some food that you absolutely love and need others to try gets you little more than a shoulder shrug from someone else? Taste even changes over time which is another intuitive reason why your claim makes little sense. Do you remember the first time you've tried coffee or beer (if you drink those)? Most people are not too fond of these flavors at first, yet they drinks are among the most consumed beverages, at least in Western societies.
- watwut 6y agoYeah, but when formerly tasty you would eat for pleasure of it tomatos turn into paper, you wont eat them at all.
- kleiba 6y agoThat's kinda true. Alternative, if you personal life style allows for it, you may start growing your own tomatoes -- you might not get them all year around that way, but the taste difference is so worth it. And in the end, you gotta eat something. I suppose instead of not eating anything healthy at all, the more prominent strategy seems to have been to accompany healthy produce with super-unhealthy condiments (basically, loads of sugar, salt, and fat) to make it tasty again. That's probably the more worrying consequence, though.
- brailsafe 6y agoI don't believe table salt added to cucumber, tomato, or anything else is bad for most people. Likewise certain fats in reasonable quantities is probably quite good for you. It's also delicious. I would say that dousing anything in syrup, ketchup, or any standard salad dressing with sugar is a bad idea. Even honey is questionable.
- kleiba 6y agoExactly - the key term here is "in reasonably quantities". Note that my complaint above was about "loads of ...". Of course, honey is questionable - just because it's a more-or-less natural product doesn't make it especially good for you.
- trevyn 6y agoI think salt and fat are not as unhealthy as people have made them out to be over recent decades. Especially considering what foods people choose to eat to replace the lost calories that usually come from fats. Sugar, though, yeah. Sugar is the devil.
- 6y ago
- punnerud 6y agoJust like software. If there is bad design, several bugs on your first run and you can't find the documentation: It is probably just the top of the iceberg.
- petargyurov 6y agoI am certain that a vast majority of people have never tasted a "real" tomato. Here in the UK (though I'm sure this applies globally), tomatoes sold in supermarkets taste like plastic. Reason being is that they are picked when they are green and they "ripen" by the time they get to the store shelf. This is done because tomatoes are almost impossible to transfer safely in large quantities, because when they are ripe they are softer, bruise easily and they tend to go bad quickly. So, grow your own tomatoes - it's surpisingly easy - and the taste is amazing.
- brailsafe 6y agoI think there's also a genetic component. I planted Roma seeds from a store bought tomato, grew the plant, and they still didn't have much flavour compared to any other garden tomato I've tried.
- dmitriid 6y agoYup. Store varieties are bread for exactly this: transportation. I read somewhere that unfortunately the taste and transportability are mutually exclusive when you go through traditional selective breeding.
- nitrogen 6y agoTomatoes are often hybrids, so growing from seed you'll be missing some of the characteristics of the parent. Not sure if this applies to roma tomatoes.
- FrojoS 6y agoCan confirm. Does this also apply to canned Tomatos or are those allowed to ripe on soil, because damage didn’t matter? I think they taste better and I’ve Heard- than many top chefs prefer them over “fresh” tomatoes for cooking.
- genericone 6y agoIf tomatoes need to be red when they are canned, then I am going to make an educated guess that what you get in a can is truly ripe, red tomatoes canned near the farm operation. Never thought about that until now, makes sense though. I knew fruits and veggies are harvested pre-ripe for shipping and handling purposes, but canned don't need anything like that.
- enriquto 6y agoAlmost tasteless cucumber is great! Especially for kids. In summer, my kids ask for a cold cucumber instead of a can of soda. I guess if the cucumber was too tasty they wouldn't really like it as much. It's "chewy water", just like watermelon but without the sweet.
- zwieback 6y agoI grow multiple kinds of cucumbers each year and it took me a while to find one that stays watery and mild instead of getting lemony and overly flavorful. I like both but for a lot of recipes I want a real background kind of flavor.
- gerardnll 6y agoIt's saddening how fruits have lost its flavour. I'm thrilled to eat fruits/vegetables every time I go back to my grandfather town. I don't know what it is... mass production? Tomatoes bought in the city do not even taste good in season (like now). We now have bigger and tasteless fruits. Why? I want to enjoy eating, I don't care if it's 25% smaller. Now they try to fool us with more colourful pulp or exterior... but taste the same. I guess it takes more time to grow them if we want them to have taste. Orchards in my grandfather's town are not even irrigated (or much less, because it's dry weather) and they taste amazing. This only helps hyperpalatable and unhealthy foods to gain strength between young people.
- dawidw 6y ago> I want to enjoy eating, I don't care if it's 25% smaller. I'm pretty sure that 99% clients would choose the one which is 25% cheaper. Especially if those products are used in (not only) fast food bars, canteens at schools etc.
- yourapostasy 6y ago> I don't know what it is... mass production? It is the structural incentives of the modern food retailing industry [1]. Buyers (in aggregate, both corporate and end-buyers) do not care about taste as a primary purchasing decision point. It comes in around 4-6th in importance. Your and my preferences are seen as a rounding error of the market segments. Be really, really wealthy enough to source from your own farms and ranches next to where you live, or have lots of disposable time to raise your own food, or (like many here I suspect) pick your battles and cobble together a solution between a little raise your own, a little CSA, a little pick your own, a little farmer's markets, a little from co-ops, etc., which again, exacts a price of your disposable time, a luxury working poor do not possess. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/07/931348023/secret-life-of-supermarkets-shines-a-light-on-bountys-dark-side?utm_source=pocket-newtab https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/07/9313480...
- zsellera 6y agoI'm kinda into tomatoes: the same variety can result different taste and nutritional value (dry matter content) depending on the growing conditions. I know two greenhouse growers, growing the same variety of tomato on the same rootstock in the same medium. One of them has ~5-5.5% DMC while the other has close to 8% in the mid-spring season. They taste different, but they yield different as well (higher quality means lower yields).
- erdewit 6y agoUV radiation from the sun also effects the taste; It brings out the 'nightshade' flavor.
- brazzy 6y ago> Blueberries that taste the same but are transparent in the middle. These are simply different species: The European blueberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) has dark meat, the North American blueberry (Vaccinium cyanococcus) has whiteish meat.
- ptaipale 6y agoI understand the American name for Vaccinium myrtillus is in fact "bilberry". The farmed blueberries one can buy in a shop here in North Europe are large, and really very different from the blueberries/bilberries one can pick in the nature. Over here (Finland), both are available in shops; the "bilberry" (V. myrtillus) is bought for distribution from people who gather it from forests (often Asian or East European guest workers and even sometimes even retirees who do it for fun and additional income) while V. cyanococcus (V. corymbosum) is imported from commercial farms in Central and Southern Europe, and I suppose is mechanically harvested.
- socialdemocrat 6y agoSome things are not too bad. Here in Norway it is pretty easy to pick wild blue berries or easy raspberries when out walking. The ones I get in the store don’t actually taste that different. But it probably differs from where you live. I thought in particular when living in the US that stuff tended to be really large great looking but quite tasteless. However I have noticed from when visiting small towns in Italy that tomatoes taste way better there than in Norway. Ours don’t have the explosion of taste I felt in Italy. I had no idea a chibatti with just tomato and mozzarella could taste that amazing.