9 ms·

On the impracticality of a cheeseburger (2011)

56 points by sea6ear 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 6y ago
This is great, though I'm pretty sure cattle are slaughtered year round in the US, not just at CAFOs but at local farms.
senectus1 6y ago
I wonder if there is a diet that shows real benefits by restricting to the simplest of foods. no things that take other things like cheese (rennet), just essentially out of the ground/off the tree/slaughtered from paddock to plate food.
- Godel_unicode 6y ago
  You're describing paleo (as in paleolithic), it's benefits are still a matter of debate: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/paleo-diet/art-20111182 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
  - senectus1 6y ago
    seems close to it yes. but allowing a variety of oils seems a bit cheeky.. then banning things like potatoes seems to be quite counter to the "paleo" concept. They seem to be more interested in carbs based diet than foraged or simple farm to plate food.
- rebuilder 6y ago
  Any diet that rules out whole classes of food will have weight loss effects. You won't be able to eat a lot of things, and will be thinking more about what you do eat and why.
  - switch007 6y ago
    I did keto for a while. I didn’t care much for the science behind it, I just happened to like the food groups and it made me be hyper vigilant about tracking macros and counting calories. It worked!
- psandersen 6y ago
  There is the "whole food plant based" diet, see Dr Greger's "How Not to Die" and "daily dozen". I found it compelling and switched, feeling healthier and lost around 20kg in 6 months without thinking about calories.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Probably not. Even the simplest foods are things we've radically changed from 'nature'. The Paleo diet is nonsense from a historical point of view.
gravypod 6y ago
Reminds me of Half Life: Alyx's comments on a Club Sandwich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3cERBPQSkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3cERBPQSkY
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  Gyosh I want to play that game. Also have a club sandwich and regal it’s impracticality.
Tomte 6y ago
It's a bit like > I thought using loops was cheating, so I programmed my own using samples. I then thought using samples was cheating, so I recorded real drums. I then thought that programming it was cheating, so I learned to play drums for real. I then thought using bought drums was cheating, so I learned to make my own. I then thought using premade skins was cheating, so I killed a goat and skinned it. I then thought that that was cheating too, so I grew my own goat from a baby goat. I also think that is cheating, but I’m not sure where to go from here. I haven’t made any music lately, what with the goat farming and all. But I can't find the original source.
- odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
  I guess he could try to fuck the goat next, to remove the male father goat from the equation
  - marcodave 6y ago
    hol' up
jiofih 6y ago
Im pretty sure you could technically have butter, a bun, ground beef and cheese during the best part of the last 1000 years. The hamburger not being invented earlier has more to do with cooking and eating habits than its practicality.
- ginko 6y ago
  I agree. Same for onions(they store well), pickled cucumbers, mustard and (post-1492)tomato ketchup.
MrMember 6y ago
How to Make Everything did something similar with a chicken sandwich. https://youtu.be/URvWSsAgtJE https://youtu.be/URvWSsAgtJE Though he didnt use quite as extreme a definition of "from scratch." Everything in the sandwich did appear to be made or acquired by hand, but it doesn't look like he raised the chicken or cow himself for example.
- Niksko 6y ago
  I revisited this series recently and was even more disappointed than the first time I watched it. That sandwich should have been DELICIOUS. Instead it sounded very ordinary. You would think that if you were going to that much effort, you could spare a few minutes to talk to a chef and figure out how to make the sandwich tasty.
jsilence 6y ago
'All I wanted was a banana. Now I have a friggin Gorilla holding it, sitting in a complete jungle.'
cik 6y ago
This is ridiculous, and untrue at the latest, but to be fair it can be dependent on varieties and geography. There are several varieties of early and late stage lettuce (butterheard, battavian) and tomatoes (brandwyne, big rainbow). Or... plan your planting. While I don't eat cheeseburgers, one can use the same cow for rennet (or make rennet free cheeses!) and the burger, and said cow can basically be slaughtered on-demand. This, I've done several times - with relatives who were butchers. For a real challenge I suggest making soy-based tofu at home. Growing the soybeans is the easy part. Natural sources of gypsum for calcium sulhphate - at home, is painful. Then, lemons place a hard climate requirement. Mind you there are probably other ways to do this.
- joefourier 6y ago
  Thinking a cheeseburger would have been impossible to make in the past would be like taking the famous I, Pencil essay to mean that pre-Industrial societies couldn't make any pencils at all, rather than that industrialisation allows disparate people to coordinate together to make complex products for incredibly cheap. In the same way, a cheeseburger would have been certainly possible to make for any pre-Industrial European of moderate means - at its heart it's just ground meat and a slice of cheese between two fluffy buns, with a variety of optional condiments. The marvel of industrial civilisation is that you can get a cheeseburger anywhere, anytime, for an absurdly low price. In fact, if you discount the tomato, a delicious cheese-burger would have been completely possible to make as early as Ancient Rome, see this excellent Reddit post: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b4zdd5/would_it_have_been_possible_for_a_roman_citizen https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b4zdd5/would...
cheese_goddess 6y ago
>> The weekend before Thanksgiving, my wife and I had some friends and family members over to the house to slaughter turkeys. We’d raised eight of them from poults, letting them free range around our land for most of their lives, and their time had come. It took the bulk of the day to slit their throats, bleed them out, pluck them, gut them, and put them on ice. I don't know how people can do that, slaughter an animal they've raised themselves. Me, I make cheese. When the time comes to cut into a wheel, I don't want to do it. They look so lovely, I just want to keep them that way for ever (which is of course impossible- even hard cheese goes bad eventually). I can imagine, if they were actually living, breathing things that I had brought up from babies, I'd really have trouble destroying them. That doesn't mean I couldn't kill an animal, I'm just saying I couldn't kill an animal if I had brought it up myself, fed it, cared for it, and so on. If I had animals, I'd probably ask the neighbours to do it and offer to do theirs in return. But even that would feel dirty, giving up my little goat or sheep to be killed by some stranger? Now that I think of it, that actually sounds worse and I'd be really torn between doing it myself and giving the animal away, I think.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Not alone. For many cultures, killing the animals is a special job in the community.
- jfengel 6y ago
  It's easier for turkeys (and chickens) than some other animals. They're unpleasant birds. If you raise them, you will have already lost some to each other -- the "pecking order" is literal, and some die. If you're going to raise animals, you do have to be careful to maintain distance. A chicken will get cozy in your arms if you let it, not unlike a cat. Still, the birds are pretty dumb. With pigs, cows, etc. you feel you can connect with them. I've given up eating mammals for that reason. The birds I feel less guilt about, and most seafood even less. Oddly, I have no trouble cutting into an elaborate wedding cake I've made. It was meant to be eaten. I've known it longer than your wheels of cheese, though the hands-on time may be on par.
- rufus_foreman 6y ago
  >> I don't know how people can do that, slaughter an animal they've raised themselves From "So You (Don't Particularly) Want to Be a Farmer", https://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/02/24/how-to-explain-peak-oil-to-any https://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/02/24/how-to-exp...: "Wait until you have either a sick one that desperately needs to be put down, or some animal so obnoxious and unpleasant that the thought of eating them is actually kind of appealing (my three year old still announces, with some satisfaction "We ate Corey" - the mean rooster who kept attacking him.)"
micheljansen 6y ago
Reminds me of Thomas Thwaites "The Toaster Project". https://www.thomasthwaites.com/the-toaster-project/ https://www.thomasthwaites.com/the-toaster-project/

56 points by sea6ear 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

This is great, though I'm pretty sure cattle are slaughtered year round in the US, not just at CAFOs but at local farms.

senectus1 6y ago

I wonder if there is a diet that shows real benefits by restricting to the simplest of foods. no things that take other things like cheese (rennet), just essentially out of the ground/off the tree/slaughtered from paddock to plate food.

Godel_unicode 6y ago
You're describing paleo (as in paleolithic), it's benefits are still a matter of debate: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/paleo-diet/art-20111182 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
- senectus1 6y ago
  seems close to it yes. but allowing a variety of oils seems a bit cheeky.. then banning things like potatoes seems to be quite counter to the "paleo" concept. They seem to be more interested in carbs based diet than foraged or simple farm to plate food.
rebuilder 6y ago
Any diet that rules out whole classes of food will have weight loss effects. You won't be able to eat a lot of things, and will be thinking more about what you do eat and why.
- switch007 6y ago
  I did keto for a while. I didn’t care much for the science behind it, I just happened to like the food groups and it made me be hyper vigilant about tracking macros and counting calories. It worked!
psandersen 6y ago
There is the "whole food plant based" diet, see Dr Greger's "How Not to Die" and "daily dozen". I found it compelling and switched, feeling healthier and lost around 20kg in 6 months without thinking about calories.
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Probably not. Even the simplest foods are things we've radically changed from 'nature'. The Paleo diet is nonsense from a historical point of view.

gravypod 6y ago

Reminds me of Half Life: Alyx's comments on a Club Sandwich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3cERBPQSkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3cERBPQSkY

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
Gyosh I want to play that game. Also have a club sandwich and regal it’s impracticality.

Tomte 6y ago

It's a bit like > I thought using loops was cheating, so I programmed my own using samples. I then thought using samples was cheating, so I recorded real drums. I then thought that programming it was cheating, so I learned to play drums for real. I then thought using bought drums was cheating, so I learned to make my own. I then thought using premade skins was cheating, so I killed a goat and skinned it. I then thought that that was cheating too, so I grew my own goat from a baby goat. I also think that is cheating, but I’m not sure where to go from here. I haven’t made any music lately, what with the goat farming and all. But I can't find the original source.

odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
I guess he could try to fuck the goat next, to remove the male father goat from the equation
- marcodave 6y ago
  hol' up

jiofih 6y ago

Im pretty sure you could technically have butter, a bun, ground beef and cheese during the best part of the last 1000 years. The hamburger not being invented earlier has more to do with cooking and eating habits than its practicality.

ginko 6y ago
I agree. Same for onions(they store well), pickled cucumbers, mustard and (post-1492)tomato ketchup.

MrMember 6y ago

How to Make Everything did something similar with a chicken sandwich. https://youtu.be/URvWSsAgtJE https://youtu.be/URvWSsAgtJE Though he didnt use quite as extreme a definition of "from scratch." Everything in the sandwich did appear to be made or acquired by hand, but it doesn't look like he raised the chicken or cow himself for example.

Niksko 6y ago
I revisited this series recently and was even more disappointed than the first time I watched it. That sandwich should have been DELICIOUS. Instead it sounded very ordinary. You would think that if you were going to that much effort, you could spare a few minutes to talk to a chef and figure out how to make the sandwich tasty.

jsilence 6y ago

'All I wanted was a banana. Now I have a friggin Gorilla holding it, sitting in a complete jungle.'

cik 6y ago

This is ridiculous, and untrue at the latest, but to be fair it can be dependent on varieties and geography. There are several varieties of early and late stage lettuce (butterheard, battavian) and tomatoes (brandwyne, big rainbow). Or... plan your planting. While I don't eat cheeseburgers, one can use the same cow for rennet (or make rennet free cheeses!) and the burger, and said cow can basically be slaughtered on-demand. This, I've done several times - with relatives who were butchers. For a real challenge I suggest making soy-based tofu at home. Growing the soybeans is the easy part. Natural sources of gypsum for calcium sulhphate - at home, is painful. Then, lemons place a hard climate requirement. Mind you there are probably other ways to do this.

joefourier 6y ago
Thinking a cheeseburger would have been impossible to make in the past would be like taking the famous I, Pencil essay to mean that pre-Industrial societies couldn't make any pencils at all, rather than that industrialisation allows disparate people to coordinate together to make complex products for incredibly cheap. In the same way, a cheeseburger would have been certainly possible to make for any pre-Industrial European of moderate means - at its heart it's just ground meat and a slice of cheese between two fluffy buns, with a variety of optional condiments. The marvel of industrial civilisation is that you can get a cheeseburger anywhere, anytime, for an absurdly low price. In fact, if you discount the tomato, a delicious cheese-burger would have been completely possible to make as early as Ancient Rome, see this excellent Reddit post: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b4zdd5/would_it_have_been_possible_for_a_roman_citizen https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b4zdd5/would...

cheese_goddess 6y ago

>> The weekend before Thanksgiving, my wife and I had some friends and family members over to the house to slaughter turkeys. We’d raised eight of them from poults, letting them free range around our land for most of their lives, and their time had come. It took the bulk of the day to slit their throats, bleed them out, pluck them, gut them, and put them on ice. I don't know how people can do that, slaughter an animal they've raised themselves. Me, I make cheese. When the time comes to cut into a wheel, I don't want to do it. They look so lovely, I just want to keep them that way for ever (which is of course impossible- even hard cheese goes bad eventually). I can imagine, if they were actually living, breathing things that I had brought up from babies, I'd really have trouble destroying them. That doesn't mean I couldn't kill an animal, I'm just saying I couldn't kill an animal if I had brought it up myself, fed it, cared for it, and so on. If I had animals, I'd probably ask the neighbours to do it and offer to do theirs in return. But even that would feel dirty, giving up my little goat or sheep to be killed by some stranger? Now that I think of it, that actually sounds worse and I'd be really torn between doing it myself and giving the animal away, I think.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Not alone. For many cultures, killing the animals is a special job in the community.
jfengel 6y ago
It's easier for turkeys (and chickens) than some other animals. They're unpleasant birds. If you raise them, you will have already lost some to each other -- the "pecking order" is literal, and some die. If you're going to raise animals, you do have to be careful to maintain distance. A chicken will get cozy in your arms if you let it, not unlike a cat. Still, the birds are pretty dumb. With pigs, cows, etc. you feel you can connect with them. I've given up eating mammals for that reason. The birds I feel less guilt about, and most seafood even less. Oddly, I have no trouble cutting into an elaborate wedding cake I've made. It was meant to be eaten. I've known it longer than your wheels of cheese, though the hands-on time may be on par.
rufus_foreman 6y ago
>> I don't know how people can do that, slaughter an animal they've raised themselves From "So You (Don't Particularly) Want to Be a Farmer", https://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/02/24/how-to-explain-peak-oil-to-any https://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/02/24/how-to-exp...: "Wait until you have either a sick one that desperately needs to be put down, or some animal so obnoxious and unpleasant that the thought of eating them is actually kind of appealing (my three year old still announces, with some satisfaction "We ate Corey" - the mean rooster who kept attacking him.)"

micheljansen 6y ago

Reminds me of Thomas Thwaites "The Toaster Project". https://www.thomasthwaites.com/the-toaster-project/ https://www.thomasthwaites.com/the-toaster-project/