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One of the problems with Americans and food is that we've been conditioned to have sugar in absolutely everything, and the 80s made it worse because of the low-

One of the problems with Americans and food is that we've been conditioned to have sugar in absolutely everything, and the 80s made it worse because of the low-fat fad (they just increased sugar content to maintain mouthfeel). Ask any Gen Xer and they'll regale you with nightmares of the dominance of oat bran in 80s cuisine. On the one hand, you get a muffin. On the other hand, it tastes like cardboard flavored with sugar and cinnamon. Try making a traditional tomato sauce using canned tomatoes and follow the recipe exactly... then compare that to Prego or Ragu. The store brands taste like a freaking dessert topping comparatively. Most people don't eat enough low-cost, high-availability items like cucumbers and spinach, and they don't manage to learn how to do things like make their own bread, which is far superior fresh from the oven than anything you can get from a supermarket bakery. They also don't appreciate frozen vegetables, which are just as healthy as the fresh stuff, even if it might not taste quite as good some of the time. One of the things that the Food Network did a HUGE disservice to people is that a couple of entire generations (Xers and Millennials) were convinced into believing that everything needs to be cooked from scratch and that any meal that involves a kit or a flavor packet is inferior. There was maybe one show on that entire network with a host who would use kits and flavor packets and other items, and she was regularly panned by the audience for not being "authentic" enough.

everforward 4y ago
I think an unrecognized part of this is the crazy variety of foods we've become accustomed to via restaurants. I don't mind cooking from scratch. I find it rather fun and relaxing. Fresh ingredients are problematic, though. I can store a ton of frozen/canned food that's good for a long time and eat what I want, or I can buy fresh ingredients and then I'm pretty much locked into those choices whether I want it or have time to cook or not. Places like TGI Fridays, Chilis and services like Doordash give people a huge range of options that you just can't replicate without frozen/canned foods. If I tried to buy ingredients to make anything a Chilis can, the vast majority would spoil before I could cook them. The food would probably be better than Chilis while it was around, though. We got used to getting what we wanted, instead of what we had. The only way to replicate that is long-lasting food.
jessaustin 4y ago
The store brands taste like a freaking dessert topping comparatively. True! ...convinced into believing that everything needs to be cooked from scratch and that any meal that involves a kit or a flavor packet is inferior. These kits and flavor packets also come from the store, and also contain unnecessary ingredients. Family members from other generations insist on using envelopes of powder for everything, and they eat more poorly as a result. They need the powder to make gravy, while we gen-Xers whip that up from fat, flour, and any flavorful liquid. Watch Alton Brown for ten minutes, and eat better for the rest of your life.
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  I know perfectly well how to make a gravy from scratch. It's not hard, anyone can do it. Gravy is just flour, fat, stock, and seasoning. Cook it long enough without seasoning and you have a roux. Cook for a few minutes and add milk and you've got a white gravy. But for a brown gravy to be served with dinner, most people own one fridge/freezer. They aren't going to sit there and reduce chicken or beef broth to make stock, doing the little ice-cube-in-a-ziplock trick, and virtually all store-bought shelf-stable stocks are horrible and virtually indistinguishable from broths. Most don't have the room and don't want to spend the time. It is vastly easier and more time efficient when getting home from work with mouths to feed to use an off-the-shelf product and doctor it up than it is to go through all the steps needed to produce a similar quality gravy, and there's virtually no nutritional difference between one and the other despite the snobbish protestations of people like Alton Brown, who has never been involved at any level of professional food preparation. He's a drama nerd who found a niche, not a chef. Go look at a restaurant supply store website. Marvel at all the fun powders and bouillon and other flavor enhancers they have. If Michelin star restaurants can use them, so can you. Anyway, say you want to make fried chicken. You know that buttermilk is a great marinade. How many different things can you use to achieve a similar result? You can: 1. Just use buttermilk 2. Rehydrate buttermilk powder and use that 3. Use ranch dressing 4. Use a ranch dressing packet 5. Thin out yogurt and use that 6. Use kefir 7. Literally use any other slightly acidic dressing The important thing is NOT the buttermilk. It's the acid in the buttermilk that helps keep the meat tender, and the viscosity that keeps it stuck to the meat. I rarely use it, because I don't keep buttermilk around. I usually use either ranch or off-the-shelf Italian dressing.
herbst 4y ago
To be fair for a real Italian tomato sauce ala bologna you need a form of sugar to make to tomatoes taste great. However a little bit of milk already does the trick. No need for whatever sugars people throw in there. The Industrie would never use milk for several reasons.
Broken_Hippo 4y ago
Most people don't eat enough low-cost, high-availability items like cucumbers and spinach, and they don't manage to learn how to do things like make their own bread, which is far superior fresh from the oven than anything you can get from a supermarket bakery. I don't think that most folks can make their own bread simply because of time constraints. And honestly, we have a long history of folks not making their own bread. See, I do make bread. Daily. But I also don't have a job. It takes a few hours a day, but that's OK for me. At some times, when I've been poor, I've made bread on weekends, but freezing that bread to eat later isn't quite as lovely. But again, it takes hours and requires a working oven too (I had a toaster oven when I couldn't afford natural gas. And really, that last bit gives us a view into the past: Kitchens used to be dangerous and a lot of folks didn't have proper ovens if they lived in cities. Folks have been buying bread from the baker for... um... centuries. And it was better for everyone because it kept some of the fire risk contained. Plus the bakers could make lots with less fuel than individual folks could do, which is honestly even a bonus now. I'm not sure we are really losing stuff by not making bread - even if I make it and enjoy the fresh bread. Anyone can look it up online if they really want to.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  The problem isn't that people don't make their own bread. The problem is that bread just isn't a part of the culture in the US in the way it is in Europe. In most of Europe, high-quality bread is cheap and available everywhere. In the US, high-quality bread is extremely expensive and only available in specialty bakeries. People who are really into bread in the US often make their own. In Europe, where you can buy fresh bread on every street corner, why bother making it yourself?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
spywaregorilla 4y ago
The problem with tomato sauce is that it's cheap. The sugar is there to mask the poor quality. There are good tomato sauce brands, and they taste much better, but they cost twice as much. I like Rao's personally.
kcplate 4y ago
> Try making a traditional tomato sauce using canned tomatoes and follow the recipe exactly... then compare that to Prego or Ragu. The store brands taste like a freaking dessert topping comparatively. Five years ago I made the decision to eat lower carb, I didn’t want to give up tomato sauce dishes entirely and found most of the canned tomato products still too high in sugar. Moved to just buying decent ripe Roma/plum tomatoes (they tend to be the lowest in natural sugar content), slice them in half and roast them with a head of garlic, stick blend them and simmer with a little chicken broth and white wine, fresh garlic, basil, bay leaf…and you have a really tasty lower carb tomato sauce. Anytime I taste any jar sauce, it’s now inedible. Just like you said…it tastes more like a jam to me now…way too sweet.

everforward 4y ago

I think an unrecognized part of this is the crazy variety of foods we've become accustomed to via restaurants. I don't mind cooking from scratch. I find it rather fun and relaxing. Fresh ingredients are problematic, though. I can store a ton of frozen/canned food that's good for a long time and eat what I want, or I can buy fresh ingredients and then I'm pretty much locked into those choices whether I want it or have time to cook or not. Places like TGI Fridays, Chilis and services like Doordash give people a huge range of options that you just can't replicate without frozen/canned foods. If I tried to buy ingredients to make anything a Chilis can, the vast majority would spoil before I could cook them. The food would probably be better than Chilis while it was around, though. We got used to getting what we wanted, instead of what we had. The only way to replicate that is long-lasting food.

jessaustin 4y ago

The store brands taste like a freaking dessert topping comparatively. True! ...convinced into believing that everything needs to be cooked from scratch and that any meal that involves a kit or a flavor packet is inferior. These kits and flavor packets also come from the store, and also contain unnecessary ingredients. Family members from other generations insist on using envelopes of powder for everything, and they eat more poorly as a result. They need the powder to make gravy, while we gen-Xers whip that up from fat, flour, and any flavorful liquid. Watch Alton Brown for ten minutes, and eat better for the rest of your life.

MisterBastahrd 4y ago
I know perfectly well how to make a gravy from scratch. It's not hard, anyone can do it. Gravy is just flour, fat, stock, and seasoning. Cook it long enough without seasoning and you have a roux. Cook for a few minutes and add milk and you've got a white gravy. But for a brown gravy to be served with dinner, most people own one fridge/freezer. They aren't going to sit there and reduce chicken or beef broth to make stock, doing the little ice-cube-in-a-ziplock trick, and virtually all store-bought shelf-stable stocks are horrible and virtually indistinguishable from broths. Most don't have the room and don't want to spend the time. It is vastly easier and more time efficient when getting home from work with mouths to feed to use an off-the-shelf product and doctor it up than it is to go through all the steps needed to produce a similar quality gravy, and there's virtually no nutritional difference between one and the other despite the snobbish protestations of people like Alton Brown, who has never been involved at any level of professional food preparation. He's a drama nerd who found a niche, not a chef. Go look at a restaurant supply store website. Marvel at all the fun powders and bouillon and other flavor enhancers they have. If Michelin star restaurants can use them, so can you. Anyway, say you want to make fried chicken. You know that buttermilk is a great marinade. How many different things can you use to achieve a similar result? You can: 1. Just use buttermilk 2. Rehydrate buttermilk powder and use that 3. Use ranch dressing 4. Use a ranch dressing packet 5. Thin out yogurt and use that 6. Use kefir 7. Literally use any other slightly acidic dressing The important thing is NOT the buttermilk. It's the acid in the buttermilk that helps keep the meat tender, and the viscosity that keeps it stuck to the meat. I rarely use it, because I don't keep buttermilk around. I usually use either ranch or off-the-shelf Italian dressing.

herbst 4y ago

To be fair for a real Italian tomato sauce ala bologna you need a form of sugar to make to tomatoes taste great. However a little bit of milk already does the trick. No need for whatever sugars people throw in there. The Industrie would never use milk for several reasons.

Broken_Hippo 4y ago

Most people don't eat enough low-cost, high-availability items like cucumbers and spinach, and they don't manage to learn how to do things like make their own bread, which is far superior fresh from the oven than anything you can get from a supermarket bakery. I don't think that most folks can make their own bread simply because of time constraints. And honestly, we have a long history of folks not making their own bread. See, I do make bread. Daily. But I also don't have a job. It takes a few hours a day, but that's OK for me. At some times, when I've been poor, I've made bread on weekends, but freezing that bread to eat later isn't quite as lovely. But again, it takes hours and requires a working oven too (I had a toaster oven when I couldn't afford natural gas. And really, that last bit gives us a view into the past: Kitchens used to be dangerous and a lot of folks didn't have proper ovens if they lived in cities. Folks have been buying bread from the baker for... um... centuries. And it was better for everyone because it kept some of the fire risk contained. Plus the bakers could make lots with less fuel than individual folks could do, which is honestly even a bonus now. I'm not sure we are really losing stuff by not making bread - even if I make it and enjoy the fresh bread. Anyone can look it up online if they really want to.

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
The problem isn't that people don't make their own bread. The problem is that bread just isn't a part of the culture in the US in the way it is in Europe. In most of Europe, high-quality bread is cheap and available everywhere. In the US, high-quality bread is extremely expensive and only available in specialty bakeries. People who are really into bread in the US often make their own. In Europe, where you can buy fresh bread on every street corner, why bother making it yourself?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

spywaregorilla 4y ago

The problem with tomato sauce is that it's cheap. The sugar is there to mask the poor quality. There are good tomato sauce brands, and they taste much better, but they cost twice as much. I like Rao's personally.

kcplate 4y ago

> Try making a traditional tomato sauce using canned tomatoes and follow the recipe exactly... then compare that to Prego or Ragu. The store brands taste like a freaking dessert topping comparatively. Five years ago I made the decision to eat lower carb, I didn’t want to give up tomato sauce dishes entirely and found most of the canned tomato products still too high in sugar. Moved to just buying decent ripe Roma/plum tomatoes (they tend to be the lowest in natural sugar content), slice them in half and roast them with a head of garlic, stick blend them and simmer with a little chicken broth and white wine, fresh garlic, basil, bay leaf…and you have a really tasty lower carb tomato sauce. Anytime I taste any jar sauce, it’s now inedible. Just like you said…it tastes more like a jam to me now…way too sweet.