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> I definitely want to support my neighbors, but I don't want to buy Local Brand Ketchup. I want Heinz, darnit. For the love of God, why??

by rexpop 2y ago

crazygringo 2y ago
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/09/06/the-ketchup-conundrum https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/09/06/the-ketchup-co...
dylan604 2y ago
Probably because they've become accustomed to the taste so that taste is what their brain associates with as Ketchup. Switching to someone's local brand that will have a different recipe/formula (probably a lot less sugar), the taste will be different. To their brain, this is not ketchup rather some tomato paste sauce. Obviously, ketchup is not going to be the only thing that this fits. Pretty much any processed food sold in the US under major labels are going to be loaded with sugar that decent folks would question why it's being used.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  I picked that as a random example, but yeah. We all have brands that we think of as "the" canonical version of that thing. There are certain chili powders I prefer. Certain spaghetti sauces. Certain grape jellies. Certain barbeque sauces. The others aren't bad. They're also generally high quality items. It's just that they're different from what my mouth expects.
kstrauser 2y ago
Because you never tried this Local Brand Ketchup, which was ketchup in the same way that a Yugo was a car. It met the legal definition but no one was holding it up as the platonic ideal of its kind. Whatever brand of ketchup you prefer, it’s better than this one was, unless you worked for that grocer and convinced yourself you liked it, in which case bless your heart.
- rexpop 2y ago
  Nah, I think that's just the perspective of a petulant bourgeois brat. No serious adult would have that reaction to a condiment earnestly fabricated—especially not at the cost of outsourcing taste—let alone property ownership—to an absentee landlord!

> I definitely want to support my neighbors, but I don't want to buy Local Brand Ketchup. I want Heinz, darnit. For the love of God, why??

by rexpop 2y ago

> I definitely want to support my neighbors, but I don't want to buy Local Brand Ketchup. I want Heinz, darnit. For the love of God, why??

crazygringo 2y ago

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/09/06/the-ketchup-conundrum https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/09/06/the-ketchup-co...

dylan604 2y ago

Probably because they've become accustomed to the taste so that taste is what their brain associates with as Ketchup. Switching to someone's local brand that will have a different recipe/formula (probably a lot less sugar), the taste will be different. To their brain, this is not ketchup rather some tomato paste sauce. Obviously, ketchup is not going to be the only thing that this fits. Pretty much any processed food sold in the US under major labels are going to be loaded with sugar that decent folks would question why it's being used.

kstrauser 2y ago
I picked that as a random example, but yeah. We all have brands that we think of as "the" canonical version of that thing. There are certain chili powders I prefer. Certain spaghetti sauces. Certain grape jellies. Certain barbeque sauces. The others aren't bad. They're also generally high quality items. It's just that they're different from what my mouth expects.

kstrauser 2y ago

Because you never tried this Local Brand Ketchup, which was ketchup in the same way that a Yugo was a car. It met the legal definition but no one was holding it up as the platonic ideal of its kind. Whatever brand of ketchup you prefer, it’s better than this one was, unless you worked for that grocer and convinced yourself you liked it, in which case bless your heart.

rexpop 2y ago
Nah, I think that's just the perspective of a petulant bourgeois brat. No serious adult would have that reaction to a condiment earnestly fabricated—especially not at the cost of outsourcing taste—let alone property ownership—to an absentee landlord!