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General population easily dismisses food processed and prepared by large corporations. Vomitoxin, feces, infestation, insect damaged kernels. All bad. People wa

General population easily dismisses food processed and prepared by large corporations. Vomitoxin, feces, infestation, insect damaged kernels. All bad. People want natural unprocessed food... I was born and raised in Eastern Europe. Thanks to complete failure of socialism, there was no large functioning food industry. We had natural food back then, chicken raised by Grandma, wheat she sow herself, fresh eggs every day. And now the surprise: eggs were dirty, wheat was damaged by insects, meat was processed with dirty hands. Yup, all natural and all with vomitoxin levels exceeding any today's standards likely. Salmonella poisoning was pretty common. Hey, but it's all good because... no one checked the levels of x, no one tested for salmonella, etc. The modern food that guarantees some standard is not so bad! At least we know what it has and we can work on reducing it.

enraged_camel 12y ago
But that is a false dichotomy. There are lots of farms in the US that grow their products naturally and without processing. They don't have increased risk of diseases (probably just the opposite since they aren't keeping their animals packed inside enclosed spaces and pumping them full of antibiotics), and the food tastes amazing.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  > There are lots of farms in the US that grow their products naturally and without processing You're buying into the hype "Naturally" means nothing. Sure, the poultry raised there is healthier, but the risk of Salmonella in eggs is probably the same, or even higher. You can also bet they have some rodents going around, insects, fungus, and depending on what you get from there, yes, it's ending up in your food. Of course I prefer food that wasn't picked/slaughtered as soon as possible (and helped by hormones)
  - enraged_camel 12y ago
    >>"Naturally" means nothing. I'm not talking about the word "all natural" as it is used in labeling food. Yes, you're absolutely right: that one means nothing. I'm using "naturally" to describe conditions that are as close as possible to the animal's natural lifestyle. Chickens that roam outdoors in open spaces, cows that are fed their natural diet (as opposed to processed foods), things like that. >>Sure, the poultry raised there is healthier, but the risk of Salmonella in eggs is probably the same, or even higher. Not really. Those farms are under the same regulations as factory farms. There isn't a reason why the risk of salmonella should be higher.
ajuc 12y ago
I was raised in communist Europe too (and still live there, fortunately communism died:)). The food was bad, but for different reasons than now. Now food is very cheap compared to the food during communism, even in absolute terms, and people got more wealthy as well. And food is cheap mainly because there's a price/quality trade-off that just wasn't there. You can get great food now, and it's not much more expansive than food during communism was, but nobody buys it, because you can also buy stuff that seems OK and costs 70% less. Back then there was "a butter", or "a pig meat" and you bought it. No point in having 2 different butters, right? Same with most of the stuff. If particular factory happened to make a good butter - you eat good butter, if you could buy it at all - that is. And then there was secondary market - more important than the shops. People made stuff for themselves and family/friends, or for barter. And that food was good, because people did it for themselves mostly. Yes the Salmonella scare, etc - you cook your eggs and there's no problem. The salmonella scandals mostly happened with ice creams, and very few people did icecreams by itself. The cold cuts were a lot better than most of the stuff people buy today (99% meat, not 50% meat like the cheap wędliny of today). And no insane amount of various sugars in everything. Yes there was the problem of no vet control over the meat, but the only reason you could possibly want such control was a parasite, that was very rare anyway (and small farmers with 2 pigs and a cow each wasn't a good einvironment for the parasites to spread). Of course if you had vet friend you took the meat to him/her and gave him a few cold cuts for checking the meat for you. It was a whole secondary (hidden) economy. Also now food is cheap so you can eat meat and sweets every day. And modern processed food is carefuly designed so you can eat it non-stop and want more. Natural food usually has some secondary tastes that make you stop after a while. The end result is - people eat much less healthy now, despite having more money, and better food available. Of course widespread alcoholism and lack of modern drugs during communism nullified all the statistic benefits of better diet, except that there was no obesity.
engendered 12y ago
Note that this story isn't really about vomitoxin, or about the permissible amounts of unpleasant stuff, at least not directly. While that was the lead in, the actual story was about Kraft leveraging the markets, including products they can't use, to get a better price on the stuff they can use. And FWIW, while the human limit for vomitoxin is 1ppm, it's 5ppm for pet food, and 10ppm for livestock feed.

enraged_camel 12y ago

But that is a false dichotomy. There are lots of farms in the US that grow their products naturally and without processing. They don't have increased risk of diseases (probably just the opposite since they aren't keeping their animals packed inside enclosed spaces and pumping them full of antibiotics), and the food tastes amazing.

raverbashing 12y ago
> There are lots of farms in the US that grow their products naturally and without processing You're buying into the hype "Naturally" means nothing. Sure, the poultry raised there is healthier, but the risk of Salmonella in eggs is probably the same, or even higher. You can also bet they have some rodents going around, insects, fungus, and depending on what you get from there, yes, it's ending up in your food. Of course I prefer food that wasn't picked/slaughtered as soon as possible (and helped by hormones)
- enraged_camel 12y ago
  >>"Naturally" means nothing. I'm not talking about the word "all natural" as it is used in labeling food. Yes, you're absolutely right: that one means nothing. I'm using "naturally" to describe conditions that are as close as possible to the animal's natural lifestyle. Chickens that roam outdoors in open spaces, cows that are fed their natural diet (as opposed to processed foods), things like that. >>Sure, the poultry raised there is healthier, but the risk of Salmonella in eggs is probably the same, or even higher. Not really. Those farms are under the same regulations as factory farms. There isn't a reason why the risk of salmonella should be higher.

ajuc 12y ago

I was raised in communist Europe too (and still live there, fortunately communism died:)). The food was bad, but for different reasons than now. Now food is very cheap compared to the food during communism, even in absolute terms, and people got more wealthy as well. And food is cheap mainly because there's a price/quality trade-off that just wasn't there. You can get great food now, and it's not much more expansive than food during communism was, but nobody buys it, because you can also buy stuff that seems OK and costs 70% less. Back then there was "a butter", or "a pig meat" and you bought it. No point in having 2 different butters, right? Same with most of the stuff. If particular factory happened to make a good butter - you eat good butter, if you could buy it at all - that is. And then there was secondary market - more important than the shops. People made stuff for themselves and family/friends, or for barter. And that food was good, because people did it for themselves mostly. Yes the Salmonella scare, etc - you cook your eggs and there's no problem. The salmonella scandals mostly happened with ice creams, and very few people did icecreams by itself. The cold cuts were a lot better than most of the stuff people buy today (99% meat, not 50% meat like the cheap wędliny of today). And no insane amount of various sugars in everything. Yes there was the problem of no vet control over the meat, but the only reason you could possibly want such control was a parasite, that was very rare anyway (and small farmers with 2 pigs and a cow each wasn't a good einvironment for the parasites to spread). Of course if you had vet friend you took the meat to him/her and gave him a few cold cuts for checking the meat for you. It was a whole secondary (hidden) economy. Also now food is cheap so you can eat meat and sweets every day. And modern processed food is carefuly designed so you can eat it non-stop and want more. Natural food usually has some secondary tastes that make you stop after a while. The end result is - people eat much less healthy now, despite having more money, and better food available. Of course widespread alcoholism and lack of modern drugs during communism nullified all the statistic benefits of better diet, except that there was no obesity.

engendered 12y ago

Note that this story isn't really about vomitoxin, or about the permissible amounts of unpleasant stuff, at least not directly. While that was the lead in, the actual story was about Kraft leveraging the markets, including products they can't use, to get a better price on the stuff they can use. And FWIW, while the human limit for vomitoxin is 1ppm, it's 5ppm for pet food, and 10ppm for livestock feed.