Found in 3 comments on Hacker News
coldtea · 2015-05-23
· Original
thread
>The Luddites’ fable of disaster, of a fall from grace, smacks more of wishful thinking than of digging through archives. It gains credence not from scholarship but from evocative dichotomies: fresh and natural versus processed and preserved; local versus global; slow versus fast: artisanal and traditional versus urban and industrial; healthful versus contaminated and fatty. History shows, I believe, that the Luddites have things back to front.
No, they don't. And his work is less historical than ideological.
We have lots of historically verified facts to know that modern processed foods are unhealthy and created to maximize profit. From corn syrup everywhere, to things like this:
E.g. http://www.amazon.com/Tomatoland-Industrial-Agriculture-Dest...
turar · 2012-06-30
· Original
thread
Barry Eastbrook has a book "Tomatoland" [1], about the taste of tomatoes in America, which is based on his earlier article [2]. Also there was a good interview with him on NPR [3]. Tomatoes are grown for easy transportation, and appearance, not for taste. They're harvested while still green, and then treated with ethylene gas, which "colors" them in an attractive color, but doesn't add any taste.
1. http://www.amazon.com/Tomatoland-Industrial-Agriculture-Dest...
2. http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/03/politics-of-th...
3. http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?story...
The publishing industry pushes more and more cookbooks every year, and between traditional cookbooks and more recent YouTube channels, most recipes are much more fantasy entertainment than serious attempts at trying to get people to take more control over how their food is made.
The problem is that cookbook recipes distort the flow of food preparation:
Find an appealing recipe -> look up the necessary ingredients -> buy the ingredients -> take the ingredients home and make the recipe
This motivates people to purchase ingredients which are not in season, i.e. purchasing tomatoes to make tomato salad when tomatoes are not in season. This generates demand for produce which is lacking in flavor and nutrition, with an outsize environmental impact due to being shipped thousands of miles[1].
The proper flow is to go to a local farmer's market -> buy what is local and in-season (with a side benefit that it will be cheap, since the farmer has little control over the date of harvest and everything has to be sold before it rots) and in great quantities -> figure out how to make it once you get home, taking advantage of other produce which is in season, fresh ingredients which are available all year round (i.e. meat, dairy, eggs), and shelf-stable pantry staples.
This flow yields food which is simultaneously tastier and more affordable - but you have to learn how to cook as an independent life skill, and not constantly rely upon recipes.
[1] See e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Tomatoland-Industrial-Agriculture-Des...