Comment by nemo44x | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nemo44x | Hacker News Reader

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> Why do many people think food should be immune from innovation?

Food has been innovated on massively over the last 70 years. From the way it is produced to shipped and stored and finally how it is prepared. The industrialization of food has produced instant meals, TV dinners, fast food and led a mono agriculture policy.

A lot of what is labeled as a particular type of food isn't even what it says it is. Look at a loaf of bread sitting on the shelf. It will have 20+ ingredients! Many of them synthetic or unnatural. And it's not just these things added but the process of how it is made that it makes it "not bread".

And that's just the start. The way animals are raised and pumped full of drugs because of this method of raising them. The packages of pre-made food that is full of a list of who knows what to add color and consistency and preservation.

The food industry has been plenty innovating. Between packaged and ready made food and fast food restaurants selling inexpensive meals the innovation is there and widely accepted. The problem is a lot of this stuff is bad for people and responsible for many health problems today and honestly it mainly tastes awful (that parts an opinion to be sure, but it's no wonder that "American food" has such a low opinion around the world).

The food industry had a revolution and it optimized for low price and convenience as people were sold a message that planning, buying ingredients, cooking and washing dishes is a hassle and not something to be proud of and to enjoy. I live in Manhattan and don't have much space but I can cook without hassle. If I had kids I'd be cooking with them and teaching them the value of it.

Innovation in food manufacturing != innovation in end-user food preparation. Those are two different things.

> Look at a loaf of bread sitting on the shelf. It will have 20+ ingredients! Many of them synthetic or unnatural. And it's not just these things added but the process of how it is made that it makes it "not bread".

How "synthetic" they are depends on a bread (toast bread vs. normal, etc.), but a reminder - "bread" is not an atomic ingredient; even the most "natural" one would have a bunch of them on the label. Also, note the ingredients of a perfectly natural banana:

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--o2mC_ak...

--

The point being, many people - myself included - consider preparing many of our meals a chore, not a pleasure. Preparing a fancy dinner every now and then is cool, but having to do that every day cuts into free time we'd like to use for something more interesting. I don't see why so many people have a problem with that.

I agree; all those things were added to the bread to make it better --- it keeps longer, is cheaper to make, maintains its nutritional value, etc.

It's just that a lot of us these days have different values than the people who designed the bread (and a lot of the people who continue to buy the bread), which means that what we think makes good bread is not the same thing as what they think makes good bread.

That's another point. A lot of those nasty bad no-good "chemicals" added to food are improvements that ensure the food keeps longer, is tastier, has more nutritional value, etc. I really hate this assumption it's some big evil conspiracy out to poison people through food. It isn't. People used to be very happy about those additions in the past, when they could relate to more "natural" food and its problems.

> It's just that a lot of us these days have different values than the people who designed the bread (and a lot of the people who continue to buy the bread), which means that what we think makes good bread is not the same thing as what they think makes good bread.

That's a fine point, but then again a lot of us these days have the same values as those who designed the bread. Why are we being pushed so hard to reject them, with arguments mostly bordering on chemophobia?

Why do you assume others think there is an "evil conspiracy"? Of course there isn't. Food is a business and profits will be put ahead of nutrition.

Look, I like the fact that people don't starve. That poor people can get the nutrients and vitamins they need. Everything in the industrial food revolution was designed to make food cheaper for consumers. But there's a cost to that too. And early onset diabetes, heart failure for people in their 40's and other health issues are only part of the price.

It's not chemophobia - at least not for me. It's the breaking of the marketing we've been sold that cooking is hard, that cooking is very time consuming and that prepared industrialized food is just as good for you. As for the bread example, it isn't bread. And it could only be labeled bread after these manufactured lobbied government and the FDA in the 1940's to allow it to be called bread.

Yeah, there's a lot of snobbery around slow food and natural food. A lot of that is class distinction I assume and it's annoying. But I don't think you need to buy that kind of stuff. Get the vegetables that aren't organic. Buy meat that isn't "free range". But by all means buy quality ingredients and learn to cook for yourself a couple meals a week.

>People used to be very happy about those additions in the past, when they could relate to more "natural" food and its problems.

This makes no sense at all. People were happy for the convenience and sold the lie that cooking is hard and a waste of time when you can just buy this processed food and eat it right now.

> That's a fine point, but then again a lot of us these days have the same values as those who designed the bread. Why are we being pushed so hard to reject them, with arguments mostly bordering on chemophobia?

Oh, I wasn't disagreeing with you. I think the stuff's important to have. The fact that nutritious, long-lasting bread of unprecedented quality is so astonishingly cheap and ubiquitous is a miracle of the modern age.

My personal theory is that it's a combination of conspicuous consumption ("but supermarket bread is for poor people"), plus a deliberate attempt to push more expensive products with higher profit margins --- mass produced bread is now so cheap that the margins must be tiny. The cheapest loaf of Chorleywood Process bread from Tesco (one of the big UK supermarkets) is £0.40, which is about 50 US cents:

http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=258742688

Meanwhile, go upmarket to the equivalent instore bakery loaf, and you're spending a pound:

http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=255809172

That's baked from frozen dough in the supermarket itself rather than cooked at a central bakery, which is going to legitimately push the price up, but it's still over twice the price for what is nutritionally the same stuff (compare the two tables above). Even the ingredients lists are almost identical. I think it's still Chorleywood Process, too, although probably from a different batch of dough...

(I'm a bread junkie. I like nice bread, and am willing to pay for it; and you know what? Those one pound loaves above are pretty good. I wouldn't buy the prepackaged loaves, though; they've been sliced, and nothing ruins a loaf more than preslicing it. One day I want to see a loaf of really cheap supermarket bread, unsliced, straight out of the oven. I suspect it would be pretty good.)

(Chorleywood Process, BTW: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-13670278)

Look at what is inside it and what it does to you and how it is manufactured. Look at a load of Wonder Bread. It used refined white flour with no bran or germ - the healthy parts. Why would they do this? Because it gives the bread a longer shelf life - what you consider a feature. You've sacrificed any bit of nutrition so it keeps on the shelf longer.

Sugar is in it. Sugar. In bread. As if the white flour starch isn't bad enough for you as it turns into sugar but then actual sugar is added. No wonder diabetes is such a problem.

Where's the fiber? Well, that's added later and in measly amounts so it can actually be called "bread".

There is hardly any nutrition in this bread. And you admitted you didn't even know that. It was designed to be profitable - not in any way be nutritious.

"Make it better" - for who? The 4 years olds with diabetes?

You know that if you look for a bread recipe on-line, you'll find sugar as one of the ingredients? It's kind of used to make a normal bread.

I know "bread" is a broad term and some people swear by the dark "tastes like dried grain with glue" varieties. But others don't. Personally, I prefer "ISO standard" white bread. Not all food choices are made to optimize for perceived health value. Some are also made for taste.

You are either a sadly ignorant person or a troll. Possibly both.

Of course a lot of food innovation has occurred. Clearly, the silent majority are demanding convenience over health. But there is a strongly vocal segment of the population who think it should not have been - and they are very critical, and often demeaning toward those who have made different choices than themselves.

At risk of constructing a straw man, it does appear to be a widely aired view that we ought to go back to "all-natural" meals cooked from raw fresh, organic, non-GM ingredients. In my experience, vanishingly few people actually do this, because it actually is a hassle and doesn't fit well within our modern busy two working parent lifestyles. Indeed, within your own reply you treat the innovation within the food industry with disdain.

I agree that, often, food innovation has optimised for the wrong goals: strictly prioritising convenience over health, for example. But whether you like Soylent-related products or other innovations in food, it's astounding the number of people who are willing to publicly attack engineered food products simply because it's not natural enough for their preferences and lifestyle. But those same people do not care about the naturalness of all the other technology they use.

With convenience food, I believe the proverbial cat is out of the bag and there's no putting it back in. Short of a massive economic/technological disruption that gives adults in families as much free time as they used to have, it's quite unlikely we'll see a revolution in home cooking. Maybe Soylent and other engineered foods are actually healthier than living off takeouts and microwave meals - as many people do - and are worth investigating further, without overly harshly judging those who currently find themselves in situations where they can't find time to prepare home cooked meals every day.

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