Hacker News Reader

Comment by a_bonobo | Hacker News Reader

Isn't it a bit... terrifying to buy and eat food, when nobody wants to tell you what that food actually is??

My logic is: If others eat it, it’s fine. It also helps to eat it with someone who’s somewhat familiar with it.

My first time in Thailand I ate a disgusting salty soup with a spoon. It turns out you’re supposed to dip vegetables in it. What I did was the equivalent of eating ketchup with a spoon, except it was many times more flavorful.

Now I love it: น้ำพริกกะปิ

> My logic is: If others eat it, it’s fine

People used to eat radium, inhale mercury, and play in piles of asbestos before we came to understand their long term health effects.

You might want to rethink this.

That risk is fine to me. I meant it more as a “people eat it, so it must be likable” than “people eat it, so it won’t kill me.”

Do you feel that way when you walk into a Subway?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/22/subway-sandw...

Yes. That is why I don't.

De-AMP-ed link (mine was redirecting to the favicon):

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/22/subway-sandw...

I wonder whether it's canned, and whether sterilizing it can make the DNA unreadable (broken down).

Thanks. Corrected.

Wonder no more. The answer is that the NYT is likely overstating the power of the testing they did.

https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/foodservice-retail/subway...

Subway is perfectly willing to admit that most of their cold cuts are turkey-based, so it seems extra unlikely that they'd go to the trouble of creating an ersatz tuna and then hiding that fact. Especially considering how cheap tuna is, comparatively. The way you cheap out on tuna salad is adding more mayo and thickeners and other fillers, not by inventing some kind of psuedofish.

Does cooked and processed food normally contain intact DNA that can be sequenced? Seems like those researchers suck at their job if they failed to figure out what the tuna is made of and still insist on drawing a conclusion based on their lack of success.

Not to mention the use of plasticizers in their bread (the same kind used in car tires.) And most importantly, factory farmed meat, contributing both to climate change and immense sentient suffering.

No, the wellness scammer who started the rumors about "yoga mat chemicals" successfully managed to pressure Subway to remove azodicarbonamide from their bread. I'm sure they replaced it with some other equally harmless dough conditioner.

I don't know much about the wellness scammer but that's a poor way to support your stance.

Azodicarbonamide has been banned in quite a few countries. It's only listed as safe at 40 parts per million. It has possible carcinogenic products in the form of other carbazides. It doesn't have a large amount of research/testing on it. It is a known lung irritant and caused respiratory issues in factory workers who produce it.

You may be okay with random hydrocarbons being added to your food. But not everyone is as naive as you.

Notice, you changed the topic to a kook and then invoked ad hominem. Very bad intentions. Much lack of substance. Dishonest attempt to convince others through baseless assertions. So shameful.

I don't know why you thought that personal attacks were merited here, but the fact remains that Subway removed azodicarbonamide from their bread years ago, as did many other fast food chains.

https://www.eater.com/2016/8/8/12403338/subway-yoga-mat-chem...

That doesn't make a difference. You called azodicarbonamide harmless. Companies have a culture. Their history reflects that.

Just a pedantic observation. They never claimed any specific level of harmlessness. What they said was:

> I'm sure they replaced it with some other equally harmless dough conditioner

That could easily mean they replaced a toxic chemical with an equally toxic one.

That being said, the words used certainly imply the thought that the chemical is 'mostly harmless'.

I know, I thought that was funny. But does anyone really know what's in a Dodger dog?

Sure do - you could even buy them yourself with ingredients list and everything until they switched vendors this year: https://www.amazon.com/Farmer-John-Dodger-Wieners-Package/dp...

Best worst stadium left in the country. Just a great mix of fans. And I never skip a Dodger dog. I'm amused but not surprised (guess I knew) that Farmer John is retailing the contents of that long, succulent piece of head cheese street meat around the country. It really always was special dog. But what sort of sick lunatic would order a pack of that shit off Amazon? If you ever catch me eating a dodger dog outside of chavez ravine, please just take me to the hospital and have me committed.

coke secret recipe, KFC secret herbs and spices

one's sugar water, one is at least identifiable chicken! it would be closer to KFC secret herbs and spices on bushmeat

They at least have to be generally regarded safe. I will say that as a vegetarian, "natural flavors" can be pretty annoying.

KFC recipe is out there. Saw it on Reddit a few years ago. Followed it. Damn good chicken.

I thought that process required a pressure fryer. Do you have one?

I don't. You can get the flavour w/o that cooker, but the juicy-ness requires it.

Those things are like boats tho. Better to have a friend with one ;)

Don't they have to follow strict regulations and pass various tests?

For both of those, you can put them through some chromatography/spectrography/etc. and figure out essentially what's in them — what ingredients, in what ratios. What you won't find out is the particular process required to get those ingredients "formatted" the right way to taste like the result.

(E.g. Coke apparently does some fancy, hard-to-replicate-at-home kind of micronized emulsification to the flavoring oils that go into it, to get them into suspension in a water-based drink in a way that results in a smooth—but not viscous or lingering—mouth-feel. That process doesn't change what's in Coke; it just changes how it's in there.)

Also, in both of those cases, FDA inspectors know not only the what but also the how, as they check the manufacturing process to ensure that they're putting in what they (privately) claim to be putting in, no more and no less. And we can then trust the FDA to not let them put anything too "weird" in there, while they can also trust the FDA to not tell everyone what they know about the process.

When I was in college in the 70's we went to a Miller brewery where they told us about some blue liquid they poured into Miller High Life that allowed them to ship the beer in clear bottles instead of brown. It came in tanker cars full; they claimed the FDA didn't know what it was (don't think I believed them).

Likely was just a kind of food coloring. Simply by changing the tint of the beverage, one can prevent absorption of a band of light.

I don't know what they used in the seventies, but now they use hop oil extract. The extraction process eliminates the possibility of the skunking/lightstruck reaction. Most colorless glass bottled beer use that today, though not all. The green bottle beers mostly don't, though they're still susceptible to skunking.

Health authorities know those. Street food isn't regulated that way.

Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler made an entire business of selling "meat" pies.

On several continents. In differing time periods.

People eat "kebab" "gyro" or whatever the local term is for doner (suspiciously has a single n, shouldn't be pronounced the way it is) meat in a pitta regularly after large quantities of alcohol, whereas they eschew the things when sober.

I'll eat shawarma, gyros any time day or night. Food of the gods.

UK style doner I'm a little more circumspect about but that's mainly because of processing rather than provence.

What on earth is in a Cheeto? Far more mysterious than this snack, which is clearly some plant matter with some salt and spices that other people eat regularly without falling over dead.

Corn meal, powdered cheese, oil, and salt, mostly.

The powder is a cheese-like seasoning. It is not cheese. First ingredient of the seasoning: whey. Whey is not cheese; it’s the leftover product you get while making cheese.

Cheetos are extruded cornmeal paste that's been fried and dusted with powdered cheese, salt, and MSG

That powder is a trade secret. Every year they make it finer, to coat your taste buds more perfectly and have a more intense flavor. But nobody is questioning if eating microscopic particles of (what?) is healthy or has side effects. It's tasty! Don't get between me and my Cheetos!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com