
Freedom from Fries - atomical
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/02/freedom-from-fries
======
kaitai
One of the most interesting aspects of this article is the brief discussion of
commodities, subsidies, and supply chains. In the tech space you can ignore a
lot of this but when you're buying 500 million pounds of butter that's going
to be a logistical adventure and it's going to have an interesting effect on
the dairy industry. And despite all these financial instruments that are trade
of risk or feelings, there is still big business in commodities.

The article talks about the necessity of developing regional markets if we
want local vegetables, meat, and eggs. Is anyone on the tech side doing
anything meaningful in this space? I know plenty of non-profits and community
development groups working on it, but they are concentrating on the footwork
and relationship building in more rural areas that has to be done to create
the networks.

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mercurial
> But we need to attract the people who have always assumed that healthy food
> has to taste like straw.

Do people actually think that? They must have never tried good Vietnamese
cuisine. You find plenty of tasty, healthy dishes in Thai food as well. Not to
mention a simple salad... Where does this myth come from?

~~~
scorpioxy
A lot of people do think that, in my experience. I agree that this is a myth
and you don't even need to try a different cuisine, simply season your food
with spices which are now being shown not only to be delicious but actually
good for your overall health. Things like pepper, cinnamon, turmeric, sumac
and a pinch of salt and pepper can greatly enhance the taste of a bland dish.

A salad, to a lot of people, might not taste very good. But adding a pinch of
olive oil and some lemon juice might make a world of difference.

I guess people see those "organic" material in the store with minimal branding
and then compare it to a McMeal that looks amazing.

Whenever I cook, I try to make the dish taste great, smell great and look
good. All of those are important in a meal. Obviously I fail a lot, but those
are my targets in creating healthy-delicious meals that don't cost a fortune.

Someone I know recently tried to make a "healthy" meal by combining lentils
with oats and just cooking them in water and throwing a small pinch of cumin
in it. Now that might be a "healthy" meal but it tastes like sawdust...

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vishaldpatel
Potatoes are very nutritious. Maybe there's a less greasy way to make fries so
that they'll taste good? Maybe make them in coconut oil and a lot less salt?

All the meat served in restaurants is far worse for you than fries.

~~~
Laforet
[http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-30/friday-
food...](http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-30/friday-food-post-
the-economics-behind-grandma-s-tuna-casseroles)

This makes an interested accompanying read. We are still eating 'em taters
because root vegetable was the only thing our grandparents and parents had
reliable access to all year round. And old habits takes several decades to
kill.

~~~
jacobolus
_“The same people who chuckle at the things done with cocktail franks and
canned tuna will happily eat something like the tripe dishes common in many
ethnic cuisines. Yet tripe has absolutely nothing to recommend it as a food
product, except that it is practically free; almost anything you cooked with
tripe would be just as good, if not better, without the tripe in it. If you
understand why folks ate Trippa alla Romana, you should not be confused about
the tuna casserole or the creamed chipped beef on toast. ”_

Why the hate for tripe? Trippa alla Romana, menudo, phở, various Mediterranean
tripe stews, fried tripe with hot sauce, etc. are delicious. Maybe the author
had a traumatic experience in childhood?

Tripe has a texture unlike muscle, which makes for an interesting contrast to
meat. If you took the tripe out of “anything you cooked with tripe”, you’d be
left with something completely different, defeating the point of those dishes.

~~~
jhbadger
At least in English, the word tripe itself means "worthless", because
traditionally in English-speaking countries, where meat was cheap and
plentiful, people threw tripe out or fed it to their dogs. Countries like
Italy and various Asian countries didn't have the luxury of cheap meat
historically -- so they incorporated tripe into their cuisine. That doesn't
mean that good things can't be done with it, just that the original reason for
using it was that it was cheap.

