
How Crisco Made Americans Believers in Industrial Food - pseudolus
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-crisco-made-americans-believers-industrial-food-180973845/
======
ZainRiz
Lesson for startup's to take away from this: When advertising, focus on the
value you're giving customers, not on the individual features.

For example, say "We'll save you tens of man-hours a week" vs "we run on
docker containers [etc]"

~~~
msla
Focus on the value, but have a nice, easy-to-find page which details what you
do.

Make comparisons with other technology, and use standardized terminology.

~~~
ZainRiz
Sounds like that could be useful once your customers are comparing you to your
direct competitors (especially if they're making similar value claims).

Though even then, the features would have to be things people actually expect
to get better value from. E.g. "snooze emails for later" vs "our server runs
on golang"...though if your audience is super core golang fanboys then maybe
the latter would be useful as well :)

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asdf21
Pretty amazing this entire article never mentions trans fats.. which cause
approx 500,000 premature deaths worldwide each year.

For decades, Original Crisco had four grams of trans fat per tablespoon.

~~~
viburnum
It's insane. Crisco was basically an industrial product disguised as food. It
took almost ninety years for science to figure out that trans fats caused
heart disease. Whenever somebody tells me how safe a new food product is, I
think about how many people were killed by trans fats before anyone knew how
bad they were.

~~~
cowmoo728
The history of crisco is also eye-opening. It was a waste product from cotton
production - chemists were given the task of finding ways to extract money out
of left over cotton seeds. Cottonseed oil was previously used to make lamp oil
and candles, but that business was dying out. They came up with partial
hydrogenation to make it look close enough to lard, and then marketed it as a
food product even though very little was known about it at the time. It was
also shortly after Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, so people were excited about a
vegetarian alternative to potentially contaminated animal products.

~~~
superkuh
> It was also shortly after Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, so people were
> excited about a vegetarian alternative to potentially contaminated animal
> products.

History just keeps on repeating itself. The same kind of anti-animal product
fashion trend right now is making industrially processed vegetarian and vegan
'meat'-like products viable.

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somurzakov
quick rule of thumb I developed - if product has long shelf life and does not
require refrigeration - it is probably unhealthy.

fruits and veggies get optimized for heavier weight per piece and longer shelf
life, instead of taste. Same thing for every other grocery product.

~~~
athenot
I have a similar rule of thumb: if it's not part of any culture's traditional
cuisine, it's probably unhealthy.

Long shelf life is not necessarily an issue; I've eaten home-made canned
cherries & plums that were 10 years old. Wine _can_ also have a long shelf
life (though most don't).

But your point stands with the varietals optimized for appearance and
tolerance to shipping as opposed to flavor. I've come to realize why many
consider fruits and vegetables not very appealing is that almost all of what
is available is tasteless.

~~~
trianglem
I doubt that. Pretty much all of Northern European preserved meats are
terrible for you.

~~~
DiabloD3
Except they kind of aren't.

Northern Europeans used the same techniques that many other cultures used
across the globe: remove as much water content as possible, use herbs that
have certain bacteria-inhibiting properties that also taste good, apply
liberal salt. Everything is some evolution of this.

You may wish to provide an example as to what you mean, because I suspect
whatever you are referring to is more modern (ie, in the past 300 or so
years).

~~~
roel_v
Are you talking about sausage? Because herbs aren't for preservation in
sausages. The 'natural' preservative in sausages is celery, which has nitrate,
which is then converted to nitrite during curing. 'Biological' sausage makers
still do that, because this way they don't have to disclose nitrite additives,
althougj their final product has more nitrite than properly dosed regular
sausages.

I still think there's no real problem with eating preserved meat, but the
misguided worship of ye good old times needs to stop.

~~~
DiabloD3
The way sausage is made now is most certainly a modern invention, but nitrates
and nitrites are not bad for you, nor toxic, in of itself as a family of
chemicals.

The problem in the modern industrial world is the use of artificial nitrates
and nitrites present outside of plain sodium or potassium nitrite, which
thankfully is starting to become more rare again.

Also, there is no scientific link between nitrate consumption and cancer, only
really awfully designed papers that somehow, and very unreasonably so, got
published in journals.

~~~
mathrawka
What makes you say that all the papers linked here are awfully designed?

[https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/nitrate](https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/nitrate)

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sdiq
Not being American and unfamiliar with both Crisco (1) and Ram Dass (2), I
thought two unrelated but top stories on HN were connected. I somehow thought
Chrisco Church (3) that was founded in Kenya by a certain Harry Das was
international and what the unconnected stories were about. Poor me.

(1) this thread (2)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21861986](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21861986)
(3) [https://www.nation.co.ke/counties/nairobi/Apostle-Harry-
Das-...](https://www.nation.co.ke/counties/nairobi/Apostle-Harry-Das-
dead/1954174-2430962-view-asAMP-2xavaq/index.html)

~~~
EdwardDiego
I dislike how you're being downvoted for not being American.

~~~
elliekelly
I think it’s probably because the comment is a bit off-topic. But the only-
slightly-related comments on HN are sometimes the best and most interesting.

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elfexec
More like how marketing and PR in the 20th century made americans believers of
the garbage we eat today.

The OJ industry funded PR tricked americans into thinking sugar laden orange
juice was healthy and to be included in every breakfast. The same with cereal
by Kellog. And PR somehow convinced us that the processed swill called
microwavable dinners was actually food.

The rise of PR in the 1900s and its use by the food industry fundamentally
altered americans' diet for the worse. Now the same PR machine is being slowly
used by processed alt-meat/vegan industry. Profit rather than health is
driving american's diet and it hasn't been good for the well being of the
average american.

~~~
Ididntdothis
I am also a little nervous about the new alt-meat/vegan food. This stuff has
to be super highly processed to emulate the taste of something else so I
wouldn’t be too surprised if we learned about health problems later.

In general the food industry likes to take single factors and promote the hell
out of them as being beneficial while often making things worse (see low fat
for example).

------
open-source-ux
If you want to find out much more about the history of Crisco and its modern-
day incarnation, here is an excellent and informative 10 min video about it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4IH8-io6Dw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4IH8-io6Dw)

As far as I can tell Crisco, while popular in the US, doesn't appear to be
widespread or common outside the US.

~~~
dfxm12
_As far as I can tell Crisco, while popular in the US, doesn 't appear to be
widespread or common outside the US._

Yeah, after looking up many Spanish Christmas cookie recipes, I was surprised
that almost all of them use lard. I have too many vegetarian friends for lard
to be an option for me. I generally sub butter for lard, but maybe I'll make a
private batch of _polvorones_ with lard for myself some time to see if there's
a difference in taste.

~~~
stevehawk
i'm confused as to why polvorones was italicized

~~~
geofft
Many style guides say you should italicize foreign words that haven't been
adopted as loanwords. [https://style.mla.org/styling-foreign-
terms/](https://style.mla.org/styling-foreign-terms/)

~~~
stevehawk
TIL. thanks. (srsly)

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peter_retief
For the last 5 years we have made our own lard and use as little processed oil
as possible. Our health has improved, we have lost weight and generally been
very healthy. We also add very little sugar to our diet. Processed foods are
generally bad for health, its been quite difficult to find food that is free
of these harmful oils

~~~
notthatdude
Oils, be it rapeseed/canola, olive, sunflower, basically any seed-oils are
just about the same level of processed as homemade lard.

~~~
peter_retief
Not sure what you mean, vegetable oils are hydrogenated, the lard or drippings
we collect are from the cooking process.

~~~
ebg13
> _vegetable oils are hydrogenated_

As a general statement about vegetable oils, that is super false. You can tell
because the oils are liquid at room temperature and hydrogenated oils aren't.
Maybe you meant vegetable shortenings?

~~~
peter_retief
[http://www.ok.org/kosherspirit/winter-2016/what-is-
vegetable...](http://www.ok.org/kosherspirit/winter-2016/what-is-vegetable-
oil/) this is a random site I googled. Cold pressed olive oil is a relatively
safe method is an exception

~~~
Zarel
I'm also confused. That link does not mention hydrogenation at all.

~~~
peter_retief
Apologies I had the article in my mind when I posted. However the chemical
used in manufacturing seed oils are quite extreme. I did use the wrong term

~~~
cortesoft
What does 'extreme' mean in this context?

~~~
peter_retief
Extreme as compared to collecting the fat from roasting.

------
Cougher
Just a general comment about the dismissal of the idea of "real food" . . .

Just because people can't agree about where the grey areas are versus where
the defined areas are does not mean that there are no areas worth defining or
that we should avoid defining those areas for ourselves because other people
disagree. It's sort of like driving speed. Some people believe that average
faster speeds are safe, but people who drive faster than they drive are
unsafe. Other people will think slower speeds are safe and anyone who drives
faster than they drive are unsafe. This doesn't mean that there aren't "real"
safe speeds or that the idea of a safe driving speed is meaningless. We can
still get closer to real food or real safe driving speeds even if our targets
vary.

------
kop316
So something I saw with shortening now (to include Crisco) is that it now is
mainly palm oil, which has been fairly controversial due to deforestation:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/palm-oil-health-
imp...](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/palm-oil-health-impact-
environment-animals-deforestation-heart-a8505521.html)

I have actually gone to using lard/ghee now for myself instead of shortening.
It also seemed to be cheaper as well, to my surprise.

I'm curious what other's think?

EDIT: I meant lard is cheaper, not Ghee. Upon a brief search, there are brands
of vegetable shoterning that claim to be environmentally sustainable.

~~~
serbrech
why do you need such shortenings, can't you use the original version of all
the shortening... butter? I have never seen "shortenings" in france. pastries
is done with butter and that's all.

~~~
kop316
Depends on the recipe I want to use. Tortillas call for lard, and I don't
think butter would be a good substitute on that. (Actually, I think the only
reason I have lard/shortening is to make flour tortillas)

But you are correct, I would prefer to use butter when I can!

EDIT: My parents are also vegan, and I like to cook with them. So I also use
it then.

~~~
lonelappde
Tortillas call for lard because pigs (lard and not well milkable) are native
to the Americas but cows (butter and tallow) aren't.

~~~
kop316
True. I may have to try out the tortillas with other fats to try it.

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EdwardDiego
In NZ, Chrisco is a dubious "put money away for an Xmas hamper" scheme that
tends to prey on poor people. Seems quite relevant, despite the H.

[https://www.chrisco.co.nz/default.aspx](https://www.chrisco.co.nz/default.aspx)

------
squish78
The agro-industrial complex in general convinced Americans to buy trademark
branded products instead of real food

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
I'm not convinced that there's a coherent concept of real food. Most real food
advocates I've seen are happy to eat, say, tofu. They'll admit that
technically it's processed, in the sense that it's industrially manufactured
by pulverizing soybeans beyond recognition then adding chemicals to the big
holding vats. But people say it's not _highly_ processed, or it hasn't lost
the natural essence of soy, or whatever. I just can't find a way to extract a
meaning beyond "the kind of food that real food advocates like".

~~~
squish78
It's OK if there's not a universal definition of every concept. Some things in
life are culturally subjective - especially cuisine. However, I think an
intelligent person can look at string cheese and say that's fake food.

I've started realizing that there is very little space for nuance and
subjectivity in discussing things on HN

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
Anything frozen & prepared seems to be taboo -- like a frozen pizza. But
frozen peas and berries are fair game. Everything else seems to come down to
branding.

I've seen premade refrigerated pizza fly off the shelf. I've seen drinks with
all kinds of highly processed ingredients sell like hotcakes. I've seen
condiments with a list of ingredients as long as a phone book purchase by
plenty of people that eat only "real food".

Protein powders and supplements intrigue me to no end. These are some of the
most processed and unregulated things sold on shelves. But "real food"
advocates literally eat them up.

One of my friends is making millions catering to this group. I've been trying
to figure out how these shoppers think. To me, it doesn't seem like there's
much in common. It seems to be mostly branding.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
_" Anything frozen & prepared seems to be taboo"_

This sort of thing always seems super american centric to me personally. It's
common in chinese households to have a stash of frozen dumplings prepared in-
kitchen, or frozen steamed buns, or various other frozen prepared foods that
are kitchen staples. I get that if it's from a restaurant or big processing
plant you might find things questionable, but if you prepare your own pizza
and decide to freeze it for later I don't think anyone should besmirch you as
suddenly less healthy compared to eating the pizza as soon as you made it.

~~~
wutbrodo
I don't think anyone has a problem with food you cook and freeze. "Frozen
foods" in this context are generally understood to mean "packaged frozen food,
prepared by the seller" (which excludes the corner case of a local charcuterie
preparing and freezing something).

