The reduced diversity of food

[Deleted]

We are all aware that fruits, vegetables, cattle, poultry, seafood and just about everything else that we eat has become more and more standardized as the years go by for a variety of reasons. We like nice looking items from around the country or even the other side of the world. We like things that don't rot or go bad immediately. We like cheap prices. All of this has been given to most of us but at the expense of draining most of the taste out of the items, sometimes because they are grown too fast and sometimes to just make the item more consensual. One thing that I really hate is how much lamb tastes like beef now and absolutely nobody wants to eat mutton, because the taste is too strong. I thought that was the whole point of eating mutton -- because it was a strong and different flavour. Grapefruits taste almost like oranges now because they were "too bitter" before. As a child, I enjoyed piling sugar on them to make them edible. Now, they don't even need sugar. Beans, peas, carrots, tomatoes, etc., have all become tasteless not just because they are produced industrially but because if they have any sort of strong taste, a large segment of the population will not eat them.

Of course, now there is a very small movement to grow "heirloom" fruits and vegetables again, which is great, but it represents less than 1% of what is available.

I thought that this BBC article provides an interesting and extensive view of what is happening.

[tod2]

This is an extremely interesting thread you have put forward Kerouac. I think you are not quite right about a 'very small movement' to grow Heirloom fruits and vegetables - In the US it seems to be quite large, but I am imagining you are talking about World Wide growth.
I have bought seeds from this supplier - www.rareseeds.com/store/the-botanical-explorer/ , and am ready to place another order for some more unusual vegetables. I went crazy on the Asian varieties of beans last time and found some more 'manageable' than others. As for the tomatoes - no joy with those but then I am told any kind of tomatoes do not grow well in my area.
Growing unusual varieties is a hobby thing but I like to find out how they taste too!

Just look at some of these names from the cow pea range:
Haricot Rouge Du Burkina Faso Cowpea
Lady Pea Cowpea
Mitchell Family Cream Pea Cowpea
Monkey Tail Cowpea
Bohemian Cowpea -

When as a child on a farm my father grew cowpeas. I have a faint recollection of eating them boiled in salt water in the pod and then gently squeezing the pea out directly into my mouth. The last time I did something similar was in London eating soybeans at Wagamammas.

As for meat, especially lamb tastes, I cannot say I have noticed anything different. We eat lamb more than beef but never buy mutton because of the toughness and as you so correctly stated, the stronger flavour.
Here, and in any Indian community in South Africa, they buy mutton and curry it. All take-away food outlets would have used mutton - far cheaper to start with, and the curry disguises the strong mutton taste.

[Deleted]

I think it's a great time for home gardeners because so many more diverse plants are now available for those who are interested.

But I am lamenting us urban dwellers who get nearly all of our food from the supermarket. And not just urban dwellers, because I read the other day that in France only 6% of food is bought at street markets. Hard to believe, isn't it? (53% of the food that we eat in France is bought in hypermarkets.)

But the old items are indeed beginning a timid reappearance. Tomatoes lead the way, the same way that they led the way to become terrible and tasteless -- so growers know there is a market for tomatoes that taste like tomatoes. And things like parsnips or salsify are beginning to return. It is too soon to tell if people will actually buy these "mysterious" items, but curiosity is growing.

[cheerypeabrain]

I agree...whilst I can grow 25 different varieties of tomatoes (I don't...but I could if I wanted to) there are only 2-3 varieties sold at any of the local supermarkets, altho there is more variety these days than there was 5-10 years ago.

We have a regular Farmers' Market here in the city (first Thursday of the month) and we can get loads of different sorts of vegetables, cheese and meat etc there.

[Deleted]

I am slightly annoyed at one of the supermarkets that I visit. To its credit, it is the discount supermarket that tries to sell everything at the lowest prices, including organic items. But it has a bin of diverse heirloom tomatoes -- at least 6 or 7 different kinds in various shapes and sizes and hues -- and they are all priced the same under the name "tomates anciennes." It implies that those of us who want to buy a different sort of tomato don't care what kind so long as it is different. I find it rather insulting.

Several supermarkets are now selling a blackish tomato called "kumato" which seems to have emerged from the pack.

[tod2]

What is it about Italian tomatoes that gets most peoples vote. It's sunny which is necessary, but there is sun here too but our tomatoes - the large variety - taste of nothing.
In recent years we have been able to buy the little 'Rosa' tomatoes which at least have flavour and a lovely sweetness.

The owner of our favourite Greek restaurant says he grows the most fantastic tomatoes on Lesbos - his home island. I gave him some seeds I bought at Borough Market but he said they weren't up to much. I think it's the variety he is growing that taste so wonderful.

[mossie]

I think the taste is to do with the method by which food is produced. Tomatoes are tasteless because their roots are in water and so get no goodness from the soil. This also applies to other vegetables, fruit is picked before it is ripe so that it can be stored and then artificially ripened by radiation when the supplier needs to market it. So seasons mean nothing. Much fruit and vegetables are flown long distances, we regularly get asparagus from Peru here in England. There is a use for clapped out airliners when they have become too tatty. I daren't mention meat, I just say that anything fed on c**p tastes of c**p.

[tod2]

Absolutely right Mossie - Here in Banana country they insist on giving us cold storage ones which when put in the fruit bowl go rotten - not ripe - with a few days. That is the exception however and most are nice and yellow with a slight tinge of green. When I feel the cold ones I leave them alone.

In the last few years we have been getting loads of imported vegetables. Mostly from Kenya.
We could so easily do it here except the labour available is rubbish. Farming equipment lies rusting and fields lie fallow. I have been told Zimbabwe is contacting the farmers who had to hand over their farms when Mugabe was ranting and raving, and handing them back.
It's laughable that he thought warmongering, listless, non-farmers, could produce anything....

Maybe that's why vegetable producers are relying more and more on vegetables planted in squeeky clean polystyrine foam trays. The latest thing in one of our supermarkets is to sell you lettuce in a plastic wrap with its clean roots still attached!

[Deleted]

That lettuce is probably hydroponically grown, tod, we've had it here for at least two decades.

[Deleted]

I have never seen that in France. The roots are always cut off.

[questa]

There are many salad, herb and veg things sold in our supermarkets that were hydroponically grown and still have roots. I have been known to buy parsley, mints and other things that look likely to grow and plant them in pots where they (sometimes) take off and thrive. Cheaper than having to drive to the nursery and pay for seedlings!

[Deleted]

Well, here they sell herbs in pots for not too much -- generally no more than 1.50€ for a health little plant. I have bought them from time to time, but it has always been a mistake. A) The plants are so small (basil, cilantro...) that I am afraid to mutilate them for my kitchen needs, which are immense. B) Once they have been on my kitchen windowsill for a week, they look like they have absorbed all of the pollution in the world.

A couple of times, I have managed to grow usable quantities of curly parsley and mint. And then it dies or goes to seed in a flash.

I have therefore understood that I am better off buying the stuff fresh at the market. My Chinese supermarket sells huge bunches of cilantro, flat parsley and mint for 0.35€. I can never use all of it before it commits suicide, but at least I have not lost much money.

[Deleted]

Best way to store parsley, etc., in bunches. 1) wash 2) trim off about an inch of the stem 3) place in a jar, stems down, with about an inch or so of water 4) cover with a plastic bag 5) place in fridge. I have had parsley last 3 weeks by this method.

[Deleted]

You have seen the size of most Parisian refrigerators, I hope?

[Deleted]

This article pleases me very much: www.thestar.com/business/2014/05/08/kellogg_to_erase_all_natural_from_kashi_products_to_settle_lawsuit.html

[Don Cuevas]

Several supermarkets are now selling a blackish tomato called "kumato" which seems to have emerged from the pack.

We briefly had those available in Pátzcuaro about 2 years ago. They were flavorful, unlike the usual tasteless "saladette" tomatoes. Unfortunately, they were not seen again.

[lugg]

How about the impact on diversity of new 3d technology allowing printing of edible fruit such as raspberries and blackberries? apples and pears next ?? Mind boggling

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27795205

and for those who cannot see BBC ..


www.dovetailed.co/

No info though about nutritional content