Artificial food coming soon.

[Jarvitä]

Wheat flour consists of wheat. The pasta I buy solely consists of durum wheat semolina, i.e. wheat. There is no ingredient list required. Especially not for fruits, vegetables and spices.

Your criterion for "artificial" doesn't seem very coherent,

Whereas prepared foods, packet soup, packet sauce, canned food etc. just all the industrial crap from the supermarket contains a lot of artificial substances (made in laboratories) and requires studying the ingredient list if you want to know what your are going to eat.

And cereal grains are agricultural crap from the garden that contains a lot of fertilizer (made in animals) and requires studying the seasons and crops if you want to know what you're going to eat.

From what I can deduce, your sole criterion for calling something artificial is "too complex for me to understand every step of how it's made".

 

[Pipcard]

Isn't it just a fear of big chemical words? (search "dihydrogen monoxide hoax" for a social experiment based on this)

edit:

 

[FADEC]

@ Jarvitä

I think I don't have to mention the difference between basic foods and degenerated industrial prepared foods. Your try of excuse does not make industrial foods less worse in terms of taste and food value.

If freshly made meals, rich in variety, do not make sense to people, then I feel very sorry for them. The next usual argument would be that a lot of people don't have the time for cooking (same for sports) so fast food or other kinds of industrial foods is good for them. It's okay occasionally. But it's not suitable as a replacement for fresh foods.

---------- Post added at 02:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:18 PM ----------

Isn't it just a fear of big chemical words? (search "dihydrogen monoxide hoax" for a social experiment based on this)

I would ask it in a different way: why eating chemical stuff instead of freshly made meals? I don't see any sense.

 

[jedidia]

why eating chemical stuff instead of freshly made meals? I don't see any sense.

And there I was, thinking that all food was made up of chemicals... :blink:

 

[Jarvitä]

I would ask it in a different way: why eating chemical stuff instead of freshly made meals? I don't see any sense.

You're using "chemical" to say "prepared in a way my belief system doesn't approve of". Please stop that.

 

[FADEC]

And there I was, thinking that all food was made up of chemicals... :blink:

Everything is chemical, even a tiny drop of water, if we want to continue this way

But that's no rational explanation for the question of why one should consume, for example, artificial flavors or artificial flavor enhancer or artificial preservatives when there is real fresh food available.

You're using "chemical" to say "prepared in a way my belief system doesn't approve of".

There is no belief system required. There is a reason why you won't get prepared food consisting of artificial substances in a decent restaurant for example.

 

[Pipcard]

What makes "fresh" food better than "artificial" ingredients?

 

[Jarvitä]

Everything is chemical, even a tiny drop of water, if we want to continue this way.

That's the entire point, yes. Words like "chemical" and "natural" don't mean anything, they're the purest example of an applause light.

 

[jedidia]

or artificial preservatives

Believe me, if you eat a 6 months old can of corned beef it's way more healthy than eating uncaned corned beef of the same age

 

[FADEC]

Believe me, if you eat a 6 months old can of corned beef it's way more healthy than eating uncaned corned beef of the same age

If it does not come from the same slaughterhouse :lol:

But honestly: eating 6 month old meat is disgusting in any case.

What makes "fresh" food better than "artificial" ingredients?

I would not say generally better, but different in lots of cases: the taste and nutritional value for example. Also hidden fats, hidden calories and hidden salt which you will find in lots of prepared foods.

Prepared food is no replacement for fresh food in the long run just as with dietary supplements. If not enriched with vitamin supplements, certain multivitamin juices would be literally dead just as one example. The same applies for lots of packet sauces and canned food. German astronaut Ulrich Walter talked about space food in a TV show not too long ago. He said it tastes relatively good meanwhile (the Apollo guys have different rememberances though...) but it's not something he wants to eat forever. I guess it's just the same with the artificial atmosphere. Breathing fresh air in a forest certainly is different than breathing air in the Shuttle or ISS for weeks and month.

As I said at the beginning of this thread: it's not the food which is generally unhealthy. It depends on how much and how often you eat a certain kind of food. But I just don't see any sense in eating packed or canned stuff, with lots of artificial substances in it, when there is fresh food available. The majority of shelfs in a supermarket is unappealing for me for this reason. I pay more attention to the fruit, vegetable, spice and basic food shelfs. Because I cook my own food, just as my parents and grandparents do and did. So I don't have to bother with long ingredient lists. I'm surprised that this does irritate people. I thought it would be more common to prefer freshly made meals over canned and packed stuff.

 

[RGClark]

It's (not) alive! Franken-meat lurches from the lab to the frying pan
Alan Boyle, Science Editor NBC News.

Study after study has shown that the way farming is currently done will be simply unsustainable by 2050, due to rising population and a growing hunger for meat in countries such as China and Brazil. Plant-based protein substitutes could help head off the crisis — but so far, veggie burgers haven’t exactly taken hold in mass markets.
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/its-not-alive-franken-meat-lurches-lab-frying-pan-6C10835458

This would also be beneficial to colonists to the Moon and Mars.

Bob Clark

 

[Ghostrider]

I have nothing against vat-grown food. I'm all for it. It means - in the long term - cheaper meat that can be designed to be free of fats and other stuff I don't like in my system. It also means an end to the need for large pastures and the highly inefficient practice of having to grow a whole animal just for some parts. I don't think we'll see the end of meat farms, however, there will be a market for "old-style" meat just as there is for vinyl.
We need to do the same for vegetables, though. Nothing like frankensteak with frankenfries.

 

[Artlav]

Since someone cast Raise Dead on this thread, i might as well point this thing out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_(food_substitute)

Basically, one programmer decided to get rid of food, and mixed up a set of chemicals that food is supposed to contain. It's even almost cheaper than regular food, and he is intending to sell it.

Got to be some interesting changelogs and bug reports...

 

[Ghostrider]

Soylent Green is people!

 

[Artlav]

Soylent Green is people!

So?
They are dead anyway, what else to do with them?
Freeze them in liquid nitrogen and hope someone in the 22nd century would revive them?

 

[statickid]

Believe me, if you eat a 6 months old can of corned beef it's way more healthy than eating uncaned corned beef of the same age

However, canned food doesn't necessarily mean it has preservatives made in a chemical synthesis lab, nor does it mean that they are detrimental to the food.

I grew up in a fishing village and i can attest that smoked, canned salmon is absolutely delicious, requires no refrigeration, and has a very long shelf life. The smoke is a natural anti-microbial and prevents oxidization, then the canning process sterilizes it and excludes oxygen, combined with a little salt the quality of food doesn't degrade at all (within reason, of course)

Some of the preservatives added to food that people are adverse to are simply salts or raise the pH in low acid foods, specifically to a point that botulism can't handle it anymore.

IMO preservatives aren't so bad, nor are they new in any way, people have been adding preservatives to food since before recorded history.

I think what people generally see listed as superfluous ingredients are thickeners, texture modifiers, anti-clumping agents, and other such things that simulate results of things that are cooked in a more traditional way. That is to say a sauce that is thick because it has an additive rather than because it was slowly reduced on a stove top for 2 hours.

 

[Linguofreak]

Here's a question: Is this the beginning of the extinction of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle"]B. primigenius[/ame]?

 

[Hielor]

I'm totally okay eating lab-grown meat as long as it tastes good and won't kill me.

So?
They are dead anyway, what else to do with them?
Freeze them in liquid nitrogen and hope someone in the 22nd century would revive them?

Cannibalism solves quite a few problems. Overpopulation. World hunger. Social security.

 

[statickid]

Here's a question: Is this the beginning of the extinction of B. primigenius?

maybe, but as that article points out, they are considered sacred by some cultures, so my guess is that cows will continue to be kept if not for food, then at least as for pets like other domestic animals such as dogs which are also bred into dependence on us

 

[APDAF]

How long before we get giant protein vats full of the stuff?