Split tomatoes; bruised apples
Okay guys I got some serious fuckin' shit to talk about.
Alright.
So lately I've been getting into watching food documentaries, and the more I watch, the more disturbing shit I find out- Where do I start?
Okay, first off, the meat companies... You have to raise chickens in big pens right? and these pens cost like 25,000 dollars a pop or something... And then you have to buy like six of them... But working as a chicken raiser you only make like 13,000 a year or something (Shit these numbers are probably hella fucked up and I'm tired) but the basic thing is: YOU CAN NEVER PAY OFF THE PRICE OF HAVING TO BUY THESE COOPS! Especially when they decide the old coops don't work because "windows are unsanitary" and so they make you get rid of the cramped, windowed pens to get CRAMPED, WINDOWLESS PENS and then like
the chickens walk around in shit
and dead chickens
every day there's like 20 corpses in the coop
Not to mention! These chickens are bred to have big, fat bodies, so they get so heavy that they take two steps and fall, or risk breaking THEIR LEGS.
Isn't that sick?
And then- Even if the chickens are still good after all that- They get sent to the store, and about 30% or some such GET THROWN AWAY. Why? Because "a wing is broken" or "the skin is torn", because people will innately think something about this chicken is diseased (but hint hint, they're all grotesque monster chickens anyways). Isn't that sick?
You butcher 100 chickens and just throw around 30 of them out just because they're ugly?
I mean that's just PITIFUL right? How many times do you go to a store and go "I'm not getting the small chicken legs, let's get those fat ones"? and then they just throw the small ones out....
And produce? I mean holy shit. Apparently 40-50 PERCENT of fruits and veggies are thrown out before even getting to stores for being split, bruised, miscoloured, or even the simple fact that the wind blew the corn stalks over (in the case of the show I watched, from a HURRICANE. That would have to be some superhuman corn to NOT get knocked over.)... Let me repeat that. The corn itself was beautiful, perfect, and fine, IT WAS JUST KNOCKED OVER ON THE STALKS. It's wrapped in husk! It wasn't unclean or anything!...
Also tomatoes split because they've absorbed TOO much water. TOO MUCH? That tomato was such a badass it like, hulk-style ripped out of it's own skin! And they throw it away just because it's ugly!
Point being, people worldwide need to stop expecting perfection in produce- We're throwing away so much perfectly good food that it's sickening. Next time you guys go to the stores, buy the spotted apples and bruised strawberries and cracked tomatoes- Because otherwise they're gonna get tossed out for no good reason. :(
There's absolutely nothing wrong with them, they're just as delicious as any other food, sometimes even better (in the case of freakin' split tomatoes, seriously, I think that's so badass).
But yeah, you guys should check out documentaries such as Food, Inc. and shit. They will BLOW YOUR MIND.
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Comments
Actually I think it has to
Actually I think it has to do with taste... becuase alot of taste has to do with presentation Draco... at least in the case of the produce. As for the chicken thing that just makes me cry. We have a place where the chickens are taken and killed near my house... and it makes me cry everytime I look at all my wonderful chickens and I just think... how can anyone want to eat you guys and hurt you like that... :'(
Oh, well,
The show I watched about the produce was going to stores and farms, taking the beautiful but ugly ingredients that were just getting THROWN AWAY, and then cooking with them for hundreds of food critics.
And the critics thought it was freaking delicious! There's absolutely nothing wrong with the food... If a person has a blemish on thier body, does that ruin the person, too? :(
but yeah, it's sad. I mean I'd eat any meat, but wasteful killing isn't okay. Nature requires the consumption and death of other things to keep flourishing, but... But it's sad when you snuff out so much life and it never even gets a chance to be used.
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That's redick!
in Scotland
the government pays for perfect chicken coops for farms and arrest people who treat dead animals bad but i feel really bad for all those poor animals though
theres actually a shop in my area that only sells fruit & veg at your talking about bruised & split & things of that nature you know what? it tastes better than the other fruit, if you don't want to sell damaged fruit or veg give it to people who need it there are people who need food more than anything
i only drink irn bru and the occassional blood of my enemies
Huh, Scotland sounds on top of it's shit.
I'd love to just open a store like that, go around and collect the store's gonna-be-thrown-away materials and sell them half price to people (and maybe donate some of the profits to the stores or something)...
It's just sad, you know? There's kids in third world countries STARVING and like, we're throwing away millions of peaches just because they have a bump on them. GOD FORBID someone eats a perfectly yummy bump, right? :P
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That's redick!
Scotland actually deals with problems
before they are proper problems the only problems we have are caused by England now :L trying to get a say in our politics then. i actually have a american friend who came to Scotland for a couple of years of some reason and moved here permiently because he said "America's Barbaric, Scotland's Golden" apparently were more liberal or something but i can't remember what he said entirely
my friend Kookie refuses to throw away disfigured and damaged Potatoes from her family farm and donates them to the shop
i heard of some person that spent all his money to go move to Africa and buying food for them & building houses, and yes, god forbid someone eats a damaged fruit
i only drink irn bru and the occassional blood of my enemies
Hmm,
ever read The Jungle (circa 1906) by Upton Sinclair? Now there's some disturbing imagery in that one about meat production.
Naw, I haven't-
But I believe I've heard of it. Might have to read it if I get the chance.
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That's redick!
America:
the most wasteful country in the world. Think of how many hungry people we could feed with all that we waste! It's sickening. And we wonder why other countries hate our freakin' guts. This is just one of the many reasons why they do.
Every time I throw away half a plate of perfectly good food because I'm full, I hate myself XD
Well you don't even eat 98% of fruits and veggies XD
but I know exactly what you mean- I hate to waste ANYTHING D: So I usually end up stickin' it in the fridge until it molds or I use it for something else :P
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That's redick!
Yeah, well
The chicken thing doesn't bother me as much, at least from an animal rights perspective.
I've never really thought that animals have rights, because I think to have rights you have to both be able to feel pain, and also to understand it.
Like of course a bacteria has no rights, it's just a beautifully complicated little reaction.
And most lower organisms really don't either, like a starfish or something else, will move away from stimuli that causes it pain, but its mindless, it's not really suffering.
So the crying over unclean chickens with broken legs, ehhhh... Whatever.
But I do abhor wasting food. So yeah, that's terrible, I didn't know that about throwing out all that shit.
But frankly, the problem wouldn't be easy to fix. The extra food that they throw out, you can't exactly send it to Africa, it'd mold or something else, and anyway, their real food problems come from lack of infrastructure and organization, and those problems come from much deeper problems of instability that stem from a long time ago from our Western buttfucking of Africa. Sorry Africa.
And to feed the poor here, that'd probably work better, but problems of distribution wouldn't really make it easy to solve.
So yeah, we here in America waste a lot of food, and I theoretically abhor that. But few, if really any, people here are starving, our farming practices have gotten efficient enough that we have plenty of food, hence why throwing out all this food hasn't made us starve yet.
We don't really have a whole lot of other better things to do with the food, so I dunno.
I mean, we are already incredibly obese.
What I really hate is organic food, fucking douchefags who think that somehow making farming far less efficient and more expensive to produce smaller and less healthy plants, will somehow make the food better, or healthier, or something, despite no scientific data to support that. Just pure irrationality, that's a real waste, and for nothing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt5ghXdq6Z0&safe_search=on
As someone who has pets,
I've seen my dad beat my dog with a broom over the back and when I argued with him, he said, "He can't feel it! It doesn't hurt him!"
Yeah... fuck that. That's the reason my dog used to bite everyone. He's the sweetest dog, but he damn sure understands pain. And I love my dog. I would never want to hurt him or my cat. They're living, they feel, they breathe, they love. Well, my cat might not. But my dog does!
However, you're right- Our farming is so good we can feed tons of people.
However, farmers don't get paid nearly enough, as they only get paid for the food they sell. And if they're unable to sell food because it's "ugly" or knocked over because of hurricanes (I'll remind you- this is 40 to 50% of their crops they have to toss or reuse) then they're not getting paid their full amounts. We're throwing away plenty of good food, while getting more obese- Because people aren't buying healthy, good food from the supermarkets!
That means more waste!
Anyways, most organic food is produced by people who aren't controlled by the goverment and their practices and doesn't always mean free of every pesticide ever. It can mean more, like their tomatoes aren't ripened using Nitrogen gas and their apples aren't coated in waterproof wax layers and their meat isn't pumped full of salt water and hormones.
Food now is being produced for size and longevity- Bigger tomatoes, less flavour, lasts longer. Wheras, is places like, France... Apparently they have the most delicious strawberries, but they're small, and go bad within a week. Because they're natural grown, without any of the chemical engineering we stick into food.
Now, I'm not saying I prefer one or the other- But there IS a difference.
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That's redick!
Perhaps
dogs fit into the category of being able to understand pain, I don't know, I have no science on them specifically.
I'd not like hitting anything with a broom without reason regardless.
Because I'd say that things like scarlet macaws, dogs, and chimpanzees are intelligent enough to have rights.
Chickens, turkeys? No. Those birds are fucking stupid.
And don't give me a sob story about farmers. It's quite literally impossible to fail as a farmer, the government subsidizes it so heavily, even if you totally fail, you'll still get money for having tried.
Which is good in some ways, bad in others.
If people aren't buying healthy food from supermarkets, that's a separate problem from throwing food away. In fact, it's probably what causes it, they have extra, and nothing else to do with it, so they throw it away. And they only use the best, best looking stuff, so that more people buy it.
I don't know most "unnatural" food growing methods, but tomatoes being ripened with Nitrogen gas? That's hardly unnatural, Nitrogen is 79% of the atmosphere.
In other words, not poisonous.
And when people say that France strawberries are "the most delicious", take that with a grain of salt.
Experiments show that how we perceive food isn't based on logic or reason, it's all perception. For example, they gave people salads from Jack in the Box, had them eat them, and then guess how many calories were in them. They guessed like 900, 950, 1000, which is rather close to the real answer of 950.
Then they gave people the same exact salads, but told them they were from the nonexistent "San Francisco Garden Cafe", rather than Jack in the Box, and they consistently guessed the calories to be much lower, in the 450-550 range.
As well, you can show that you can cut a banana in half, give people one half and say it's organic, give them the other, and say it's not, and they'll consistently say the organic half tastes better, even being just the other half of the same fuckin banana.
My point is, organic food is based on pure irrationality, people dislike "unnatural" things. Well, penicillin is "unnatural", uranium is "natural", which would you rather use to treat an infection?
"Unnatural" things can often be much better, for example, genetic engineering is the best, partly because it just does much better what we've been doing for thousands of years: selective breeding.
If you hate wasted food, you should probably hate organic food, which is the stupidest, most wasteful things ever. I mean, at least with throwing away extra food, there really isn't much else to do with it, but organic food, there is literally no reason.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt5ghXdq6Z0&safe_search=on
As per tomatoes-
It has something to do with ripening the flesh in colour only instead of the natural process of creating sugar and whatever... I'm saying it's unnatural is in per they're speeding a process up by using a gas rather than time and sunlight.
Which, my mom grows natural tomatoes in the backyard, and I can assure you they're way sweeter than any store bought tomatoes.
(and I said, neither is better or worse. I was just explaining the difference, thank you. You don't have to preach about how everyone's stupid and believes things are tastier if they're told it's organic. You're preaching to the choir).
Ignorance about calories and food comes from people only understanding that fast food joints are unhealthy- Not WHY they're unhealthy.
I'm not here to talk about people's ignorance with food, or even what's unnatural verses natural... My journal is on the topic of wasting food purely based on appearence. True?
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That's redick!
Okay, okay
well, first of all, I agree your point was wasting food, but I was talking about organics because I mentioned them in my first comment and that was what you mostly responded to, and then we got onto that, I wasn't going to rehash the wasting food thing if you didn't mention it again.
And I think we're both getting a little heated, it might help to chill some.
Well, I don't see why natural tomatoes should necessarily be sweeter or better, they can genetically engineer them to be sweeter.
If we're having a scientific debate I can't take your word to prove that natural tomatoes are sweeter, and not because I don't trust you, I just don't trust the human brain in general.
If you've ever heard of the placebo effect, it's incredible shit. Like, people with terrible illnesses think they're getting medicine, even though it's just sugar pills, and not only do they feel better, their body literally makes itself better, somehow, even if the disease is incurable or something. It doesn't cure them, but ya.
Likewise, people convinced they have an illness can cause themselves to literally be sick.
The mind works very powerfully to see what you want to see, your eyes don't show you an objective view of the world, your ears aren't like high quality speakers that faithfully bring sounds to your brain. It's all highly subjective.
And so therefore I have no reason still to suspect that organic things are in any way sweeter.
If we'll get real scientific in this shit, I'd require a double-blind, randomized taste test of organic and non-organic tomatoes. I have a feeling what you'd find.
But then again, it doesn't really matter to me.
So anyway, about organic food, experts have said that if all food in the world was organic, used no pesticides, growth hormones, etc., we could feed 4 billion people. Max.
Organic food is terrible in that it literally has no benefits. It's smaller, less tastier, and there's less of it.
Although, I will agree, your journal wasn't about organic food, it was about wasting food for appearance, but I mentioned that in my first comment and never got a response, so I have nothing to respond to about that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt5ghXdq6Z0&safe_search=on
Honestly? You're the one getting heated...
We're just talking about food, bro. Nothing serious here...
Now allow me to get heated!...
Maybe my mother just grows superfuckingdelicious tomatoes or some shit. I don't know. If you're so concerned with how fabulously people can genetically engineer foods to be sweeter and shit go do THAT. But the truth is we're wasting tons of perfectly good food, and combined with the overpopulation levels in the world, maybe only feeding four billion people would be better.
I thought you'd like my journal, 'cause you're always talking about how shitty you think our country is. An' even when I write something to back that up, you just seem like you want to oppose everything. Not everything is a battle, bro.
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That's redick!
Noted here as well...
But I am at a loss... sadly.
Perhaps
I'm being a bit of a dick, I'm all confused and tired today :P
Sorry :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt5ghXdq6Z0&safe_search=on
I suspect that...
had you given it a bit more affection, all of this could have been obviated! :)
Yes, technically all food is
Yes, technically all food is organic, but I know you guys are talking about the silly 'organic' labels on some. Personally, I don't think 'organic' food is a waste at all. We're obviously over-producing everything, so it wouldn't hurt to make food production a little slower paced. Don't get me wrong, I love that scientists have jobs researching new ways to genetically modify and produce superhero plant ovaries...but, is it really necessary? Aside from the economics of it all, but that's off topic.
And you're completely right. It is sickening how much food we throw away.
Prices would probably drop if they had that extra fifty percent of produce on the shelves, too.
Things need to change.
Yes, it is completely disgusting that they raise chickens like that. Even over-looking the animal cruelty aspect, it's thought that the added hormones in today's meats are making teens start puberty earlier...which is just a whole domino effect of teen pregnancy, overpopulation, depression, obesity, and just makes the world a suckier place.. So, our fruits and farm animals may be on the path to production perfection, but we are devolving. I wonder if there's a connection;)
You're absolutely correct ;)
I like your views- That it's probably BETTER if our foods grow slower, since we're producing way too much for the public to realize we can eat non-perfect tomatoes. I think we're just way too freaking picky here in America.
I mean, we have outrageous first world problems like anorexia and bulimia put on us by the pressures of the media... We have so much produce we throw away half of it, and we still have people who just choose to not eat?! We have probably one of the most perfect societies, at least in the base, animalistic levels, and yet people are still snobby, disatisfied, and wasteful.
Devolving... nice vocabulary there XP
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That's redick!
Huh.
I always thought that damaged or ugly food just got processed more - ugly tomatoes become ketchup or spaghetti sauce, ugly chicken becomes dog food, that sort of thing. They really just throw it away?
Apparently.
I'm not sure if that's how EVERY farm works, but that's how the ones worked in the show I was watchng. They just chucked 'em if they got to the store, or at the farms, they usually threw them all in a big pile, usually to be used as fertilizer. Which is smart, but, the pile is so gigantic..
But wouldn't that be great? if they just shipped them to those companies? In a perfect world, I suppose.
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That's redick!