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Fruits and vegetables have been bred and engineered to have more flavor now. Compared to what we have today the fruits and vegetables back then would be bland, and likely taste mush less fresh since they've also been engineered to stay fresh longer and preserve the proper texture longer.
I don't think so. Most commercial produce is engineered for shorter growing, pest and blight tolerance and longer shelf life. Store bought tomatoes are a great example of tasteless, bland produce that doesn't compare to garden grown heirloom varieties. Corn is another example. You have to seek out the custom varieties like peaches and cream or the old MD eastern shore stalwart Silver Queen for any flavor in corn.
I don't think so. Most commercial produce is engineered for shorter growing, pest and blight tolerance and longer shelf life. Store bought tomatoes are a great example of tasteless, bland produce that doesn't compare to garden grown heirloom varieties. Corn is another example. You have to seek out the custom varieties like peaches and cream or the old MD eastern shore stalwart Silver Queen for any flavor in corn.
It's in your head. I've had tons of heirloom tomatoes, locally grown pesticide-free this and that, and it's no better than the stuff at Ralph's or Gelson's. There have been tons of blind taste tests that show people generally prefer the mass-produced stuff over the homegrown and heirloom varietals of fruits of vegetables. The power of persuasion is strong, but when people don't know which is the "superior" product and which is the "inferior" product they generally go for the "inferior" one. When you say "I grew this myself" or "I made this from scratch" people's brains tell them it's better than what they can get at the grocery store or at the fast food place down the street so you fool yourself into thinking it's better than it really is. When people are a slice of Domino's pizza on a plain plate and told it was made by an Italian pizza master they'll say it's the best pizza they've ever had. You give those same people a slice from the same pizza on the same plate and tell them it's from the Domino's down the block and they'll say it's just OK.
There's so many compromises in flavor and taste made in the growing of the fruits and veggies in order to mechanize the process that it's not funny. We've also lost the bio-diversity that used to be available. There's hundreds of varieties of apple trees, yet how many of them do you see at the grocery?
Around here we have about a hundred different varieties of avocados and the only type the unlucky folks on the mainland can get are Hass avocados (mostly grown in Mexico) and those are advertised like they are some sort of amazing thing. Ha! Taste some seriously good avos from around here (Hawaii) and you'll know what you're missing. But, there's laws in place that won't let us ship the great avocadoes from here to the mainland. Some sort of trade agreement with Mexico, I think it is. Pineapples come in different flavors and the good ones don't ship well. Same with bananas. Did you know there's about a hundred different varieties of those, too? But the great ones don't ship well or grow as vigorously.
As for what food tasted like before it got made into a factory made commodity? A lot of it depended on the cook but they had better stuff to work with. There was limitations as to what was available when, though. Fresh strawberries wouldn't be paired with fresh apples since they don't ripen at the same times. No watermelon in winter unless you had a glass house. The rich folks would have a "pinery" and an "orangery" where they would have a heated glass house to grow pineapples and oranges.
The best milk I ever had was from the bottom of the bulk tank at my grandpa's small dairy. There was a big stainless steel tank which kept the raw milk chilled to just above freezing while it was waiting for the milk truck to come collect it. At the bottom of the tank was a tap you could fill a glass with milk. That was some seriously tasty milk. He had Guernsey as well as Holstein cows, I think. May have been Jerseys, it's been many decades since then. My grandma had a variety of different chickens, too, I really remember the Silkies although those weren't for eating (black skin and looks really weird along with some different texture to the meat). She kept them because they looked interesting and they were really good at brooding the eggs of the leghorns who weren't good at sitting on a nest. When we'd visit, there would usually be one less young rooster around her chicken yard after we left. According to my granny, in order to make good chicken soup, you need one old hen and one young rooster. And her chicken soup was amazing.
Today they sell "free range" and "organic" chicken, but unless I know the farmer that raised it, I'm not believing the labels. Commercial manufacturing has pestered those who make up the laws until they have determined that if you have a huge barn of chickens (basic commercial chicken farming methods) and allow them access to the outside via a very small door within a week or two of slaughter, that constitutes "free range". Since chickens are creatures of habit, they aren't likely to run for the door. From what I've heard, most of the "free range" is bare earth anyway so there's nothing there to change the diet of the commercial "free range" chicken even if they do go out the door.
However, there's hope. Folks are starting to raise chickens on pasture in movable chicken coops that are moved along the pasture as the chickens graze down the grasses and bugs. I think a farmer can sell up to 10,000 chickens per year if he sells them directly to the folks that are going to eat them, if you're gonna do this, you may want to verify that, though. There's a family in our area who has pasture raised broilers and every other month or so there's an email that comes out so folks can sign up for true pasture raised chickens and pick them up either at the farm or from the truck that brings them to town on a certain day. They've been processed at the farm and they sell them either as whole chickens or for an additional fee, they will cut them into pieces for the buyers. The family is doing quite well with this since they are getting paid retail rates for their chickens instead of the meager wholesale rates the commercial farmers get. Seems a better method for the chickens, the farmers and well as the consumers. Not so good for big manufacturing, though, so at some point it will probably be made illegal.
It's not just people food that's suffering from the manufactured food process. I was chatting with the old guy at the feed store (who has been keeping records for decades of how much feed has been fed to his rabbits versus weight gain and litter sizes) and he says because there's less nutrition in the hay and grain now, he has to feed more to the animals for the same amount of weight gain as before. He's tried different commercial feeds and says most if not all of them have the same decline in nutrition.
Factory farming has bred the flavor out of so many of our foods today.
Big reps to you, buddy!
We have been raising a garden for many years now, so we knew the scoop on the fruits and veggies. When my wife has to buy something at the store, it never compares with our own home-grown.
It was only recently that we realized what the difference was on the animal products side. We raise our own poultry, and the eggs and meat are much better than you get at the store. Tender, juicy chickens, not tough or stringy like at the stores, and MUCH more flavorful. Holiday turkeys and geese that have a stronger, but more authentic flavor than the store-bought...oh, and did I say moist and tender?
Our dairy products, bought from a local farm, have the cream mixed in with the milk. No more 'blue milk' (1% or 2%) for us. Even the home-made butter is richer and tastier. It is white, though, not yellow.
It's in your head. I've had tons of heirloom tomatoes, locally grown pesticide-free this and that, and it's no better than the stuff at Ralph's or Gelson's. There have been tons of blind taste tests that show people generally prefer the mass-produced stuff over the homegrown and heirloom varietals of fruits of vegetables. The power of persuasion is strong, but when people don't know which is the "superior" product and which is the "inferior" product they generally go for the "inferior" one. When you say "I grew this myself" or "I made this from scratch" people's brains tell them it's better than what they can get at the grocery store or at the fast food place down the street so you fool yourself into thinking it's better than it really is. When people are a slice of Domino's pizza on a plain plate and told it was made by an Italian pizza master they'll say it's the best pizza they've ever had. You give those same people a slice from the same pizza on the same plate and tell them it's from the Domino's down the block and they'll say it's just OK.
Ah, well, maybe they don't have any reference for really good food? A lot of folks like what's familiar.
Most manufactured food has a lot of salt, fat and sugar added. Which pretty much hits all the taste buds in your mouth since different areas of your mouth taste different things. There's also teams of chemists who figure out which additives are going to add more flavor, but are these chemicals good for you? There's more to good food than just great flavor, although great flavor is a good starting point. Nutrition matters. Toxicity matters.
Just because it's homegrown doesn't automatically make it better, it depends on the growing conditions and the soil as well as the variety. But the commercial growers aren't out there to grow the best tomato, they are out there to make the most money. Their definition of "best" also involves how it looks, how it ships, etc. Huge difference in end result than if they'd been out there to grow the tastiest tomato. There's some folks around here who grow hydroponic tomatoes which are tasty as well as gorgeous, but they aren't a patch on a beefsteak tomato grown in rich soil for absolute best tomato taste with a complexity of taste you don't get from the controlled conditions in a hydroponic situation. But, they can grow them much easier than the in-ground beefsteak as well as get them to the market in a presentable shape.
It's in your head. I've had tons of heirloom tomatoes, locally grown pesticide-free this and that, and it's no better than the stuff at Ralph's or Gelson's. There have been tons of blind taste tests that show people generally prefer the mass-produced stuff over the homegrown and heirloom varietals of fruits of vegetables. The power of persuasion is strong, but when people don't know which is the "superior" product and which is the "inferior" product they generally go for the "inferior" one. When you say "I grew this myself" or "I made this from scratch" people's brains tell them it's better than what they can get at the grocery store or at the fast food place down the street so you fool yourself into thinking it's better than it really is. When people are a slice of Domino's pizza on a plain plate and told it was made by an Italian pizza master they'll say it's the best pizza they've ever had. You give those same people a slice from the same pizza on the same plate and tell them it's from the Domino's down the block and they'll say it's just OK.
Ah no it's not in my head. We used to have a 100x75ft garden back in WV. Tomatoes, corn, 3-4 varieties of beans, field peas, watermelons, squash, peanuts, collards, kale, mustard, lima beans, butter beans, cucumbers, zuches... you name it we more than likely grew it. Garden variety roma and beefsteak tomatoes are by far superior to store bought. Hell I can't even taste the tomato from the local grocery store. We grew an old variety too, called a 'mortgage lifter'. They were heirloom seeds given to us by a neighbor. Big sized and packed with flavor.
I've had heritage hog meat- TOTALLY different experience than factory hogs. Not even comparable in taste, texture, fat content- it's like a totally different animal.
If you can't tell the difference, then I have to say you have either dead taste buds, or you've never had real garden / heirloom varieties. Gurney's and other seed bank stores have a pretty good variety of produce seeds that have been around for generations.. Factory farms don't use them, gardeners do.
some of the cattle ranchers were still bringing their live stock to market the old fashioned way by cattle drives , this would cause the cattle to lose too much weight and probably cause the meat to be not as tender as modern beef.
Cattle drives in the western United States largely ended in the late 1800s due primarily to a combination of barbed-wire fences and the new convenience of the railroad.
I think that despite the increased distance between the farm and the table for some things, for the most part, modern methods have resulted in an abundance of foods which are readily available all year. I do not think this is a bad thing. We can all pick and choose, at any decent market, from organic meats and vegetables, or the regular, and it is fresh and really good.
I bet my grandmother would have been beside herself with wonder at the modern super market.
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