Strawberries, banana's and Pears.. oh my...

News & General Discussion
1

Ok, so here I sit, thinking nothing more to myself but why my fruit is so crunchy. I guess I am old and out dated, but when I was a kid so many decades ago, I ran around the farm getting fresh berries from either the garden or from the wild bushes along the fence line of our family farm, even the apples and pears were juicier then and SOFTER. What gives? At what point in life did someone decide that crunchy was the new fad? Where did the sweet days of fresh fruit that was soft and sweet get replaced by tart and crunchy?

Who in their right mind came up with a pear that rips out your teeth, a banana that has a snap sound when you bite it, an apple that takes a chain saw to cut through and berries that can be used as slingshot ammo become appropriate?

I know this is a silly thing to think about, but over the past 30 years I have watched as soda’s got smaller, pies got emptier (ever notice how at McDonalds 30 years ago, the apple pie was FULL from end to end, but now, 12% of it is filling and 88% of it is air?) I mean seriously, did I just finally wake up?

I also remember when a McDonalds cheese burger was so full of meat, it was a meal, now you get one and if you remove the meat from the bun, have you ever noticed that you can actually physically SEE THROUGH IT!!

What is up with a burger that you can see through anyway?

Just some bizzare useless rambling for the day from me.

2

McDonald’s burgers are at least closer to being actual meat than their old chicken McNuggets. I remember biting into them when they first came out thinking to myself, “is that a gizzard I just bit into? wtf?”

My pet peeve is a transition they made around 10 years ago. My beloved Bacon Egg Cheese biscuit suddenly had what appeared to be a stick of warm chewing gum on it instead of a crunchy piece of delicious bacon.

They evidently decided to stop cooking their bacon and started microwaving it. :x

3

1). People go through mid-life crisis in the most entertaining ways.
2). if (banana == “crunchy”) {mid-life crisis * 2;}
3). Three words: GMO
4). Transparent Meat? Sounds like an idea for a game.
5). MCDONALDS!?!?!?!
6). It is 16 after noon and I’m still in my pyjamas.
7). if (food == “microwaved”) {foodQuality–; radiationPoisoning++;}
9). All of the above is (fact : boolean = true).
10). Opinion: Number 8 is missing.

4

Berries should in general be soft, strawberries should have a little bite to them though, and there are arguments on the whole gooseberry issue. Small berries like Red Currants should have a tight skin that bursts in the mouth releasing the juice, they should feel firm to the touch though. No berry should be mush though (unless it’s in a fool or compote).

Apples should in most varieties be crisp, soft apples are in fact apples that have gone off, or are one of those horrible tasteless floury Golden Disgusting varieties (oh thank you so very much local hero Luther Burbank :frowning: ), it’s due to the cell walls breaking down, this happens with poor storage too.

Asian pears should be crispy when ripe, most other pears should be soft when ripe.

The reason many things you’re getting are over-crisp though when they shouldn’t be is that for most supermarkets they’re picked unripe and ripened in transit usually with extra methane gas, then even worse they’ll sometimes irradiate the fruit, this combo results in fruit that not only can be over crisp with no breakdown going on, but also with little or no flavor or sweetness. If you want the best quality produce then you should buy it from the farmer direct, go to your local market, or if you’re near the country go for a drive and stop off at the farm shops.

My pet peeve is cooked vegetables that are crunchy for no good reason. If I wanted a raw carrot I’d eat a raw carrot, I specifically wanted a cooked carrot, thank you.

I firmly believe this fad for steaming everything regardless of whether it’s appropriate to the recipe or not has lead to the reason everyone hates Brussel Sprouts, they should be soft and buttery served tossed with some crispy fried bacon pieces and perhaps some warmed walnuts, in which case they can be delicious, another nice one is to have a nice Aoli to go with them.

Perhaps it’s part of a conspiracy to try and make food so disgusting that people wont eat it and thus obesity rates will go down… but this goes counter to the sane view that it’s much preferable to eat a little of something that’s delicious than a lot of something that’s mediocre but “healthy”.

People just ruin good ingredients with bad recipes and techniques. They’re so scared and confused about eating healthy that they’ve forgotten how to eat well.

5

See now, that is what I am talking about, Per hit it on the head. Life has gotten so fast, it is now tasteless. I agree about flash steamed vegatables, what on earth is that anyway? Here is a splash of hot water… so what… cook the things and get them done the way that are supposed to be. If I want it raw, I can buy it raw and gnaw on it. It is becoming increasingly hard to find a decent farmers market, they are few and far between but when I find one, I will drive hours if I need to. Last one that I went to that was worth anything was when I lived up in Ohio. There is a farmers market in Trenton, I grew up with the kids that lived on that farm. The father decided that he was growing so much crop and that the market was drying up, so he built up a barn to sell his stock out of, built up a store for general goods and sells hand crafted items also.

In my list, I have almost all berries as soft, sure some crunch on the outside with burst on the inside, but mainly soft. Apples anywhere from slight soft to juicy crunch, but something you can actually bite into. Pears, sorry but that has to be soft, I hate a hard pear. I think banana’s should all be soft, and when you want some banana nut bread, the banana’s need to be ripe and brown to mush into the mix.

I think when I finally retire in 10 to 20 years, I will buy a farm and raise my own beef, pigs, everything I need and get back to the roots. Man how I miss the good old days of milking the cow for some warm milk on the breakfast cereal. Not this processed crap, just milked, filtered with a cheese cloth into a pitcher, straight on to the cereal or better yet, make some home made biscuits and pancakes with some real mapel syrup or molasses and bread with churned butter from buttermilk.

sigh digression

6

This is by far the weirdest thread I’ve seen on this forum. However, it’s still funny none the less. :smile:

I know what you’re talking about though. I remember when I was a kid and life was fun without much worry. McDonald’s was slightly better than it is now(although I did work there for a brief period of time and I suggest staying away from that Big Mac sauce O_O). Them’s was the good ol’ days.

7

Foods tend to suffer these days due to genetic engineering and use of harsh fertilizers and pesticides. Organic foods tend to still be juicy fresh and generally as wholesome as you might remember. I learned in my biology class that corn is engineered and that by engineering it it may loose its flavor and even nutrition quality but it can grow in more diverse climates. In my opinion I am glad local farming and organics are getting big. I don’t like to eat foods that are covered in chemicals, even if they are deemed safe. To me less chemicals and more all natural is better. But that’s just me. Also, many things are harvested before they should be and sold anyway I imagine, as some people would still buy and eat them. I have noticed that buying foods “out of season” tend to be less than what they are when they are “in season”. I use quotes as in today’s world they have made it that anything is always in season somewhere.

8

Do not even get me started on the current state of “food” in the developed world. Beef meat that comes from cows that ate ground up chicken that ate processed cow manure that ate ground up chicken that ate… well, you get the point. Products where just about every ingredient in it is some chemically altered version of corn… when my popsicle stick is 3/5 parts corn product, we have a serious problem. Supermarkets that carry 30 different brands of bacon… with 15 of those brands owned by one company and the other 15 by another… variety and choice are more illusion than reality. It is all the same bacon from the same pig farms whether the label states Stony Creek Farm or Creek Stone Farms. Cloned meat from chickens that were genetically altered to begin with pumped full of antibiotics and drugs; so much to the point that eating a plate of buffalo wings is about the same as eating a high-school science lab. So on and so on, with enough disturbing truth behind our food industry to make any paranoid conspiracy lunatic happy for a lifetime.

It is all enough to make one want to go on a cardboard and air diet… if the cardboard wasn’t chemically processed and the air polluted enough to kill you.

Worst part is I am only about 50% joking on all of this.

9

Corn is far less of a problem than soy, not only is it everywhere but it’s tremendously unhealthy stuff, raises estrogen levels in men, causes all sorts of nasty side effects in every incarnation available, nearly all of it is genetically modified and it’s literally in everything. High-Fructose Corn-syrup I might look out for in soda, but soy I’ll look out for in everything (and try to avoid where possible), just nasty nasty stuff.

For the beef at least here you can buy grass fed organic beef. There are in fact several farmers who sell their meat at the local farmers market, I’ve yet to sum up the courage to try it though, although it does look pretty awesome.

10

“Organic” food… what a living joke, who here doesn’t know that “organic” is anything grown. BAH

That one word increases the cost of everything, it is the biggest BS word on the planet, to say that beef is organic and other beef is not organic, well that either means that it was grown in a tube or it was given grain, grass or other foods to grow. Don’t even get me started on going to buy food and seeing “organic” foods costing double. Everything is freaken organic, everything has pestisides in it or on it or around it.

Crazy stuff but organic sets me off.

11

In the US I think its only 30% of the total processed food has to be unadulterated for it to get the organic label which is unfortunate. Here in the States organic is tossed around as a word meaning more wholesome/natural than modern day industrial food. “Organic” probably started as a word play off the idea and joke that the industrialized mass produced food is “not natural” and created by machines. Of course everything is organic just as there is no such thing as man made as everything man made comes from basic natural bases and is thus natural.

12

This is a serious subject, actually.

As time goes by, I also find it more and more alarming how we are given “mutated” (if not completely artificial) food, just for the sake of profit.

I really did not expect to experience the fight against artificial life this early. I’m serious, I was expecting all these “bio” shops, all these “pro bio, anti artificial” associations around 2030, not so early. Well just like Sci-Fi told us.

Do you remember ?

698×305 51.3 KB

13

That’s a very convincing fake owl, I must say. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s true though; there are so many artificial products out there that your head would explode even trying to count. It’s almost as bad as that whole bottled water craze. :roll: Which is ridiculous, as explained here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPAjUvvnIc

Just food for thought.

14

That’s not the problem. The problem is that the genes from modified foods such as corn evidently have this nasty way of finding their way into feral landrace strains.

Whether pollen from wind, animals or someone’s boot. No matter what precautions they take and assurances they have given, they cant stop nature. Even modified nature!

One of the best movies ever. I was so hot for Sean Young, until she got old and went crazy that is.

15

Talking about modified foods, went to the grocery last night to get some more fruit at HEB, noticed something that I barely consciously recognized, this fruit was some bizzare mix between an apricot and pear, then they had some plum mixed thing, I think in total they had 4 fruits that were bastardized versions where multiple fruits were joined together genetically to make a new fruit.

I think if nature wanted a gene pool mix on any foods, it would happen natually and a the very core what we genetically physically alter today will eventually haunt us in some form of strange disease later.

16

Just curious zumwalt, do you know what it was called?

We won’t have to worry about that. I believe that before the century is over that to our horror we shall discover that we’re living on a version of Easter Island, only on an industrial scale. I’m convinced of it, and I’m about as far from a sandal wearing tree-hugger as you can get.

17

I don’t recall what it was called, or rather what they were called, didn’t write down there names. I just thought it was bizzare looking, imagine a pear with a plum skin, and purple to sort of an off tint orange to it and glossy. I was almost tempted to buy it so that I could see what the seed looked like.