tbirdparis
04-09-2007, 01:49 PM
Hey all, newb to this forum, but been around.. :)
The site's looking _good_ since my last visit, so kudos to you..
Just wanted to make a comment on what Kevin was saying about Fast Food Nation..
When he described that chapter in the book with the flavour scientist demonstrating a sample of the most amazingly realistic roast meat/burger flavour, Alex was having trouble figuring out how this could be a bad thing. Kevin made the point that it's the chemicals they use to make those flavours that is the problem. I'm sure that's part of the deal, for sure..
But here's why it's _really_ bad:
To put it simply, as a food manufacturer with access to technology like this, you can sell the worst quality, worst tasting, most badly produced and most unhealthy trash you want.. because you know that you can make it taste (and look) as sumptuous, rich in flavour, plump, juicy and healthy as you like.
The big volume food manufacturers love this stuff.. Cos when you need to drive up volume to maximise your sales and push those profits up even higher, it gets a little hard to maintain all those tricky little things that pesky old mother nature insists on, in order to make the product actually have quality and therefore be tasty all on its own. Mass production of meat in particular breeds a worse and worse product the bigger you get.. So there's nothing better than being able to magically add the illusion of all that wholesome flavour just by ordering it in from your friendly industrial chemist. Much easier than having to invest in all that complicated infrastructure of smaller, biodynamic farming that produces lower volumes, but a far higher quality product. And far out, going to all that trouble ends up costing more, so forget about it when you can just sprinkle on some delicious flavour enhancers that give the consumer a high-quality taste experience for less money and effort. Who cares if the meat in those burgers would taste (and look) like generic brand dogfood without it? The consumer is never going to know, nor care.
So Alex, if you read this.. The real reason why it's something you _don't_ want is because it's allowing the companies and restaurants you trust, to feed you nasty, stinky old ingredients that you'd _never_ in your right mind want to put anywhere near your mouth, if you saw them in their real undoctored state.
The site's looking _good_ since my last visit, so kudos to you..
Just wanted to make a comment on what Kevin was saying about Fast Food Nation..
When he described that chapter in the book with the flavour scientist demonstrating a sample of the most amazingly realistic roast meat/burger flavour, Alex was having trouble figuring out how this could be a bad thing. Kevin made the point that it's the chemicals they use to make those flavours that is the problem. I'm sure that's part of the deal, for sure..
But here's why it's _really_ bad:
To put it simply, as a food manufacturer with access to technology like this, you can sell the worst quality, worst tasting, most badly produced and most unhealthy trash you want.. because you know that you can make it taste (and look) as sumptuous, rich in flavour, plump, juicy and healthy as you like.
The big volume food manufacturers love this stuff.. Cos when you need to drive up volume to maximise your sales and push those profits up even higher, it gets a little hard to maintain all those tricky little things that pesky old mother nature insists on, in order to make the product actually have quality and therefore be tasty all on its own. Mass production of meat in particular breeds a worse and worse product the bigger you get.. So there's nothing better than being able to magically add the illusion of all that wholesome flavour just by ordering it in from your friendly industrial chemist. Much easier than having to invest in all that complicated infrastructure of smaller, biodynamic farming that produces lower volumes, but a far higher quality product. And far out, going to all that trouble ends up costing more, so forget about it when you can just sprinkle on some delicious flavour enhancers that give the consumer a high-quality taste experience for less money and effort. Who cares if the meat in those burgers would taste (and look) like generic brand dogfood without it? The consumer is never going to know, nor care.
So Alex, if you read this.. The real reason why it's something you _don't_ want is because it's allowing the companies and restaurants you trust, to feed you nasty, stinky old ingredients that you'd _never_ in your right mind want to put anywhere near your mouth, if you saw them in their real undoctored state.