You can still have ultra processed organic foods
False , I bet you can’t even name 63 instances
Idk man, them food scientists been up to some strange shit out at the farm and at the food processing plant for like a century now and things have gotten out of hand a little.
Yeah, we let it get too healthy, I hear ya.
I’m not sure the goal has been to make the food healthy… I’m pretty sure the goal has only been to maximize profits and decrease costs within the bounds of whatever is considered legal (including lobbying to maintain legality).
Why can’t we have human kibbles if they have for cats and dogs. They keep selling it as the only healthy option.
Meal replacement drinks and powders exist. They are pretty much that.
They do it’s called cereal.
Please I need human kibble to happen for totally normal reasons
My favorite is the people who rail against GMOs. Bitch, every food you eat has been genetically modified by humans. Either by selective breeding over a long period of time, or what they used to do in the early 20th century: bomb seeds with radiation and see what came out, toss the weird stuff, keep the neat stuff.
Everything is GMO. What’s being done now is actually safer than before, because they actually know what they’re trying to create, and are far more surgical in the process.
Botanist dragging a barrel of glowing green fluid across the tiles of the station floor
Security Chief: “Botanist! What the ABSOLUTE HELL are you doing with 50 liters of radium?”
Botanist: “Mutating the corn so it’s blight and drought resistant”
Chief: “???”
Botanist: “I’ve also mutated a species of hobby lemon to fill itself with sugary lemonade instead of citric acid”
Chief: “Oh, holy crap okay go right ahead”
“Hobby lemon?”
Miracle fruit is easier than doing your own genetic modifications
When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue’s taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet
Interesting, TIL!
Pretty much. Except that there was zero plan about what was going to come out the other end. It was just “irradiate, plant, see what happens.”
Lemons are an artificial creation by genetic splice of the bitter orange and citron :)
If you think thats interesting, look into the origins of maize corn.
Yeah ancestral plants that became many crops look almost nothing like their descendants in many cases
The funniest I think are secondary crops like oats and rye. Our forebears weren’t even trying to grow a better version of those, those started off as just weeds that people were trying to get rid of in their wheatfields. In the course of purging them they accidentally selected for more wheat-like plants that people would be less likely to rip out until they became actual decent crops on their own, while also maintaining hardiness in areas that wheat couldn’t handle such that they spun off and became popular on their own rights.
every food you eat
okay i was all ready to devil’s advocat you but you had to say FOOD. punk.
i was about to go eat, i don’t know, a car or something to prove you wrong. I haven’t had coffee yet i haven’t thought this through
GMOs aren’t dangerous because of the genetic manipulation. They’re dangerous because of everything around it. Now it’s possible to create vegetables that survive a centimetre of glyphosate coating. And if the farmers reuse seeds, they’re breaching copyright law. With this, plants are copyrightable, would you like all of the cancer of contemporary American IP law applied to your food?
Exactly right. Well said.
But then the problem is not the GMO it’s the copyright laws
this is actually such a big problem in tissue culture
no one should be able to copyright LIVING BEINGS
ironically copyright laws as they are today are cancer, maybe they should copyright copyright so that it all just eats itself and dies
in tissue culture this is considered a DICK MOVE
But then if you can’t copyright it companies wouldn’t invest money in it since it wouldn’t be profitable. That’s kinda the whole point of copyright, so that there’s an incentive for innovation. Why invest in R&D when you can just let your competitor do it and immediately steal it from then?
“steal it” you cannot steal knowledge
copyrighting living beings is bad
You’re not stealing knowledge, you’re stealing someone else’s time, effort and money. There’s a reason there’s IP laws everywhere.
What then do you suggest as the alternative? Or is your suggestion just to stop innovation?
free is good
“time effort and money”
im sorry but innovation will be sustained without copyright
no one is just gonna go “I cant make obscene amounts of money on this, better not do it at all” if they actually care about it
free is good only hurts the rich
“no ones gonna do it if they cant exploit it for money” - very serious business human
Yes, this is exactly what happens. Lone humans just can’t do much on their own, you need money to fund you, and money doesn’t fund anything that isn’t going to make them more money.
Copyright doesn’t create incentives for innovation it creates incentives for stagnation. It’s a guaranteed profit window for a static solution. Competition is what breeds innovation as you need to have the best product for its cost to capture market share. As copyright is inherently an anti-competitive practice only there to minimize risk it reduces innovation in favor of stable profits. Just because r&d costs money it doesnt mean that supply chains and production are handed to competitors for free. Its just a tool to minimize risk for venture capital because those who lobbied for it wanted to protect their assets from risk exposure and did so at the expense of consumers and innovation through lobbying. Removing it wouldnt stop people from creating solutions or trying to invent new products. Those who do the r & d always have a leg up as they have the research available to them for tweaking there process or final output that a competitor would not.
The Epa was the only way we got them to stop with DDT.
They keep ratcheting the poison further and further up to keep weeds out. They basically carpet bombed the South with ddt to kill off something and that killed off the birds and fishes and sucked up anyone that ate it for twenty years.
Which was a lot of the South, but now hunting is a rich mans privilege down here. Wheras only rich folk ate cattle with any frequency, now it’s pretty common food.
I’ve often thought that Monsanto was the only thing wrong with GMOs.
Monsanto
their buissness model with certainty.
does anyone know how long the copyrights on seeds holds? i.e. i think for many pharmaceuticals it’s 20 years. does this apply here too?
Yes
I think the argument against GMO (for me) isn’t so much the yields and other benefits, but rather the potential for single blight to wipe entire crops (did to the lack of variety, despite their claims to blight resilience) and the shady stuff that gmo companies do - sterilised seeds, patent wars, etc.
It’s already happened to bananas. That’s why banana candy tastes NOTHING like the bananas you can buy today, it tastes like the bananas that died out from a fungus.
It’s more that banana flavoring is a simple chemical (isoamyl acetate) that when tasted was kinda closer to bananas (and pears apparently) than anything else in their minds. Old bananas had more of it than modern ones, but it isn’t like it was ever a faithful recreation.
It’s similar to how some grapes taste more or less like methyl anthranilate, but the chemical itself really just distinctly tastes like artificial grape.
Yeah the discussion has to be clear. I’m not in love with splicing genes very unrelated to the destination organism and not seeing what the long-term effects are. Also splicing genes specifically to make crops more resistant to Roundup so we can kill everything but the crop even harder and be unconcerned of the wider environmental impact the pesticide has.
The problem is that the way GMO is used in practice is to maximize profits: get giant fruits that weigh a lot and catch eyes on the shelf, but are low in nutritional value and have shitty taste/texture.
Like huge strawberries that taste like water, or taste unripe even when they’re ripe. Or giant asparagus that’s as tough as sisal twine.
I have a theory that if you GMO to prioritize nutritional density, it’ll taste better, because the photonutrients are the stuff that taste good.
wth are photonutrients?
also yeah, optimizing for looks is a real issue and i’ve encountered it too often, but that’s just supermarkets in general and has nothing to do with GMO.
Phytonutrients, it was fucking autocorrect’s fault.
But no, GMO has a lot to do with it. I know supermarkets were shady about this before, but the same applies to GMO, and it extends all the way up the supply chain.
Monsanto engineers their crops to maximize profit. That means high-yielding plants with giant fruits. It minimizes the nutritional density because the plants have to distribute the same amount of nutrients over more crop. And it makes the taste and texture worse.
I remember when asparagus was around 5mm in diameter, and tender. Now it’s more like 10mm, and stringier than celery. It’s like the whole stalk is made of that inedible part of the greenbean
asparagus
Aldi’s in Chicago has wonderfully thin and crisp asparagus almost all the time. Don’t ask me how, I just buy and eat it.
Probably cause it’s grown in Europe where they actually regulate their food production…
The US also regulates its food production, sweetie .
Barely. There’s a reason Europe won’t import most of it.
nutritional value
Is not a consideration either way (and that’s part of the problem) time and “viability” from pick to market are even more important than that and even flavor. Hence, hothouse tomatoes, the most tasteless tomato on the planet.
Right, that’s what I’m saying. But the nutritional density suffers as a result of maximizing size and yield.
bomb seeds with radiation and see what came out
are far more surgical in the process.
…right…
If you can’t tell the difference between random mutation and targeted gene replacement, you DO NOT belong in this conversation.
Either educate yourself or STFU and let the adults talk
Educated genius alert!
yeah GMO has a lot of potential. i think the scepticism was mostly because it was considered a new technology, but that’s years ago.
Processed food was designed to make profit.
That’s why its so high quality, healthy and affordable.
It was designed to make you pro-fit.
Gatorade, hit me up, I do marketing.
Bread is a professed food and it’s not designed for profit. It was designed to make wheat fucking edible.
Homemade sourdough bread is a processed fucking food. For fuck sake.
It’s to make calories easier to get.
Grains, pulses, meat, and some fruits and veggies need to cooked, i.e. processed, to make them safe or easier to eat.
“Processing” is as minimal as sprouting beans. Removing bran. Cutting into small tiny bits. Warming or heating. Pounded or smashed.
Not all “processed food” is ultra-processed diabetes - inducing poison. A baked potato is a processed food. A steak is a processed food.
This is a matter of semantics, linguistics, and basic communication. When someone says processed food, what do they actually mean by that? Do they need a baked potato, or do they mean a twinkie?
Language and communication don’t work on technicalities. If someone says they would like a bowl of fruit, you can’t serve them some tomatoes and say well you have to enjoy this! Tomatoes are technically a fruit! Communication occurs only when people accept the intended meaning of what someone is saying rather than the literalist interpretation of it.
Absolutely correct.
In all seriousness, shortening “organically grown” to “organic” is quite stupid since all food is organic, but not all food is organically grown.
Now I’m wondering if anyone has ever labeled salt as organic.
The one thing likely not grown, nor carbon containing.
The sad thing is - we COULD produce processed foods designed for our health. We just choose not to. The more its processed, the more room there is for profit margin improving adjustments.
(Meanwhile we evolved to eat not-ultraprocessed food so obviously that’s best for us.)
The sad thing is - we COULD produce processed foods designed for our health. We just choose not to.
Yes, mostly.
(Meanwhile we evolved to eat not-ultraprocessed food so obviously that’s best for us.)
Not how this works. Evolution cares about us procreating and spreading our genes, not living long healthy lives. Hence there being plenty animals that die after having children. “We evolved to” just means it won’t kill us quickly, not that it is healthy long term.
There’s no ‘we’ you’re free to eat whatever food you want.
Whatever food is available, not whatever one wants
Hyperprocessed foods are designed to sit on store shelves as long as possible, be addictive, and have just enough flavor to make you want more while at the same time being made of the cheapest possible ingredients, sometimes even including weird things like titanium dioxide.
Where do you get your fiber?
My ISP provided the fiber, they came and hooked it up and everything.
Does this keep you regular? I’ve been just as constipated as when I had cable but the lower latency and symmetrical upload are worth it.
Sounds like they are made with health of the consumer in the forefront.
When you see a food decomposes, it’s going to do something similar in your gut. If you see that a food never seems to decompose, you can bet that’s not going to be great for your gut.
And fiber really needs to be recognized as the essential nutrient that it is.
And fiber really needs to be recognized as the essential nutrient that it is.
What’s weird about titanium dioxide?
Too healthy
Do you normally add metallic powders directly to your food?
Every time you cook in a cast iron skillet.
Which is actually recommended as a source of dietary iron.
I do… Usually I bond them with a deadly gas first though (salt).
It helps Kimi Antonelli drive too fast.
You are even more unprocessed than unprocessed food.
Thank you
How do I become as unprocessed as you?
Norman Borlaug developed wheat that can be grown in all kinds of climates temperatures and environments on Earth. It is by definition a genetically modified organism that helped alleviate starvation for billions of people since its creation.
Many people say that the most important person in human history is Jesus Christ, but I believe it is Norman Borlaug.
Thank god the global South has so many white saviours
This is a textbook example of arguing in bad faith.
I said Norman Borlaug’s work helped alleviate starvation for billions of people. Somehow you turned that into “white savior,” industrial agriculture, and the absurd claim that I think pre-Green Revolution famines were “all their own fault.” I didn’t say any of those things. You invented an argument because you couldn’t address the one I actually made.
Borlaug’s contribution stands on its own. His research dramatically increased crop yields and helped prevent catastrophic famine. That isn’t a matter of opinion, it’s one of the most well-documented humanitarian achievements of the 20th century.
You’re also trying to pin every downstream consequence of industrial agriculture on one scientist, as though he personally designed decades of government policy, farming practices, and corporate incentives. That’s a ridiculous standard. By that logic, every inventor is responsible for every misuse or unintended consequence of their invention forever.
If you want to discuss the environmental tradeoffs of the Green Revolution, that’s a legitimate conversation. But that’s not what you did. Instead, you injected race into a discussion where it wasn’t relevant, built a straw man out of things I never said, and then congratulated yourself for knocking it down.
If your argument requires inventing my position before you can refute it, maybe your argument isn’t as strong as you think it is.
That’s a whole mouthful from somebody who (checks notes) started off with some messianic comparisons.
You are, once again, introducing things that were never part of the discussion and making assumptions about what I was or wasn’t saying. Nothing I said was messianic in any way, shape, or form, nor did I bring anything related to that into the conversation.
Please stop.
If this is the kind of discourse you want to have, arguing against things that were never said and inventing positions for the other person to defend, there are plenty of flat Earth videos on YouTube where that style of reasoning will fit right in.
It might be a US American thing to do this Jesus thing. Same as praising the productivist paradigm still in 2026.
Anyways. I’ll leave it here and hope you might draw some inspiration of this: https://spectrejournal.com/the-enduring-fantasy-of-feeding-the-world/ My part of the conversation stops here. Regards
So once again, you’re claiming there’s some kind of Jesus angle here.
Jesus was never brought up. Neither were God, gods, Christianity, or Catholicism. You are once again injecting completely unrelated nonsense into the discussion.
None of that exists in what I said.
Yes, goodbye. You are either incapable of following the conversation or simply arguing with something you invented.
“Jesus was never brought up.”
“Many people say that the most important person in human history is Jesus Christ, but I believe it is Norman Borlaug.”
(Clown emoticon)
I’m 14 and this is deep bullshit. There are different levels of processed food. Nobody is against cooking your food. Countless studies demonstrate that the less processed your food is, the healthier it is for you.
The misunderstanding, and rightly, the confusion, comes like you said from the level of processing. Cooking is considered processing - so these words have little value in reality as they mean different things for different people
Nah
Even home-grown fruits are not organic.
counterargument: raw salmon is fucking delicious.
Inb4 raw salmon is farmed specifically for your tastebuds
and raw tomatoes are cheaper than pre-cooked tomato sauce.
Not where I live
actually i just checked and that’s not actually true. cheapest tomato sauce here: 0.70€ / 250 ml, makes 2.80€/kg. meanwhile fresh tomatoes: 10€/kg typically.
fresh tomatoes: 10€/kg
wtf, do you live in like Svalbard or something? They are 2-4€ per kilo in the summer and 4-6€ in the winter in most places on the continent for normal truss tomatoes. I live in a country with very expensive food but basic Spanish tomatoes are 2€ right now in the cheaper supermarkets, and fancy tasty fleshy ones are like 5 or 6.
Particularly the worms, that’s the best part.
The parasites just add spice!
It’s flash frozen to make it safe, other wise you end up with parasites. Ergo it’s processed.
I’m no bitch those parasites can’t eat me
Okay, this is a high quality shit-post.
😉
I just found it. It’s an organic shitpost.
because its already expired
Assuming the designed food contains a lot of fiber, the shit itself will also be of high quality!
Should be whole food and not organic. You can process organic food how much you want. You can buy organic ultra-processed pure white beet sugar if you want. Doesn’t mean it’s healthy or chemically different than regular white sugar. Organic only applies to how it’s grown, not what happens to it after leaving the field.
Also “organic” is intentionallly misleading language that should be abandoned, if it’s not organic, it’s not food.
What it means as a food label is (theoretically, at least), “not made with inorganic ingredients” i.e. certain kinds of pesticides/fertilizers or additives
deleted by creator
How does that in any way contradict what I said?
You know what most of those pesticides and other disqualifying things are? Inorganic.
Of course there’s more complexity to it than that, but in a nutshell that’s why it’s called “organic” and not “gleebleglanic”
deleted by creator
Okay, that makes a lot more sense now…
Sodium Chloride is not “organic” but there is not a single kind of life on the planet earth that can survive without it.
So according to your (il)logic, NOTHING can be organic, your definition, not mine.
Which part was misinformation? That inorganic things aren’t food? Good luck arguing that point lol. Everything else I said was an opinion so idk where you’re coming from there. I’m aware that a person or a committee or something somewhere was paid to redefine a word that already had a static, objective meaning for no reason other than to make more money, that doesn’t stop it from being misleading and unnecessarily ambiguous. Why that word? Sure you’ve done your homework about this so you might consider yourself “immune” to the false advertising, but the majority of Americans have no clue and believe everything they see, as far as they can understand it. Most people like you who would be curious enough to do that research probably already know what organic and inorganic actually mean so they weren’t really going to get duped anyway, but they make up a tiny portion of the population.
deleted by creator
It’s easier to squeeze out smaller competition that can’t afford to meet the requirements but aren’t necessarily cutting corners or providing unhealthy or even less healthy products, netting more money for the companies that can jump through the hoops. And like you say, it’s more expensive to get that organic label, that means someone is making more money. Now I assume I don’t need to explain conflicts of interest or political lobbying to you, but that’s because you’re seem much more informed and aware than the average American consumer.
I wish I had as much faith in American regulatory institutions as you, I guess experience has left me too jaded.
Which part was misinformation? That inorganic things aren’t food?
Sodium Chloride is not “organic” but there is not a single kind of life on the planet earth that can survive without it.
So according to your (il)logic, NOTHING can be organic, your definition, not mine.
I’m well aware of the “theories”, what it actually functionally means is they can charge more while falsely implying food without that label is necessarily unhealthy and may, in fact, not even be food at all.
If someone is uneducated about what food labels mean and which ones have a regulatory definition and which ones don’t, then sure they might be duped into overpaying for shit that doesn’t deliver on its promises. But organic is one of the few terms that are actually defined by regulation and have specific requirements to meet to use the label, so it’s kind of weird that you would choose this one to pick a bone with.
if someone is uneducated about what food labels mean and which ones have a regulatory definition and which ones don’t
Yeah you just described 95% of Americans, maybe more, thanks for illustrating my point! “They” (read: A politician) chose to use a word that already has specific implications for that market, which they absolutely didn’t need to do and, imo, they almost certainly did on purpose. I don’t like that, sorry 🤷♂️
Wait what politician is using the word in this context? I must have missed something.
And just because loads of people are ignorant and uneducated doesn’t mean we should abandon words just because they can be misunderstood. It was a weak point.
I was referring to the politician in charge of the USDA when they decided to redefine a scientific term for no other determinable reason than to make more money. Loads of people being ignorant and uneducated enough to misunderstand advertising is exactly the reason we have and need strong consumer protection regulations, like antitrust and fair competition laws.
Idk what the last sentence is referencing or I’d address it, sorry.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
No, that’s not true.
Not true? In that some food is in fact not made of organic molecules?
For example:
Table Salt (NaCl)
Water (H2O)
No carbon, still food.
Nope not true
reply posted on lemmy [email protected]
People can still talk about reality here, sometimes shitposts provoke intelligent discussions and that’s okay. It’s not [email protected].
If everyone here was this, then there’d be no point:
