Scaled markets prefer patented hybrid seeds (yes, that’s real) that have high shelf life, resistance to bruising, and a uniform shape that makes them easy to pack. And high-yield of course. The flavour isn’t really relevant to the corporate farming system, certainly not as much as crop yield and longevity for shipping them is. And of course these patented hybrids are all sterile so farmers have to buy more seeds each year.
Go to a smaller independent business however, and they’re often using different breeds. Maybe they can’t afford (or qualify for) these fancy hybrids. Maybe they just don’t want them.
If you want a tomato that is full of flavour and ripened on the plant, fed with sugar from the stalk, you can’t get one from a supermarket. It’s just cheaper to pick them early while they’re green, ship them, and let them ‘ripen’ (or turn red) in an enzyme bin, even if they’re not gaining any sugars that way without the plant.
I prefer local home-grown because I prefer delicious tomatoes that last a week in the fridge more than I do sour water-balloons that look pristine and shiny on the counter for twice as long. I buy my food to eat it, not look at it.
Because they taste like shit? They’re also less nutritious too. The entire fucking point of food is to eat it, and we’ve developed varieties that taste bland, are unsatisfying, and are less nutritionally complex. We have un-fooded our food.
‘Shitty’ is an adjective for value. Value is personal. Any answer for why somebody would value the food less and consider it shitty is the question you’re asking, and if you don’t like that answer, then your question is dishonest.
Scaled markets prefer patented hybrid seeds (yes, that’s real) that have high shelf life, resistance to bruising, and a uniform shape that makes them easy to pack. And high-yield of course. The flavour isn’t really relevant to the corporate farming system, certainly not as much as crop yield and longevity for shipping them is. And of course these patented hybrids are all sterile so farmers have to buy more seeds each year.
Go to a smaller independent business however, and they’re often using different breeds. Maybe they can’t afford (or qualify for) these fancy hybrids. Maybe they just don’t want them.
If you want a tomato that is full of flavour and ripened on the plant, fed with sugar from the stalk, you can’t get one from a supermarket. It’s just cheaper to pick them early while they’re green, ship them, and let them ‘ripen’ (or turn red) in an enzyme bin, even if they’re not gaining any sugars that way without the plant.
I prefer local home-grown because I prefer delicious tomatoes that last a week in the fridge more than I do sour water-balloons that look pristine and shiny on the counter for twice as long. I buy my food to eat it, not look at it.
You’re describing personal taste. None of what you’ve said establishes these vegetables as “shitty.”
Your description of how seeds are managed at a genetic level by larger corporations is spot-on, however.
Because they taste like shit? They’re also less nutritious too. The entire fucking point of food is to eat it, and we’ve developed varieties that taste bland, are unsatisfying, and are less nutritionally complex. We have un-fooded our food.
Shitty flavour. Shitty nutrition. Shitty anti-trust profit practices.
‘Shitty’ is an adjective for value. Value is personal. Any answer for why somebody would value the food less and consider it shitty is the question you’re asking, and if you don’t like that answer, then your question is dishonest.
If your takeaway from them is that veggies modified to ship, picked green and gassed to ripe is personal taste, you really haven’t a leg to stand on.
He literally states: “I prefer.”
Are you looking for an argument on his behalf?