https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/gen-z-children-immigrants-doomism-leaving-usa-rcna160885
Salah said her rheumatologist was ecstatic when he found out she was leaving the country. “He was anticipating that a lot of my stress would go away when I move abroad, and therefore my lupus would get better,” she said. “And also the quality of food. So he was very, very excited for me.”
my sister now lives in north america, she came back in france 2 weeks ago and the first thing she did was go buy fresh food, she told me food in NA is "diseased" and "miserable".
She's absolutely not wrong. The food here is grown for weight (that means it's all water, and no flavor) and transportation (that means it will taste horrible, and will be available in the store for purchase well before it is ripe).
The rules for pesticide use is also far more lax here than Europe. And food is often sweetened with HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) and is filled with preservatives to increase shelf life (again, a matter of profitability).
Would you like to hear about what happened to the "famous" Florida grown oranges?
Tell us GlueBear! Tell us what happened to the oranges!
They crossbred them with Florida Man
I still remember what Florida oranges used to be.
They used to be large and filled with sweet juice. They had the flavor of oranges and you could always count on a good juice to fruit ratio. Florida oranges were (and are still used today) as juicing oranges. Chances are if you bought orange juice in the u.s, then you were drinking the juice of Florida oranges.
Now oranges are significantly dryer and lack the flavor they used to have. I tested it out by eating the fruit straight, and it was tougher to chew and had less juice (and less flavor) in each slice. I even bought some orange juice not too long ago, and this juice wasn't from concentrate either. It was made from fresh squeezed Florida oranges, and that was the only ingredient on the package.
When I tell you that it tastes like water with orange fruit essence and sugar added in, I'm not exaggerating one bit. It was the worst tasting orange juice I had ever had, and mind you this was from one of the more widely purchased brands of orange juice in the US (they proudly advertise their use of Florida oranges on the package).
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/florida-citrus-loses-its-sweet-taste-scientists-are-hunt-solutions
In the link above, it states that this distinct change in flavor and juice content it's due to a disease that is affecting most of the harvest. However well before this disease hit, I remember that Florida oranges were large because the fruit inside was large. Now the oranges are massive, and that's due to the pith becoming significantly thicker. The fruit inside stayed the same size, got dryer and more bland, but the pith got significantly thicker. So you pay more for the weight increase, even though that increase didn't come from more fruit it came from a thicker pith.
So even the best tasting fruit you could get grown in the u.s became like u.s tomatoes. Large, bland, and more expensive because of the size. Produce in this country has been going down in general.
Everytime I go to the store to grab some lettuce I always have to double check for E. Coli or listeria contaminations because of how frequently they have occured in the last years. Jalapenos are becoming less spicy, they're crossed that way so more people can buy them. For come reason, cucumbers go bad even quicker than they used to unless you splurge and by the large variety that comes shrink wrapped with a single cucumber in the package.
It's really bad now, basic ingredients have lost their flavors. I can see why people prefer fast food now, if they can afford it of course.
Even the fucking chicken you get from the store has gotten fucked up by capitalism. I'll post about that in another comment.
As for the chicken, holy fuck. They've become almost inedible. I say almost because I hate to waste food, even horribly cooked food.
Because chickens have been bred for faster and larger growth, the meat itself now has problems. There's a disease called "woody breast"
https://animalsaotearoa.org/2023/08/23/woody-breast-chicken-meat/#:~:text=Woody%20breast%20is%20a%20myopathy,the%20hard%20consistency%20after%20death.
You can read more about it here, but in summary: chicken breast texture has changed for the worst because of the industry's insistence on faster growth and larger chickens. The link above has some pictures with it too. It's absolutely awful, and it's one of the reasons I eat so little meat in general.
Fuck, we even got green chicken in the US. And it's because of the same problem that led to "woody breast" disease.
https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/What-is-ischemic-myopathy#:~:text=In%20very%20large%20turkeys%20and,large%20for%20the%20blood%20supply.
The u.s government website fucking talking about it. And here are some pictures:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8074223/amp/Shoppers-left-feeling-sick-discovering-discoloured-meat-inside-fresh-poultry.html
https://www.maplecreekpoultry.com/notes-and-information/whys-it-green
Only in the u.s can you get green fucking chicken.
It's disgusting.
I found a Google AMP link in your comment! I've removed Google's spyware for you! :3
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See my other comments in the replies, I want everyone to know about the green chicken that's unique to the u.s
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I've never been interested in pork (way too many parasites, like more than salmon). But yeah, the US just keeps creating it's own problems.
I can't even rely on my fucking lettuce being contamination free. Strawberries are another culprit to the dreaded "recall notice" you get on produce.
I think I read somewhere that it's because of animal waste cross contamination through waterings. But I've also read that it's because the shipment process that brought the produce from the farm to the store has been "optimized" for profitability. So food stays in factory holding longer than it used to, which gives more opportunities for bacteria to contaminate.
I dropped two comments talking about oranges and chicken if you're interested.
Giving the non-yanks a glimpse into the food situation here in freedom land.
thank you, very informative
I got more horror stories if you want; our berries taste like nothing but have some of the highest amounts of pesticide use out of all produce commercially grown in the u.s
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.downtoearth.org/environment/organic-vs-conventional-farming/dirty-dozen-most-heavily-sprayed-foods&ved=2ahUKEwiXwd6uysOHAxXOvokEHcmgBDMQFnoECCcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3RM3IC9RzUf0o-YpJwEuG7
I'll stop for now