Comment by dylan604
20 hours ago
> and call it great injustice.
The great injustice is very much me paying however much per pound of peaches when the supply is so great that they should be much cheaper.
However, if these are the trees that grow rock hard peaches that never soften as they ripen with no flavor, then bulldoze them all and say good riddance. Hell, might as well take of and nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
> The great injustice is very much me paying however much per pound of peaches when the supply is so great that they should be much cheaper.
But its not, because the supply and competing demands for motor fuel and all the other things that are required between the orchard are involved, not just the supply of peaches at the orchard.
You want BC Okanagan peaches. I've found them to be dramatically better than anything that's come out of the states for some reason. Granted, most of those would probably be coming from the western half of the country
I'll trade you for some Palisade peaches. Looking at year average temperatures the climates seem pretty similar, so I bet they are bomb!
There's a floor on what they can charge, though: the cost of maintaining the land, the cost of labor to harvest, the cost to process the peaches and package them, the cost to ship them to the store, and the store's cost to hold them in inventory before you buy them.
A business cannot stay in operation if the only way to sell the product is to sell it below cost[0]. Having all this excess production is exactly why Del Monte failed as a company. There's no point in building a business to provide people with below-cost food; it's not sustainable and is ultimately wasteful.
Find a way to get the peaches from the trees to people's homes cheaper? Great, do that, and maybe you can sell more at a lower price.
Or produce fewer until you can sell at a price above cost without much waste. We don't wring our hands at factory owners when they don't manufacture a huge surplus of toys that no one wants to buy. We shouldn't be upset when farmers decide to stop growing as much of a certain crop because they can't sell it all. I get the visceral reaction against killing trees. But that's an emotional response that has nothing to do with the reality of the situation. I would much rather that land be used for a more productive crop that people actually want to buy, at prices that reflect what it costs to produce.
[0] Cue VC-funded startup jokes.
When I moved to the US from southern Europe I was so horrified by the lack of taste of any fruit I tried, particularly the peaches and plums. I moved back to Europe and not a small factor was the lack of good produce and food in general. Its just mind boggling how Americans dont revolt against this, stop buying shit produce and suppliers will notice.
That's so odd to me. You can buy cheap, cost-optimized fruit in the US. You can also buy amazing produce that would blow your mind. My wife and I look forward to our annual road trip to Monterey partly because of the fruit stands we pass along the way where we'll get cherries so dark they're nearly black, and strawberries the size of my fist (no, really, I have pictures) that are sweet as sugar and incredibly delicious.
The existence of Subway doesn't mean you can't get phenomenal deli sandwiches. It does mean you probably need to look around a little more and don't settle for the first sandwich place you see.
Edit: This is my wife holding one of those strawberries. We took that picture from the sheer absurdity of it. The pack of berries hardly survived the rest of the drive. We'd eaten almost all of them by the time we arrived at the B&B. https://share.icloud.com/photos/0ebgyxOMT9LpyjhfKuLQWD0kw
IME there is a large difference in quality in what is available at the super market. Sure I can do a once a year road trip to Monterey. The average organic heirloom tomato at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's is worse than the average organic heirloom tomato at Spar
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> strawberries the size of my fist
No thanks. The most wonderful strawberries I ever tasted were wild ones picked on a disused Welsh railway line, probably a centimetre or so in size.
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Subway (and McDonald's et al.) did run a bunch of local diners, restaurants, and cafeterias out of business, though. The ones that sold the middle ground between "optimized slop" and "bespoke actual food made by expensive chefs."
Strawberries are not the size of fists. Ever wonder what they put in those?
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This is a funny statement in that California has probably the best agricultural produce on the planet. If you were in say Texas or Georgia - you could be forgiven for your statement.
Bay area produce is unparalleled - Tomatoes, peaches, figs, strawberries, etc.
More organic growers if thats what you care about - high quality growers. There is also massive commercial growers doing high volume low cost but you do need to know where to look.
I visited California a month ago and had some of the best strawberries I've ever had for $4/quart off the side of the road near Bakersfield (best I had was Oshii berries before they started to sell to grocers, but that was at luxury fruit prices).
The Sunnyvale farmers market was a different story though. Two of the vendors gave out samples. One of them tasted like Safeway strawberries. The other gave out these small strawberries that were really sweet, and this vendor had a lot more business even though their berries were $1 more expensive. However, the ones that the vendor actually sold were much bigger than the sample strawberries. I was suspicious, but bought them anyways. Sure enough, when I tried them, they tasted like Safeway strawberries. My takeaway from this experience is that America sells bad produce less so due to supply reasons and more so that Americans just have poor taste in produce.
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That's funny specifically about peaches that you call out Georgia. Also, I am in Texas, and some of the best peaches I've had are from East Texas. Not really sure why you picked those two states. Sounds like you haven't been to either and are way out over your skis here.
I live in NorCal and agree with you that we have great produce, but it's a little weird to single out Texas and Georgia (the latter especially on an article about peaches!). There's plenty of good produce to be had in both of those places, though I'm sure quality varies across a state as large as Texas (just like it does in California to some extent).
It’s bit like complaining that they had plenty of skiing opportunities in Switzerland, but when they moved to Florida there weren’t any.
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See my other comment: in 20+ years in the Bay Area, compared to 25 in SW Ontario (Canada): the BEST peach I've had in 20+ years in the Bay Area wouldn't even make it as "a good one" of the bunches we had every summer in Canada. Not sure where they came from, but from personal experience, Bay Area peaches suck REALLY hard. I've WANTED to find some good ones, because I miss them, and they're always super hard or already rotten.
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California maybe has best produce in the US, but far from the best produce on the planet. Not sure how you came to this conclusion. The Mediterranean region is uncontested #1. The cuisines of the mediterranean are so good because the produce we had here was so good, not the other way around.
I've stopped buying peaches from the supermarkets. They just are not worth it. To get peaches with actual flavor, I have to get them from special vendors that know they have better peaches and charge accordingly.
The suppliers don't notice when the numbers that stop are rounding errors. The vast majority of people don't have any experience with anything other than supermarket produce and don't know there's a choice. Growing up as a kid, I didn't know there were so many varieties of apples. Our store only carried red delicious, golden, and granny smith. It wasn't until I moved out of the sticks and saw more varieties. Some people never move, so they only know what they know and never experience new
Same with Maui Gold pineapples. I can't eat the Dole crap you get everywhere else. The ones at the markets in Maui are a completely different fruit, they're like candy. Whenever I go I eat them until my tongue burns from the citric acid.
This is what happens when you optimize your food supply for profit instead of being edible; varieties are selected for yield, longevity and shipping rather than flavor or nutrients. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.
Not sure that's citric acid doing that, it's probably bromelain, which can be used as a meat tenderizer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromelain
> Whenever I go I eat them until my tongue burns from the citric acid.
Been to Maui once, and this was pretty much my exact experience as well. Thought I was the only weird one to do that. I only slowed down though until it got really bad before stopping. Wish I was smarter to stop earlier ::face-palm::
My understanding is that it's all bred to be easier and faster to grow. Flavour isn't first in the value equation.
And longer shelf life. And flavor isn't in the top 10
Yes. Flavour isnt the main factor, its easier and faster growing, not spoiling, basically all the factors that are what a supermarket asks for. Here in southern europe flavor is the main concern. The flavorless produce doesnt fly here because nobody would buy that crap. We have standards. When I was living in the US I was shopping in wholefoods only and buying the most expensive varieties of the produce, and it still sucked xD
You are comparing fruit in a prime stone fruit-growing region to the US.
The US is big and fruit needs to be refrigerated to be transported. Refrigeration kills aromatics.
I assume you would have a similar experience buying plums in Germany. Similarly, if you bought stone fruit in California where it is grown, it would taste good.
> stop buying shit produce and suppliers will notice
Unless you are willing to pay $30/peach for them to be flown next day on a jet, peaches in New York are not going to taste as good as they do off the tree.
Fill up the jet with 20,000 tons of peaches ... your price per peach will be different.
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> Its just mind boggling how Americans dont revolt against this, stop buying shit produce and suppliers will notice.
How would most Americans know there's a difference? A large plurality will never leave the country in their lifetime, and many won't even leave the area where they grew up in.
Even for those who travel to some extent, eating as a tourist will rarely give you the experience of going to a grocery store, buying fresh produce, and eating it.
And even if a tourist ends up with some really amazing produce in another country, they'll likely chalk it up to a lucky, isolated incident, and not think much of it. Or it's just the "everything is better when you're on vacation" phenomenon. They'll go back home and be back to eating what they're used to.
To be fair, though, there is plenty of wonderful, flavorful produce in the US. There are a few problems, though:
1. Some areas in the US truly are underserved and have bad produce. And by "areas" that can even mean small pockets here and there, where you may only have to drive an extra 20 minutes to get good produce, but it doesn't even occur to you to try, because you assume it will be the same.
2. In the US we seem to believe that we should be able to get every single kind of produce year-round, regardless of what's in season. So you might see something on the shelves all year, but it's only actually really good for a month or three. The experience during the rest of the year will tend to dominate your opinion.
3. You're more likely to get better quality at a more expensive, boutique-like grocer, or at a farmer's market. Most Americans just don't shop at places like those when there's a cheaper, large chain grocery store available. Farmer's markets can be especially difficult when they're only open a day or two per week, and busy people/families need more flexibility.
For reference, I live in northern California, and there's plenty of fantastic produce here. Yes, when I go to something like Safeway (part of a huge grocery chain), I don't expect anything terribly amazing. It's fine, but nothing special. But I have a small local grocery a couple blocks away from me that usually has great produce (though sometimes it can be hit-or-miss with some items), and they also make an effort to stock many items based on growing season. I've been to various places in Europe many times, and have even been to grocery stores and bought produce so we could cook dinners in an Airbnb. I've generally had a good experience with the produce there, but I wouldn't say it's notably better than where I live in the US.
Exactly. I can see a lot of US apple juice bottles that contain a liquid resembling piss.
It's disgusting.
Real apple juice is dark brown and tastes nothing like the golden liquid mentioned above.
They sell "real" apple juice in the US. It's just called apple cider and you can find it at any supermarket.
"Apple cider is raw, unfiltered, and often unpasteurized apple juice, resulting in a cloudy, dark appearance and rich, tart flavor. Apple juice is filtered to remove pulp, pasteurized for a longer shelf life, and often sweeter. Cider is usually seasonal and refrigerated, whereas juice is shelf-stable"
Europeans consistently visit a gas station and conclude this must be all there is to eat in America.
It's hard to vote with your dollar when market economics are such that only a handful of (massive) firms sell almost all of thing you're protesting. What leverage does one have in the age of oligopolistic enshittification?
> Its just mind boggling how Americans dont revolt against this, stop buying shit produce and suppliers will notice.m
There’s a large swath of America that has a deeply ingrained mentality of “food is for fuel, not enjoyment.” It’s a Protestant idea that entered the culture and became ingrained to the point where nobody remembers the origins but are still influenced by it.
I was in Iowa a few years ago, and the food is awful. I don’t think the food in Iowa used to be great “100 years ago before modern factory farming,” etc. I suspect it’s always been awful, and people just don’t care about it very much as long as they get the calories they need.
And I don’t think it’s just “U.S. consumerism blah blah” either. The Anglo food in Canada and the UK sucks too. They just don’t care.
>However, if these are the trees that grow rock hard peaches that never soften as they ripen with no flavor, t
That's not even how trees work. If they wanted, those same trees could grow plums within 2 years, or almonds, or pretty much any stonefruit except cherries (which tend to be incompatible).
Yes, trees are magical, but there are better peaches to grow of these are the ones being grown
Then please explain to me how trees work.
Grafting is how nearly 100% of many fruit varieties are grown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafting
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https://www.google.com/search?q=tree+grafting
I think they're fusing different fruit tree cuttings to a common trunk.