Food and Food Culture

Every recipe I find for mac & cheese says to make a roux, but I don't remember my mom making a roux for her mac & cheese when I was a kid and now I'm trying to remember how she did it.

My schools had decent cheeseburgers and chicken patties.

Unilever will be spinning off its ice cream business, which includes five of the top ten ice cream brands, into its own company to save costs.

The main five brands of the company are Magnum, Ben & Jerry’s, Breyers, Walls, and Cornetto.

Edited by tclittle on Mar 19th 2024 at 11:54:32 AM

Who’s heard that this will soon be a thing?

Source is IGN: https://www.ign.com/articles/star-wars-blue-milk-can-soon-finally-be-consumed-at-home-if-youre-into-that

Well, it's gotta be better than what they used in the actual movie.

Can't wait to sullenly eat cereal with it while my mother kvetches at me!

But seriously, I did enjoy the blue milk at WDW but I don't think it's for sale in the great white north. How would they get it into bags?

Business Wire is saying that McDonald’s is preparing to have all their locations serving donuts from Krispy Kreme by the end of 2026.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240326675550/en/McDonald80%99sAE-USA-and-Krispy-KremeAE-Announce-Expanded-National-Partnership

Sounds like a move of Desperation from Krispy Kreme.

They haven't been doing well the past couple of years, IIRC.

Perdue is running a campaign based around not putting antibiotics in their products, but I don't know if I want to eat food that doesn't have antibiotics in them.

… Is that something food companies usually do?

It depends on the country.

Generaly speaking its safer for the food to be vaccinated just like you are, but people are obsessed with stuff being "organic"

It's not that they add it to it during production, it's that they give them to the chicken while its alive so that its healthier... and thus safer to eat.

Edited by Imca on Mar 27th 2024 at 6:15:37 PM

The narrative is that factory farming relies on heavy doses of antibiotics to prevent or manage outbreaks of disease.

Whereas organic meat, at least in Europe, generally means it's to free range standards as well.

Edited by Mrph1 on Mar 27th 2024 at 9:20:35 AM

Sounds like a disease outbreak waiting to happen at first glance.

I know that in the US, lots of livestock are just generally fed antibiotics throughout their whole life, both for the purposes of disease control, and because many animals grow heavier if they're continuously fed antibiotics (I'm not aware of any research into why this happens, but I assume it likely has something to do with messing up the microbiome). There isn't a lot of research into whether this kind of antibiotic use causes any adverse effects on the humans eating the foot, but there are legitimate concerns that this kind of antibiotic use is contributing to the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

So, the short version is that I don't believe there's any evidence to suggest that antibiotic-free animal product is any better or worse for you. There is some evidence that antibiotic free (or at least antibiotic-light) is better for society as a whole.

Yeah, it seemed to me that antibiotics were supposed to be taken in small doses in a controlled manner, not force-fed in massive amounts…

To be quite fair, Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria is a major issue that I think food producers want to avoid if they feed their animals too many of them.

From what I've read on the subject matter, there isn't any major safety issue for individual chickens being fed antibiotics, in that any healthy meat product that takes antibiotics is safe to consume, but that the overuse of antibiotics poses a major risk to the food supply chain. Antibiotics are purely for treating bacterial infections, they are not a vaccine against viruses. When used sparingly and targeted towards specific infections, it can prevent foodborne illnesses. But if used constantly and on healthy individuals, it can breed antibiotic-resistance, meaning more of the food gets sick and more chance of that antibiotic-resistant bacteria making it to us.

There are practices where although the food treated in that manner is safe for consumption, the practices are banned or heavily restricted for potentially systemic issues, like how Europe banned chlorine washing poultry. Chlorine washing to kill bacteria has been stated to be safe and sound for food consumption, but Europe banned the practice ostensibly for two major reasons. One, using chlorine washing made it easier to hide more unhygienic food production practices, since producers would raise the food in dirty conditions, then chlorine wash after the fact. Combined that with the heavy use of antibiotics and that is a potential issue for food safety. A lot of European food producers use farm to fork food production methods as a means of increasing food safety at the source, than potentially cleaning it later down the production line. Two, there have been cases where bacteria have survived the chlorine washing, but the act of chlorine washing increases the rate of false negatives in lab detection of foodborne bacteria. Now others have stated that this is just BS protectionism to protect European farmers and there is nothing wrong with the current US food production methods. Not sure where to stand on the reasoning on both ends.

It is protectionism...but it's also not wrong about the problems with overusing antibiotics.

Edited by M84 on Mar 27th 2024 at 10:23:46 PM

I am not sure where the scientific consensus stands on chlorine, myself. That antibiotic use in the livestock industry spreads resistances however is a well-established concept.

I imagine vaccining lifestock for all the possible bacteria wouldn't be cost effective compared to spamming antibiotics. Or just not work given living conditions being crap.

A bipartisan set of US Senators have sent a letter to the USDA to ask them not to reclassify potatoes, keeping it as a vegetable rather than considering the interchangeability of starchy veggies and grains.

Vaccines need to be tailored to each pathogen, don't exist for the vast majority of pathogens anyway, and breakthrough infections (as well as "antigenic mimicry") are a thing.

So, Perdue was right?

Scientifically, all edible grains are vegetables.

To my understanding, botanically speaking, the term "vegetable" doesn't have any particular meaning. "Vegetable" is more of a culinary/nutritional term.