Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/

He's right on as far as I'm concerned.

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

"ImStillMags" > wrote in message
...
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/
>
> He's right on as far as I'm concerned.

I agree with him. I just can't see it happening. :(

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

On 2/2/2011 5:50 PM, ImStillMags wrote:
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/
>
> He's right on as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, too bad many of the suggestions are common-sense ways to improve
many things, especially the bottom lines for many budgets -- for states
& federal! Since it makes too much sense, it can't work, right? But of
course, the 'gubmints' can't operate that way - too many politicians
with too many interests that aren't 'of the people, for the people, or
by the people' (well, however that saying goes)!

Sky

--

Ultra Ultimate Kitchen Rule - Use the Timer!
Ultimate Kitchen Rule -- Cook's Choice!!

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 15:50:13 -0800 (PST), ImStillMags
> wrote:

> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/
>
> He's right on as far as I'm concerned.

I agree too and especially liked this -

Mandate truth in labeling. Nearly everything labeled “healthy” or
“natural” is not. It’s probably too much to ask that “vitamin water”
be called “sugar water with vitamins,” but that’s precisely what real
truth in labeling would mean.

--

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

ImStillMags wrote:
>
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/
>
> He's right on as far as I'm concerned.

What will food look like in the 22nd century? About the only thing
we can say for certain is that it won't be anything like food today,
but here are a few modest predictions:

MASS-FREE FOOD -- the next generation of dieter's food beyond "fat-
free" is "mass-free". These will be extremely light but strong
edible structures made from freeze-dried agarose, the world's lightest
solid material. The material is colored, flavored, and texturized to
resemble bread, baked potato, etc. A "mass-free" hamburger on a bun
will weigh only 1 gram. Don't put mustard or ketchup (preferred IUPAC
nomenclature over "catsup") on it, because the water they contain will
break down the structure of the freeze-dried agarose.

RESTAURANTS -- direct brain-implant/virtual-reality technology
will let people experience animal eating experiences. For example,
you could directly experience what a cat feels when it catches and
eats a mouse. Restaurants will specialize in particular eating
experiences, for example they might have a yard populated by
rabbits and a set of falcons. Or a large aquarium and some piranha.

FAST FOOD -- with the excellence that will be available in food-
experience restaurants and home food-entertainment centers,
the lesser quality eat-out places will degenerate into a role
where they provide food for purely nutritional purposes, for
people who don't have time for a restaurant experience or home
cooking.

A fast food restaurant will be like a gas station, a place you stop
on a long road trip to get re-fueled. Molecular assembly technology
will allow a portable car unit to generate the delights of home
cooking from a unit the size of an ash-tray, if the "fast food
service station" can provide the necessary raw materials (e.g. glucose,
amino acids, etc.) to tank up the food synthesis unit.

SMART FOOD -- the development of edible semiconductors will
allow snack chips, etc. to plead for its life prior to being eaten.
"Please don't eat me! Please don't eat me! AAAHHHRRRGG!"

SNACK FOOD -- In early 22nd century, the most popular snack food
will be Nacho Critters edible robots by Nabisco. Based mostly on a
wheat-corn alloy, fried in zero-calorie non-fat vegetable shortening,
these are little crisp chips shaped like gingerbread men, but only
about 1 1/4 inches tall (that's 2.733 decihectares, for our Canadian
friends). When you open the bag, the sudden exposure to oxygen
activates their neural circuitry and locomotive machinery which
permits them to walk around for a few minutes.

Open the bag, and they slowly walk out, then proceed in random
directions. Left to themselves, it creates a real mess because they
get into everything! Then they "die", which causes problems if you
got ants. It's fun to put the critters in a big jar with a stopper on
it and watch them crawl over each other trying to get out! Dogs and
cats love Nacho Critters!

FOOD WEAPONS -- with the ever-increasing population, disruption
of food supplies will become increasingly common. To meet this
problem, food weapons will be developed which can feed large
numbers of people from the safety of a helicopter gunship. A food
weapon would be aimed at the person being fed. The projectile
would be a like the stinger of a honeybee, barbed to hold it in
place and with a sac of chemicals which are pumped in through the
stinger. Attempts to remove it before the sac was empty would
be extremely painful. The stinger would time-release its contents,
then shrivel up and drop off once it was empty. Birth-control
chemicals, anti-AIDS drugs, and Prozac could be included in
addition to the nutrient food chemicals.

CARCINOGENIC FOOD -- advanced medical technology will make most
human illnesses curable, including cancer. This will eliminate any
reason not to eat the wide range of delicious food additives such as
safrole that are currently banned. In fact, there's a wide range of
wonderful new dangerous food additives waiting to be discovered!

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD -- soon it will be possible to transfer
genetic material between completely different animals. The dream
of a cow that gives chocolate milk is fast approaching reality. How
will this boon be used? Probably we'll make many of the same
combinations we do today in convenience foods for the microwave,
except the food would be grown in a pre-mixed, ready-to-eat
condition. Instead of buying frozen, you'll buy live! It'll taste
much better than frozen because it'll be real fresh, the animal not
actually dying until about 30 seconds after you hit START on the
microwave. You won't ever have to worry about your Chicken
Cordon Bleu leaking, because it won't have a seam. Advertising
jingles can be genetically programmed into the brains of food.
Just stick the food in the oven, and in the last few seconds you hear
"M'mm m'mm good, m'mm m'mm good, Campbell's ChickeAAAACK!"

COOKING SHOWS -- advanced molecular replication technology will
allow you to smell, taste, and even sample the food seen on cooking
shows. They may also be used so that members of the audience
can interact with the chef, sending him samples of their own recipes.
And you can enjoy the same meal over and over again, just by
popping the same tape in the TV. The TV and microwave oven
are likely to converge into a single unit, responsible for both food
and entertainment.

FOOD SCARES -- the one disease completely untreatable by advanced
medical technology is hypochondria. There will be rumors of software
bombs implanted in food programming. These would range from just
causing a case of gas, to making someone sick, to programming
all the food animals to rise up at one time and take control of
society.

REUSEABLE FOOD -- a food flavor delivery system, consisting of a
texture unit and rate-controlled flavor agent releasing system.
It's sort of like a big piece of chewing gum, except the texture
will be programmable (e.g., chewy like jerky, delicate and brittle
like baklava, tender like meat). The flavor will also be programmable,
by releasing different flavors in unique combinations. In fact, the
flavor and texture can change while you're chewing it, so a complete
meal with many courses can be enjoyed without even removing the
device from your mouth.

MICROSOFT FOOD -- the software which produces food from your
standard PC architecture will literally have bugs in it.
Malicious computer viruses invented by thirteen-year-olds will
modify the executable file of Food for Windows so that when you
bite into a chocolate chip cookie off the computer, it'll be
filled on the inside with earwigs, worms, and cockroaches.

PLAYING WITH YOUR FOOD -- toward the end of the century, food robots
will progress to the point where you can chase your food around the
house, have sex with your food, and your food won't know it's food
until you start eating it. Some of the lesser-willed members of
society will fall in love with their food and want to get married
to food, but the food industry will modify their products to keep
that from happening before the food-lovers have enough political
clout to obtain civil rights for food.

RACE-SPECIFIC FLAVOR AND TEXTURE AGENTS -- as food hits tongue,
food analyzes the DNA of the eater and decides what ethnic group
they belong to. The flavor and texture of food then automatically
adjusts (e.g. hotter for Mexicans and Thais, creamier for
the French, a flavor component connoting "spoiled meat"
for the British).

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

ImStillMags wrote:
>
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/
>
> He's right on as far as I'm concerned.

Disagree on one point:

"Outlaw concentrated animal feeding operations and
encourage the development of sustainable animal husbandry.
The concentrated system degrades the environment, directly
and indirectly, while torturing animals and producing tainted
meat, poultry, eggs, and, more recently, fish."

Baloney. Concentrated operations only appear to be
damaging to the environment when seen (and smelled)
up close because they have lots of manure in a small
place. Distributed operations produce the same amount,
but you don't see so much all in one place. When you
have it in one place, you can apply technologies (like
turning it into methane) that are not practical on the
scale of a mom-and-pop farm.

Also, a large operation can afford a vet and lab to catch
occurrences of pathogens that are not detected by a
mom-and-pop operation.

But I agree with this:

"We should provide food education for children (a new form
of home ec, anyone?), cooking classes for anyone who wants
them and even cooking assistance for those unable to cook
for themselves."

I want to fire all of the school cafeteria workers
everywhere. Let the students use the facilities to
prepare their own food. Students who know how to cook
will have elevated status, which is how it should be.

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

On 2011-02-02, ImStillMags > wrote:
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/
>
> He's right on as far as I'm concerned.

Basically, the same stuff hippies, health food advocates, and anyone
with a brain have been advocating for half a century. He states
nothing new or offers no new insights. It's never gonna happen cuz
all the people who agree have no lobbying power. Soon as organic food
farmers can raise more PAC funds than agribiz, we may see a dent.
Otherwise, we're all going down the same yellow crap road.

nb

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

ImStillMags wrote:
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/
>
> He's right on as far as I'm concerned.

You know, I was quite impressed that he ended his column and is
truly committed to this. Good ideas!

--
Jean B.

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

Julie Bove wrote:
> "ImStillMags" > wrote in message
> ...
>> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/
>>
>> He's right on as far as I'm concerned.
>
> I agree with him. I just can't see it happening. :(
>
>
As I say about other things, as far as individuals go (as vs the
government--we can only hope it wises up), it is each of us that
adds up to the whole. We can get back into doing a lot more home
cooking. We can encourage local farmers et al. whose standards we
agree with. We can buy products that are wholesome and (as far as
we know) uncontaminated.

--
Jean B.

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

sf wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 15:50:13 -0800 (PST), ImStillMags
> > wrote:
>
>> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/
>>
>> He's right on as far as I'm concerned.
>
> I agree too and especially liked this -
>
> Mandate truth in labeling. Nearly everything labeled “healthy” or
> “natural” is not. It’s probably too much to ask that “vitamin water”
> be called “sugar water with vitamins,” but that’s precisely what real
> truth in labeling would mean.
>
I would like to see more meaningful labels. For starters, where
are the components from, not just where a product was manufactured.

--
Jean B.

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

Mark Thorson > wrote:

>Baloney. Concentrated operations only appear to be
>damaging to the environment when seen (and smelled)
>up close because they have lots of manure in a small
>place. Distributed operations produce the same amount,
>but you don't see so much all in one place. When you
>have it in one place, you can apply technologies (like
>turning it into methane) that are not practical on the
>scale of a mom-and-pop farm.
>
>Also, a large operation can afford a vet and lab to catch
>occurrences of pathogens that are not detected by a
>mom-and-pop operation.

One impact of CAFO has been to drive down the price
of meat/poultry so that Americans consume way more of these
products than they otherwise would. This, in turn, creates a larger
impact on the environment than is necessary.

Want a dead zone in the Gulf? Eat more meat. Offshore drilling
unnecessary.


Steve

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 15:50:13 -0800 (PST), ImStillMags wrote:

> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/
>
> He's right on as far as I'm concerned.

i don't think you can provide the variety of food at (sorta) low prices to
people that they are now used to without relying to some extent on
factory-scale farming. (now, if you want to limit eating meat to once or
twice a week, maybe.) i'd be careful what you wish for - the diet of most
people before, say, 1900 was not all that exciting.

i'm not saying the current system is perfect, but that the idealized past
never really existed.

your pal,
blake

Mark Bittman has an opinion piece about the future of our food
 

blake murphy wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 15:50:13 -0800 (PST), ImStillMags wrote:
>
> > http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...or-the-future/
> >
> > He's right on as far as I'm concerned.
>
> i don't think you can provide the variety of food at (sorta) low prices to
> people that they are now used to without relying to some extent on
> factory-scale farming. (now, if you want to limit eating meat to once or
> twice a week, maybe.) i'd be careful what you wish for - the diet of most
> people before, say, 1900 was not all that exciting.
>
> i'm not saying the current system is perfect, but that the idealized past
> never really existed.
>
> your pal,
> blake

There are only two options:

- Control the human population

- Live with the need for factory scale farming.