I recently read the book, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David Kessler
and one of the things he talks about in the book is the fact that "soft, easy to eat/chew" foods are inherently attractve, and exceptionally easy to eat in excess.
I hadn't really thought about how true that seems to be, but I'm noticing more and more cases of this seeming to be true. Examples:
Hubby loves traditionally prepared chinese roasted duck (yes, with bones) - all of the chinese restaurants in the area have switched to boneless duck breast (much less flavor), because customers "complain about the bones."
And the one that really hit home was the Cocktail fruit (sometimes called cocktail grapefruit), a pomelo/mandarin orange hybrid that I was so impressed with, that I included a bag of them in our Christmas gifts to family members for Christmas. I was obviously naive when I expected them all to be as enamored with this wonderful fruit as I am.
The feedback from these family members (none of them overweight, by the way)?
Too many seeds, and not easy to peel?!
WTH?!
In the first place, they're not harder to peel than most oranges (yes, harder to peel than a tangerine, but much easier to peel than a grapefruit - and besides if you hate peeling citrus fruits, then cut them into wedges - it's not rocket science).
As for the "too many seeds," yes most "real" fruit has seeds. These are easy to see, and easy to scrape out or (God Forbid, I suppose) spit out.
To me, something so good is worth the bit of extra effort - but am I swimming upstream on this one? Is peeling a piece of fruit, or eating carefully around seeds or bones, really so inconvenient that taste doesn't matter?
I don't care if something is more work as long as it really does taste better! In fact, I feel that the "work" makes it more enjoyable and slows the meal down so you can really taste your food.
On the other hand, if I'm eating an orange that has 15-20 seeds in it and it's dry and tasteless... not worth it! Yes, this has happened to me and yes, I was annoyed. Had it been a wonderfully juicy and sweet orange the seeds wouldn't have bothered me.
I do understand (but only to a degree) the annoyance factor involved here, especially regarding some fruit seeds.
I prefer seedless grapes and to a lesser degree (because the seeds are easy to spot, I don't mind as much) seedless watermelon.
Grapes are more annoying, because there's really no way to get around the seed, except by spitting them out (and it seems you only find them by biting
into them).
But, what I find perplexing is the criticism of a gift-giver (or even the restaurant) for giving or serving food that must be navigated a bit (are we truly infants that want our food pre-chewed for us?)
That's the image I got from the book, that the author was saying "yes," that's what people want - and initially I didn't agree (until I started noticing all the situations in which that appears to be true - of people wanting it so badly, they were willing to sacrifice flavor in exchange for the ability to eat faster while chewing less).
Obviously seeds, bones and other food "obstacles" are offensive enough to be worth complaining about.
It's still somewhat stumpifying to me. To me, it sounds like whining "Awww you gave me a gift card, that mean I have to actually go get my own gift myself, that's a lot of work!" or "Why didn't you put this gift in a gift bag, so I wouldn't have had to work so hard to unwrap it?"
I don't care if something is more work as long as it really does taste better! In fact, I feel that the "work" makes it more enjoyable and slows the meal down so you can really taste your food.
On the other hand, if I'm eating an orange that has 15-20 seeds in it and it's dry and tasteless... not worth it! Yes, this has happened to me and yes, I was annoyed. Had it been a wonderfully juicy and sweet orange the seeds wouldn't have bothered me.
This is why I didn't think the seeds would be such a big deal. The fruit is (in my opinion) completely awesome. Unlike other citrus, I've not yet found even one piece of the fruit that wasn't virtually perfect (except for the tiny matter of the seeds). They're juicy, easy to break into segments, and the flavor is almost like lemonade, with just a hint of grapefruit and orange. Some lean a bit toward grapefruit flavor, some lean a bit toward orange, but they're always juicy - even when pulled out of the fridge.
I always hated storing citrus in the fridge, but since it's cheaper to buy in larger bags, if I don't want them to go bad before we can finish them, I have to put them in the fridge. Refrigerated citrus tends to seem dryer, and you have to either be content with that, or get your fruit out half an hour before you want to eat it. The cocktail fruit is so juicy straight from the fridge, that the little bit it does dry the fruit just makes it a little less messy to eat.
I have apples, cocktail fruit, and cuties (clementines) in the fridge. Since the cuties are usually just as juicy and sweeter than the cocktails at room temperature, I thought they'd be similar straight from the fridge. So not - the clementines lose a lot more sweetness and juice than the cocktail do from being in the fridge.
Now that I'm singing the praises of these fruits, I think the real issue regarding the Christmas gift is that to most people (and obviously to the recipients who complained), fruit is no longer considered a "good" Christmas gift, it's as bit like getting socks and underwear. Practical, but completely unexciting. Getting seeds in Christmas fruit, must have seemed like getting ugly socks and underwear - with holes in them.
Which is too bad, because I would have been excited to get a bag of these fruit (I love them so much, I'm going to be disappointed when the season is over). Having some of the gift recipients complain, made me wonder if those who had thanked me nicely for them and said they were enjoying them - were just being polite. Which then just made me wish I had all those bags of fruit BACK (because I would have enjoyed each and every one, seeds or not).
I think also that the overabundance of sugar, especially at Christmas can destroy a person's perception of sweetness. If you're eating chocolates like mad, even the sweetest orange is going to taste sour and bitter.
Maybe that's the bigger issue, unless a person is on a track of fairly healthy eating, fruit may be a very disappointing eating experience.
The amount of salt, sugar, and fat in fast food also smacks down the taste buds. I never ate fast food very frequently, but since I've tried to eat more and more whole foods - I know my tastebuds are far more sensitive. I never did care for most potato chips (except some of the kettle chips), because I thought them too salty. Now, those too-salty brands are virtually inedible to me, and I wonder how anyone can eat them - and it's because salt and sugar are like drugs - the more you eat, the more you need just to get the same experience.
A piece of fruit, just doesn't have a chance to compete with that.
I have heard about the pistachio theory......if food takes you longer to eat it then you will lose weight cause you wont eat so much. Just like sunflower seed that are already shelled....you will eat more of them without realizing it than the shelled ones.
Kaplods....they should have never told you the problems they were having with the fruit...thats kinda rude...it was a gift for goodness sakes. But, yes we Americans are pretty lazy and look where its got us
I like crunchy foods, I don't mind picking around seeds, and it was I who went diving around in the ham bone for the tasty bits after Christmas dinner.
But I completely believe the article could be true about most of middle-class and better USA. I can be that way with certain foods, and I know lots of people who are FAAAAAAR worse than I.
Lazy AND stupid. And we wonder why, with all the abundance of food we enjoy, our people are undernourished and overweight...
Here's a story for yas, kaplods: I raise my own beef, pasture fed and lightly grain finished... I know EVERYTHING about where my meat comes from and what goes into it. I usually keep a half and sell on the other three halves on the hoof. Once, one of my buyers offered to give a roast to an acquaintance of theirs... the recipient exclaimed, "I can't take that!! What about MAD COW??" He had noticed the stamp on the packaging which my (extraordinary) butcher is required to put on each package which says, "Not inspected, not for sale."
Clearly, he has no understanding of the conditions required for Mad Cow Disease and has never visited a feed lot... if he had, I'm pretty sure he would have gladly accepted my gently-raised, clean-fed beef over those poor animals standing up to their forelegs in their own waste, injected with massive amounts of antibiotics, hormones and goodness knows what other chemicals.
... the recipient exclaimed, "I can't take that!! What about MAD COW??"
... Clearly, he has no understanding of the conditions required for Mad Cow Disease and has never visited a feed lot... if he had, I'm pretty sure he would have gladly accepted my gently-raised, clean-fed beef over those poor animals standing up to their forelegs in their own waste, injected with massive amounts of antibiotics, hormones and goodness knows what other chemicals.
Yeesh.
Oh YES, we're a disclaimer-as-substitute-for-common-sense society. Even for hubby and I giving out my homemade jerky to family for Christmas, we felt the need to include some sort of "directions" for eating and storing jerky.
With jerky and other dehydrated food products, the rule is really very simple - if it looks, smells or tastes funny - don't eat it. For the most part, with homemade jerky shelf-life is either about mold or not choosing lean enough beef.
If you don't freeze it, homemade jerky may mold (and if it does, don't eat it - not rocket science).
If the beef isn't lean enough, the fat will eventually go rancid (the more fat on the meat, the more quickly this happens - I choose very, very lean beef, but there can be traces of fat - so if you're not going to eat it within a week or two, I always recommend storing jerky in the fridge or freezer).
Rancid fat doesn't taste or smell good - so sniff. If it smells yucky - don't eat it. If it tastes yucky, you spit it out (again, not rocket science).
Sadly, explaining this actually makes some people more paranoid about the food than not saying anything.
I consider our family members fairly intelligent, so I'm even a bit baffled why I felt the need to "explain" not to eat jerky if it became something that didn't smell, taste, or look good - but I didn't want to be responsible for any unfortunate incident.
Even at it's worst, bad jerky probably isn't going to give you anything worse than a bad taste in your mouth - but I just couldn't take the chance.
I'd love to sell my jerky (and friends often say I should) - but the legalities are just far too complicated (having to make the product in a professional kitchen is the least of the problems).
Too lazy to chew or eat carefully?
Needing food to be *that* easy? Sooooo easy to believe about modern American society.
