# Freeze This!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [September 1, 2000, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657 "2000-09-01T15:43:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/1 "2000-09-01T15:43:58Z")
Clarence Birdseye can kiss my ass!
I bought a bag of your frozen mixed vegetables, you money-grubbing bastard. What the fuck makes you think I wanted 3/4 of a bag of chopped broccoli and cauliflower **STEMS**? I didn’t see any stems in the picture on the bag!
And don’t sit over there looking so smug, Freshlike and Green Giant. You’re just as guilty. You can “ho,ho,ho” all you like, you botanical thyroid case, I’m not taking any more.
**Seven** actual broccoli heads. Seven. Fucking 7? Out of 50 or so pieces? I cannot believe you have the guts to bag up your floor sweepings and sell them to me for $2.00. No more. I am hereby boycotting the frozen vegetable industry. I refuse to pay good money for food that is usually fed to hogs.
Now go shove a frozen broccoli stem up your ass.
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### Author:  [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/2 "2000-09-01T15:48:20Z")
When I was young (teens) I had my boyfriend over for dinner. He was excruciatingly shy. So we’re eating and the veggie is broccoli. EVERY SINGLE PIECE IS A STEM. Every stinking one! So we’re all eating, and I’m thinking “No way am I the only one who notices this”. So I say “Mom- this meal is great. Did they have a special on broccoli stems at the store this week?”
He almost busted a gut trying not to laugh. The whole table cracked up, and it was a great tension breaker. I think about it every time I have frozen broccoli.
Zette
PS- Fuck You, Clarence Birdseye!
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### Author:  [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/3 "2000-09-01T16:05:19Z")
Fuck you Birdseye! you got rid of that really old guy who used to do play Capitan Birdseye.
come to think of it… maybe they were right to stop the ad campaign that showed an entire boat full of childeren eternallly out at sea with an dodgy looking old man.
Then they replaced him with some pathetic looking Male model with George Michael Macho-man stubble! It looks stupid and kids arent impressed!
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### Author:  [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/4 "2000-09-01T16:09:58Z")
Birdsyeye, hmmm. Gotta remember that.
Broccoli stems is my fav-o-rite. The florette part always gets stuck in my teeth.
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### Author:  [@Engineer\_Don](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engineer_Don)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/5 "2000-09-01T16:26:32Z")
I hate the false advertising. I think the broccoli / cauliflower mixes ought to be clearly labeled “parts of plants you wouldn’t normally eat.” I detest the companies that do this.
But don’t blame Clarence Birdseye! He’s a personal hero of mine. He pionered frozen food, an act which helped lead the U.S. into the world leading position that it is in today. Due partly to refrigeration technology, about 90% of U.S. agricultural products grown and harvested make it to consumers. In countries without reliable refrigeration, this number is generally less than 30%. For the sake of survival, a country’s resources are generally allocated to food production before other things, so a cheap reliable source of food allows resources to go to other things like the arts and sciences. Sure Clarence was a small piece of such development, along with Willis Carrier et al, but the work he did was important to our current prosperity. So please back off Clarence, and place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the money grubing fiends who sell the broccoli “flowerettes” for a high price and sell the improperly labled stems to the rest of us. Bastards.
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### Author:  [@BullDawg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BullDawg)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/6 "2000-09-01T16:41:51Z")
What a hilarious thread. Keep up the good work, team.
Thank you. Drive through.
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### Author:  [@Lucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/7 "2000-09-01T17:03:44Z")
[only slightly related to the topic side request]
**Engineer Don;**
I’m fascinated by your stats regarding how much food makes it to the consumer market in countries without refrigeration. (No, seriously. I know it sounds like I have no life, but I swear I am actually honestly really interested). If it’s not too much trouble, could you tell me where you found those stats?
Thanks.
[/blah blah blah side request]
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### Author:  [@barker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barker)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/8 "2000-09-01T17:26:20Z")
Anyone that buys a bag of frozen vegetables at the end of summer deserves to get all stems. If it was February I could understand buying frozen vegetables, but not now.
Don’t they have fresh produce where you shop? Don’t they have any farm stands? Why are you supporting those giant corporations when there must be local farmers somewhere around you.
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### Author:  [@Necros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necros)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/9 "2000-09-01T17:34:40Z")
Thanks, **barker**. I’m glad someone said it. If you are buying frozen vegetables, you deserve whatever crap you get. If they filled bags with dog shit and sold them to you at $2 a bag, I’m not sure I would be angry at them.
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### Author:  [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/10 "2000-09-01T17:35:31Z")
a-HA!!! I knew you were out there, Birdseye! Calling yourself **barker** is pure irony, because you have all the morals of a sideshow barker. Very clever, trying to shift the onus to me,but it won’t work! Now go back to “pioneering frozen food”, or whatever that other guy was talking about.\*
\*yeah, like that was so great."hmm… I think I’ll stick these peas in the freezer. _I’m a GENIUS!!!"_ [/sarcasm]
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### Author:  [@barker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barker)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/11 "2000-09-01T18:09:52Z")
You do great detective work **Chief**. I thought I would throw you off my tracks by pushing the fresh stuff.
Actually the more fresh stuff that is sold, the more crappy leftovers we have to sell as frozen food **to fools who buy frozen vegetables during the growing season**.
Could you specify which product you bought (Check here:[http://www.birdseye.com/product\_index.html](http://www.birdseye.com/product_index.html) )and report the lot number? I don’t know how seven complete broccoli heads got into that bag. We try to limit it to five.
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### Author:  [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/12 "2000-09-01T18:27:45Z")
Well, obviously I am going to be buying fresh vegetables, because I said I was boycotting frozen ones. FWIW, I never buy tomatoes anywhere but the farmer’s market, and most of my other veggies, too. The dish I was making last night needed mixed vegetables, and I had a bag of frozen chopped ones right there. I apologize for opting for convenience.
Oh, and **Necros** , I never pay more than $1.25 for a bag of dog shit.
We now return you to the ranting.
[Edited by Lynn Bodoni on 09-02-2000 at 11:41 PM]
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### Author:  [@ReservoirDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReservoirDog)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/13 "2000-09-01T18:46:37Z")
In troubled times like these, it is very gratifying to know that you can, however, still trust the Gorton’s Fisherman.
Don’t forget to wear your rubbers.
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### Author:  [@Engineer\_Don](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engineer_Don)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/14 "2000-09-01T20:30:06Z")
Hijack (Sorry - BUT DON’T BASH CLARENCE!)
Lucky - I remember those stats from a 1997 class in Post Harvest Refirgeration at U.C. Davis (They are the experts in this type of thing). UCD’s Division of Agricultural and Natural Resources publishes lots of articles. An article by Adel A. Kader called “Postharvest Biology and Technology: an Overview”, 1992, has post harvest losses at 5 to 25% in developed countries and 20 to 50% in developing countries.
This coupled with preharvest losses, and better pest control and refrigeration in distribution warehouses and supermarkets, and some new harvesting techniques supposedly gets the numbers near 90%/30%. In the last few years lots of farmers have added (a) mobile pole mounted lights, so they can harvest at night when the produce is cooler so it spoils slower, and (b) truck mounted refrigeration that cools the produce within minutes of being picked, before it is cleaned or packed, instead of sitting for a few hours in high heat waiting to be hydrocooled and shipped. This really helps with tomatoes and strawberries. The vine-ripened ones used to be a lot more expensive because their losses were high on the way to the market,but now since they cool them in the field their spoilage is only slightly higher than the ones ripened under controlled conditions.
I should note that one of the reasons for higher spoilage in less developed countries is that because the controlled conditions are somewhat difficult to achieve/maintain produce is picked riper that it is in developed countries.
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### Author:  [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2000, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/15 "2000-09-01T21:30:25Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by barker \*
> \*\*Don’t they have any farm stands? \*\*
HAHAHA! Farm stands??? I see those in New Hampshire when I go on vacation, but I’ve never lived anywhere that had them. Certainly not Tucson, AZ where I spent all but 3 year of my life. Farm stands… BAAAHAHHAHHAA
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### Author:  [@Lucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2000, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freeze-this/31657/16 "2000-09-02T00:05:09Z")
Thank you very much, Engineer Don.