The Dorito Effect.

[MacTech]

As far as raising backyard chickens for egg production, they’re one of the easiest livestock to raise, if you free-range/pasture raise them, they’re nearly maintenance free…

Here’s my daily routine for my backyard dozen…

Morning; open the chicken barn, let the chickens out for the day, they have free run of our property, and love to peruse the tall grass in the field for ticks, and other bugs, they graze on the lawn…

Spread a small amount of commercial feed on the lawn in scattered piles, generally a 50# bag will last me about 2 months

Go to work

Arrive home from work, get mobbed by a flock of miniature feathered velociraptors that are all endearingly begging for treats, toss them a handful of fresh blueberries from our bushes, or any kitchen scraps I have onhand

Check the nest boxes for eggs and put the eggs in the fridge
Play with the dog

Around 8:30-9 PM, check on them, 99% of the time they’ve already put themselves back in their Barn and are dozing off, close up the barn and lock them inside for the night

Repeat next morning

Heck, the chickens are less work to care for than our cat or dog, plus, they keep the ticks down, produce great garden compost material, eat kitchen leftovers, and largely feed themselves while free ranging, and we get the healthiest, most flavorful eggs from them as well, there’s no downside

Yes, losses due to predation are an acceptable risk when free ranging, but we have more than enough hiding spots for them, and the birds are so happy when free ranging I couldn’t deny them that joy

If you have room, chickens are well worth raising

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@QuickSilver

My thesis (and that of the book I mentioned in my OP) is that flavoured food that contains no actual natural ingredients of the food it’s trying to mimic is ultimately much less satisfying than the real thing. There is research that shows that people who drink diet sodas tend to over-eat because what they are consuming in the form of fake sweetness that they are craving is ultimately not satisfying to the body. So they have another later. Or they have a donut or fatty snack because they are still craving something satisfying and of course they should be able to eat it because they’re drinking a diet soda with 0 calories.

It is not a false dilema to suggest that while half the population is seriously overweight, they are seriously under-nurished with respect to nutritionally sound foods. Perhaps you don’t think there is a causality connection between obesity and the pervasive supply of highly processed and flavoured food, but I believe research supports that thesis as well.

And while we rarely see cases of scurvy or rickets, you can’t for a second believe that the population is generally healthier eating flavoured foods than food in its less processed state. Why are cereals and milk fortified with vitamins? Because people don’t consume enough greens and fruit to provide them with the necessary nutrition the body requires. So if a serving of cerial contains 100% daily allowance of whatever it is, it also contains a bunch of sugar that your body doess not need in such highly processed and concentrated amounts. You buy the cereal because the box says it’s good for you and it’ll taste like blueberries. But fact is, there are no real blueberries in the thing. It’s all manufactured flavouring and sugar. Which tastes great. But does it provide you the nutritional value of adding some real blueberries? I’m guessing not.

I beg to differ but many people think the way I do. And many more are coming around to the same conclusion. Documentary upon documentaty, book upon book is available on the subject. Some go to extremes I don’t agree with but there is a sane and reasonable argument here and it isn’t on the side of more processed/flavoured food.

i do agree with you about this… “A flavoured food is it’s own thing.” But is it a good thing?

If you had made this argument to begin with I would have mostly* agreed with you and urged you on. Instead I criticized the one that was in the words you actually used. Glad to see you got your thinking straight.

Now where’s Amateur Barbarian? This is a topic he loves to tackle.
*Milk is fortified with vitamins because it doesn’t contain those vitamins naturally. Vitamins are a tricky subject in toto because a) almost no modern westerners are in any danger from vitamin deficiencies and b) almost no modern diet contains “sufficient” vitamins. How do we reconcile that contradiction? Added vitamins are a marketing tool for sure but there’s no evidence that we wouldn’t eat the same foods anyway if they weren’t fortified: so why not give them something of more value? To put it another way, I’m glad you read a book and it got you het up on a good cause but please don’t think that because you read one book you speak with any authority on the subject. It’s like reading a popular book on science and thinking you’re an expert in quantum mechanics.

[QuickSilver]

@Exapno_Mapcase

*Milk is fortified with vitamins because it doesn’t contain those vitamins naturally. Vitamins are a tricky subject in toto because a) almost no modern westerners are in any danger from vitamin deficiencies and b) almost no modern diet contains “sufficient” vitamins. How do we reconcile that contradiction? Added vitamins are a marketing tool for sure but there’s no evidence that we wouldn’t eat the same foods anyway if they weren’t fortified: so why not give them something of more value? To put it another way, I’m glad you read a book and it got you het up on a good cause but please don’t think that because you read one book you speak with any authority on the subject. It’s like reading a popular book on science and thinking you’re an expert in quantum mechanics.

Well, the reason food is fortified with vitamins is probably the same reason Lays produces 30 different flavours of the same damn potato chip. Because consumers consider that value added. Milk doesn’t need vitamin D any more than orange juice producers decided to add calcium and vitamin D to juice. It’s a gimmick - perceived “added value”, as you say.

And yes, I did read a book. Several books on the subject, in fact. And I while I may or may not be “het up”, I’d hardly consider an opinion expressed on a message board a claim to authority on the subject. Nope. Just another voice shouting into the void.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Good. The more books the better.

And here’s an article:

In the early 1920s, medical researchers announced that iodine could prevent goiter that was widespread at that time (2). Through this was a successful fortification programme. Thereafter in 1932, milk was fortified with vitamin D, and again, this was heavily supported by the medical community because of the prevalence of rickets in children (2). This was followed by the 1941 fortification of flour and bread with the B vitamins, which was ‘presented as insurance against nutritional deficiencies’, when B vitamin deficiencies were prevalent in the United States and most of Europe (3).

But so you don’t accuse me of selective quoting, the authors go on to say:

It is clear that nowadays is a different world. What began in the 1920s of the last century as a response to a public health need has escalated into an industry-driven fortification with frequent conflicts of interests with the public health campaign. One of the main issues today is that consumers are seeking foods with health benefits, in an era of complex diseases.

They then look at fortification practices and needs around the world, showing that it is a difficult issue to summarize.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@puddleglum

We are not eating what companies want us to eat, companies are producing what we want to eat.

Only true to to a point. It is far more accurate to say that we are eating what companies can induce us to buy. That only becomes “what we want” through fostered desire.

Immediate and simple case at hand: Gyro flavored potato chips. Did anyone on earth really ever want gyro-flavored potato chips? I’d bet a good stack of wooden nickles against it.

But in an attempt to capture a part of the market belonging to some other food consortium - and if you’re read any recent books on the food industry, you’ll know that each of the food congloms regards the market as their exclusive property and all the others are invaders to be repelled, shelf-foot by shelf-foot - some millennial food engineer at Lay’s thought of trying fifty really bizarre flavors. It looks as if Gyro, Truffle Fries, Bitchkits and Gravy and Reuben made the final cut… but again, not because anyone ever *wanted *these flavors, but because Lays has found that they can make us buy them.

Understanding that difference in consumer-goods mindset is absolutely crucial to understanding what’s going on in the modern consumer economy. Companies do not make products based on some obvious criterion and then go, “Oh, goody!” when they sell; a vast number of consumer products are created simply because research and marketing techniques can combine to make people buy them - without there ever having been a prior desire, need or purpose. In absolutely no other consumer-goods field is this more true than in large-producer food products.

To believe that companies in the consumer-goods spectrum (i.e., an awful lot of global business) make goods we “want” is to be stuck in the naive idealism of Econ 101 with a kindly old professor who hasn’t left the campus in 30 years.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Amateur_Barbarian

Immediate and simple case at hand: Gyro flavored potato chips. Did anyone on earth really ever want gyro-flavored potato chips? I’d bet a good stack of wooden nickles against it.

But in an attempt to capture a part of the market belonging to some other food consortium - and if you’re read any recent books on the food industry, you’ll know that each of the food congloms regards the market as their exclusive property and all the others are invaders to be repelled, shelf-foot by shelf-foot - some millennial food engineer at Lay’s thought of trying fifty really bizarre flavors. It looks as if Gyro, Truffle Fries, Bitchkits and Gravy and Reuben made the final cut… but again, not because anyone ever *wanted *these flavors, but because Lays has found that they can make us buy them.

If I understand correctly, these flavors were suggested by “fans” rather than dreamt up by someone within the company.

And yes, everything about this is a marketing gimmick—which says nothing one way or the other about whether the flavors are worth buying or eating.

“Bitchkits and Gravy”?

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@Thudlow_Boink

If I understand correctly, these flavors were suggested by “fans” rather than dreamt up by someone within the company.

This public brainstorming doesn’t really change the, uh, process. So they polled “fans” and got a thousand weird ideas, went forward with maybe 100, weeded it down to four… all with maximum marketing exposure. Allee samee, pretty much, as if they’d come up with all the ideas themselves. I still doubt any statistically significant number of “fans” hungered for Lobster Roll or any of the other flavors. There would be a built-in bias towards suggesting something so weird it generates buzz (and a winning chance for whoever suggested it), over more reasonable choices.

“Bitchkits and Gravy”?

Yeah?

[dnooman]

The “Greektown Gyro” flavored Lays were just disappointing, tasted like nothing and yet were over-seasoned.

The Reuben chips I thought hit the mark right on, not too overpowering, had hints of kraut and 1000 Island, and a bit of corned beef and rye. No sane person would buy the chips instead of the sandwich, but if you wanted chips that remind you of a Reuben, go for it.

The “Doritos experience” is actually the entire act of eating a Dorito. So much so that they are able to make chips taste the exact same without the orange powder, but leave it in because it’s part of the “Doritos experience”. Same goes for Cheetos IIRC.