When was the last time you ate a real tomato? Not the one grown on hydroponic farm and full of water, but a real one coming from an old and tasty variety full of flesh?

Big food processing firms have been decreasing the quality of food over the years to keep the price low. No more yoghurt but "milk preparations". No more raw milk cheese costly but tasty. Biscuits are getting smaller. Fruits are tasteless and full of pesticides. Let's not even talk about swine, which almost no one knows the real taste anymore since it is produced in industrial facilities and then chemically processed to give it the "standard" tase and color. All of these were not happening on such a large scale 30 or 40 years ago.

My point is that there are other variables to take into account other than prices. Quality is one. You think you have more, but is it of the same quality as before?

> My point is that there are other variables to take into account other than prices.

You said quality food was reserved only for rich people. People with a median income in western countries can comfortably afford to regularly eat locally grown, ethically-produced, non-intensive farm-shop food if that's what they're into. Bill Gates & Donald Trump aren't eating higher quality food than they are.

It's incredibly trivial to get this kind of quality if you're willing to go out of your way and pay a relatively small premium to get it. Many local markets exist.

Personally, I don't find it to be worth it, I don't notice the "quality" as much as some people seem to and I'm not willing to pay even a small premium for it. You've picked a few particular things, some of which only appeal to a very small niche market - you might argue that people have learned out "quality" in their tastes, but that's an opinion, not a fact.

Local produce markets are not uncommon. If you want this kind of quality, it is attainable at a small premium over supermarket prices.

While that was my reaction, in the interest of quality and depth of conversation it would be good if you expanded on why you disagree here.

I'm not sure what the parent meant by this. Quality what? Lobsters? Fresh fruit and vegetables; nuts, seeds, and whole grains; animal flesh - these are all relatively inexpensive compared to processsed "value added" food products, regardless of where you are in the world.

Grass fed beef is higher quality than corn fed beef, but much more expensive today. Many of the classic high value fish are much harder to get and further as lot of seafood is sold under the wrong name. Even Milk is now much older than it used to be. Granted pre pasteurization Milk was dangerous, but there was a period when people still got fairly fresh pasteurized milk.

> Grass fed beef is higher quality than corn fed beef

So - can I taste the difference? In what way is it "higher quality"? Is it a difference I'm willing to pay for or one that isn't really worth it? I think we've settled with what we have because the quality improvement just isn't that much, if it's noticeable at all.

I've compared many organic and local products side by side with commodity variants and found little to no difference to my tastes, so I have to wonder - is it worth it at all? Certainly not to my cheap palate at least.

Its popular to believe so, since corn is branded as evil these days. But of course corn-fed beef is tender, juicy and flavorful. Grass-fed is tougher, leaner and less flavorful. I know which one I prefer.

Deer meat is lean and considered very tasty by many, but as with any food difference people are going to defend what they are used to. However, nutritionally corn fed beef has a higher fat content and is worse for you.

Urban legend. higher fat content is not worse for you.

First I said nutrition, fat is close to empty calories. Protein poisoning / rabit starvation is possible, but for the vast majority of people low fat content is much better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning

The issue, of course, is time to prepare food. If you're well-off, you can choose to spend time cooking, or have someone else do it for you sometimes - if you're not, then you might not have time to spend cooking (especially if you have children), and almost definitely won't have the mental or physical energy to prepare three healthy meals a day. Job insecurity is draining and causes low-paid workers to put significantly more effort into their work than they're paid for, and many people across the US (and some other countries, like the UK) suffer from it.

In my country, people watch TV an average of 3 hours every single day. It isn't billionaires doing that. It's people that "don't have time to go to the gym". And while Millennials might laugh at this, they're spending just as much on social media sites, Netflix and YouTube.

This whole "I don't have enough time to not neglect myself" it just excuses all the way down. Everyone can find time to exercise and eat well.

People using "not enough time" as an excuse is just a symptom of low self-esteem and self-neglect, which is the real issue. That's the epidemic, and there's great inequality there, though it isn't tied to socioeconomic status.

Watching TV is a low-effort activity. The vast majority of TV (and Netflix and Youtube) is designed specifically not to take any mental power to watch, and it certainly doesn't take any physical power. (Also, watching TV when you have kids is code for watching your kids.)

I'm glad that you've never been in a position where you were under mental stress.

>I'm glad that you've never been in a position where you were under mental stress.

I have, and distracting myself only made it worse, and made it harder to come up with solutions. Why aren't the people who watch TV meditating instead? Rest isn't why people watch TV.

If the harder you worked, the more entertainment you needed, CEOs would be spending 12 hours a day watching TV.

Again, the root problem isn't socioeconomics. There is an inequality, but it's in mindset. It's inside, not environmental.

It's not necessarily to do with harder working alone - it's the stress from job insecurity. If you're an IT worker and lose your job, you can probably find a new one before your rent/mortgage is up. Worst case, you miss a payment or two or you have to cut down on nights out/coffee/whatever.

If you're working something unskilled or where there's no shortage of workers? And you're living paycheque-to-paycheque in the first place? That's mentally distressing on a long-term scale, on top of requiring more physical work. It's not something that's ever going to get fixed - education is unaffordable even before you realise that your kids are going to starve while you're seeking it.

CEOs do not do physical work most of their workday, by the way, so even if the point was solely about physical exhaustion your point would be moot. They are also broadly not worried about not being able to pay their bills.

Basically - there's an intersection of issues which low-wage workers suffer from. Job insecurity causes many of them. The solution is to ensure that people don't feel like they're going to struggle to keep their living-place and pay their bills when they lose their job.

Not only is it low-effort; it's also something you can do while you do other things.

Boiling a chicken, or a bunch of lentils and rice, with a few vegies thrown in isn't really hard.

While watching TV.