this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
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So, I love Spinach but apparently they are sprayed with a lot of insecticides to repel crop eating insects and this rules out Spinach for me. How worried should I be about the use of fertilizer for crop production?

P.S: I have been hearing a lot about sweet potatoes and how they are the perfect food but I was wondering how those were grown, do they use a lot of harmful fertilizer or anything along those lines?

Thanks for all your answers guys :)

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[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The biggest reason our food is not healthy is that it’s been bred for durability in shipping and long shelf life rather than flavour and nutrient content. Tomatoes are the poster child of this phenomenon. Compare backyard-grown heirloom varieties to store bought tomatoes and the difference is night and day!

There’s actually a pretty high correlation between flavour and nutrient content. This makes sense when you consider the purpose of taste and smell in the first place: to help us discern healthy food from poor food, to gauge ripeness, and to help us avoid poisonous or rotten food.

Of course highly processed food such as Doritos abuse this feature by targeting only the specific compounds responsible for great taste and leaving out everything else. This is why they’re so bad for you: highly tasty and addictive yet nutritionally empty apart from calories.

[–] seven_phone@lemmy.world 8 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Doritos minding their own business, got singled out.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 5 points 23 hours ago

I watched a video recently by a champion barbecue master. He did a whole history on umami flavour and explained that it’s caused by 3 compounds working together, not just one as people think:

  • monosodium glutamate (MSG, everyone’s favourite, found in kombu seaweed)
  • disodium inosinate (found in bonito flakes)
  • disodium guanylate (found in dried shiitake mushrooms)

Funnily enough, all 3 of these compounds are additives in Doritos!

[–] Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago

The phrase "minding their own business" has a completely different and much more sinister meaning in this context though.