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[EnigmaticHat]

Re: Golden Rice.  That would probably be the only GMO I'd be slightly OK with.  My mom used to be a plant pathologist and she's anti-GMO.  On the grounds that once a useful mutation is discovered is will be applied to all farm plants one way or the other.  And if all farm plants have a part of their genetic code that's the same, a disease that somehow exploited it could wipe out a whole year of crops and kick off another great depression.  My mom believes that humans aren't responsible enough to maintain genetic diversity in plants and that we don't know enough to predict what the diseases of the future could look like.

Funnily enough she doesn't believe genetic modification produces harmful food, which I assume is most people's complaint.  She'd be fine eating GMO crops, she just thinks they shouldn't exist in the first place.

So Golden Rice would be fine, because that mutation would be unlikely to spread to anything other than rice.  So as long as Southeast Asia let go of some of its rice production (or was really disciplined about making sure there's multiple rice strains), it could be OK.  US GMOs concern me tho.  There's one gene that they all have in common, which is for being immune to a specific pesticide.  So if most US crops are GMO, well... that's not a very genetically diverse plant population.

[Lord Shonus]

Let's not be too cynical about McDonalds.  The burger itself is pretty solid nutritionally.  Its got the 3 pillars.  Starch: two slices of bread + mayonnaise.  Protein: beef.  Green veggies: lettuce.  If you can say anything about the burger itself, its that most of its veggies are acidic (onion and tomatoes) and not particularly essential ones.  If you replaced the tomato slice and onions with two different types of leafy greens, and only ever ordered a single, you could probably live off McDonald's burgers and do alright for yourself.  Remember, the original reason people were so down on meat is because trans fats would give people heart attacks.  Now we've mostly extracted the trans fats from everything its not meat you have to look out for (excluding pork products).  Its food that's high energy but low in protein and nutrients.  AKA starches AKA bread, corn and sugar.  That's why deep frying is bad.  Its because it causes the food to absorb oil, which is a starch.

No, if we're going to call out McDonald's for anything its their business model.  Specifically, once you're buying a sandwich the combo is cheap and a small combo costs the same as a large combo.  What's in a combo?  Super sugary soda, and deep fried potatoes.  Both of those things make you fat but don't make you feel full.  But if you get a medium or small combo you're effectively turning down free food, which most people are unwilling to do.  It very directly manipulates people into overeating.

At some point in my life I became a McDonald's defender.  Cause when you don't have the time, energy, or money to eat well, McDonald's is the least guilty option.  Like put yourselves in the shoes of a working parent with 4 kids.  What's a person in that situation going to feel guilty about when they eat?  That they're spending time or money, that they have to prioritize making food for themselves and their kids separately, that their kids might give them shit because food tastes bad.  McDonald's resolves all those complaints.  Their business model is selling a feeling of plenty.  All the McDonald's hate thus tries to make people feel bad about something that should be comforting.  Its not like people in a food desert and/or working 60 hours for low income were ever going to eat well in the first place.  I'd rather be fat than malnourished.

So I don't tell people McDonalds is bad.  I tell them sugar is as bad as fat and soda is what's making Americans fat.  And that the food pyramid is bullshit written by lobbyists and exactly the wrong way to eat.  I mean remember, if you don't count soda as food a Happy Meal is perfect according to the food pyramid.

One quibble, and an addition.

Remember, the original reason people were so down on meat is because trans fats would give people heart attacks.  Now we've mostly extracted the trans fats from everything its not meat you have to look out for (excluding pork products).

People being "down on meat" had essentially nothing to do with trans fats. It was cholesterol in general, before the concepts of "good" and "bad" cholesterol were developed. Trans fats are found naturally in meat and dairy products, but only in tiny amounts. The primary source of dietary trans fats was butter substitutes and similar "low cholesterol" foods. Activists in the 1980s actually "forced" McDonalds to add trans fats to their fries, switching from beef tallow to trans fat-laden vegetable oil.

The addition is that I have family that has worked in the meat industry, and some of the places they've worked are suppliers for McDonalds and other fast food chains. Despite popular myth, the meat that goes into McDonalds hamburgers is incredibly lean, high-quality meat. This is the real reason for those "immortal burgers" you hear about every so often. With little fat to add moisture, the buger dessicates and essentially mummifies itself fairly quickly.

[Reelya]

There are the old "rat meat in the burgers" myths. Which are clearly myths, since catching and butchering rats to get enough meat to have a sustained burger business is just plain inefficient compared to merely procuring beef. The amount of labor needed to process the rats makes it not economically viable: you'd be better off going doing a laboring job with that time, then buying beef with that and selling the burgers.

[Felissan]

Is anyone else having an issue where a youtube video will lose its buffer if you switch to another window? That's really annoying.

[Dunamisdeos]

Who cares if its rat. If rat tasted like beef, I'd eat rat.

[Draignean]

There are the old "rat meat in the burgers" myths. Which are clearly myths, since catching and butchering rats to get enough meat to have a sustained burger business is just plain inefficient compared to merely procuring beef. The amount of labor needed to process the rats makes it not economically viable: you'd be better off going doing a laboring job with that time, then buying beef with that and selling the burgers.

I think the idea was that you just burned the hair off the rat and mashed it into the mix as a cutting agent, intestines and all.

There is a government regulated maximum amount of contaminant. You can't keep every goddamn spider out of the machine, though that is admittedly much worse for canned goods.

[Criptfeind]

Also sometimes you have to kill and process a bunch of rats anyway when you're... Uh. Well, for reasons. And then you have an industrial amount of rat meat anyway ready for the grinders, it's not like you're purposefully making it for burgers in the first place but at that point it's either sell cheaply for burger meat and get a bit of money or let it rot.

Who cares if its rat. If rat tasted like beef, I'd eat rat.

I feel like rats are probably smarter then cows, if that's a hang up for people.

[Frumple]

Is anyone else having an issue where a youtube video will lose its buffer if you switch to another window? That's really annoying.

I haven't been able to watch youtube videos on the actual site since they fully discontinued flash support, m'self. HTML5 video performance is utter and complete shite on any computer I have access to. Friggin' kindle runs the stuff more smoothly and it does wonky things on the resolution side of it.

... incidentally, at the absolute least some of the newer media player classic versions can load youtube urls. Been using MPC-BE lately. There's an occasional hiccup, but it runs most things and can handle playlists, too, so it's pretty functional.

[Yoink]

Cabbage is pretty great! Not quite as entirely versatile as spinach in my experience, but still good.

I've only had borscht once, but I seem to remember it being delicious as well.

Edit:

I think I just retched a little. Deep frying in general just feels so... greasy and horrible.

Dude... ain't you ever had a chimichanga?! Rectify that ASAP!

[scourge728]

American food is SO unhealthy, but it tastes so good I can only occasionally bring myself to care, but even then don't really have the money or desire to eat healthy

[AzyWng]

I think I just retched a little. Deep frying in general just feels so... greasy and horrible.

Dude... ain't you ever had a chimichanga?! Rectify that ASAP!
[/quote]

For that matter, have you ever had, uh, fries/chips, onion rings, or chips/crisps before? 

You should probably give those a try before writing off fried foods entirely...

[Flying Dice]

People don't just eat their cabbage raw?

We don't eat our cabbage at all.

Roasted cabbage begs to differ. Shit's delicious.

Honestly I think half the reason Americans don't like veg is the Southern style of preparation, namely "boil it all until it's mush". You can really see our Scottish roots there.

The other half, of course, is that we've got multiple generations of people conditioned to like food that's packed with absurd amounts of salt and artificial sweeteners + an abnormal perception of what healthy portioning of meat is relative to other components of a meal.

[JoshuaFH]

Americans have faithfully followed the Texan maxim "Bigger is Better" in nearly all respects.

[Eric Blank]

Our cell phones were getting smaller for a while, there, though. I had a teensy little cheap ass phone that could barely display two lines of text at a time when I was little (Our mother decided we needed to be able to answer phone calls so she could nag us while we were out with our friends). Then we found out we could get internet and porn access through them. Texas wins every time.

[Lord Shonus]

Honestly I think half the reason Americans don't like veg is the Southern style of preparation, namely "boil it all until it's mush". You can really see our Scottish roots there.

This is partially correct. Boiling is an excellent way to serve many vegetables, but for others it causes significant bittering or other off flavors.

The other big reason a lot of Americans don't like vegetables is a conditioned aversion reaction. Kids taste things differently from adults, and taste bitterness in particular much more strongly. Combine this with an omnipresent "vegetables are gross" concept in kid-oriented media, and the tendency to overcook vegetables, it all adds up to an almost programmed dislike.