Ever hesitated when you opened the fridge and pulled out a neatly packed piece of pork ready to cook a hearty dinner?
This piece of pork looks fine, but you can't find the delicious "meaty taste" that you had when you were a child.
The same confusion haunts many people:
Why does the current milk no longer have that faint and nostalgic "grass fragrance"?
We live in an era of abundant and diverse foods, and theoretically:
With the advancement of science and technology, agriculture and animal husbandry, we should be able to enjoy more delicious and healthy food.
More and more people are complaining, why is it that today's food is becoming less and less "tasteful"?
Today, let's take a closer look at this seemingly simple but full of doubts.
1. What foods have changed their taste and why?
1. Fruits and vegetables lose their "natural taste".
Think about it, the tomatoes I ate when I was a child, the sweet and juicy taste, it is really evocative.
But now, the tomatoes sold in the market often feel bland and tasteless, as if something is missing.
This is all due to modern agricultural production.
In order to achieve high yields and high efficiency, the growing time of fruits and vegetables has been greatly shortened.
Although it looks good, the sugars, organic acids and aromatic substances in it have not had time to accumulate sufficiently, so it feels less sweet when eaten.
What is even more regrettable is that fruits and vegetables often need to be picked in advance in order to facilitate transportation and storage.
While this ensures that the fruit and vegetables will not spoil before they reach their destination, it deprives them of the opportunity to continue ripening in their natural state.
As a result, there is a significant gap in the taste of fruits and vegetables compared to their natural ripeness.
In addition to these, the loss of the "original flavor" of tomatoes is actually related to genetic changes.
In the breeding process, in order to make tomatoes grow bigger, rounder and more beautiful, and keep them intact during long-distance transportation, people unconsciously select some genes that affect the taste.
As a result, although tomatoes now look more appealing, they taste worse and worse.
2. Milk is less "vanilla-flavored"
Do you think that milk should be "fragrant"?
The milk sold in the supermarket now tastes a little different from the milk from the home-raised cows we drank in the countryside when we were children.
In the past, dairy cows were free-range in the fields and ate fresh and tender green grass, so the milk produced had a "grass fragrance", which smelled very good and was particularly nutritious.
But now, the cows live in spacious and bright barns, and eat carefully prepared feed;
Although the nutrition is sufficient, the original "grass fragrance" disappears without a trace.
At the same time, the viscosity of the milk also changes.
Nowadays, the milk has been "homogenized", which simply means that the fat globules in the milk are broken up and made small and uniform.
The benefits of this are:
But the downside is obvious;
That is, the viscosity of the milk is reduced, and the taste is not so "thick", and the taste is much worse.
3. The meat is not fragrant
Changes in farming practices:
Today's commercial farming is all about high efficiency and large-scale, so animals are crowded together and raised on a large scale.
Although the production has increased, the environment in which the animals live is not good.
And in order to make them grow faster and stronger, farmers also inject them with various hormones and antibiotics.
These things, although helpful for the growth of animals;
But in the long run, not only will it affect their health, but also the taste of the meat we eat will deteriorate.
The feed is also changing:
In the past, animals foraged freely in the natural environment, and ate whole grains, grass, and so on.
But now commercial farming uses specially formulated feed.
Although these feeds are cheap, they may contain artificial additives, genetically modified ingredients, and so on.
The animals eat this feed, and the meat they grow naturally does not have the natural and fragrant taste it used to be.
The variety of meat has also changed:
In the past, we used to eat local pigs, which grew slowly and had a lot of fat, but the flavor of the meat was particularly strong.
Nowadays, most of the pigs on the market are lean pigs, which grow fast and have less fat, and the taste is much worse.
Therefore, although the current meat still looks like the same, it tastes like it does not have the "sense of age" of the past.
Two, the food has changed, and so have you
The first is that our tastes have changed.
Now, as the pace of life is getting faster and faster, ordering takeout and going to restaurants have become commonplace.
In order to make the food more delicious and attractive to customers, restaurants often add more oil, salt, sugar and various condiments to the dishes.
Although it is enjoyable to eat at first, after a long time, our taste buds gradually become "sluggish".
For example, if you used to eat a scrambled egg with tomatoes, the aroma of the eggs and the sweet and sour taste of the tomatoes can make people have an endless aftertaste.
But now if you eat such a dish again, you may not think it is anything special.
Why?
It's not because our taste buds are "spoiled", we have to eat that kind of heavy food to feel satisfied.
Our sense of smell has also changed.
The sense of smell and taste are closely linked, and many times the taste we taste is actually the sense of smell "helping".
As we age, our olfactory cells gradually decrease, and our ability to perceive smells decreases.
This leads to a problem:
There is an interesting phenomenon I would like to share with you:
That is, many times, our memories of a dish are not entirely accurate.
Maybe it's because of the good mood and environment at that time;
Or maybe it's because of some special experience that made a deep impression on the dish.
So much so that when we eat this dish later, even if its taste has changed, we still think it is delicious and distinctive.
This is called the law of "true fragrance".
3. How to find the original taste?
Searching for the original taste is actually to find the most original and natural taste of food.
To do this, buying reliable food is a crucial first step.
Now that the Internet is developed, things from the countryside can be easily sold to the cities.
We see some advertisements for agricultural products on the Internet, and we talk about it in a big way, but we have to have a point.
To buy such things, the most important thing is to confirm that their source is reliable and that they have a qualified quarantine certificate;
Especially foods like meat, eggs, and milk, the quality can not be sloppy.
Of course, in addition to online shopping, it is also a good choice for us to visit the wet market.
There, fresh vegetables, fruits, and meats are all available, and most of them are home-grown and home-raised by local farmers, which is green, healthy, and has not undergone too much processing.
If conditions permit, we can grow vegetables on the balcony, not only to eat the fruits of our own labor, but also to enjoy the fun of growing vegetables.
In fact, "eating well" not only refers to good taste, but more importantly, eating nutritious and healthy.
Searching for taste is a fun and rewarding process.
As long as we pay attention to choosing reliable food and develop good eating habits;
I believe that each of us can enjoy the happiness and healthy life brought by food.