Comment by _1qd4 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _1qd4 | Hacker News Reader

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You make a lot of grand statements there without backing anything up. If it was so convenient and cheap to cook this way, then everyone would be doing it.

I have tried and tried and tried to cook like you suggest. I end up wasting food as it goes bad before I can use it. I have a small apartment and ended up going to the grocery store every 2 days to restock. Some ingredients aren't sold in quantities appropriate for 1-2 people, so things go stale or expire before they get fully used. I wasted way more food attempting to change my food practices than I did maintaining the way I was raised.

I'm skeptical about farm shares, I don't think it scales. If it became more popular, you'd had everyone hopping in their cars every weekend and driving out to a farm. Much more efficient to load everything on 1 transport truck than to have a thousand cars on the road just for picking up produce. And in winter climates, you aren't growing anything in the ground, so this produce is being shipped in to the farm anyways, just ship it to the grocery stores. Or it's being grown indoors, which requires increased energy usage (might be less energy intensive to ship veggies in on a truck than to grow them indoors?).

Our modern food system, for all of its faults, is the only thing that works for everybody. Poor people? Disabled people? Car-less people? Dietary restrictions? All covered. Your diet and way of living works for wealthy, healthy people with time on their hands. It's not realistic at all.

I have to say that your first statement seems totally ridiculous...do you really think that homo sapiens is homo economicus?? People are not rational optimizers, they're mammals. I'm sure I'm being a bit uncharitable to your claim here but your comment makes you sound like you actually are the 'older, wiser' economist in that old joke: "Two economists, one young and one old, are walking to lunch. The young economist looks down and sees a $20 bill on the street and says, 'Hey, look a twenty-dollar bill!' Without even looking, his older and wiser colleague replies, 'Nonsense. If there had been a twenty-dollar lying on the street, someone would have already picked it up by now.'"

As to your second paragraph...have you considered the possibility that you, specifically, didn't do a good job of cooking for yourself and that the fact that you failed to cook this way could be, well, your failure (to plan or execute or whatever), rather than a global failure of the idea "cook for yourself and use fresh produce"?

As for farm shares, many/most CSAs deliver, either to the home or to a central location in town (often a local co-op). So it is, in fact just one delivery truck driving down the highway.

And to your final paragraph, I simply say that that is an utter failure of imagination. At the moment, it's absolutely true that participating in this kind of eating & cooking demands some flexibility of schedule. Mostly, wealthier people are the ones who eat this way. Now, why is that the case? Well, our entire food production and distribution system is built around a different model. Deviating from that model, given the current state of the system, is expensive. That doesn't mean that people with the power and resources to do so shouldn't actively work towards changing the system into somethign more sustainable and accessible for all. In fact, in NYC there is an incredible farmer's market (called "greenmarket"), which runs in several poor neighborhoods and accepts food stamps, and it's life-changing for many people. I think that if you spoke to a few of the people who shop there, you'd never be as offhandedly dismissive of "eat fresh produce & cook for yourself" as you are here.

> People are not rational optimizers, they're mammals

True, but people DO spend a lot of time optimizing their food; dieting is a huge trend.

> have you considered the possibility that you, specifically, didn't do a good job of cooking for yourself

Yes, I admitted as much. My point was that it's really hard to "cook for yourself and use fresh produce". There's nothing wrong with the idea, it's simple and noble, but the practical application of it is very challenging.

> As for farm shares, many/most CSAs deliver, either to the home or to a central location in town (often a local co-op). So it is, in fact just one delivery truck driving down the highway.

So how is that any different than what grocery stores do?

Proper shopping and meal prep would eliminate most waste when cooking for two. A lot of perishables are sold by weight so even if, say, the scallions are bundled by the dozen, you only have to buy two not the whole dozen. Also, pick recipes that have perishables in common so that you can be sure to use them all up. Finally, use your freezer. You can, for example, blanch extra veggies that you get on sale and freeze them.

It takes practices, but that is part of learning.

Actually, our modern food system isn't working for the hundreds of millions of us who are dying from obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. Nor is it working for those of us (all of us) who are presently going bankrupt trying to pay for each other's healthcare.

> presently going bankrupt trying to pay for each other's healthcare.

Only a problem for 2 countries in the world. The rest of us have this figured out.

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