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Comment by _xnmw | Hacker News Reader

I’ve been living in Ukraine for the past few months, trying to figure out why the food here, especially the vegetables, simply taste so good. The very same dishes (e.g. steak and veggies) from popular mid-range restaurants are far more enjoyable to me over here in Kiev than I ever ate in Canada. When I went back to Canada for a brief visit, my body was craving Ukrainian food. Now this study on vegetable mineral content may explain why. I’m very keen to see a comparison study on Eastern European agriculture and produce versus North American. Ukraine was once the “breadbasket” of the Soviet Union, so there must be an explanation. Ukrainians who migrate to other countries are often said to complain about a loss in food taste - previously I assumed that was just some form of homesickness, but this study lends some potential scientific ground to their complaints.

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> I’ve been living in Ukraine for the past few months, trying to figure out why the food here, especially the vegetables, simply taste so good.

I had exactly the same feeling when I was living in Lviv and buying vegetables from the local Farmers Market[1] to cook at home.

It seems that Ukrainians are still growing vegetables like their grandparents did in the 1930s, as it's one of the poorest and most isolated regions of Europe.

In my own post-soviet EU country, most people living outside the big cities still grow their own vegetables in their backyard[2], but more as a rewarding hobby.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI0VnuZObjE

[2] http://imgur.com/a/3afScVR

Wow, I wonder if this is why I thought the food was so bad in San Francisco after I moved there from New Zealand. We went to a lot great restaurants, but I remember thinking that the restaurants in New Zealand was 100x better. We have an amazing cafe/restaurant scene in NZ, and I never found anything in San Francisco that could come close to a nice brunch in Auckland. (I was trying almost every place that had a good Yelp review over a period of ~2 years.) Maybe this was mostly a subconscious thing related to the mineral content of the ingredients.

This is close to what I was looking for in this thread. Don't want to clutter with anecdotal chat, but:

I worked in Australia some years ago (2015) and I was amazed by the taste of vegetables (and meat, as well, just less so). The experience sounds banal I suppose, but I really felt that my quality of life had improved. In the U.S. I feel totally unexcited by vegetable shopping, and I sometimes feel that I am simulating cooking. In Australia two vegetables and a small piece of lamb or beef completely satisfied me.

This article led me to the same thought found in your conclusion, but I'm hoping someone on HN has expertise in Aussie/Kiwi farming and can offer some perspective.

Same thing happened to me in the south of Bulgaria, just shopping at regular grocery stores. I couldn't figure out why the tomatoes tasted amazing.

It's like I'd been eating tomato-flavored potatoes all my life until that moment, and now trying a real tomato for the first time.

Same when I moved back to New Zealand after years in Canada. The first trip to the fruit and vege store I went overboard...

I wonder what effect nuclear accidents have on the food as well.

At least in Eastern Europe, most nuclear facilities were built near the borders with other countries, and in this case Belarus was affected much more than Ukraine[1].

Belarus itself is currently building its first nuclear power plant just 45 km (28 mi) away from the capital of Lithuania[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone#/medi...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_nuclear_power_plant

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