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Comment by jdietrich | Hacker News Reader

>When I looked into it, it basically meant that it was made from beat up ugly strawberries

That's true for basically all processed food that contains fruit or vegetables, for obvious economic reasons. The stuff that looks good goes to the supermarkets who care very much about shelf appeal, the rest goes to the processors who absolutely don't.

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Stuff like Pringles are made from the nastiest rotting potatoes in the planet. It's been 20 years since the last time I set foot in a potato plant, I can still smell it.

Good. That means they're reducing food waste.

A big problem with the food market is that people shop with their eyes, which leads to stupid amount of waste on fruit&vegetables section, as people prefer to go to another store than to buy veggies that look anything less than perfect.

In a lot of cases, that's how it works in nature too though. Visual appeal on the tree/bush is a big part of what attracts an animal to a fruit. It's just how we're built.

I find dangerous red berries and colored frogs very attractive.

Right, but animals aren't as picky as humans - they'll eat anything that isn't rotten (and then some animals actually prefer rotten stuff). Meanwhile people will avoid buying veggies that look off even if there's no risk to health or taste involved.

I suppose this is because most animals in the wild are always couple hours away from starvation and just can't afford being picky eaters.

Yeah elks love to get drunk on rotten apples. Humans prefer rotten grapes.

Some humans prefer rotten apples.

I think we've had the luxury of training ourselves to only identify the best looking produce as safe/tasty. I doubt it's ingrained in our nature, which is to say, if you're raised in a situation where you can't be as selective, I suspect you'll see a lot more produce as perfectly fine.

We definitely don't (generally) turn our noses up at various forms of rotten milk or the liquids of fruits rotten enough to be alcoholic.

it isn't as if the grocer gives us a discount for the "worse looking" produce. so why would anyone prefer it?

Oddly enough it now means that canned tomatoes are better than fresh.

Part of that is you can can a tomato right when it is most ripe and ready to be eaten, whereas if you're shipping it to a store, you ship it unripe and hope it ripens somewhat on the way.

Indeed, and they also grow different varieties. The ones destined for the store are bred for shipment and long term storage -- the so called "cardboard tomato."

Exactly, which is why I found it so entertaining. The idea that the Smuckers CEO is paying extra for beautiful fruit right before it get pulverized into jam is laughable. It's the market and price system taking care of the problem and opportunistic brands making up a problem that doesn't exist and charging users a premium to solve the non-existent problem

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