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Comment by wobbleblob | Hacker News Reader

This post is actually one of the most positive reviews of Dutch food I have ever seen =)

Haha, Dutch food can be quite bland if you are not used to it. I'm Dutch myself and my Chinese friends are pretty shocked at my eating habits, they even go so far to claim that I don't know how to live. But I genuinely enjoy some whole wheat bread with hard cheese or a Stamppot.

Luckily there are plenty alternatives as there are restaurants from every imaginable culture or country. Dutch people are still quite open-minded and open to other cultures. Maybe not as much as in the past, which is a shame.

Netherland definitely comes out of a period where food was not judged on taste at all, which led to very tasteless potatoes and tomatoes. But with increasing access to good international food (during the '90s in particular), many started yearning for good food with taste again, and since then there's been a real turnaround with much tastier vegetables, more local produce, and more free range and organic.

It hasn't reached all corners of society yet, but there's definitely change in the Dutch attitude towards food.

Well, it may seem positive, but here in the inferior south, that photos could destroy the day of many (sub)people.

We prefer animals and tomatoes not grow in those conditions shown in the photos (we get them, at the same prices, but grow with space and natural food).

I don't know why the article does not talk about the technologies used to modify vegetables and animals. I don't care if they don't get antibiotics, while they are transgenics, clones, or grow with irradiation and other technologies.

Also sorry and excuses to those offended downvoters, I can probe each word, I said them with care of not let me go, but I could go on, if somebody clarify the disagreement

I would have tried to message you privately, but you don't have contact info.

Maybe you don't notice the nuance of your writing, as English is not your native language, but you are saying that ALL dutch people are racists. This is why you are getting a negative reaction. If you think that is true, you are wrong, and guilty of the sort of group-oriented negative thinking you are upset about. It might help future interactions to say, instead of "x are nazis" (which indicates you think they all are) to, say, "I couldn't stand living there, there were too many people doing [negative racist attitude]"

> Also sorry and excuses to those offended downvoters, I can probe each word, I said them with care of not let me go, but I could go on, if somebody clarify the disagreement

I just did (see above) and I did not even downvote you because I can see where you're coming from but I think you are categorically wrong in the way you are approaching this.

If you ever make it back to NL consider yourself invited, email in profile (assuming our travels overlap).

Every foreigner who has ever seen a Dutch meal on his plate, dared to take a bite, and then seen the bill, knows exactly what you mean. Rants usually follow, though maybe not always with quite so many Nazi references :)

As a dutchy, the first thing my wife and I do as we cross any border, is go to have a decent meal. True story.

Imagine the shock, when one sinks their teeth into one of those beautiful, perfect looking, huge, shiny, spotless and bright red strawberries, and instead of the expected explosion of sweet, fruity flavor, the mouth fills with the tart, watery and astringent culinary assault familiar to the poor flavor deprived Dutch. How can a fruit so perfect in appearance be so offensive in taste that one would only feed it to a horse as a punishment for kicking a child.

There isn't much (any?) transgenic farming anywhere in Europe, is there?

Also - the biggest, nastiest, most pesticide intensive greenhouse vegetable farming in Europe is not in The Netherlands but in Spain.

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