this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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Food Crimes - Offenses against nutrition
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Welcome to Food Crimes! This community is here to collect all and any post about cursed food and generally unusual consumables.
Right now, here’s the rules:
- Posts must include an image or video containing food or drink.
- It must be unusual or cursed in some way. a. For example, something like Doritos Milk would be unusual, but normal milk would not.
- No AI posts whatsoever, and any images that were altered (Ex: Photoshop, Gimp) need to be tagged.
How to tag:
To tag your posts, please prepend or append the tag name inside square brackets. For example,[OC] Foo bar baz or foo bar baz [Meta] would be acceptable. Multiple tags will require separate pairs of brackets, like so: [Edited][OC] foo bar baz
Here are the current tags:
- Edited - The image was manipulated with editing software.
- OC - You made this cursed food yourself!
- Meta - Relating to the community itself.
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(BTW, I’m looking for someone to help mod here! I myself would not be enough if this community goes beyond a few posts a day.)
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"Authentic" Mexican food = Tex-Mex in many places. This looks like it.
For all the "cheese product" hate in here: it has its place in certain foods. My favorite response I've seen to calling it fake with "it isn't cheese" is "is meatloaf meat?" Same concept. Meatloaf isn't fake meat. It's a product made with meat. Just like cheese with emulsifiers added. I think we just have different levels of linguistic classification attachment to different foods. It may not be "a" cheese, but it's "cheese". You're not far off from going after almond/soy/oat milk.
Okay, that’s a reasonable argument. Although meatloaf doesn’t use any chemical additives, it’s traditionally just ground meat, breadcrumbs, and eggs, along with seasonings and spices. And just like the name implies, it doesn’t pretend to be meat, hence the addition of the word “loaf”, which is usually used for bread. It’s a meat product in the same way that American cheese is cheese product.
As for cheese alternatives made from plants, those are not allowed to be called cheese either. They are allowed to wear the names of the cheese varieties they aim to imitate, but it has to be accompanied by the word “style” and never by the word “cheese”, so you get things like “plant-based cheddar style slices” or “dairy-free mozzarella style shreds”.
Also fair. I won't pretend I'm following USDA or whatever naming rules (the "uncured" labeling is bullshit - oh we didn't use straight potassium nitrate - just celery juice which contains the potassium nitrate), just going with the general language trend I see. YMMV
I did conflate cheese that has built in emulsifiers, "american cheese", with imitation cheese product (likely the plastic wrapped slices melted onto that dish) which also has emulsifiers and has lower fat content and isn't as nice. That's on me, my bad.
tongue-in-cheek, not really ragging it but: "oooooo chemicals" like salt? The potassium nitrate in cured/"uncured" meats? Sodium citrate, one of the most common additives to keep cheese emulsified, is often used in sausage making...and apparently blood banks if wikipedia is to be believed. I know there are horrible things put in processed foods, but "chemicals" is not a useful way to distinguish them. I apologize in advance if I've read a too-unfavorable slant into your use of the word chemical.
Fair enough, but in reality, it's not always sodium citrate, as the FDA permits a whole variety of other emulsifying agents to be used:
I'm not a chemist so I can't tell you how good are bad those are for your long term health but as far Kraft Singles are concerned, the choice appears to be sodium phosphate, not citrate.