• @[email protected]
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      2026 days ago

      Contrary to popular belief, in terms of health, high-fructose corn syrup is not really worse for you than sugar. It’s very unhealthy, of course, but that’s because it’s sweet, not because of its chemical properties.

      That being said, in many things (such as soda), people prefer the taste of sugar over high fructose corn syrup.

        • @[email protected]
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          626 days ago

          Just checked now. The loaf of sliced bread in my pantry does not contain high fructose corn syrup.

          • @[email protected]
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            226 days ago

            I guarantee if I look up the biggest selling sliced bread in the US, it’s got HFCS in it, and I also guarantee you’d say, yeah well nobody eats that

            😂

            • @[email protected]
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              26 days ago

              Try making sure what you’re saying is correct before confidently talking out of your ass:

              This is the nutrition label for Wonder Bread, the epitome of trashy American sandwich bread. It does not contain high fructose corn syrup. What it does contain, however, is sugar. As I said, high fructose corn syrup is not worse than sugar anyway, and all bread has sugar in it because it’s necessary for the yeast to rise. American-style sliced sandwich bread does tend to be sweeter than the round sort, but that’s not a high fructose corn syrup problem. Even if it did have high fructose corn syrup, that literally wouldn’t change anything about its health value.

              Again, high fructose corn syrup is not worse than sugar. If every product in the world that uses sugar were reformulated to use an equivalent amount of high fructose corn syrup, health-wise nothing would change (but the flavour may be different). Decrying high fructose corn syrup but being okay with sugar is just ignorance of science, full stop.

              If corn were as cheap everywhere else around the world as it is in America, literally every country would have processed foods containing high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar, because it is basically completely the same.

              Edit: And before you make a comment talking about the length of the ingredients list, it’s partially because American food labelling laws are way stricter than elsewhere in the world, requiring manufacturers to label far more ingredients and with far more detail. Sliced sandwich bread sold elsewhere is probably made of exactly the same stuff, but the manufacturer probably just isn’t legally required to tell you about it.

      • @[email protected]
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        726 days ago

        What’s bad about corn syrup is how fucking cheap it is (subsidized to hell or not). So they put it in way more things, keep us all addicted to sweet stuff and rake in profits at the same time.

        Also see soy in everything (my wife is allergic so I’m biased, but it’s really nuts how many things (again, bread?) it’s in).

      • Fushuan [he/him]
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        425 days ago

        Contrary to popular belief, it’s not that we think that corn sirup is worse, its that we KNOW yall use truckloads of it on everything <3 :)

        • @[email protected]
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          225 days ago

          Industry uses it. The only time most anyone uses corn syrup is for pecan pie which is admittedly gross

        • @[email protected]
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          325 days ago

          There is no such thing. Sugar is sugar, and it is exactly as bad for you as corn syrup. Sugar is either in short chains (where we call it “sugar”) or in long chains (in which case it is called “starch”)

              • UltraMagnus0001
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                25 days ago

                I agree too much sugar in any way is bad for you.

                Unrefined brown sugar undergoes less processing than white sugar, allowing it to retain some of its molasses content and natural brown color. Molasses is what you get before the refinement and crystallization with animal bones, then you get the processed white sugar. You can turn white sugar back to brown sugar by adding molasses. Neither is healthy in large amounts. Brown sugar gas slightly more minerals.

          • @[email protected]
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            125 days ago

            Corn syrup is easier to consume.

            Disolve equal quantities of sugar and corn syrup in a drink. You will get sated of the sugar version faster than then corn syrup version.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      1026 days ago

      ur tragically misinformed if u think individuals think any such thing rather than the use of cheap sweeteners being a decision made by corporate interest

    • oce 🐆
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      826 days ago

      In the same vein, putting highly transformed industrial sweets in your homemade bakery to make it cooler.

  • @[email protected]
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    5026 days ago

    Its funny how people assume colonization benefitted all Brits equally, and spices, tea (& riches) weren’t hoarded by royalty and the gentry.

    How the hell do you think the East India Company got so rich? It wasn’t by selling it to… shudder … normal and… wretching… poor people. They can stick to their traditional true British spice, Salt & vinegar! /s

    • @[email protected]
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      1026 days ago

      But you’d think some of the rich people recipes would make their way to what’s now known as British cuisine.

      • Fushuan [he/him]
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        325 days ago

        Recipes, to be used with which spices, huh? If they won’t use them they might as well not exist. Now it’s cheaper but the general population didn’t use them so it doesn’t really count.

        • @[email protected]
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          125 days ago

          If rich Brits actually used spices, then what did they use them in? Where did those recipes that use spices go?

          If they didn’t actually use spices, then what did they do with them? Just use them as currency?

      • @[email protected]
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        225 days ago

        Oh Yeah! Like they’d earn all the money and they’d spend it by paying wages & share what they imported with common folk. It’ll all trickle down to the rest of us… eventually, right? /s

        • @[email protected]
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          125 days ago

          Also, trickle down economy does work and has always worked - it’s just that the mega rich are subhuman, so everything trickles down to them :P

        • @[email protected]
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          125 days ago

          What are you talking about? I’m saying some fancy food recipes which were used only by the rich should not be lost to time. Has nothing to do with what you’re saying.

          • @[email protected]
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            25 days ago

            Ok being serious then, the meme (& most people) refer to working class British dishes like fish & chips, beans on toast, bangers and mash which don’t have a lot of spice used in them. Many of them were probably invented, adapted & popularized by working class people during post world war 2 rationing.

            I’m sure authentic British recipes do contain “rich people” food, but memes and pejoratives about their cuisine ignores or doesn’t know about such food.

            Its like a meme mentioning American food as burgers & gravy, while pedants would argue Mexican food is also American. Ignoring why North Americans (mostly poor people) eat fast food and the socio-economic factors that forces them to eat low nutrition food.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      726 days ago

      ooh valuable insight into how this came to be, thank u for helping me challenge my heretofore unquestioned assumptions :)

  • @[email protected]
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    2626 days ago

    We invented one of the world’s most popular cheese, Cheddar, which is actually named after an English village. Also our national dish is Chicken Tikka Masala. I dare you to say we don’t use spices. We invented several varieties of spiced sausage, spiced cakes and fruit bread, even some kinds of spices rum.

    Don’t get me wrong, lots of British cuisine is lackluster for sure, and I don’t think we can compete with the likes of Thailand or Italy. That doesn’t apply to everything we do though, and some of our deserts and cheeses are top tier. Thailand is literally known for diplomacy through food as well, so hardly a fair comparison.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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      1126 days ago

      Chicken Tikka Masala uses waaaay fewer spices than traditional Indian food. It’s the thing people who don’t like Indian food order in Indian restaurants.

      • @[email protected]
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        1326 days ago

        It doesn’t actually have less spices as such, it has less chilli and more cream so that it’s less hot. Korma which is legitimately Persian and from the indian subcontinent is more mild than Chicken Tikka Masala. Likewise Makhani and Hydrabaddi are Indian dishes with a comparable amount of cream and hotness. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely not a hot curry, but it’s not weaker than some of the things coming from India or Pakistan.

      • @[email protected]
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        326 days ago

        fuck. I had a weird allergic reaction the last time I got indian and I haven’t gone back because I don’t take risks with allergies. I miss my malai kofta.

    • Deebster
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      3326 days ago

      Americans visited the UK during WW2’s rationing and never updated their stereotypes.

        • Kabe
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          4326 days ago

          Bold talk from the nation that eats cheese from a spray can.

          • @[email protected]
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            626 days ago

            Don’t be mad we actually make better cheddar than the UK.

            Also, not gonna lie, cheezwhiz has its place. It’s just not the height of culinary cuisine.

            • Kabe
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              26 days ago

              Ha! Don’t make me spit out my tea. Your cheddar is cheese-flavored plastic in comparison.

              • @[email protected]
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                826 days ago

                Hey now some of us grew up on Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product that can’t really be called cheese on it’s own.

                • @[email protected]
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                  1526 days ago

                  I lived in Wisconsin for a year. Most supermarkets had 3 types of cheese:
                  yellow, orange and mixed. They all tasted the same.

                • @[email protected]
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                  26 days ago

                  What you call cheese cant be sold under the label “cheese” in the UK or the EU, due to it being so shit and lacking in actual cheese.

          • UltraMagnus0001
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            426 days ago

            Here in America we eat freedom cheese, meaning cooperations are free to add whatever they want to our foods unlike in the EU, where certain chemicals are not allowed in your foods. Yay for obesity. We have Pink Slime and chemically sprayed potatoes to prevent black spots on our McDonald’s Freedom Fries.

        • @[email protected]
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          1326 days ago

          And what goes into beans on toast? That’s right: cumin, paprika, garlic, onion, pepper… Spices

        • @[email protected]
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          626 days ago

          Three bean salad with croutons, hummus on pita bread, vegetarian burritos are all technically beans on toast

    • Nougat
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      326 days ago

      I am amused by the fact that the word “distinct” sounds similar to “Dis stink!”

    • UltraMagnus0001
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      226 days ago

      If it’s curry it’s Indian, just like American Chinese takeout is American but still Chinese and Pizza is American but still Italian. The flavors derived from those specific cultures to spice up the bland food people were used to. Tea was mostly a Chinese tradition and the Indians stole it to trade with Britain, because it was cheaper.

      • Kabe
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        26 days ago

        True, but I would argue that American Chinese food is a distinct cuisine in its own right, just as Anglo-Indian is.

        If the argument is that the British Empire didn’t incorporate seasonings and spices into its own traditional cuisine, then I’d argue that none of the European powers did. French cuisine is still undeniably French and spice-less, despite their colonialist history in Africa and the Caribbean.

  • UltraMagnus0001
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    I remember John Oliver jokingly said on Steven Cobert that his favorite British food is a good curry.

    • @[email protected]
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      825 days ago

      That’s not really a joke though? There are lots of curries that were invented in the UK and the British are actually the ones that introduced curry to most of the world and the curries you get pretty much anywhere outside of South Asia are British curries or based on British curries.

      • @[email protected]
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        726 days ago

        To be honest, pizza in its best known iteration originally was from Naples and parts South. When Italian-American GI’s (most were descended from immigrants from Southern Italy where they had pizza) were helping to rid Italy of Nazi’s during WWII, they were aghast that places North of Naples didn’t have pizza. These formerly pizza-free zones then started making pizza to sell to the GI’s and thus to this day you can find pizza even in places as North as around Lake Como. So pizza is more American in Northern Italy than it is Italian.

        • @[email protected]
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          526 days ago

          I mean, not being that popular in the place it was invented doesn’t mean Americans can claim to have invented it which is the subject at hand.

      • @Good_morning
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        726 days ago

        American style pizza actually has an interesting history and impact on cuisine.

      • @[email protected]OP
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        326 days ago

        very possible for a region to validly claim a certain iteration of a food, even if it originated elsewhere.

        for example, anglo-indian food would not exist without british influence. in the same fashion, american pizza, hamburgers, american-italian beef and US “chinese food”, while not utterly distinct from their precursors, are iterations of the cuisine that would never have come about in their countries of origin.

        • @[email protected]
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          125 days ago

          Youre kind of making my point. My point was much more “if you think that’s bad, you should see this” as opposed to “it can’t be done.” For example, the curries from the UK are very different to anything youd get on the Indian sub-continent.

          Claiming apple pie is a outrageous though.

        • @[email protected]
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          125 days ago

          British curries are very different to Indian ones. Far more different than “more cheese and bread”, like American style pizza.

    • @[email protected]
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      26 days ago

      That’s what Padme wants in this image macro though

      Brit’s do pies though, anything in a pie then it’s British. A curry pie then there you go

  • Davel23
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    2126 days ago

    Britain conquered the world for spices, then decided they didn’t like any of them.

    • no banana
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      Britain is a little bit autistic. Loves order. Hates sensory overload.

  • @[email protected]
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    1926 days ago

    American here, but I think a lot of Americans have not actually been to Britain and eaten their food.

    • @[email protected]
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      525 days ago

      I have, but I don’t actually remember the food. That must mean it was fine since I don’t remember anything being bad.

      • @[email protected]
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        325 days ago

        London seemed like most other large cities to me, in that there was a wide variety of food from different cuisines available. It’s not like every restaurant was all jellied eels and boiled meat.

  • @[email protected]
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    1726 days ago

    I can’t seem to find it, but this reminds me of a greentext that’s stuck with me for years. The gist of it is that most of British history can be summed up as sailing around the world looking for something good to eat.

      • @[email protected]
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        1926 days ago

        That’s not the one I was thinking of, but I’m happy that you posted it as it’s pretty great.

        • @[email protected]
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          225 days ago

          Are you sure it’s a greentext and not this old saying “The beauty of their women and the taste of their food make brits the best sailors in the world.”.

          • @[email protected]
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            125 days ago

            It definitely parallels that saying but I’m almost positive it was a greentext. Though, given that I can’t find it, I suppose I could be mistaken.

  • @[email protected]
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    1126 days ago

    Well the popularity of Indian food kind of puts the lie to this. Though I suppose it makes more sense to simply switch to Indian food, rather than to try to tart up the wretched crap that passed for food in the UK before colonialism.

  • @[email protected]
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    1026 days ago

    I’ve been to the UK and I found out this stereotype/meme is kinda true…

    Some foods are a little bland.

    • @[email protected]
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      726 days ago

      We’ve been completely screwed over by the supermarkets on this one. A lot of our base ingredients are now bland and tasteless. This has had a knock on effect.

      Good, traditional English food is far from bland and tasteless.

  • @[email protected]
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    26 days ago

    I’m from Portugal, who together with Spain started the so-called “Age Of Discovery” back in the late 14th century and for a long time had sugar plantations in Brasil.

    Not only does the local culinary have an insane variety of cakes and sweets (I suspect that, whilst monks in convents in other countries were finding new ways to brew beer, the ones in Portugal were just inventing new desserts) but most traditional culinary dishes use one more spices that do not grow locally or at least did not originate locally (you also see a similar effect when it comes to other ingredients: for example the frequent use of tomato that originate from the Americas or Oranges that originate from China)

    I also lived in both England and The Netherlands, both countries which were much more successful at trade with and conquest of the “discovered” lands than Portugal, and the local culinary tradition in both is way smaller and blander.

    • @[email protected]
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      325 days ago

      The problem with food traditions in the UK is that fuck all grows there due to climate. And all the cool imported stuff was traditionally very expensive, thus only accessible to the rich. Portugal has a much better climate for growing food, so back in the days you could import some seeds, plant them locally and exotic stuff became cheap and available to everyone. Brits couldn’t do that really, so exotic stuff was rare and mere mortals didn’t know about it.

  • @[email protected]
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    726 days ago

    Hey, don’t bad mouth salt seasoning! Portugal uses plenty of it (due to using salt preservation in the old days) and i think their food is pretty damn good!

  • @[email protected]
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    525 days ago

    You joke but today Curries are one of the most popular takeaway options in the UK. Only took us til after decolonisation.

      • TheEmpireStrikesDak
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        224 days ago

        As a second gen Indian in the UK, so much of my family’s dishes are based on sauces with tomatoes and chilli, many of them have potato. But none of these are actually native to India, these would have been brought over after the colonialisation of the Americas.