this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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Science of Cooking
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Welcome to c/cooking @ Mander.xyz!
We're focused on cooking and the science behind how it changes our food. Some chemistry, a little biology, whatever it takes to explore a critical aspect of everyday life.
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Innovation under capitalism definitely looks like determining what forms of animal cruelty will allow meat to cook twice as fast.
Completely by accident. If squeezing a little more profit had lead to meat taking ten times longer to cook, they would've done that
Indeed, profit is the only motive and everything else is an accident. People attribute positive effects to capitalism in the same way horoscopes work.
Sure capitalism might breed efficiency and innovation, well except for when it breeds monopolies, and price fixing rackets, and wage theft, and outsourcing, and enshittification, and horrible pollution, and anti unionization propaganda, and... Wait I forget what point I was going to make.
It very efficiently gets someone else rich!
Counterpoint, while cook time might not make a direct profit like ~~fatter~~ faster-growing chickens do, it would probably still make the chicken more desirable due to the decreased cook time; especially if you could advertise it as a feature.
"Life's fast, so why isn't cooking faster? Are you tired of your chicken taking hours to cook? Buy Bryson's Chicken Breasts!
"Bigger!
"Fatter!
"Healthier!
"and faster!
"Our chicken breasts are designed, formulated and engineered to be as big, nutritious and delicious as possible; while also being faster and easier to cook than other brands. So why spend hours cooking normal chicken breasts, when you could cook Bryson's Chicken Breasts in a fraction of the time? Buy Bryson's; you won't regret it."
Edit: misread "faster" as "fatter" lmao. Point still stands though.
That assumes that the consumer notices the change if it's bad. Just compare a strawberry that you grew yourself to store bought ones. The store bought is completely tasteless in comparison und usually still white inside because it's more profitable. And the consumer doesn't care. And by the time the consumer notices all alternatives are already pushed out of the market so now they don't get the choice to go for the more expensive but also more tasty one
Taking ten times longer to cook would have have some big cost disadvantages though, both fast food restaurants and regular consumers wouldn’t like it.
It's easier to just not give them any other options for so long that they forget it was ever any different.
It’s more to do with fork tender. It cooks the same time, just one is much tougher due to well worked muscles.
Case in point two meats that are uncommon in North America. Mutton and mature chicken.
Both benefit from much longer cooking times and are extremely tasty.