[TimTheTinker]

What about food produced in Europe? We have an Italian restaurant in my Tennessee town that imports all of its ingredients from Italy.

I know several people who are otherwise gluten-intolerant but can eat anything there with no trouble.

All of the food issues we're suffering from in the US -- celiac's disease, food allergies, gluten intolerance, dairy intolerance -- are relatively rare in Europe.

[jongjong]

The chemical contaminant problem is huge. The pressure to always lower food production costs has forced the industry to accept tradeoffs without considering the costs. The tradeoffs are at every step of the chain and if you ask anyone in the production chain about a specific contaminant, they will likely wave it off "no big deal, it's harmless" but by the time you go through the entire supply chain, this would accumulate to large numbers of contaminants from many different sources with complex interactions.

It's interesting that it works like fish and mercury contamination. Big fish accumulate mercury in higher concentrations than little fish. The little fish accumulate small amount over certain periods and are eaten by big fish which rapidly accumulate the chemical. The higher in the food chain the fish, the more mercury. It's a parallel with the degree of food processing. The more processed the food, the more contaminants.

You could characterize it as a general problem that humans and the planet are facing now. We have a problem with long chains. We are neglecting their costs. Even in the software industry, as a software developer, long chains of logic introduce their own problems with slight side effects at every stage accumulating into problematic unexpected behaviors and adding significant maintenance burdens. Guess what AI coding is contributing to? Longer chains of logic to solve the same problem.

At some point we have to put our foot down and reject unnecessary complexity and reject minor conveniences. There is too much fake convenience and fake safety which actually create much bigger inconveniences and hazards in the long run.

Everything in our society seems to be mirroring the debt-based system upon which our society is founded. Everything works like a debt which will have to be repaid later, with interest.

[legitster]

I use a lot of italian imports from my cooking, but it's less to do with the organic nature and more to do with a combination of terroir + refined techniques + heritage breeds of crops.

I tend to suspect that the "gluten-intolerant but can eat noodles in Europe" is a bit bunk. These days the top source of Durum wheat used in luxury European products is ... North Dakota and Canada.

I suspect the root of the issue is that the European lifestyle in general is so much healthier (less processed food, smaller portions, more walking) combined with the excitement of travel gives people a overall boost in their constitution.

[tpm]

> I tend to suspect that the "gluten-intolerant but can eat noodles in Europe" is a bit bunk.

I think it's possible and also it might be something different happening with the noodles/flour than gluten intolerance which is not well defined anyway (we are not talking about coeliac disease here to be clear). For example my wife can't eat wheat (+durum), spelt and rye products from our country without issues, but can eat rye and spelt products from Austria, anything from Greece and most but not everything from Italy, and that is true both when on vacation there and also when buying their products here (or in case of Austria, buying in Austria).

One thing I want to mention is that gluten-free noodles from big brands (like Barilla) have evolved so much that I now prefer them to their gluten-full equivalents.

[skuzye]

Not sure about the other stuff but food allergies in Europe are very high as well https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S193945512.... It seems to be linked with economic development.

Anecdotally, we have no history of food allergies in the family but my daughter has severe sesame allergy, milk, egg and nuts allergy. We are from South America but live in the UK.