Sqwertz wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Jul 2020 22:07:59 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
>
>> The Science channel has a series called Super Factories. The particular
>> episode I'm watching has a segment on the Heinz factory in the UK. They
>> do canned beans there. They make 4500 cans per minute, about 4 million
>> cans a day.
>
> Surely Heinz has bean-counters. How many beans is that?
>
> I guess we can call UK "Beaners" now.
>
>> 1200 tons of dried beans are shipped in every week.
>
> Why don't they use fresh beans? It looks like beans are mostly dried
> in the field while still on the stalks, and then harvested from
> that. You'd get quicker turnaround on your land rotating in
> something else in the meantime.

old habits die hard. what you have the equipment for
may limit what you can do.

that is the problem around here a lot of farmers have
equipment for soybeans and/or corn but not much else
also there aren't places that will process and ship other
strange items so you have to figure out the whole
supply chain and find someone who will take what you
grow. let alone finding people who will pick it if it
is a fresh item that needs hands on workers.


> There's seems to be a lot of time and energy in pre-drying, then
> rehydrating beans at the processing plants.

shipping cool water around (which is what fresh
vegetable shipping basically is) is not cheap. dried
stuff ships and stores much easier.


> I'm sure there's culinary and economical reasons for not doing this,
> I'm just curious what it is. Green peas, for example, don't go
> through the same grown-dry-rehydrate process. I'd be curious what a
> fresh pinto tastes like when cooked to the same state as previously
> dried.

storage and transportation issues. to use fresh produce
takes a lot more expense and more careful handling. if you
don't keep fresh stuff cold enough it will start to ferment.


> OTOH, if fresh peanuts vs. dried and roasted are any example of
> culinary benefit of drying first, I'll take the dried ones 101% of
> the time. Fresh peanuts are ass.

some beans are really good as shellies (fresh from the pod
while still tender and not hard).

other beans are only edible when dried and cooked.

also, note, some beans must be cooked at certain
temperatures to neutralize poisons. something that
people who use low heat on slow cookers can find out
in a rather rude way.


>> If you are looking for it on cable, it is episode 3 and will repeat or
>> be available on demand. The title is NASA Rocket Factory.

i like shows like this.

i watch anything on recycling i can find because i
find the process of how they sort things out interesting.
how they figure out what is what.


songbird