Replicated food vs real food

[Fianna]

I think a lot of Star Trek fans are very fond of defending the super-tech but I take the view synthesized food is "instant" equivalent. It will manifestly be inferior to the real thing even if it'll do in a pinch.

Ditto synthehol.

I'm more likely to believe that there's no real discernible taste difference between replicated and non-replicated food, but for some people, if you tell them their food was replicated, they'll go into it with preconceptions about artificiality making it bad, and will enjoy it less and find many more problems with it than if you told them it was natural.

[CharlesPhipps]

I think a lot of Star Trek fans are very fond of defending the super-tech but I take the view synthesized food is "instant" equivalent. It will manifestly be inferior to the real thing even if it'll do in a pinch.

Ditto synthehol.

I'm more likely to believe that there's no real discernible taste difference between replicated and non-replicated food, but for some people, if you tell them their food was replicated, they'll go into it with preconceptions about artificiality making it bad, and will enjoy it less and find many more problems with it than if you told them it was natural.

Maybe, but I admit I tend to be of the "future is not perfect" Deep Space Nine vs. TNG.

It's possible that psychology does play a big effect. You could also argue the big difference is replicated food will always taste the same versus handmade.

[Robovski]

Which apple is organic and which one isn't? Further, which one is replicated rom organic and which one isn't? It could all be perception.

[Fianna]

Maybe, but I admit I tend to be of the "future is not perfect" Deep Space Nine vs. TNG.

It's possible that psychology does play a big effect. You could also argue the big difference is replicated food will always taste the same versus handmade.

I get kinda rubbed wrong by the idea of replicated food not being as good, because there's a certain kind of arrogance to it, the idea that there are certain things no mere machine could ever do better than human beings. You see it at least as far back as the story of John Henry and the steam engine. You see it in the people who used to claim that no computer could ever match the intuition and higher reasoning abilities of a top-tier chess player. You see it in the TOS episode "The Ultimate Computer". And the human chefs > replicators thing seems to be continuing the same trend.

It'd be one thing if replicator technology in Star Trek just wasn't advanced enough yet to match the quality of good cooking. I can entirely believe that there would be a long period of time where food replicators existed, but turned out a pretty shoddy product. But once they're at the point of assembling each dish molecule by molecule, that doesn't seem to fly.

Even the "always taste the same" issue should be easily circumvented by programming the replicator with many different variations of each dish, and having which version it selects be randomized.

[Admiral X]

I've always taken it as more of a texture thing, since the cells in the plant or animal tissues would maybe be not quite right since they are artificial and thus not quite taste the same.

[CharlesPhipps]

It's not an issue of "machines can't do what humans can do." It's a matter of the message of "Should it be that case in Star Trek at this time."

It's a very pro-science series so obviously it is not a case of whether machines can or should. However, I sometimes believe Star Trek shows science on "easy" mode which isn't a good message. Science is difficult and rewarding to do because of that difficulty. The idea of replicators not being quite as good appeals to me just because it's a "not quite there' thing.

Mind you, I suspect cooking is just like vinyl records for the most part.