Wouldn't be surprised if there's a relation between taste and nutritional value though.

Taste is subjective only to a very small degree. Most people would dislike the taste of rotten meat or spoiled milk. If taste would be fully subjective it could serve no purpose and there would be no reason for its existence.

I know you cannot be serious. If taste was not subjective there would hardly be the variety in meals we see all over the world.

And yes, if you go to extremes like rotten meat, there is of course little dispute. However, many cultures have developed certain dishes that they consider delicacies while outsiders would find them revolting.

But even from everyday experience, I'm sure even you will reassess your position if you think about it a bit more. Have you never had the experience that some food that you absolutely love and need others to try gets you little more than a shoulder shrug from someone else?

Taste even changes over time which is another intuitive reason why your claim makes little sense. Do you remember the first time you've tried coffee or beer (if you drink those)? Most people are not too fond of these flavors at first, yet they drinks are among the most consumed beverages, at least in Western societies.

The kind of taste changes we're talking about here are not subjective though. E.g. they're not about "I like it more or less" but e.g. about the taste changing from sweeter to less sweet.

For example tomatoes (it's covered in a few books on the subject) have lost a large part of their sugar content after the 80s due to mass market techniques and genes that yield more and less quickly riping ones, but of lower taste.

True, but that's orthogonal. You could still set up double-blind studies comparing taste, I think.

Of course, if you average subjectivity out, it's not longer there. But what's the point?

Just like software. If there is bad design, several bugs on your first run and you can't find the documentation: It is probably just the top of the iceberg.

Yeah, but when formerly tasty you would eat for pleasure of it tomatos turn into paper, you wont eat them at all.

That's kinda true. Alternative, if you personal life style allows for it, you may start growing your own tomatoes -- you might not get them all year around that way, but the taste difference is so worth it.

And in the end, you gotta eat something. I suppose instead of not eating anything healthy at all, the more prominent strategy seems to have been to accompany healthy produce with super-unhealthy condiments (basically, loads of sugar, salt, and fat) to make it tasty again. That's probably the more worrying consequence, though.

I think salt and fat are not as unhealthy as people have made them out to be over recent decades. Especially considering what foods people choose to eat to replace the lost calories that usually come from fats.

Sugar, though, yeah. Sugar is the devil.

Salt and fat are completely fine, even necessary for your health - when taken in moderation. But I was talking about "loads of sugar, salt, fat".

>Sugar, though, yeah. Sugar is the devil.

And seems almost impossible to avoid unless you cook everything from scratch and don't snack on anything premade.. it's so crazy.

I don't believe table salt added to cucumber, tomato, or anything else is bad for most people. Likewise certain fats in reasonable quantities is probably quite good for you. It's also delicious. I would say that dousing anything in syrup, ketchup, or any standard salad dressing with sugar is a bad idea. Even honey is questionable.

Exactly - the key term here is "in reasonably quantities". Note that my complaint above was about "loads of ...".

Of course, honey is questionable - just because it's a more-or-less natural product doesn't make it especially good for you.