Why do so many fans think replicated food tastes like the "real thing"?

Yeah, I imagine the Federation's attitude regarding replicators is: eat whatever you want and in whatever quantities, it's your protected right as a citizen. But if you develop health problems it's on you to seek treatment and correct them.

 

Let's complicate matters.

There's no science-based reason that duplication at the molecular level shouldn't be able to reproduce a living thing. "Quantum resolution" in this instance is a writer's dodge. The producers didn't want replicators to be able to duplicate living things - although a transporter from a century earlier had been able to do exactly that, on TOS - so they offered the "quantum" BS as a fig leaf.

 

We saw Enterprise-D supply a food replicator to Kevin and his wife. But that was a single case scenario in which the crew found what appeared to be a desolate planet and thought they could provide aid as they felt it was needed.

Replicators probably come pre-programmed with a dizzying array of recipes and food options which would have to be highly nutritious, but treated as a 'starter point' for the end user which they could modify as they deem fit.

It's also possible that most people in UFP simply speaking don't want to dedicate the time to alter the dishes themselves... but some would... it would be similar to open source Android development to certain devices which communities support (only in UFP, the model of the replicator wouldn't matter so long its relatively new)... those who have a passion for food would experiment and share recipes which they can upload to the replicator and try them out.

Raffi was also an isolated case. We've seen people on remote planets who didn't want replicators or some conveniences of modern technology.
She wasn't healthy, but definitely didn't seem malnourished. She had a problem with addiction and state of mind (psychological issues)... but otherwise (physically) seemed fine.

 

Personal responsibility? Nah....

 

You're drinking dinosaur piss and eating stuff that has gone through the cycle of decomposition and then remade either into plant matter and/or animal matter, gone through maggots and guts and back out and in for millions, if not billions, of years.

Why does it become icky if a ship or technology does it? It's a cheap jab at most that belongs in school. This cycle is how it works. No pristine comet lands every year to replenish the water we use. No batch of organic compounds falls from the sky to replenish all the food we eat and waste. It's all mostly contained here.

Hell the ISS water filter is more pristine in purifying piss than the cycle here on earth, something to 99.999 or whatever pure. We're only gonna get better at ECLSS and recycling technology.

 

I don't see why replicated food should taste exactly like the real thing? What does that even mean? Does your Grandmother's pot roast taste exactly like your wife's pot roast or exactly like the restaurant down the street? If someone gives 20 people a recipe, they can follow it exactly, measurements, temperature, time, same order of combining ingredients, and there will still be a variance in taste from one to the other. So, how could an exact replica of your Grandma's pot roast be expected to taste exactly like Sisko's dad's pot roast? Sisko's dad is expecting that pot roast you replicated for him to taste like his, therefore, it doesn't taste real to him.

 

Precisely, and all that is without getting into the subjectivity of individual palates.

 

Are you a woman? Are you being condescended to by a man? Then no.

 

I wonder if Jessica Fletcher's popcorn tastes the same as the popcorn had in that Voyager episode (Repression)?

 

In a world where fast food burgers don't even taste the same from chain to chain why would we expect food created out of thin air using transporter technology to taste exactly like the most delicious feast you've ever eaten and one cooked in a family setting? A burger still tastes like a hamburger even if it's not made from Angus beef and costs five dollars less.

 

Just don't try the gum.

 

It depends.

 

If it's actual beef and not made from byproducts like those dirt cheap burger patties processed from the worst parts of the cow it's hard to notice a difference large enough to matter. The byproduct patties you can tell from a mile away.

 

Did they say something untrue?

 

Stop waving your CV around.

And you can't mansplain to another man. That's not how it works.

 

To take these ideas a step further, replicator food is literally 24th century fast food, and it's plausible that labeling it as such would apply figuratively as well. We could expect that the menus would be largely de facto standardized. People would demand that the items they like would be available everywhere they go. But moreover, natural language is imprecise, and people don't necessarily specify exactly what they want. (Though, perhaps Picard's "tea, Earl Grey, hot" is his reaction to that problem, once used to overcome the assumptions made by some replicator station that irritated him and used thereafter.) So, someone asks for "a hamburger," Majel tells them that there are 47 standard varieties, which one do they want? The hungry person, with no patience for that b.s., says, "Just gimme a regular hamburger!" The computer picks the one usually ordered. It's natural for person to assume that that's what a hamburger tastes like.

So, yeah, certain selected items, a relative few among zillions, end up dominating the fare.

And after they've had one of those, you hand them a real one right off the grill, and of course they'll be able to taste the difference. The real one might even upset their stomach for just the reason @UssGlenn gave. Their bodies just wouldn't be used to all that fat, those carbs in the bun, the cholesterol, etc. I think it's quite plausible that the healthy substitutes would make food taste differently than "the real thing."

 

I wanted to address this point separately. I think that what you said here is generally true. Yes, we have the ability to recognize food type even though there are variations in preparation. But I have a few qualifications.

First, it may be difficult to tell if your burger is, say cut with ground pork, especially if there is a spice mix involved that does a good job masking it. I observed this when trying what translated as "burger" from another culture.

Second, meat substitutes introduce further complications. After all, the veggie burger industry is trying to replicate the taste of real burgers without the meat, with only various levels of success. The reasons why it hasn't been perfectly successful so far vary. Besides what their ideological leanings are that govern what they're willing to eat, how sensitive people's palates are varies, as does how much they care about differences and what they prefer. The bottom line here is that some people can tell they're not eating a real burger, whereas others can't.

 

Fair points.

 

Why shouldn't it taste like the real thing?

I agree with Christopher, other than lack of variation; it should largely be psychological if they don't think it tastes like the real deal.

 

But if there were a lack of variation, then the Berman series would’ve had to maintain “prop continuity” between an apple in one episode and another one in a different episode. I’m sure the replicator adds reasonable variation and minor imperfections to make the end result feel real, even though you wouldn’t get a rotten apple for no good reason. Same with entire meals: do you go through episodes that feature a particular dish in order to make sure it comes out the same if the order is exactly the same? Not really.