It wasnt necessarily about the freshness, which is true for certain things, but more about if the seasonings are seperated into individual ones throughout the cooking process, then they percieve it as not seasoning because they werent all combined.

Salt is salt, parika is paprika but the point is this talking point comes from the perception that not shaking a spicy shaker onto your food means you dont season your food.

India is probably the top of the chain in terms of seasoned, spicy food and yet you dont see them shaking tobasco sauce and laurys onto their curry.