No, you should eat everything capitalists want to sell you as food, because then they will make lots of money and America will be strong again.
Citation Respectfully Requested
3 Likes
I love how the debunker is untrustworthy because she previously worked at a chemical company, but a letter about her from one of her supposed co-workers (under an assumed name) from that same company is completely above-board.
8 Likes
Are you trying to correct something I donât know or didnât say?
I meant ADDED chemicals. For instance, I donât need artificial flavor enhancers for the most part. And I definitely donât need food colorâŚI donât care if the food color is 100% safeâŚit is unnecessary for most product. What Iâm getting at is added shit that shouldnât be there, and could be just as good without it. I love a good burger cooked over an open fire. What I donât want is a good burger that has been given steroids and antibiotics just because â especially when I have a compromised immune system and there are dangerously few antibiotics left that can treat me compared to when I was a child and everything worked. Why? Because we gave them out like candy to farm animals and then Iâm in surgery to have MRSA cut out of my sinuses because the antibiotics we have access to couldnât kill the crap on its own.
This is where I fall down on it. I donât give a damn about the chemicalsâŚand Iâm being overly broad with the term because yesâŚhaving a background in BioChem when I was premed and then accepted to med school before I decided I really wanted to focus on a different subjectâŚyeahâŚI know what chemicals are.
Iâm not adverse to risk, Iâm adverse to unnecessary risk when the alternative is good non-factory based foods.
1 Like
Yeah, this is the kind of thing Iâm talking aboutâŚlike, the counter-takedown says
Also, I think itâs important to note, Amvac [Yvette dâEntremontâs previous employer] has a collaboration agreement with Monsanto to co-market Roundup ready platforms. The same Roundup that has glyphosate, which has been listed by the IARC and WHO as a probable carcinogen and the same Roundup that is directly associated with GMO crops.
This is a perfect example of where good intentions are getting all fucked up. Roundup and the over-use of pesticides like it to protect monocultures grown by industrial farmers like Monsanto is a BIG, LEGITIMATE issue! And avoiding foods grown with that stuff is probably a good bet if you donât like industrial farming or pesticide over-use!
ButâŚitâs used to try and shoot the messenger with an ad homenim against someone pointing out that Food Babe ainât doinâ her basic research. Which is not the best use of that knowledge!
Itâs frustrating. Food Babe deserves to be pilloried, but if you look at the origins of her fearmongering, youâre seeing actual problems that need fixing, even if sheâs being a huge buffoon about it.
6 Likes
Give food babe another chance, sheâs pushing that 8yo into new ingredients to pronounce. And my ideal food? So like a yoga mat. Neopolitan yoga mat is all over the place, and itâs good for a whole 4 minutes out of the oven (and in the oven, itâs quite hot.)
1 Like
I admit that I was not interested until I read @OtherMichaelâs brief summary. Then I had to see it.
Sweet baby Jesus, what a vindictive scum-sucking asshole. The random quote from the anonymous source is ridiculous. A masterâs thesis not being published is not unusual. She sounds like a technician, probably in QC. Every corporate asshole would love to replace competent technicians with robots. The reason you hire people is because you canât. She might be fired because of her scibabe blog, mainly because corporations donât like blogs. Or, for that matter, people having lives outside the company. Either way, the person who wrote it sounds like a magnificent asshole with a bug up his butt about his coworker.
3 Likes
Yeah, like all that Nitrogen on air planes! When are they going to start pumping in pure Oxygen like nature intended?
1 Like
I always feel like any discussion of food safety is a lose-lose proposition.
On the one hand: most of the people telling us that food and drugs (and other things) are safe are the ones selling them, or closely affiliated with the sellers, or easily bribed by the sellers. And thereâs a history of claims of safety for things like cigarettes, cocaine, radium, asbestos, lead paint, thalidomide, etc. Itâs not irrational to maintain some level of skepticism of synthetic ingredients, preservatives, pesticides, herbicides, GMOs, plastics, or whatever, because of that history.
On the other: most of the people telling us that those things are unsafe are also selling something. Including bullshit and ignorance. âDetoxingâ and âcleansesâ and homeopathy and ânaturalâ sugar bombs and supplements that have undergone less testing than most of the things that weâre supposed to worry about.
âNaturalâ is basically meaningless. Humanity is not ânatural.â We wear clothes, we build homes, we use language and mathematics, we make art, we live at the mercy of complex economic systems that few or none actually understand, and we have fights about things on the internet.
9 Likes
When you cook food, you add chemicals. That was my point.
Which is a subjective evaluation. More power to you.
Which is a real issue, and one that broadly indicts overzealous use of antibiotics, but itâs simply not responsible to attach it vicariously to the use of such a broad category as âadded chemicals.â
Um⌠and?
Good for you. But ânecessaryâ is a subjective evaluation based on priorities. I am more likely to die driving than I am to die from eating pretty much any food commonly deemed fit for consumption, chemicals âaddedâ or not. I take that âunnecessaryâ risk because I deem it necessary. Risk prioritization is something people do every day. You want to take it to an extreme for food, fine. Just donât pretend itâs logically consistent with the science that has demonstrated time and time again that the risks are minimal.
3 Likes
ok but you know what?
Subway bread is pretty gross.
3 Likes
I love the smell of dimethylpolysiloxane in the morning.
6 Likes
The rates would vary from crop to crop, but BT resistant corn saw 25% decrease in pesticide use IIRC, the bugs could eventually become resistant (I think there may have been some evidence of this, but nothing conclusive), but better crop rotation and other techniques will get around things like this in the future. The details are easily googlable, and as long as you avoid advocacy websites for your info you should be ok.
All large scale farming requires pesticide and herbicides, doesnât matter whether itâs organic or standard non-GMO crops. GMOs can reduce the need for both by using fewer doses at a higher rate for lower total usage, or allow us to use more effective pesticides that would otherwise damage the crops themselves, again requiring less overall, or help with natural pest resistance to further lower the required amounts.
Weâre unlikely to get everything right out of the gate though, and nature will always fight back, but itâs that or lose a huge portion of our produce to pests, disease, etc., putting even more strain on an already over-strained global food production system.
The solution to these problems isnât less technology and more wishy-washy nonsense with no evidence to back it up, itâs smarter technology, and smarter control of that technology (in some cases this might be more government regulation, though that shouldnât be necessary as these things affect profits, so farmers have plenty of incentive to do the right things as it is).
1 Like
Youâre a real âcoin-a-sewerââŚ
4 Likes
Most foods do require the flavor enhancing additives because they taste bland without them, thatâs what you get when you mass produce food. They also require the preserving additives. Thereâs little to no evidence any of these things are in any way harmful though, the main problem with mass produced food these days is the amount of sugars and refined carbs in them. People should cook their own food from scratch with the raw ingredients though, you wonât need to worry about any of this then.
2 Likes
The thing is, thatâs not the origins of her fearmongering. Why would someone be scared of Nitrogen on airplanes? Because they donât understand what Nitrogen is, and more than that, because theyâre afraid that the companies that run airlines donât have the best interests of the traveler in mind when flying. One of those things is basic ignorance of high school science. The other one is actually something that is true about the world that is awful and needs to change.
3 Likes
Itâs kind of compelling hearing the volumes of the stuff (glyphosate, not azodicarbonamide) sold every year (as opposed to successively subtler use to pace global uptake,) but I didnât manage to read down to why I want GI bacteria to have nice functional tryptophan engines or how resilient they are. Like in mdpi.com/journal/entropy 15 from 2013, p. 1416ish, Samsel and SeneffâŚshould look out for zinc and sulfur deficiency tags, inability to digest olives, plenty of avenues, get that on a watch and keep noshing the emergency organic stash.
Right - not just that, but âfood personâ (Iâd use her name⌠but I donât know it) is using a rather silly version of the âonly eat foodâ maxim from Michael Pollan: not if an 8th grader can pronounce it, but if your grandmother would recognize it as âfoodâ. There is sense in that - more sense than in demonizing âchemicalsâ, which is silly, or in saying that if it doesnât make you drop dead instantly (DDT, classically, or this âyoga matâ stuff) then itâs perfectly OK and wholesome.
There is a lot to be said for giving preference to less-processed food, and thus avoiding the chemicals (even non-poisonous chemicals) which permit industrial food processing.
There is a lot to be said for encouraging small producers, both health-wise and culturally, and thus avoiding techniques which permit large-scale growing and processing.
Caze says we are the healthiest people ever, and I suppose he (probably âheâ but maybe not) thinks that our long life-span implies that, but it could be just that we are the most hygienic and have antibiotics. While we recover from infections way better than people used to, that has little to do with diet. We get more cancer, cardio-vascular disease, and diabetes than ever before, and that is diet-related.
1 Like
People lead much less healthy lives because of the foods though. I mean, why does my bread have HFCS in it? Unnecessary. And I LOVE the flavor of this stuff. Will it kill you? No. Will it give you diabetes? Not in moderation. However, it is entirely designed to reduce the moderating factors and consume more. You might be less likely to die, but more likely to get ill.
And for the record, I posted my credentials because you seem to think we are disagreeing, or that I may not get what you were saying. I most assuredly do. Iâm just saying IâD like to eat simpler foods that have less ingredients in them, and less need for the pharmaceutical industry to be a part of it, and less need for modifying DNA, and less need for flavor additivesâŚI say this knowing I made iced tea last night and I stirred in a little citric acid to heighten the flavor. Why didnât I just squeeze a lemon or an orange into it? I know where those came fromâŚI have no idea of the process for the CA. Sometimes we do these things because it is easier and convenient and stores a little longer. Iâd be happier if my food had an expiration date that was within days as opposed to months. Thatâs all Iâm saying. No scientific evidence saying that anything in this food is bad, purely that Iâd like to eat MORE naturally, knowing it is all a matter of degrees.
3 Likes
"Hari tirelessly reminds her blog readers that the next time they take licks of vanilla ice cream or spoonfuls of strawberry oatmeal, 'thereâs a chance youâll be swirling secretions from a beaverâs anal glands around in your mouth.'âI believe @boundegar was the reader noting that tyranny is the removal of nuance...
And yeah, like everyone else said, Hariâs response piece steps right past âreasonable and cogent responseâ and goes right into character assassination. And the pandering, oh my word the pandering!
Aww, so sweet. So maybe less of the beaver anal glands and maybe a touch more science?
EDIT: Lastly, âFood Babeâ and âScience Babeâ may very well represent The Towering Intellects of their particular fields, but maybe some new monikers are in order?
3 Likes
