DailyDirt: What's That In Your Food?
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Processed foods are everywhere. They're quick and easy, as well as mighty tasty because they're designed to hit the perfect combination of salt, sugar and fat our bodies crave. Unfortunately, few things are actually perfect if you look closely enough. Common food packaging frequently lists ingredients that sound like a nightmare chemistry exam you haven't studied for, and preservatives aren't all that appetizing even if you can't taste them. Here are a few links on food additives that you may or may not think are scary.- If you can't pronounce azodicarbonamide, then you probably don't think it should be in your food (or yoga mats, either). But the dose makes the poison, right? So, <45 ppm shouldn't be too bad. [url]
- Large food companies regularly re-formulate their products to tailor them to local markets, but the differences in ingredients lists for the UK versus the US sound a little disconcerting. Some ingredients are banned as food additives in other countries, but in the US, they're just fine... /ominous music [url]
- New food additives are increasingly coming from natural sources. Natural sources for blue food coloring aren't easy to come by, but there's an FDA-approved extract from a cyanobacteria that's blue. [url]
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Filed Under: azodicarbonamide, chemistry, fda, food, food additives, food coloring, health, ingredients, poison, preservatives, toxic
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First link is high on the bogosity factor...
1: Corn syrup, while the UK version just had more sugar. Both are equally damaging.
2: Corn starch, in red, was also in the UK version
3: The colorant, in red, was probably just the unspecified "color" in the UK version
4: The fats were just all classed as "fatty acids" in the UK version.
5: The artifical flavor, in red, was probbaly just the uspecified flavor in the UK version.
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Re: First link is high on the bogosity factor...
So really, what #2 said.
Did TD have some bioconservative revival and we're in for more "CHEMICALS!!!!!111111" vs. "natural sources" (which of course do not have any chemicals inside them) BS in the future?
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Re: Re: First link is high on the bogosity factor...
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Re: First link is high on the bogosity factor...
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And while the "rational" benefit of making something taste and look better than it naturally would is debatable, it's neither harmful nor a human invention -- every plant does it to attract seed carriers.
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There are banned additives, but you claim they are not harmful. Go figure.
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Where I say you automatically get EHEC from eating preservative-free food? It's like other diseases, plenty of people got lucky and did not get Polio before vaccines became available -- but today, we're able to improve everybody's chances by quite a margin.
Again, [citation needed]
FYI, the original claim was "The additives are not there for your benefit", which should tell anybody who can read two things: First, we're talking about additives which are in food and not those which are banned. Second, we're discussing the typical biocon conspiracy that they just put bad stuff in our foods to twirl their mustaches and laugh manically.
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"Well, if you prefer additives live Botulism or E. Coli, go ahead..."
The either/or is implied.
Maybe you were addressing a limited set of food additives. that was not clear. Then your latest post further limits the discussion to tinfoil hat mode.
The point remains, those additives are not there for your benefit. They are there to increase profits - nothing else.
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What is implied is a certain basic capability of the reader. Such as understanding that a paragraph talking about food-borne disease means we're talking about one kind of ingredients, "making something taste and look better" in another paragraph means it's about another category.
They are there to increase profits - nothing else.
Most additives are far more expensive per kilo than the base product. If the evil corps could sell the same stuff without those additives, they'd make a larger profit.
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Additives like high fructose corn syrup are less expensive than real sugar. So yeah, you must be right - they are there to give you free stuff that has been throughly tested to ensure it does no harm to lifeforms as we know them.
Eat up, it's all good!
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People want (quite literally) dirt cheap food, people get what they want. Everybody who does not want it doesn't buy it. Sounds like a win-win to me
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Yup - unless you are poor.
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This is true for every aspect of everything that is sold, therefore meaningless. For example: adding something to your food product that ensures it won't sicken or kill people is done to increase profits (people won't buy it if it kills them). But the path to increased profits is to benefit people. So it's put there to benefit people.
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The path to increased profits does not care about your wellbeing and tort reform is a corporate goal.
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Large food companies regularly re-formulate their products to tailor them to local markets
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These reports and statistics scream the word HELP!"
I know, 41%? That's failing? How do we get that closer to 100%?
USA! USA! USA!
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Really, everyone is allowed a foul up a year, and this piece is TechDirt's.
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HIDE YOUR CHILDREN!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia
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On the other hand it is incredibly gross and there would be ethical concerns. But a lot of people would argue that eating animal meat is incredibly gross and has ethical concerns. LFTB or "pink slime" is just kinda gross to think about. Much like sucking the heads when people eat crawfish. But I don't see how it is any worse than eating "pure" ground up animal flesh. Especially since it is just processed animal flesh itself.
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Obviously. And lots of people don't consider it "good" at all, as evidenced by all the places where it's use is prohibited.
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That spongiform encephalopathy makes it double plus good.
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A new low for Techdirt
(mock mode)
> but there's an FDA-approved extract from a cyanobacteria that's blue
Cyanide bacteria? No way I'm going near that blue stuff!
(end mock mode)
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