Consume with completely irrational fear
So I'm flipping through a copy of the Reporter (November 9th issue, available at http://www.reportermag.com/) that I picked up the other day, and an article catches my eye: "Consume with caution" is written at the top of the page, and below is a picture of a frosting container sitting next to a can of white paint. So I said to myself "Okay fine. You've caught my attention, you clever bastards. I'll read your article." It begins:
"When it comes to consumption, ignorance is bliss. Not many people look at the ingredients in what they're eating, but they'd be appalled if they took the time to glance." The article proceeds to discuss various chemicals that are in everyday foods, and much of what it says really does sound appalling. Yet if you actually think about what the author is saying you'll quickly realize that the article is closer to being a piece of "organic food is great" propaganda than an educational resource. Here are some examples:
In a section of the article under the bold heading "It might make your food last, but what about you?", the article states: "Sodium benzoate, in addition to being used profusely in food, is also used in antifreeze". Huh? Are you implying that sodium benzoate is bad for me because it's in antifreeze? I'm neither a biologist nor a chemist, but I'm pretty sure if I drink antifreeze the ethylene glycol will kill me long before the sodium benzoate has managed to do anything harmful.
Another sentence that seems to be using similar reasoning states: "Titanium oxide can be found coloring white paint and Betty Crocker vanilla frosting". That is a completely true statement of two facts, of course. What bothers me about it is, keeping in mind that the article's title is "Consume with Caution", what the author is implying - that this somehow means titanium dioxide is harmful, and that there's some relationship between eating frosting and eating white paint. If this seems like a logical conclusion to you, then next time you see one of your friends drinking coffee you can say to them: "Hey that coffee you're drinking contains lots of water. And do you know what else contains water? That's right: Sewage. Enjoy your coffee." Chances are they won't take you too seriously.
The article continues its righteous crusade against 'unsafe' everyday foods by attacking farm-raised salmon, which are given feed containing astaxanthin and canthaxanthin so they'll turn pink just like the wild salmon that turn pink from their diet of shrimp. It states that large doses of astaxanthin and canthaxanthin can cause various health problems. There's a lot of relevant material that the article leaves out, however. First, the two aforementioned chemicals are naturally occurring. You'll find them in vegetables and fruits such as apples. You'll also find them in - guess what - shrimp! That's right, these 'poisonous' additives in the food of farm-raised salmon are the exact same chemicals in the food of wild salmon. Also, the article mentions that the European Union has limited the amounts of these chemicals that can be used in fish feed, and fails to mention that the U.S. has done the same thing. This omission doesn't really surprise me though, since the objective of this article seems to be to convince you to fear your food by any means necessary, so why should it offer any hope that the salmon you eat could be safe?
In conclusion, I'd say this article does have a bit of value - there are some interesting facts in it. I just wish they could have given it a more appropriate title such as: "Random, disconnected facts about food loosely organized into paragraphs", and then removed all the suggestions that you should be afraid to eat things based on whether or not they contain chemicals with names you can't pronounce. You can't conclude that something isn't found in nature just because it has a fancy chemical name, you can't conclude that something is safe to eat just because it is found in nature, and finally, the point that people seem to have the most trouble understanding, just because something is synthetic doesn't mean it isn't safe to eat.
"When it comes to consumption, ignorance is bliss. Not many people look at the ingredients in what they're eating, but they'd be appalled if they took the time to glance." The article proceeds to discuss various chemicals that are in everyday foods, and much of what it says really does sound appalling. Yet if you actually think about what the author is saying you'll quickly realize that the article is closer to being a piece of "organic food is great" propaganda than an educational resource. Here are some examples:
In a section of the article under the bold heading "It might make your food last, but what about you?", the article states: "Sodium benzoate, in addition to being used profusely in food, is also used in antifreeze". Huh? Are you implying that sodium benzoate is bad for me because it's in antifreeze? I'm neither a biologist nor a chemist, but I'm pretty sure if I drink antifreeze the ethylene glycol will kill me long before the sodium benzoate has managed to do anything harmful.
Another sentence that seems to be using similar reasoning states: "Titanium oxide can be found coloring white paint and Betty Crocker vanilla frosting". That is a completely true statement of two facts, of course. What bothers me about it is, keeping in mind that the article's title is "Consume with Caution", what the author is implying - that this somehow means titanium dioxide is harmful, and that there's some relationship between eating frosting and eating white paint. If this seems like a logical conclusion to you, then next time you see one of your friends drinking coffee you can say to them: "Hey that coffee you're drinking contains lots of water. And do you know what else contains water? That's right: Sewage. Enjoy your coffee." Chances are they won't take you too seriously.
The article continues its righteous crusade against 'unsafe' everyday foods by attacking farm-raised salmon, which are given feed containing astaxanthin and canthaxanthin so they'll turn pink just like the wild salmon that turn pink from their diet of shrimp. It states that large doses of astaxanthin and canthaxanthin can cause various health problems. There's a lot of relevant material that the article leaves out, however. First, the two aforementioned chemicals are naturally occurring. You'll find them in vegetables and fruits such as apples. You'll also find them in - guess what - shrimp! That's right, these 'poisonous' additives in the food of farm-raised salmon are the exact same chemicals in the food of wild salmon. Also, the article mentions that the European Union has limited the amounts of these chemicals that can be used in fish feed, and fails to mention that the U.S. has done the same thing. This omission doesn't really surprise me though, since the objective of this article seems to be to convince you to fear your food by any means necessary, so why should it offer any hope that the salmon you eat could be safe?
In conclusion, I'd say this article does have a bit of value - there are some interesting facts in it. I just wish they could have given it a more appropriate title such as: "Random, disconnected facts about food loosely organized into paragraphs", and then removed all the suggestions that you should be afraid to eat things based on whether or not they contain chemicals with names you can't pronounce. You can't conclude that something isn't found in nature just because it has a fancy chemical name, you can't conclude that something is safe to eat just because it is found in nature, and finally, the point that people seem to have the most trouble understanding, just because something is synthetic doesn't mean it isn't safe to eat.
posted by jester at 2:46 AM
1 Comments:
Hey, but people buy Gnutella because they like the basketball star rapists like Kobe Bryant who eat it. Are you really suggesting that correlation doesn't mean causation?
How dare you.
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