• @[email protected]
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    92 days ago

    Everyone around me thinks the crap they allow in our food is bad for us.

    Without evidence of course. Just the same lack of critical thinking that RFK has. It “seems bad” and “it’s chemicals”.

    Europeans done have the same issues we do with food because they’re much more regulated.

    BS.

    • @[email protected]
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      252 days ago

      Avoidance of completely unnecessary chemicals is just reasonable. I don’t need to be sold on not adding something that isn’t needed. Why would you need proof that being marketed to with bright colors is not worth a health risk?

    • AmidFuror
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      92 days ago

      Sir, this is Lemmy. If the corporations do it, it’s bad no matter what it is.

    • @[email protected]
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      92 days ago

      it’s this administration. so i’m gonna guess it’s because ‘pride colored’ candies and other foods use them.

    • @[email protected]
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      82 days ago

      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23026007/

      Just one of many studies that raise concerns. Yes, they pump rats full of a fuckton of these chemicals that no normal human being will ingest. You could say the same thing about tons of other chemicals that have turned out to be carcinogenic. We don’t have the funds to give rats/animals normal doses over the course of a normal human lifespan, so pumping high amounts to shorten the duration is the next best thing.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 days ago

        Red has proven to be the most difficult color to synthesize due to how red colors oxidize or break down in the environment. The natural red colors all fade rapidly which makes them poorly suited for industrial purposes.

        It’s why carmine is a godsend because it’s both stable but it breaks down in the environment. It also has an incredibly long history as a food dye and has proven to be safe. Unfortunately it’s derived from insects so it’s regarded as being… gross? Weird how consumers prefer health consequences over bugs

        • Maeve
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          21 day ago

          Is the food industry doing this research the way fossil fuel and tobacco did research?

        • @[email protected]
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          52 days ago

          Well, that and it makes it non-vegitarian. I remember when Starbucks used insect derived dyes and vegetarians were pissed off when they weren’t told their drink technically had bug in it.

          That said, we eat bugs (and poop, etc) all the time since there’s a legal amount you can let slip into food when processing. So eh.

          • @[email protected]
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            41 day ago

            One of the most striking quotes I’ll always remember from a documentary is “natural peanut butter has more bugs in it because natural ingredients always will”. When you’re eating processed peanut spread, the ingredients have gone through a lot more filtering and processing steps and allowed insect parts are lower.

            I still eat natural peanut butter though

      • @[email protected]
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        32 days ago

        Yes, they pump rats full of a fuckton of these chemicals that no normal human being will ingest

        “Dosage make the poison” comes to mind. If it’s safe below those levels… Then it’s not harmful. “BUT IT MIGHT BE” is not a coherent argument. I’m not necessarily against banning a substance that has little functional use out of an abundance of caution - but lets not pretend that it’s going to save any lives since it’s very unlikely to do so.

      • AmidFuror
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        12 days ago

        Just because some turn out later to be carcinogens doesn’t make it a valid way to find them.

    • Pyr
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      42 days ago

      A red dye was recently banned because it was found to be carcinogenic. How many others are as well but just haven’t been looked at closely enough.

      • @[email protected]
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        52 days ago

        A red dye was recently banned because it was found to be carcinogenic.

        That is very oversimplified…

        Carcinogenic is not “true/false” it is probabilistic. The EU has a lower standard of evidence required for banning a substance than the US. In the EU if there was any evidence at all of it being carcinogenic in animal studies (whether in realistic quantities over realistic time periods or not) means it will be banned (I’m over-simplifying some here as well). The US standards are different.

        You could say that this is a better standard as it is more cautious. I may agree. But you can’t say “it was banned because it was carcinogenic” without a lot of qualifiers.