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How we're scammed into eating phony food

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Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#461

Post by pbhjpbhj »

wildmusings wrote: post #399
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scientific literature doesn't show MSG to be completely harmless. Some people definitely have negative reactions it and other sources of free glutamates. Eg http://www.livescience.com/47931-msg-not-safe-for-everyone.h... Copying from Wikipedia: >"Excitotoxicity is the pathological process by which nerve cells are damaged or killed by excessive stimulation by neurotransmitters such as glutamate and similar substan…

Funny that you quote from the excitotoxicity article but not the MSG article, which lists study after study proving that MSG in food is harmless. All reports of negative effects are anecdotal and unsubstantiated. This is for one of the most widely consumed chemicals in the world.

>study after study proving that MSG in food is harmless //

The side issue is objective truth here. So, you're telling me that no one has ever been harmed by consuming normal quantities of MSG? That's what "proven harmless" means.

It only requires one study to show some link between MSG and negative health effects to make it rational to seek that information, something like this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27312658 maybe, suggesting neuronal destruction (using mice as a model). It's not proof.

For example, from the Wikipedia article on "Glutamate flavoring":

>"At a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in 1990, the delegates had a split opinion on the issues related to neurotoxic effects from excitotoxic amino acids found in some additives such as monosodium glutamate."

If neuroscience experts don't have consensus, that would be a reason to avoid "additives such as MSG", no?

I still think that if we're going to do this democracy thing that people who want "no MSG" labels ['no free glutamate' would probably be more useful] should get them regardless of my view of their scientific basis.

Personally MSG doesn't really bother me, I don't like the "enhanced" taste with foods that are rich in it but a little seems fine. I do get headache and bloatedness after having the UK version of Chinese Restaurant food, seemingly more so than with other food types, but I'm pretty sure that's just over-eating [perhaps the enhanced flavour encourages it?].

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#462

Post by pbhjpbhj »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #449
mtone wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you the GMO products are consistently 15% cheaper (thanks to better yields and lower waste they are promising) and routinely labeled organic (thanks to the promised reduction in pesticides requirements), consumers will be attracted to it. If GMOs have nothing to offer, why would the consumer want them, harmful or not?

> and routinely labeled organic (thanks to the promised reduction in pesticides requirements) Except they won't be, because "organic" doesn't involve less pesticides - it often involves more pesticides but of a more "natural" flavour. It may have started from the desire of some consumers to buy food that's made locally and with a more pre-industrial feel to it (because they believe it's healthier), but now it's just…

Are you talking about USA labelling here?

In the EU (as we still are in the UK for the moment) this http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/eu-policy/eu-legisla... is the situation with food labelled "Organic". It's certainly not about being pre-industrial, it's about being sustainable and cautious with natural resources and health.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#463

Post by zymhan »

teolemon wrote: post #403
ep103 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, how does your website take care of this problem? I clicked on a few items, and it just seemed to list the ingredients and nutritional information.

We list labels and claims, and enable calculations like calorie average on a food category, nutritional score calculations, and many other things. We try to make it easier to read, decypher and compare food info. Was there a feature you were expecting ?

How does this address the issue of, say, one type of fish being sold as another?

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#464

Post by macca321 »

koliber wrote: post #159
misja111 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with tomatoes and many other vegetables and fruits is, that they don't grow in the UK so they have to be imported. If they would be imported only when they were as ripe and tasty as the ones you saw in Italy, they would be rotten by the time they arrived in your supermarket in the UK. So, they are harvested when they are not quite ripe. They will ripen a bit more during transport but they will never have…

Tomatoes are something of a passion of mine. The problems are exactly what you describe, with ensuring that transport will not ruin the fruit. Another facet is not only that the tomatoes are picked unripe, but also that the varieties that are grown are ones which optimize for being able to withstand long transport times as well as for uniformity. Consumers as a group like uniform, smooth, red-colored tomatoes, and th…

What is this sun you speak of? /UK

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#465

Post by khedoros »

amelius wrote: post #447
khedoros wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or why don't we ship the whole plant? :) Ship the whole plant...and then send it back to grow more tomatoes? I'm not sure about production-scale tomato farming, but in my garden, the same tomato plant will continue to grow fruit, and you don't want to uproot it just for the fruit currently on it.

Okay I didn't know that. But surely, there will be some customers willing to pay for ripe "Italian" tomatoes, I suppose (?)

I suppose so. The next question is economics: Are there enough customers that a company could import the plants and be able to offer them for a price the customers want to pay and that gives them enough profit to make it worthwhile? If no one's doing that and there's a sufficient market, that sounds like a good new business to look into.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#466

Post by kwhitefoot »

chris_7 wrote: post #414
kwhitefoot wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But does have a tremendous effect on the food. Of course you can get good food in the US I have been to many restaurants that were both good in an absolute sense and good value. But you know that there is something wrong when children say "I can't eat this it's too sweet" which is what happened to me when I took my family with me to North Carolina for an extended business trip. In the supermarkets almost everything y…

You need to shop around the outside of the store - that's where the vegetables, fish, milk, yogurt (unsweetened greek/skyr), and eggs typically are, with a stop-by in the flour/sugar/etc. aisle when you run out of those. Alternatively, speciality stores - vegetable markets or farmer's markets, Asian/Mexican markets, etc., buy bread from a bakery, not a supermarket aisle.

Why should I have to try so hard to find good food? Why isn't it there in the supermarkets? Presumably because the customers are at least willing to buy the junk that is there.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#467

Post by [deleted] »

chris_7 wrote: post #414
kwhitefoot wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But does have a tremendous effect on the food. Of course you can get good food in the US I have been to many restaurants that were both good in an absolute sense and good value. But you know that there is something wrong when children say "I can't eat this it's too sweet" which is what happened to me when I took my family with me to North Carolina for an extended business trip. In the supermarkets almost everything y…

You need to shop around the outside of the store - that's where the vegetables, fish, milk, yogurt (unsweetened greek/skyr), and eggs typically are, with a stop-by in the flour/sugar/etc. aisle when you run out of those. Alternatively, speciality stores - vegetable markets or farmer's markets, Asian/Mexican markets, etc., buy bread from a bakery, not a supermarket aisle.

[deleted]

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#468

Post by ptaipale »

wildmusings wrote: post #184
pizza234 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public is not made only/mainly of science-challenged people as you're subtly implying. There are other reasonable motivations for labeling GMO, ie. political and environmental (not all environmental reasons are "GMO is frankenstein food"). Moreover, the GMO scaremongering will last, as any other fad, for a limited amount of time. The part of public who rejects GMO for shallow (no) reasons, will quickly forget and…

I'm not so sure. People are still sure that MSG will slowly kill them, when it's actually been proven to be 100% harmless as far as we know. You still see "No MSG" labels on tons of food. Mandatory labeling gives the impression that it's relevant information. Whether your food is GMO is totally without consequence. I don't see why the government should burden and mislead the rest of us so you can more easily wage you…

BTW there seems to be a development for some more sensible marking of GM foods beyond the GMO/non-GMO labeling which really tells you nothing of value.

The idea with this is that you put much more information available:

http://www.marklynas.org/2016/07/time-compromise-gmo-labelli...

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#469

Post by pizza234 »

wildmusings wrote: post #184
pizza234 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public is not made only/mainly of science-challenged people as you're subtly implying. There are other reasonable motivations for labeling GMO, ie. political and environmental (not all environmental reasons are "GMO is frankenstein food"). Moreover, the GMO scaremongering will last, as any other fad, for a limited amount of time. The part of public who rejects GMO for shallow (no) reasons, will quickly forget and…

I'm not so sure. People are still sure that MSG will slowly kill them, when it's actually been proven to be 100% harmless as far as we know. You still see "No MSG" labels on tons of food. Mandatory labeling gives the impression that it's relevant information. Whether your food is GMO is totally without consequence. I don't see why the government should burden and mislead the rest of us so you can more easily wage you…

> People are still sure that MSG will slowly kill them, when it's actually been proven to be 100% harmless as far as we know. You still see "No MSG" labels on tons of food.

"People" is sure of that... and so what? Food with additives sell. Have a walk in the street and observe what's the volume of organic (I'm using "additive-free-as-possible" for comparison purposes) food sold against "regular" one.

Talking at home about good intentions, irrational fears and so on translates little to purchasing habits. I actually heard only two people in my life talking about MSG, and only one is the "food hipster" who doesn't buy.

Of course, cases like associating skulls and crossbones with microwave ovens are an entirely different story.

> so you can more easily wage your political campaign from the comfort of your local Whole Foods.

I'm not sure if you're intentionally disingenuous here; the supermarket (generalizing, purchasing of goods) is actually the least comfortable place where to wage political campaigns, because it's the place where one puts the money where the mouth is if he really believes in his ideas, and doing so is expen$ive.

> Totally harmless but the food hipsters wouldn't shut up until we forced everyone to read this stupid label.

Let me make sure I understand you correctly. In the jar of yogurt I have in front of me, whose main readable are is ~250 cm², an OGM writing would take an estimated 0.8 cm² (it would necessarily follow the typical guidelines of mandatory warnings), and it would also be in a part which has no immediate visibility. I therefore exclude that as "forcing everyone to read". I also extremely rarely see advertisements in the supermarkets with warnings - this would cannibalize a part of their own offer.

Can you explain who and how would exactly "force" the public to read such warnings?

Note that of course some food would, for marketing purposes, shovel "GMO free" in shiny colours. That's advertisement, it's not government-regulated mandatory warning.

Re: How we're scammed into eating phony food

#470

Post by true_religion »

ricksplat wrote: post #297
true_religion wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why eggs in Denmark (as of my last visit) cost approximately 1.5x to 2.0x as much as eggs in the USA. There is a cost to having free-range eggs. There's a cost to controlling egg-quality so they can remain unwashed, and unrefrigerated for days. Now in the US, you can choose if you want to pay that cost and thus shop at different supermarkets that cater to your tastes. In the EU countries, you must pay the cos…

Denmark isn't a great comparison because it's one of the places in Europe with the highest cost of living. Also these regulations aren't just to do with free range eggs but any battery farming facility. You might be on to something, that you should have the right to cheaper food, even if it notionally means poisoning yourself. The problem is though that you are not always in a situation where you can make an informed…

What I meant by choice is that the USA has standards that can be considered minimally safe by 1st world nations. Companies can and do exceed those standards for food quality and safety, and end up producing better products that consumers can choose to buy then.

Another example of the difference between the US and EU with regards to encouraging choice is labelling.

In the EU, food must be labelled for origin, and other factors. In the US, that's all option but if a food company does label, it has to meet strict standards as to accuracy of the label.

Do consumers care about GMO corn vs non-GMO corn? In the EU, the question is non-optional, you must label. In the US, the question is optional---some companies label themselves as non-GMO and charge higher prices, some do not label themselves anything and could be using GMO or non-GMO products.

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