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The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of studies to show cocoa is good

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Re: The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of studies to show cocoa is good

#51

Post by ianai »

blackguardx wrote: post #34
aaron-lebo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a dark chocolate connoisseur, but your post got me wondering. Hershey's Special Dark (which a lot of people are probably familiar with and is way better than regular Hershey's milk chocolate) is 45%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershey%27s_Special_Dark Can't imagine 80%, but it's easy to get on Amazon. Thanks for the extra weight.

I recommend trying Lindt chocolate bars. It is a good, entry-level (sort of cheap) chocolate brand that is pretty wildly available. Try the 70% and then work your way up to 90%. They make a 99% as well, but it is harder to find.

I think my next crazy taste test will be straight cocoa nibs whole.

Re: The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of studies to show cocoa is good

#52

Post by Broken_Hippo »

athenot wrote: post #42
bllguo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has a relation to the ability of someone to actually conduct an experiment... Larger groups have more resources, from knowledge to experience to money. It is not an ad hominem fallacy. I don't know how you twisted his meaning to come to that conclusion.

Louis Pasteur and Pierre & Marie Curie fit the description of "mom and pop research", as compared to today's labs, yet their findings are still valid.

That level is still somewhat prohibitive for a lot of folks. Schooling alone can cost quite a bit, and without this a lot of places won't take you seriously regardless of your self-study. This aspect alone makes the person unable to reach Pasteur or Curie's "mom and pop research" level.

Not to mention supplies. I worked as a lab assistant for a dude studying the effects of zebra mussels in closed freshwater lake systems in Indiana (dams and whatnot, where the mussel would need to have been introduced to the lake). Microscopes capable of counting the young, ventilation hoods (for preservation chemicals), scales, and methods of disposing of biowaste from the traps for adults? Yeah, that's even more - and this dude had a pretty low budget. What he did have was the time to put into the research which is yet another thing that alludes folks. Some fields of study really needs better equipment than we were using - plus it has been 20 years since then.

It isn't that the low-budget stuff or the "mom and pop research" is less valid or not good enough. It is that even that level is cost-prohibitive.

Re: The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of studies to show cocoa is good

#53

Post by pierrec »

lokerfoi wrote: post #21
aaron-lebo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a dark chocolate connoisseur, but your post got me wondering. Hershey's Special Dark (which a lot of people are probably familiar with and is way better than regular Hershey's milk chocolate) is 45%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershey%27s_Special_Dark Can't imagine 80%, but it's easy to get on Amazon. Thanks for the extra weight.

75% is pretty standard in Europe. I've tried a couple of 99% cocoa chocolates too, but these are really for the hardcore lovers (gets glued to the teeth and other taste issues).

>gets glued to your teeth

Because you're not supposed to chew it (I believe that's even written in the "tasting tips" on the Lindt packaging at least). Bite off small bits and let them melt in your mouth. It's kind of like a dark and very tasty coffee, if that sounds good to you, give it a try.

Now if only I could find it in the supermarkets around here... (as is common in France)

Re: The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of studies to show cocoa is good

#54

Post by burkaman »

emodendroket wrote: post #19
wallace_f wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop perpetuating the cultural idea that 'anything white collar is OK as long as you do it for money.' The corrupt researchers should be left without a job, just as, say, a food truck worker who plotted to intentionally profit from selling expired products would be fired and criminally charged. In both cases the actors are unethically profiting from your misfortune.

Surely it is primarily the organization which deserves censure, rather than individuals operating within the system. Unless you basically want to lock up entire fields' worth of scientists I don't see how individual responsibility is a solution.

What is the difference between an organization and the individuals who make up that organization?

Re: The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of studies to show cocoa is good

#55

Post by gaius »

denzil_correa wrote: post #32
BFatts wrote: post #20

Someone has to do the research and "Big" whatever seems to be the ones with the money to do so. So, what should we expect from them? They are going to look for research that is compelling to their business model, but as long as it's not wholly misleading, why is it bad? All research should be taken with a grain of salt. I also have another question: Everyone in media is always looking for that story to break about "B…

> All research should be taken with a grain of salt. The very fact of science is that you can take the same experiment and under the said assumptions; you can repeat the same experiment yourself and come to similar conclusions as the one done by the original scientists. > I doubt that mom and pop have the cash to do research. And I sure as hell won't trust any mom and pop research about pharmacology. AD Hominem falla…

The very fact of science is that you can take the same experiment and under the said assumptions; you can repeat the same experiment yourself and come to similar conclusions as the one done by the original scientists

Except that you can't: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39054778

Science is facing a "reproducibility crisis" where more than two-thirds of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, research suggests

Re: The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of studies to show cocoa is good

#56

Post by emodendroket »

burkaman wrote: post #54
emodendroket wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely it is primarily the organization which deserves censure, rather than individuals operating within the system. Unless you basically want to lock up entire fields' worth of scientists I don't see how individual responsibility is a solution.

What is the difference between an organization and the individuals who make up that organization?

Quite a lot both legally and psychologically.

Re: The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of studies to show cocoa is good

#57

Post by colechristensen »

ianai wrote: post #51
blackguardx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend trying Lindt chocolate bars. It is a good, entry-level (sort of cheap) chocolate brand that is pretty wildly available. Try the 70% and then work your way up to 90%. They make a 99% as well, but it is harder to find.

I think my next crazy taste test will be straight cocoa nibs whole.

You can buy them fairly readily. They're good in yogurt.

Re: The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of studies to show cocoa is good

#58

Post by jmiserez »

blackguardx wrote: post #34
aaron-lebo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a dark chocolate connoisseur, but your post got me wondering. Hershey's Special Dark (which a lot of people are probably familiar with and is way better than regular Hershey's milk chocolate) is 45%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershey%27s_Special_Dark Can't imagine 80%, but it's easy to get on Amazon. Thanks for the extra weight.

I recommend trying Lindt chocolate bars. It is a good, entry-level (sort of cheap) chocolate brand that is pretty wildly available. Try the 70% and then work your way up to 90%. They make a 99% as well, but it is harder to find.

I don’t know how you came to this conclusion, but Lindt is not an entry-level (whatever that means) chocolate brand in my book.

What would you suggest is better?

Re: The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of studies to show cocoa is good

#59

Post by wallace_f »

emodendroket wrote: post #40
bdamm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this part of the problem? When we (Americans) work for money, we don't do much investigation of where that money comes from. And really, how could we? It would take forensic accountant type of skills to really do that job. Maybe that's the fundamental cultural basis; if people felt it was important to know where the money comes from that is paying them they might think more about what work to take. There's a se…

> There's a sense of urgency to getting and staying employed in America which counteracts this ability to be judicious about what work you take, which is perhaps the underlying cultural driver. Uh, yeah, of course there is, because the alternative is penury. If you make scientists liable and change nothing else the result is not going to be a great scientific system that works for the average Joe.

So what is your solution? This happens in every industry, by the way:

“Patterson's award for this discovery [the age of the earth]? A world of trouble. He didn’t know it, but he was on a collision course with some of the most powerful people on the planet [for discovering widespread lead pollution by accident].”-from the 2nd Cosmos

Re: The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of studies to show cocoa is good

#60

Post by fleitz »

ianai wrote: post #4
sna1l wrote: post #2

This is a very common move by food companies right? Curious as to what can be done to stop it? https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-in...

Society either has to fund more researchers with more money and accept the ramifications of that or accept companies funding their own interests. The same applies to campaign funding.

Also, stop reading the news, when you see someone healthy, ask them what they do and/or pay for their advice. (A lot of healthy people are in the wellness industries)

Being healthy isn't rocket science, but on the other hand it involves a lot of lifestyle changes.

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