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Poison, Poison Everywhere

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101–110 of 211 posts

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#101

I'm tackling part of the issue of food toxin remediation with my new venture, NeutraOat (neutraoat.com). It's a modified oat fiber supplement that selectively traps BPA, PFAS, and plasticizers in the gut and reduces levels in the blood serum. The funding for this is tough, though. Everyone loves the idea, but it's difficult to find people to fund R&D to make sure the product actually works over brand building and mar…

Sounds interesting. I heard about oat's ability to absorb nasty stuff in the gut for awhile. However, in the UK oats are dried out using glyphosate...a known carcinogen! Feels like modern society makes it nearly impossible to not be exposed to harmful substances...so I hope you're successful.

The whole point of glyphosate is that it deteriorates very very quickly, and your oats should contain exactly zero of it. Obviously that's the theory, I'd love someone to test it. But in US wheat is routinely dessicated with glyphosate so either their bread is giving everyone cancer, or the compound does actually break down as expected. Or maybe it's somewhere in between.

Either way, it's like the article said - it's impossible for us consumers to figure any of this stuff out. We have to rely on public agencies, which are under constant attack from multinational corporations throwing billions of dollars at the issue, because following regulations costs money. And that's in developed countries, if you're buying stuff from places with barely functional food quality inspection then good luck I guess.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#102
post #6

Empowering individuals to solve collective problems rarely work. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178680 > The appropriate solution is legislation.

This mindset is dangerous - "weak individuals, you better let the strong benevolent government solve your problems". The appropriate solution is legislation AND individual empowerment.

Ideally legislation that creates individual empowerment.

But the big lobbyists hate that, so it'll never happen.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#103
post #3

This is precisely why I happily pay for an annual subscription to ConsumerLab[0]. It's largely just for supplements and a few functional foods, but with a tiny staff they are doing more work to help the public on the unregulated medicine market than the entire FDA, IMHO. [0] https://www.consumerlab.com/

Looks like something I'd love to support / become member in, but I wonder how many brands outside US the lab tests? Do they also test products available in Europe/Asia?

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No amount of legislation will make it practical to do comprehensive chemical tests on every single domestic and imported product, or do comprehensive safety studies on every single chemical used in such products, or to handle the legal proceedings to prosecute all violations. Our society does not have the resources to sustain the incomprehensibly large regulatory and compliance industry needed to enforce a shadow of…

But we often need legislation to enact individual-driven change. If you have legislation that says what is the allowed level of lead in food, then you as an individual can bring the case for prosecution against companies that make food with lead over that threshold, even if we both agree that it's impractical to test every single domestic and imported product individually on a national level.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#105

> All the exhaust fumes pooled and hung in the air there. And these were the 1970s: literally all the gasoline was leaded.1 This was lead poisoning. Over the years, the children were getting brain damage. And if you live in a city today it's only marginally better. Remember that everyone selfishly driving their car is choosing to poison you rather than dealing with public transport. They give you lung cancer from the…

The prisoner isn't a horrible human because he solves his dilemma by defecting.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#106

Amazon is so completely irresponsible for their marketplace that recently, shopping for a glass oral thermometer (because the digital ones suck) I stumbled on reviews with photos showing products that had no mercury inside and actual blobs of mercury stuck to the tip that goes in your mouth. These were still for sale. I feel like even 10 years ago, online marketplaces would have taken measures to prevent stuff like t…

Why do you think mercury blob is going to the mouth?

Those are usually rectal thermometer, with 0.1°C precision or better. Also sometimes used to measure body temperature in armpits.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#107

I'm tackling part of the issue of food toxin remediation with my new venture, NeutraOat (neutraoat.com). It's a modified oat fiber supplement that selectively traps BPA, PFAS, and plasticizers in the gut and reduces levels in the blood serum. The funding for this is tough, though. Everyone loves the idea, but it's difficult to find people to fund R&D to make sure the product actually works over brand building and mar…

Sounds interesting. I heard about oat's ability to absorb nasty stuff in the gut for awhile. However, in the UK oats are dried out using glyphosate...a known carcinogen! Feels like modern society makes it nearly impossible to not be exposed to harmful substances...so I hope you're successful.

I have no connection to these people, except I have eaten their jumbo oats. They have been an organic farm since 1949. I doubt they use glyphosate, but you could ask them?

https://www.pimhill.com/

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#109
post #96

The reality is that poison is dose dependent, and we’ve mostly identified all the dangerous things and their doses. That lead in the bottle and the formaldehyde in your cheap clothes is bad … but not in a way that will detectably cause you harm or impair your life

I'm pretty confident that thanks to us getting rid of a lot of stuff already (lead, etc), we're now more able to detect other stuff that is causing issues (like microplastics, although there was a lot less of that in the 70's)
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