So... which food additive's trade group is quietly paying scientists to point blame elsewhere right now? I'd prefer not to find out fifty years after the fact.
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...
Why we don’t I have no idea. The fuel is basically free. And the co2 impact is much less than building energy storage.
I think people too often Go for the recycle (get it out of my sight) instead of the reuse and reduce angles of the conservation triangle.
https://aluminiumtoday.com/news/international-aluminium-inst...
I suppose copper and steel aren't too bad in that regard either.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1907207.stm
I believe they’ve given it the catchy name glassphalt
At any rate, I'm not convinced it's so much a lobbying problem than appealing to a questionable public sentiment. How much of that sentiment is driven by profit and how much of it is driven by more mundane misconception is hard to tell (for me).
Edit:
> Big chemical and agtech
Not necessarily. Some GMO strains require less chemicals and make some of the tech redundant.
Literally the entire current farming industry. Especially the high markup “organic” segment.
Major economics changes in any industry entirely wipe out lots of participants. Investments in certain types of equipment no longer make sense, farms in particular areas stop making sense, etc.
One trivial example is that Google, one of the richest company in the world, has been trying to build housing in its home town of Mountain View for 20 years. Last I heard, nothing had happened.
Don't prohibit GMO, just invalidate the patents and regulate the results. If everyone can select the seeds that are designed best downstream farmers and consumers benefit from the reduction of monopoly.
The environmental and health impacts of new GMOs should be studied and regulated, but this "don't eat frakenfood" rhetoric or "No GMO" labeling aught to disappear as (as you've mentioned) it can be a huge win for hunger concerns.
> "We found that ties between researchers and the GM crop industry were common, with 40 percent of the articles considered displaying conflicts of interest," said the study.
> Researchers also found that studies that had a conflict of interest were far more likely to be favorable to GM crop companies than studies that were free of financial interference.
> Conflicts of interest were defined as studies in which at least one author declared an affiliation to one of the biotech or seed companies, or received funding or payment from them
Of course Monsanto et al have invested a lot of money into research that shows that GMOs are safe. That is of course not in any way proof that there is anything wrong with that research, but it definitely makes me more careful in interpreting the results.
Point being, there is money to be made on both sides.
There is nothing inherently dangerous about doing this, and it has the potential to do a lot of good for humanity. It's important not to conflate the demagoguing of massive agricorps with a useful scientific technique.
The bigger scam is that, despite producing more calories than we could possibly use, they've continued modifying crops for calorie yield and chemical resistance, which has made a lot of crops less nutritious (per kg eaten), less tasty, and more dependent on advanced human intervention to successfully grow.
I’m not that worried, but I’m not that fast to exclude the possible that something goes dangerously wrong somewhere, say some crop with new genes that make it spread uncontrollable through a whole ecosystem, in the same way invasive species sometimes do.
And then of course the issues you bring up in your last paragraph. The technique is in general not used to help humankind or the world, but to maximise revenue for the corporations. At least in the industrialised world, it is now more important to increase biodiversity than to maximise yield.
You don't need to worry about GMOs for that. We already have Kudzu vines.
How about checking the research papers cited in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_cont...
I honestly never understood the objection to GMO. Identifying the gene that some plants have to resist disease & turning it off never struck me as any more inherently risky than the end result of a multi-generational cultivation process that ultimately selects for the same or similar variations.
The soy scare made by the dairy and meat industries. A few years ago they caused a mass hysteria with the meme "google phythoestrogens". Sure, they bind to estrogen receptors, but their action actually inhibits mostly, so it kind of block estrogen.
Meanwhile, the same people would have no problem consuming products from the dairy industry abusing cows by pumping them with actual hormones. Dairy products full of actual estrogen and progesterone (not phyto-, the real deal).
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=es&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=dair...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogen#Effects_on_human...
Everyone I know who eats 90%+ carnivore diet looks/feels great.
CheapProcessedVeganFood co's perhaps?
Nonetheless, "veganism" does not imply good agricultural practices or less money or power — likely the opposite. Do not think of veganism as your local farmers market. Think of it as mostly destructive monoculture farming.
Healthy ecosystems require ruminants and other animals and plants to thrive. Modern agriculture is usually split up — barren feed lots, barren corn fields, etc. Regenerative agriculture like what the Savory Institute espouses is what's needed.
Vegans are also a great target market and quite lucrative. People who can afford to be vegan will pay higher prices for lower cost goods. I wouldn't be surprised to see lobbying from vegan food companies.
It's kind of funny how "vegan" has become a marketing term to the extent that vegan food is supposed to be expensive.
Vegan food is the cheapest food there is and powers nutrition on a global scale. Think wheat, rice, potatoes, beans, every single vegetable, all fruit, and products made thereof, bread, pasta, noodles, oils, etc.
In most parts of the world the standard diet is predominantly plant-based and meat is a luxury.
It used to be the same in Europe - my grandparents had meat at most once a week, usually on a Sunday.
But in the US (and I think it is mostly an American phenomenon), veganism has taken on a sort of strange alter ego as a life of expensive vegan donuts and vegan restaurants that charge (no joke) $18 for a small sandwich.
So I think it's important to differentiate between the two kinds of veganism — the expensive fad diet kind, and the one borne out of necessity.
There is no global conspiracy against red meat, it's simply our current scientific understanding.
The fact that we have studies that show the full spectrum of association is exactly what you would expect, and, assuming no biases, is a strong indication that it's not the most powerful carcinogen there is.
I would even hypothesise that for most people simply eating more vegetables and greens is more beneficial than leaving out red meat and not changing vegetable intake.
Also you are free to take as many risks as you want (mostly), and there are plenty of people smoking, drinking tons of soda etc.
The plant based meat industry alone had a $4 billion market in 2020, about 39% of which is in the US, and it's total is forecasted to grow to $14 billion by 2027. [1]
While not a direct comparison, the US meat market is around a $7 billion annual market. [2]
[1] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/plant-ba...
[2] https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market-size/me...
The corn lobby is definitely more powerful than meat or dairy are, yes.
Just make sure they know they're making the world a better place at your 32.30% gross margin (Beyond Meat). Compare to the gross margins of even big meat players like Pilgrims Pride or Sanderson Farms at 5-6%.
I think if you are vegan and ate 90% tofu / pea protein / rice protein products, and spent the rest of your intake on avocados and olive and coconut oil and almonds and pecans, you might also look and feel great.
Everything in moderation.
It seems to be more of a red meat and saturated fat issue. I don't know about who might be behind it, or if it is even misguided.
Things are improving (slowly) through online forums, and MDs and PhDs creating content (like youtube, blogs, etc).
Heck, just be part of the longevity movement that is trying to do something about aging itself.
[1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-8...
For longevity, check out SENS foundation (and Aubrey de Grey).
An example - BPA is used to coat the inside of tin cans. If you use a metal spoon to scrape out the contents, you're scraping away that lining into your food.
https://www.merieuxnutrisciences.com/corporate/en/news/endoc...
PVC pipes can leach hormone disruptors into drinking water:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315702292_Transfer_...
Packaging materials are not disclosed on the ingredients list, for example. Few people would know that the insides of drink cans or food tins are coated with plastic.
But speaking to regretful food decisions with lots of industry support and relatively little public awareness, I would rather our foods didn’t have so many emulsifiers in them.
Their risks to our gut biomes and immune systems weren’t appreciated when they were approved. Today they remain ubiquitous in typical American diets.
Apparently they wreak havoc on your gut flora.
And it's basically the most important thing for overall health.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevia#Safety_and_regulations
You could also argue Sucralose in moderate use, too. It's for sure much safer than the old sweeteners.
The other thing I'm very skeptical of now is milk replacements, like oat milk.
For cooking just use olive oil, coconut oil, or regular butter.
> Specifically vegetable seed oil, like sunflower oil or canola oil.
Please be more specific, my understanding is there is no easy X is harmful in nutrition. Your example vegetable seed oil:
Refined sunflower oil at high temperatures --> bad Cold pressed sunflower oil --> ok (great source of Vitamin E, but too much omega 6 compared to 3) Cold pressed linseed oil --> good
> The other thing I'm very skeptical of now is milk replacements, like oat milk.
Could you elaborate? You can make oat milk easily at home. Let oat flakes soak in cold water over night, blend, sift, done. Go fancy and add a drop of rapeseed oil (will work as a natural emulsifier) and a pinch of salt.
Commercial oat milk like that made by Oatly has rapeseed oil added into it and is then pasteurized. Heating vegetable oils is bad. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15371...
Maybe something home made isn't bad.
People with Coeliac disease mostly... doesn't seem like a very wealthy and well connected bunch though.
edit: the bad ones like sulfites, sodium benzoate, nitrites, etc...
Citric acid is also found naturally in citrus, it was not available economically in chemical form until the late 1970's/early 80's.
Now citric acid is a commodity after experiencing cartel-like activity before we got to where we are today.
It's the common tangy additive to food in all kinds of formulations.
I don't like it since it's an insidious buffer where each gram you consume would require a compensating amount of additional true alkali intake to fully neutralize.
If you wanted to be as neutral as you would be otherwise.
As an example natural orange juice has a fairly strong pH which can be moderated toward neutrality by adding citrate (the "alkaline" form of citric acid).
This is sold as "reduced acid" orange juice. You can tell the difference when you taste it because it is not as sour as the plain orange juice.
Often the citrate added is calcium citrate which also acts as a calcium supplement, but I still think it's not worth it.
Since pH is not total acidity. pH is simply a measure of how far away from neutral the solution is at the time. Often chemistry students have difficulty understanding this. There's lots of equations, they are confusing, plus quizzes and exams. Even the X-Prize for "ocean acidity" was awarded to the operators who had the most outstanding performance in pH measurements under the proscribed real-world conditions, but none of the participants actually measured total acidity at all, just furthered the capability for meaningful pH measurement. There were a number of PhDs involved and it appears to have slipped past them all.
Counterintuitively, the more of the "reduced acid" orange juice you drink instead of the plain stuff, the more you will need to include additional alkaline intake to remain as neutral, that you did not need when drinking only plain juice. Even though the plain stuff tastes more sour because it is.
As a commodity, like sugar, the supplier may have only one product to sell and there are excellent discounts when you buy citric acid in quantity. They've got plenty and can really deal. For instance if your recipe is attractive using one gram of citric acid per serving, if you scale up you could get a price break where putting in two grams is less costly than it was when putting in only one gram at first.
So the incentive is there to use more than you need if you are a food processor.
Still recommend citric acid for cleaning glass cooktops on kitchen stoves. It's not too abrasive and works pretty good for that.
I'm hopeful we'll get somewhere with nitrites. The whole celery salt dodge feels like the first step of a slow process to find something better, or perhaps figure out how to counter the nitrosamines.