Comment by jfengel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jfengel | Hacker News Reader

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Yeah... now their ingredients are (from their web site):

Organic Pasta (Organic Wheat Flour), Whey, Cultured Cream, Nonfat Milk, Salt, Butter (Pasteurized Cream, Salt), Dried Cheddar Cheese (Cultured Pasteurized Milk, Salt, Non-Animal Enzymes), Corn Starch, Citric Acid, Annatto Extract (For Color), Lactic Acid, Sunflower Lecithin, Sodium Phosphate, Silicon Dioxide (For Anticaking).

None of this bothers me, but the declaration "No artificial flavors, synthetic colors, or synthetic preservatives" seems out of place with those last six ingredients. It's technically true, but that's a context where you sorta want more than merely "technically true".

I don't think any of them are harmful... but then, neither are the artificial and synthetic versions they're replacing. They don't strike me as all that different from the Kraft ones:

enriched macaroni (wheat flour, durum flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate [iron], thiamin mononitrate [vitamin b1], riboflavin [vitamin b2], folic acid); cheese sauce mix (whey, milkfat, milk protein concentrate, salt, sodium triphosphate, contains less than 2% of citric acid, lactic acid, sodium phosphate, calcium phosphate, with paprika, turmeric, and annatto added for color, enzymes, cheese culture).

I think the bigger question is, what was the Kraft ingredients list back before Annie's existed? They've made a number of recipe changes over the past three decades that probably only happened because of the 'healthier' competition.

(Here's one, for example: https://money.cnn.com/2016/03/08/news/companies/kraft-mac-an...)

Oh yeah. I'd heard about that just the other day. Neat.

I had spoken to some flavor manufacturers about a decade ago, and they say that the shift to "natural" flavors had been in the works for some time. Only very bottom-of-the-line products were still using artificial flavors. (They're very down on this since they don't think it makes any difference aside from costing more, and they're probably right. But consumers seem to like it better.)

It bothers me that consumers like making changes that don't really matter, but don't want to make hard changes that do matter (like the fact that neither one of these products contains a significant amount of nutritive value other than calories). That would mean eating a lot less macaroni and cheese.

I agree. The upside for Annie's would be that cheese is higher on the list, meaning there's more actual cheese. Otherwise they do seem similar.

I'm a little disappointed that only the wheat is organic. I'm unclear on the real balance of benefits of organic-ness for vegetable crops -- maybe it's better for the planet, maybe it's not. I doubt it's nutritionally different.

I do prefer organic animal ingredients, in the hopes that the animals themselves are treated slightly better if they have to avoid diseases rather than be given antibiotics. Unfortunately, I lack the resources to verify that (which is why I have cut way back on my animal product consumption).

> I'm unclear on the real balance of benefits of organic-ness for vegetable crops -- maybe it's better for the planet, maybe it's not.

The actual meaning of 'organic' when it comes to crops:

> Produce can be called organic if it’s certified to have grown on soil that had no prohibited substances applied for three years prior to harvest. Prohibited substances include most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. In instances when a grower has to use a synthetic substance to achieve a specific purpose, the substance must first be approved according to criteria that examine its effects on human health and the environment (see other considerations in “Organic 101: Allowed and Prohibited Substances”).

https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-...

It's probably healthier for you, in that there's less chance of trace chemicals that might have one effect or another that won't be understood or documented for decades. It's almost certainly healthier for the planet, as it requires a growing process that's more holistic than just regularly spraying down fields with various fertilizers and pesticides.

It is not clearly healthier for the planet, at least not in terms of greenhouse gas emissions [1].

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12622-7

> It's probably healthier for you,

that isn't true, see below

>in that there's less chance of trace chemicals that might have one effect or another that won't be understood or documented for decades

You often trade a trace chemical that has been well studied and found mostly harmless for a much higher concentration of some other chemical that is known as somewhat toxic but has been used for hundreds of years.

> It's almost certainly healthier for the planet, as it requires a growing process that's more holistic than just regularly spraying down fields with various fertilizers and pesticides.

It is worse for the planet in other ways. You can't use chemicals to destroy weeds, so instead you plow which destroys soil microbes, and the tractor pulling the plow emits for more CO2 than the whole process of making and applying the chemical.

Remember, organic processes that research shows are better are adopted by non-organic farmers. The opposite is not allowed.

That's the thing... they still use fertilizers and pesticides. They're just "natural", but copper sulfate, pyrethrins, and rotenone don't strike me as all that natural. They, too, could have effects that take decades to come together. Indeed, some "natural" pesticides, like arsenic and nicotine, are already banned.

My problem here is largely with the industrializing of the "organic" label. The things that you're really hoping for -- crop rotation, co-planting, mulching, no-till, etc -- don't really scale well. The organic farms look a lot like conventional farms, enormous monocultures. The names on the labels are just different.

I'm presenting the negative case here, just to point out that I'm really not certain. I'm a big supporter of what JI Rodale was doing when he popularized the term "organic", but that's not what you get in the grocery store. I have hopes that the grocery store is in fact ultimately a little better for the planet, but I wish I could be more certain.

It appears that rotenone (a powerful piscicide) is actually banned [0]. Same document also indicated that copper sulfate use is limited to specific situations/crops. Though, of course, conventional crops also have restriction on the use of pesticides, presumably they are less restricted.

[0] https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f1...

edit: This, of course, only applies to the USDA organic program. Products produced elsewhere may have different rules.

I'm kind of fascinated by cattle-washing of fertilizer.

Spread ammonium based fertilizer, you aren't organic.

Spread manure from cattle raised on crops grown using ammonium based fertilizer, you are good to go.

The make and sell a version of their Mac and Cheese that includes organic milk, along with most other of the ingredients.[0] It normally costs about double (or more) as their normal one which only has organic pasta.

[0] https://www.annies.com/product/organic-classic-cheddar-mac-c...

Also, Annie's makes varieties like reduced-sodium and lentil-pasta.

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