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Comment by gamache | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps this is ignorance, but I do not want this anywhere near my food. The FDA's said a lot of things are non-toxic over the years.

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This was posted in the comments section of the article:

>I'm Dave Smith, and I just want to clarify that we make the coating from materials that are not just FDA approved, but that we actually eat on a regular basis in much larger quantities than could possibly be released from the coating.

It sort of looks like the bottle has been coated on the inside with oil.

Because of the chemical similarities between oil and plastics, oil really sticks to plastic, creating a hard to remove oily coating on plastic surfaces. You really notice this effect if you have the joy of having to hand wash a plastic mixing bowl that has had oil in it.

I wonder if something similar is going on here? If they are eating this stuff already is the magic ingredient simply an edible oil?

[edit] readability.

Just use a little bit of detergent without any water. Scrub then rinse.

Knowing they FDA, they'll just ban companies from telling consumers whether or not it's in their products.

Because if it's a medicine you might actually want to use, it's illegal unless you have $100 million dollars to pay for testing. But if it's something that can make food corporations money, not only doesn't it need to be tested but it's illegal for you to even know if you're eating it.

Do you have an example of this already happening?

The obvious one is that it's illegal for food companies to advertise whether or not their products are GMO:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/18/fda-labeled-free-modif...

There are a lot of other food safety best practices that the FDA has effectively banned as well though. For example the movie Food Inc. explains the issues surrounding bacteria in beef.

While the regulation on GMO labels is evident, it's hard to decide whether GMO is good or bad, and whether it is right or wrong to encourage or discourage GMO.

Bacteria in beef is problematic to justify because the bad outcomes tend to be low-probability events, and the events can often be attributed to other causes, so it's hard to pin it down on food safety practices.

Try something more clear-cut, like the history of trans-fat regulation as compared to when the adverse health-effects of trans-fat were identified, and whether trans-fat was allowed as a food additive with compelling evidence for its safety (by appeal to long-term epidemiological data or otherwise). Trans-fat is also clearer because the government has encouraged (with marketing dollars) its consumption over other kinds of fat.

I'm sure there are many better examples than GMO labeling and bacteria in food.

So this is never going to fly then. Why would a food company use this coating at all? It's not in their interest - wasted food means more money for the company.

That was my first thought, too. A million tons of food saved = a million tons of food unsold.

Unless, of course, the bottles are so slippery that people inadvertently pour a lot more ketchup than they used to. That would be a million tons of food wasted = more money for Heinz.

> It's not in their interest - wasted food means more money for the company.

It's sick.

But I keep wondering - why no one in this industry seems to be trying to be good and use it as a marketing advantage? "We do not try to make profits on stealing from you by wasting materials and energy like everyone else out there". I'd definitely try to buy as much as I could from such company.

Capitalism at its best - it's all about profit and outsmarting the competition. There are companies out there that try to do the right stuff - organic food, healthy stuff, etc, etc. But they struggle. They struggle because 'the good stuff' costs more to produce, therefore they have to charge more. Whilst the 'bad' companies sell unhealthy stuff at a lot lower price, thus yielding better profits. Which in turn means better advertising, better position on shelves, etc. Society is not ready for the change yet. You would do the right thing, but I'm guessing 90% of population, just don't care.

I think you've been misinformed about organic food. It's not healthier, isn't necessarily better for the environment, and the profit margins are much higher.

Modern pesticides are not particularly toxic, but they are also not completely safe. They often break down into things like estrogen, so we know low doses are not going to kill you but they are still biologically active. Which set's up a cost benefit analysis of tiny positive vs significant cost.

Modern farming is more harmful to the area being farmed, but takes significantly less land to produce the same food which in theory means you can let more land go fallow (wild). As to profit margins farming in the US is only profitable though subsidy's so that's just a question of government incentives.

PS: Not that I actually shop for organic food, but it's not completely irrational behavior to do so.

I assume you assert that out of ignorance. Modern pesticides are extremely toxic in small quantities, some with immediate and easily observed effects, others with delayed and long-lasting effects.

Regulatory limits are often based on immediate observable effects. Delayed hard-to-observe problems tend to be ignored. See the toxicity of organophosphates and COPIND, and the history of its regulation (when regulations were enforced; when the upper limit was revised to consider the problems of COPIND). There are research results that suggest some Americans have a sufficiently high dietary intake of pesticides to affect their lives.

Furthermore, for many pesticides, there's no way for the policy makers and public to estimate its toxicity, because research is often suppressed, dissemination of toxicity information is often suppressed, policy change is often suppressed, etc. It's a well-established problem with the political-economy of America.

In many less-developed-countries, MNCs like Monsanto and Bayer have used aggressive and deceptive sales techniques and misrepresentation of product toxicity to persuade farmers to use pesticides far in excess (over 100 times the level of) of regulatory limits in the US. These products do get exported. Search for such news and policy discussions in India and China.

Lastly, pesticides don't "often" break down into chemicals similar, in biological activity, to estrogen. Pesticides can cause quick death, physical deformities in fetuses and young children, autism, epilepsy, mental retardation, cancer, organ failure, rashes, ulcers, can be used in biological warfare, etc. Some pesticides take decades to breakdown; Some pesticides have metabolites that are extremely toxic. Do refer to toxicity and metabolism research and data when evaluating the health risks of pesticide exposure and consumption, and/or consult an expert with little conflict of interest.

PS: Organic farm allows the use of (some classes of) pesticides as well.

I assume you assert that out of ignorance.

No, however I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume we have a vastly different view on what small quantities entails. You have farmers who are basically drenched in the stuff and then the general public who get's 1/1000th of those doses. Most of the time toxicity is not a linear relationship, feel free to go swim in a vat of phosphoric acid an ingredient in Coca-Cola Soda Syrup if you survive feel free to report back to me on what that was like.

PS: I was thinking about this after posting it, and the acid comment was over the top. I hope you took as the hyperbole it was intended as, but if not I would like to apologize.

My wife used to be on a team that managed Heinz ketchup. When I spoke to her about this, the decision analysis usually runs as follows: 1) Does this incremental improvement (i.e. non-stick coating) provide a distinct competitive advantage that is backed by clear and pressing consumer demand? 2) How much will it cost in terms of: i) disrupting/modifying existing at-scale manufacturing/bottling processes ii) fixed cost increase iii) potential liability

There is usually a laundry list of pressing consumer needs with associated costs, balanced against market share numbers (usually culled from Nielson data) and satisfying power distribution channel partners.

The non-stick coating is, afaik, not high on the list of consumer demands for Heinz ketchup.

Then why did ketchup companies start putting the opening on the bottom of the bottle?

Consumer convenience is a competitive advantage. Once people get used to slippery-coated bottles, they'll avoid products without it.

So do smaller containers for the same price. When you shop do you pay attention to how much usable product you're buying?

Call me cheapskate, but I always look at £/100ml part of the label.

I do that too (except it usually says kr/l or kr/kg here.). Sometimes I end up buying more than I need, though, because the unit price for bigger packets are that much lower. Doesn't mean that the packet will last me any longer, specially if it's chips, chocolate or fizzy drinks.

The ketchup is just a good demonstration. they can apply that coating to a million other things... Pipes, tubes... Take a smaller bottle, cover it outside and you got yourself a dildo. It's all about potential possibilities not "food" :)

This effect could be achieved with a "standard" superhydrophobic coating (or superhydrophilic for oil-based condiments). Those can be easily done with something like a nanostructured silica film (without having to functionalize the coating with additional chemicals), and silica is a very common food additive (fumed silica is already added to ketchup in fact to alter its flow properties)

Nanostructures may be likely, considering the group's recent (but different) patent: http://www.google.com/patents?id=JBoFAgAAEBAJ&printsec=a...

The problem is that even benign materials can have unexpected outcomes that depend on their nano-structural properties. Carbon is safe, but carbon nanotubes can form cysts [1] and cause brain damage in fish [2].

[1] http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080520/full/news.2008.845.ht...

[2] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4825-buckyballs-cause-...

You're absolutely right -- there are some materials that would be very bad candidates here.

I was pointing out only that this can be achieved with structure only (no additional hydrophobic/hydrophilic chemicals), and that it can be done with materials that have already proven themselves inert when ingested in nano-scale particle sizes.

Out of curiosity, what criteria do you use to determine which food products are probably safe for your consumption? Do you do research yourself, or is there another source of research you consult?

There's a list of approved food additives for most developed countries.

I try to stick to food products that existed 200 years ago.

So, let me get this straight. You will not have this near your food solely based on the fact that FDA has approved of it? That's crazytalk if you ask me.

I don't believe he's saying he would not use the product BECAUSE the FDA has approved it, but rather FDA approval has not always been the best indicator that a particular product is indeed safe.

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