“Chemicals” in food. Literally every substance, every food and people are composed of them. The common usage has bastardized the meaning and latched on to the naturalistic fallacy. Snake venom is natural. Cyanide is natural. Arsenic and Uranium are natural. Botulinum toxin is natural. Something being naturally occurring does not automatically make it good for you just as something being made in a lab does not equate to being bad for you.
A guy at a deli counter slicing cold cuts and assembling them into a sandwich is “processed food”. Using the term as a health concern marker is meaningless.
Even Kraft Singles, the posterchild of “processed food”, famously disallowed to legally call itself “cheese” on its packaging, what is it made of? What hellish process hath humanity wrought? Cheddar cheese, sodium citrate (a mundane variety of salt), and water. That’s it.
It’s not forbidden from being called “cheese” because it’s a bastard concoction of mad scientist chemicals that approximate cheese to ruse consumers. It’s simply cheese, literally watered down to the point that you can’t call it cheese anymore.
All that the sodium citrate is doing in this situation is acting as a binder that helps the cheese solids hold on to the water. This action is what gives many dishes, sauces, and the like their smooth, creamy texture. But use the word for that – “emulsifier” – and suddenly people think you’re trying to poison them, because that’s a scary chemical word.
Why does this product exist? Because it offers a unique melty texture that people appreciate in certain contexts. It’s a niche product with a niche function. Treat it like one.
I haven’t run into anyone who considers emulsifier a scary chemical word. Most people I know with any baking skill know what the word means and use egg yolks for that purpose all the time.
tl;dw The chemicals used in chemotherapy are naturally occurring, and science uses what we know works. So when people say “you should use natural remedies”, what they really mean is, you should use something:
we don’t know whether it works
we know doesn’t work
we know is actively harmful
And the first two categories aren’t necessarily bad, an Epsom salt bath can feel really nice, but don’t think it’s a replacement for proper medical science.
I feel like that’s one of those things where the conversational use of chemicals and scientific use has drifted apart
There’s plenty of examples but the only one I can think of is evolution, like In every terrible sci-fi movie ever using evolution to describe the individual evil monster gaining some change
AI. In the real world, AI is any computer process that can make decisions as if it were smart. Expert systems, genetic algorithms, hell even fuzzy logic. A smart lightbulb is artificially smart. Artificially intelligent.
In movies and bad tech blogs, AI means a sapient machine and that’s why LLMs aren’t actually AI.
Idk if that helps your point as it’s simultaneously one of the most studied and least understood things in physics. Although I doubt a creationist could mount that argument.
Being overweight or obese, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, prolonged sitting, loneliness will all kill you way faster than all those “chemicals” in your food that you are so terrified of but no one really cares about any of that because its much harder to lose that extra 30 pounds and break up sitting every once in a while with light exercise than it is to act like a picky 5 year old and eat nothing but organic food satisfied by the false notion that you did something of consequence for your health.
Same thing with people thinking that organic food is healthier. Organic food might be good for the environment, but not necessarily the climate or your health.
Organic has less pesticides. Which is probably healthier no? I mostly buy non organic, but always get organic for certain foods like strawberries and oats since they tend to have so much pesticides used on them.
Not necessarily less pesticides, but “natural” pesticides. In my opinion, organic food is probably either equivalent or better than not-organic, but I don’t think there’s much scientific consensus.
People tend to think “organic” means that a food item is free from the ills of industrial agriculture, but it really doesn’t. It’s the same thing with people directing hate at GMO’s: most complaints people have about them are really complaints that apply to industrial ag whether GMO or not.
Less pesticides also means more bacteria and more bug poop. There is a reason why they use pesticides, after all.
Even if there are trace amounts of pesticides left, you can just wash the produce, which you should always do anyway. Same reason you wash the organic produce to get rid of bug stuff…
The trace amounts of bug poop or pesticides really makes no difference when it comes to your health.
I worked in produce as a quality inspector for a couple years. Organic generally just means lower quality for higher price. No one is regulating it as far as I know, they can just skip pesticides, do everything else the same and charge more for the same product that actually cost them less to produce. We refered to it as a hillarious scam when the boss wasnt around.
No, thats just the bullshit they use to justify it.
Anything not looking good enough gets sent to a secondary outlet and is sold as is with no organic labels. The stuff that is a grade below that gets juiced ( dont drink fruit juice that you didnt make yourself if you can help it…). They are not losing a single pennie, they are making out like thieves
That depends on where you live though. Here in Denmark, as an example, we have a certificate called “Statskontrolleret økologisk” which basically translates to “Government-certified organic”. There are specific guidelines and rules that need to be followed, to be allowed to use this seal on your product.
I love when they compare food labels from two countries but don’t notice the ingredients are the same just described in different words or with different levels of verbosity based on the local regulations.
On one hand I agree with you, the way “chemicals” are used in everyday speech differs from the text book definition.
On the other hand, if we take our heads out of our asses and stop the "well actually"s I kinda have to agree with being against “chemicals” in food. Arsenic is naturally occurring, sure, but at what concentration? Radioactive uranium is a naturally occurring element, but I would hardly call nuclear fallout something natural.
“Chemicals” in food. Literally every substance, every food and people are composed of them. The common usage has bastardized the meaning and latched on to the naturalistic fallacy. Snake venom is natural. Cyanide is natural. Arsenic and Uranium are natural. Botulinum toxin is natural. Something being naturally occurring does not automatically make it good for you just as something being made in a lab does not equate to being bad for you.
My least favorite is “it’s processed”
I can count the ingredients on my hands, and the “processing” is like 4 steps max.
A guy at a deli counter slicing cold cuts and assembling them into a sandwich is “processed food”. Using the term as a health concern marker is meaningless.
Even Kraft Singles, the posterchild of “processed food”, famously disallowed to legally call itself “cheese” on its packaging, what is it made of? What hellish process hath humanity wrought? Cheddar cheese, sodium citrate (a mundane variety of salt), and water. That’s it.
It’s not forbidden from being called “cheese” because it’s a bastard concoction of mad scientist chemicals that approximate cheese to ruse consumers. It’s simply cheese, literally watered down to the point that you can’t call it cheese anymore.
All that the sodium citrate is doing in this situation is acting as a binder that helps the cheese solids hold on to the water. This action is what gives many dishes, sauces, and the like their smooth, creamy texture. But use the word for that – “emulsifier” – and suddenly people think you’re trying to poison them, because that’s a scary chemical word.
Why does this product exist? Because it offers a unique melty texture that people appreciate in certain contexts. It’s a niche product with a niche function. Treat it like one.
I haven’t run into anyone who considers emulsifier a scary chemical word. Most people I know with any baking skill know what the word means and use egg yolks for that purpose all the time.
“Unga bunga me invent new process for food. It called cooking. Make less parasites in meat. Very good.”
“Cooking bad, garg. We no want processed food.”
Cooking is processing food.
Have you heard about the chemical dihydrogen monoxide?! It’s 100% fatal! Too much causes death, too little, death! Massively addictive.
I really liked this post by Hank Green regarding “natural remedies”.
tl;dw The chemicals used in chemotherapy are naturally occurring, and science uses what we know works. So when people say “you should use natural remedies”, what they really mean is, you should use something:
And the first two categories aren’t necessarily bad, an Epsom salt bath can feel really nice, but don’t think it’s a replacement for proper medical science.
I feel like that’s one of those things where the conversational use of chemicals and scientific use has drifted apart
There’s plenty of examples but the only one I can think of is evolution, like In every terrible sci-fi movie ever using evolution to describe the individual evil monster gaining some change
Anyways 100% agree with you tho
AI. In the real world, AI is any computer process that can make decisions as if it were smart. Expert systems, genetic algorithms, hell even fuzzy logic. A smart lightbulb is artificially smart. Artificially intelligent.
In movies and bad tech blogs, AI means a sapient machine and that’s why LLMs aren’t actually AI.
The word theory is another one.
I find myself thinking this a lot. Someone goes; “and that’s my theory about…” And I’m like; that’s not a theory, that’s a hypothesis…
But that’s just a theory, a gaaaame theory
Matpat is a fascist piece of shit.
Like how some creationists try to dispell evolution by saying that it’s only a theory.
I just say “so is gravity”
Idk if that helps your point as it’s simultaneously one of the most studied and least understood things in physics. Although I doubt a creationist could mount that argument.
If you are not worried about the chemicals in your food, your long term health would like to have a word with you.
Being overweight or obese, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, prolonged sitting, loneliness will all kill you way faster than all those “chemicals” in your food that you are so terrified of but no one really cares about any of that because its much harder to lose that extra 30 pounds and break up sitting every once in a while with light exercise than it is to act like a picky 5 year old and eat nothing but organic food satisfied by the false notion that you did something of consequence for your health.
Not just your food, even the water. It’s full of H2O.
Water is a chemical. Salt is a chemical. Everything is a chemical.
Absolutely, but not at all chemicals are the same as you know. Some are harmless and some are not.
Same thing with people thinking that organic food is healthier. Organic food might be good for the environment, but not necessarily the climate or your health.
Organic has less pesticides. Which is probably healthier no? I mostly buy non organic, but always get organic for certain foods like strawberries and oats since they tend to have so much pesticides used on them.
Not necessarily less pesticides, but “natural” pesticides. In my opinion, organic food is probably either equivalent or better than not-organic, but I don’t think there’s much scientific consensus.
People tend to think “organic” means that a food item is free from the ills of industrial agriculture, but it really doesn’t. It’s the same thing with people directing hate at GMO’s: most complaints people have about them are really complaints that apply to industrial ag whether GMO or not.
Less pesticides also means more bacteria and more bug poop. There is a reason why they use pesticides, after all.
Even if there are trace amounts of pesticides left, you can just wash the produce, which you should always do anyway. Same reason you wash the organic produce to get rid of bug stuff…
The trace amounts of bug poop or pesticides really makes no difference when it comes to your health.
I worked in produce as a quality inspector for a couple years. Organic generally just means lower quality for higher price. No one is regulating it as far as I know, they can just skip pesticides, do everything else the same and charge more for the same product that actually cost them less to produce. We refered to it as a hillarious scam when the boss wasnt around.
Doesn’t it cost more to produce because you lose more crops to pests?
No, thats just the bullshit they use to justify it.
Anything not looking good enough gets sent to a secondary outlet and is sold as is with no organic labels. The stuff that is a grade below that gets juiced ( dont drink fruit juice that you didnt make yourself if you can help it…). They are not losing a single pennie, they are making out like thieves
That depends on where you live though. Here in Denmark, as an example, we have a certificate called “Statskontrolleret økologisk” which basically translates to “Government-certified organic”. There are specific guidelines and rules that need to be followed, to be allowed to use this seal on your product.
We have a similar system in the US. The US department of agriculture has a stamp they put on food that has strict criteria for what goes in it
I love when they compare food labels from two countries but don’t notice the ingredients are the same just described in different words or with different levels of verbosity based on the local regulations.
On one hand I agree with you, the way “chemicals” are used in everyday speech differs from the text book definition.
On the other hand, if we take our heads out of our asses and stop the "well actually"s I kinda have to agree with being against “chemicals” in food. Arsenic is naturally occurring, sure, but at what concentration? Radioactive uranium is a naturally occurring element, but I would hardly call nuclear fallout something natural.