Food buyer beware

[Aimless]

http://www.cracked.com/article_19433..._user4=popular

[GGT]

We need less industry regulations? Dismantle the FDA, USDA, Department of Agriculture? Get rid of labeling requirements?

[Enoch the Red]

We need less industry regulations? Dismantle the FDA, USDA, Department of Agriculture? Get rid of labeling requirements?

Yep! Now you're talking.

[Ominous Gamer]

No mention of pear juice, and it how it can chemically altered to taste like just about anything?
Seriously, check the canned fruit isle next time you go shopping, you're be surprised how many of the "in juice" fruits are actually in pear juice.

Its some creepy shit.

[Aimless]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us...pagewanted=all

They're missing the important point. Stop with the school hamburgering ffs.

[CitizenCain]

I too, was horrified to learn that companies that manufacture food are doing things like preventing spoilage, killing bacteria, and using non-poisonous food additives.

The nerve of some k0mpanies!

[Lebanese Dragon]

I think regulation speeds up, in many ways, what naturally will happen with companies anyway.. at the same time if someone content with buying a package of meat for much cheaper with a 1/5 chance of dying, I wouldn't make it illegal not to.

I think i am for dismantling alot of regulation actually, but I am FOR making sure labing MUST be present, and that the government randomly audits companies to make sure all claims are accurate regaurding product.

[Loki]

I quick google search shows that the article's point about cellulose is utter crap. I wonder how much research they did on that one: OMG, cellulose is the main component of wood and isn't digestible, therefore it's horrible!1!1!!

[GGT]

Yep! Now you're talking.

I have tons of books I could burn to keep warm, and millions of paper pages I could eat. That doesn't mean it works, or is right.

[Enoch the Red]

I have tons of books I could burn to keep warm, and millions of paper pages I could eat. That doesn't mean it works, or is right.

Okay?

[LittleFuzzy]

I quick google search shows that the article's point about cellulose is utter crap. I wonder how much research they did on that one: OMG, cellulose is the main component of wood and isn't digestible, therefore it's horrible!1!1!!

It's Cracked, how much research do they ever do? Authoritative reports are not their purpose and they're not what the target audience is interested in.

[Loki]

It's Cracked, how much research do they ever do? Authoritative reports are not their purpose and they're not what the target audience is interested in.

Sure, but I was expecting them to at least cite someone semi-credible.

I have tons of books I could burn to keep warm, and millions of paper pages I could eat. That doesn't mean it works, or is right.

I take it you're against eating fiber as well? Also a key part of things you wouldn't eat and is itself indigestible.

[GGT]

I take it you're against eating fiber as well? Also a key part of things you wouldn't eat and is itself indigestible.

Not at all. Haven't you noticed the adverts trying to convince people their cereal doesn't taste like cardboard, even if it's made from cardboard?

[wiggin]

Actually, Loki, 'fiber' in most fiber cereals is largely composed of cellulose. Jeez, celery is mostly cellulose, but people don't complain about that.

I had a whole post ridiculing the cracked piece but the crappy airport wireless ate it. So, a quick summary: the cellulose point is manifestly stupid for anyone who understands biopolymers. The OJ thing is a bit overblown because (a) it's the price we pay for having OJ year round, one way or another, (b) the flavor of OJ is very well understood chemically, so if it's identical chemicals they're adding that they previously extracted, who cares?, and (c) fruit juices aren't that healthy anyways, so making it into a catastrophe of epic proportions is ridiculous. The ground beef thing is ridiculous - no one ever thought ground beef was healthy, and this is just a quibble over the best preservation process; deli meat is just as bad, but since people have been doing it for longer, no one cares. The berry thing is laughable, no one in their right mind thinks they're getting anything other than flavor with 'berry'-containing foods (esp. cereals and the like; and who ever bought a blueberry muffin because they thought it was healthier than the next one on the tray? Muffins aren't healthy, period); if you want nutrition or actual berries, then buy some goddamn berries. The free range thing was always a crock, and people know it, too; if you feel that badly about enslaving poor chickens, then become a vegan. And no one actually believes that Cheerios is going to get rid of your high cholesterol/BP and heart disease just because it has a few whole grains; anyone with an ounce of common sense doesn't believe any of the 'fad' health claims that come out every year in various studies.

Blech. These aren't 'horrifying lies', they're common sense.

[GGT]

Cracklin' Oat Bran, baby.

By the way, I have a great recipe for muffins that uses bran, oats, and applesauce. Tastes great but one muffin leaves most people sitting on the toilet for a couple of days....

[Aimless]

The implication is that companies waste energy on eg. greenwashing and buying stamps of healthiness for no reason

[Catgrrl]

Well, I ate a blueberry bagel for breakfast and a Fiber One bar a little bit ago; guess I had my daily wood for the day. Oh ya, and celery in my lunch salad! Oh my

Interesting, I did just look at the bagel's ingredient list and cranberries comes before wild blueberries. Hmmm.

[RandBlade]

http://www.cracked.com/article_19433..._user4=popular

What a load of crap.

"They dare to call cellulose organic" - no Shit Sherlock. Even a quick Wikifist shows "Cellulose is the most common organic compound on Earth. About 33% of all plant matter is cellulose"

The whole article is one based on pure ignorance and fear. What's next, the lies farmers tell? "And then they spread shit - yes shit - on the crops and dare to call it fertiliser"

I mean really, who would have though of chopping up bits of animals and eating it? But that's meat for you and of course we accept it. Or digging up and eating roots from the mud? How about wheat? Whose idea was that? What about apples - up there exposed to the elements and pests yet we just grab them off. There's very little in food that is purely pleasant if you think hard enough about it you can always find something to be screamy about.

The key things about food are ideas like quality, safety, etc

EDIT: Nevermind, was that article meant to be serious or more like The Onion?

[Aimless]

It's Cracked.com, most of these articles are not about making people legitimately outraged, it's really more like The Onion than like The Daily Mail

With that said, I think it's good to occasionally put the spotlight on how little we might know about our food. Especially that of the junk variety. One reason for the "organic" remark is that people who pursue "organic food" tend to believe they get more authentic food but even they can't escape the cellulose cheat. Wiggin says no-one's conned, but, honestly, are companies going to spend money on cons that have no chance of working?

Blueberry muffins in Sweden contain real blueberries. I'd never have guessed (until fairly recently) that American ones were so unlikely to be authentic. If I'd read the words "blueberry flakes" on a list of ingredients I'd have assumed they were actual blueberries that had been dried and pressed.

Personally, I think entry #1 on that list is far more interesting than item #6 (which I think is pretty funny ). The rest of the entries are pretty cool (except the "free range" business). I thought it was cool how they can extract meat from previously useless scraps, although it sucks that that meat occasionally tastes like ammonia and frequently is less safe than regular meat despite the magic of ammonia.

[RandBlade]

That's because cellulose is not a cheat, it's dietary fiber found in almost all green matter.

[Aimless]

That's because cellulose is not a cheat, it's dietary fiber found in almost all green matter.

Yes RB, I know, I too had biology in school Cellulose as an additive is a cheat, it's just that it's an acceptable cheat used in half of the products we eat to bulk up food using non-food. That's not a bad thing in itself, but it doesn't hurt to know what you're 1. paying for and 2. eating. I have no doubt the cellulose itself is safe and pure from processing chemicals etc. Just because I blithely refer to something as a "cheat" doesn't mean that I think it's wrong or reprehensible. All intelligent solutions are cheats

[Khendraja'aro]

Well, we actually had some troublesome developments in the food industry over here in Germany. Thankfully, they now finally barred them from pulling those stunts, which include:

• Selling so-called "analogue cheese" (which may not contain any milk fat at all) as real cheese

• Selling poultry cold cuts which only contained 5% poultry in extreme cases (rest was beef and pork)

• Selling fruit cream fillings which contain no fruit at all

• Selling ice tea with exotic fruits (like Physalis) without even containing traces of said fruits

• Selling yoghurts as "healthy" and "light" when they contain more sugar than Coca Cola and has more calories than a piece of chocolate cake twice the weight

• Pesto full of pine nuts and olive oil. Which then contained a thimble of olive oil and a few pine nuts. Rest was cashew nuts, regular oil and loads of artificial aromes.

• A "bio soup" without flavor enhancer. Containing yeast extract which is another name for glutamat - a flavor enhancer.

And the list goes on. Now the companies are forced to either revise their naming schemes or put those facts in a readable and recognizable format on the wrapping. Instead of hiding it in the ingredient list - yes, you could read that one. But the problem with the old ingredient list was that they only had to order ingredients by percentage, but not give the actual percentages. Which means that an ingredient list like "Yoghurt, Fruit, Aromes" could mean "90% Yoghurt, 8% fruit, 2% aromes" or "90% Yoghurt, 5.1% fruit, 4.9% aromes". You get my drift.

[Loki]

Selling poultry cold cuts which only contained 5% poultry in extreme cases (rest was beef and pork)

That's a bit weird. Here, poultry costs significantly less than pork or beef...

[Flixy]

Poultry cuts are also cheaper here, but low-quality ground beef/pork is probably the cheapest meat available here.

[Aimless]

That's a bit weird. Here, poultry costs significantly less than pork or beef...

Ah but think about it, if you can buy large amounts of apparently unusable pork and beef "waste" and then render it down into fat and meat-mush and then purify it with ammonia and then add cellulose and then...

[Loki]

Poultry cuts are also cheaper here, but low-quality ground beef/pork is probably the cheapest meat available here.

As I recall, even ground beef costs more than chicken (except for boneless chicken parts).

Ah but think about it, if you can buy large amounts of apparently unusable pork and beef "waste" and then render it down into fat and meat-mush and then purify it with ammonia and then add cellulose and then...

Or you just add a lot of liquid, which is the method of preference here.

[Flixy]

Yeah, if you fry cheap meat, it starts boiling instead of frying sometimes

[Aimless]

BEWARE, it's mostly cellulose and water

[CitizenCain]

The implication is that companies waste energy on eg. greenwashing and buying stamps of healthiness for no reason

Well, no, the reason is that a certain special class of moron is going to believe that their breakfast cereal has magikal powers based on those stamps, and the rest of us might be swayed by it often enough, all else being equal, to make it profitable... or more profitable than not having the stupid stamp/eco-claim, at least.

It's Cracked.com, most of these articles are not about making people legitimately outraged, it's really more like The Onion than like The Daily Mail

Is it? I always wonder how many people actually believe this shit, because based on how dumb and gullible people are, it would seem like it would be most of them.

[Aimless]

Well, no, the reason is that a certain special class of moron is going to believe that their breakfast cereal has magikal powers based on those stamps, and the rest of us might be swayed by it often enough, all else being equal, to make it profitable... or more profitable than not having the stupid stamp/eco-claim, at least.

This was in fact what I was trying to convey to Wiggin with my post, ie. that it's unlikely companies are expending resources on such efforts without profiting from doing so.