I feel like this isn't well-enough understood in my circles. Many people I know and talk to about it seem to think that organic means no pesticides, which is indeed far from true.

Interestingly enough, something similar came up when we were looking for car seats for the first time, years ago. We were trying to limit flame retardants, which was(is still?) almost impossible. The best we could do was contact manufacturers and ask them what they used and how the fabric is made and flame retardant applied. At the time there was one pretty new, really expensive car seat company that basically implied that their car seats had no flame retardant at all, which wasn't true because otherwise they would not meet standards, and a bunch of popular bloggers and (at least minor) celebrities were promoting it as chemical-free, when it really, really wasn't.

In the end we found one brand that was OEKO-TEX certified and actually told us what they used and how they used it, which was about the best we could hope to get.

How many people know what pesticides their organic foods/producers use? I hardly know, and I care about this stuff more than just about anyone I know.

How long ago was this? California, which had been the primary driver of the flame retardants being added nationwide, recently updated the regulations. The labeling now will state that no flame retardants were added.

It was years ago, not recently. It was still when all car seats were definitely treated with additive flame retardants.

I have been excited that CA is reversing on flame retardants. It was hard to find certain kinds of furniture without flame retardants. Every kind of kids pajamas that relatives gave as gifts had flame retardants. I don't remember about strollers for sure, but it seems like even many strollers had it, but that could be wrong.

> chemical-free

Are they selling a vacuum? What could that phrase possibly mean with regards to baryonic matter?

You forgot the Golden Rule.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.¹

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm really trying. Some things some people think are just nonsensical because their model of reality is too inaccurate.

"Chemical-free" is an abbreviation of "dangerous chemical free," or in some cases (for car seats, not so much food), "chemically inert." Nobody would ever have a reason to specify that something should contain no chemicals at all, so the word "dangerous" is dropped in what is essentially an application of Huffman coding. ;)

I could be misinterpreting people, but I think there are people who haven't quite thought it through this much.

Yes, you.

Cute. I like you.

Yes, this is what the endorsers were meaning, and what most people mean when saying it (general populace, marketers, etc).

Toxin-free. Poison-free. Dye-free. Fragrance-free.

This is the vernacular usage of "chemical free" in the US.

> Toxin-free. Poison-free. Dye-free. Fragrance-free.

Artificial toxin/poison/dye/fragrance-free. You can shove as much naturally occurring toxins in the product as you like, and both marketers and regular people will agree it's "chemical-free".

And that's side-stepping the whole "artificial" vs. "natural" nonsense. 'spacehome may be pedantic in this context, but in general, he's right - regular people have their model of the world ridiculously out of sync with reality. Which is of course readily exploited by advertisers selling "chemical free", "natural", "organic" products, which are no better (and sometimes worse) than the "artificial" ones, but still command a premium price.

The world would be a better place if someone called out "chemical free" as a bullshit phrase every time it was used.

The types of mommy-bloggers and non-a-list celebs who would think dihydrogen monoxide is a caustic toxin. It's a certain type. You'll know them when you see/read them. ;)

Well it actually is both of those things, if you sit in it long enough you'll melt, if you breathe it in you'll die, so maybe they're smarter than you think :)

I am sorry. That was a dumb joke to try to make.

> Best thing you can do is buy certified organic, which would preclude a lot of nasty agricultural practices.

Instead they use higher quantities of different nasty, outdated chemicals that were grandfathered. Repeated studies show that eating organic does not change the amount of pesticides found in consumers' blood. Organic food is not healthier.

This article seems to imply that pesticide residues on organic food are consistently lower.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/the-truth-abou...

But, I gather there is some further link between food -> blood level traces that you're actually talking about. Do you have a good link on how that study was performed?