Even this story doesn't say that were doing that.
>(FDA) said all food additives require "pre-market evaluation" and "regulations require evidence that each substance is safe at its intended level of use before it may be added to foods."
You can argue the evaluations aren't strict enough, but saying we're doing "innocent until proven guilty" isn't true.
>> However, since 1991 the FDA has urged bakers to voluntarily stop using it.
yeah we can see how that worked out... the FDA is perfect and changing them in any way, shape or form would destroy THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT. (for the industries using that stuff)
Absolutely nobody said anything of the sort, and I'm not sure what your goal is in caricaturing the position of people with somewhat different opinions than you.
thats also to show how this is not a case of "not guilty until proven otherwise" the fda wants this to stop but doesnt seem to have any foothold in that attempt...
They also say it's crazy to do innocent until proven guilty.
Anyway, for benefits, in the EU Allulose and Monk Fruit (non-nutritive sweeteners) are still not permitted after several years (for monk fruit, not sure about the state of allulose), afaik there is no sign of danger, but they are also not proven safe enough.
Any sort of spices, ferment, baking powder, food coloring (even traditional coloring like beet juice or squid ink) could be considered additive. A lot of these things have been traditionally used for centuries. And otoh just because something has been used traditionally does guarantee its safety.
Food manufacturers are a powerful lobbying group and additives make a significant difference to profitability.
People and language are not math.
Freedom, baby!
Within a few years we'll have that same freedom to consume whatever toxins we desire in post-Brexit Britain too.
Also, we don't have the much-anticipated US trade deal yet and the public appears to slightly prefer safe food to Freedom so the political pressure to rush anything through isn't there.
Absolutely NOT. Chemicals don't have human rights, obviously. Treating something as untrusted/dangerous unless proven otherwise is safety 101.
The last 50 years have bought really fast change in the food industry, but it's also reduced the number of starving people by billions in the world. You are definitely going to have collateral damage in that, and some technologies will be harmful over the long run, but you still might save many more years of people's lives by just making the food available.
People seriously underestimate just how much disinflation there's been in food prices when compared to the rest of the market. And that actually means there's more food. For everyone.
So it’s hard to say US practices have either brought quality or access to people.
By what definition? I went to cuba 3 years ago and supermarket shelves were empty. Is that better?
On a more serious note, I've travelled a lot and $1 menus and such are extremely rare, especially ones with actual vegetables and meat, and this was a big feature of the US only a few years ago (not sure about now with the inflation). $1 menus go a long way in feeding a lot of poor people.
Right, and then you’re effectively pushing the worst quality, most processed, possibly carcinogenic and likely causing obesity/diabetes food on a group of already vulnerable people.
High quality and healthy food should be the least concern to people already struggling to make ends meet. How else do you want to lift them out of poverty otherwise?
The US could feed people cheaply without using harmful additives. Instead of a $1 McBurger made possible through subsidies, environmental destruction and cancer-causing chemicals we could be eating $1 McChanaMasala or McDal or McLocalSeasonalVegetables.
Billions of people around the world eat rice, beans, legumes, root vegetables with small amounts of locally sourced cheese, meats, fruit, vegetables etc. America's poor eat high fructose corn syrup, highly processed wheat, vegetable oil and the meat from cows and chickens raised on unnatural diets in horribly unhealthy conditions. That's not an improvement.
You might think that’s a good thing, but most people don’t actually want to subsist on rice and beans, otherwise that’s what McDonald’s would sell.
And I’m not just talking Ajtony the US. The same preservation technologies that allow $1 menus in the us also pulled almost a billion people out of starvation in the last 30 years.
Again, read my original post, I’m not saying this is ideal, and I’m rich enough to choose what to eat. But for many it’s a choice of eating things with bad chemicals or eating nothing. And that’s not because it’s a choice that evil capitalists make. If you can’t mass produce food it doesn’t just become more expensive, there’s less of it, and people starve. You’re basically saying it’s better if people starve than if they get cancer in 50 years.
Edit: see the sister comment: Definitely. In 1900, the typical American family spend 43% of its income on food. In 1950, it was 30%. By 2003, it had dropped to 13%
America has a crisis of obesity. Our life expectancy is actually going down despite amazing medical advancements. Our food system today incentivizes horrible health outcomes, we should be looking at cheap soda, fries and burgers as akin to cheap cigarettes, cheap vodka and cheap opium have done to populations in the past.
Definitely. In 1900, the typical American family spend 43% of its income on food. In 1950, it was 30%. By 2003, it had dropped to 13%.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-ame...
Without additives, your bread is hard and stale 24 hours from now. Are you willing and able to go buy bread every single day?
The base problem is, as with so many bad modern things, monopoly. There is no alternative I can choose. Without external forces, the system will converge to a single, optimized, industrial scale supplier who will converge to lots of additives.
If you don't want that, you have to break monopolies. And you probably have to be very aggressive doing so.
If there is robust competition, I can vote with my wallet. At that point, compromising quality for a fraction of a penny isn't worthwhile to a smaller manufacturer.
I would very much like to buy France-level bread every day in the US. I, however, cannot because that tiny producer cannot compete with the monopolies--they can't get volume discounts; they can't automate with industrial processes to the same degree; they have to have retail space; they can't get into supermarkets (which are also monopolies), etc.
The US used to have very nice, local bakeries. They have been all wiped out by consolidation.
Doesn't that mostly happen when bread is exposed to air?
For example supermarkets here in Australia used to perforate the plastic bags they sold bread in, to make sure people kept buying more bread each day.
That seems to have stopped (a few years ago?), and now bread can last several days without becoming bad.
If you're in a warm + humid climate though, mould can make quick work of bread anyway so "several days" can be just 2-3 in that case.
I have a bakery and 3 stores within 5 min walking distance. But I'm in Europe so I don't need to worry about those additives anyway.
Tbh the rule of thumb for bread is you should be suspicious if it doesn't go bad in a few days :)
What's the risk/benefit?
You can see how crazy it is when you compare it with drugs that we eat in doses smaller by orders of magnitude.