3 ms·
> My rule of thumb is: if the common food category was really as bad as they say, you'd see people eating it dropping like flies, and the nasty-sounding stuff w
by dualogy 10y ago
> My rule of thumb is: if the common food category was really as bad as they say, you'd see people eating it dropping like flies, and the nasty-sounding stuff would become a public health emergency.
Sounds convenient but IMHO somewhat beside "the point" of all these pontifications: your rule of thumb we as a species had already figured out for 100s of millenia+. That's why we don't eat grass and are told to be cautious around unknown wild berries or mushrooms. All these ponderations like OP OTOH are about "insidious, long-term-unnoticable-until-too-late health scares". An ongoing search for insights comparable in spirit to past "long-term damage" findings about lead or how some trichinosis parasites have an incubation period of ~30 years.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago> Sounds convenient but IMHO somewhat beside "the point" of all these pontifications It is until it isn't; most of the time when I deal with "normal people", they seem to expect getting sick from "bad" food almost immediately, and are confused why I haven't died of cancer already because I'm using artificial sweeteners with my tea. My rule of thumb applies primarily to that kind of situations. Not denying the importance of long-term considerations, but given the amount of nonsense media publish (c.f. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-you-read-about-nutrition/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-you-...), I just ignore the topic altogether until some entity like WHO or FDA starts making noises.