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Impossible Foods Responds to Glyphosate Allegation
- jeanvaljean2463 7y agoWARNING: This site redirected to a scam adloader. Consider using a mirror instead.
- minimaxir 7y agoDirect link to response: https://assets.ctfassets.net/hhv516v5f7sj/77NQsg1qDb6d9Hi4PBQA6y/93b2af7c3f12ce2e4050e03a6e0345e7/Unofficial_Correction_Moms_Across_America_05202019.pdf https://assets.ctfassets.net/hhv516v5f7sj/77NQsg1qDb6d9Hi4PB...
- tptacek 7y agoIf this is really interesting enough to discuss on HN, the story should link directly here, not to the blogspammed version on Care2. The actual Impossible Foods response is savage and sort of entertaining. I'm not a fan of Impossible but my respect for them went up a notch after reading this.
- ebg13 7y ago> I'm not a fan of Impossible Do you have anything written up on why? I haven't heard anyone say that yet.
- jressey 7y agoI'm not that poster but I am not a fan of Impossible Burgers because they're weird vegetable patties. That said you can eat what you want, but I agree that this company won me over today, politically at least. I doubt I'll try their burger.
- uxcolumbo 7y agoI haven't tried it yet. What's weird about their patty? And what's stopping you from trying?
- irickt 7y agoIt's an uncanny valley of food. It tries so hard to simulate meat that it emphasizes its fakeness. Personally I prefer a simple vegetable patty that's not trying to be what it is not.
- EForEndeavour 7y agoI thought all veggie patties to date have fallen into the "uncanny valley of food," whereas the Impossible patty is intended (and purported) to cross it entirely. People eat too much meat. The closer meat alternatives taste to actual meat, the more people will switch. So I strongly support innovation in this space.
- simonh 7y agoThe best I’ve had are nut cutlets or nut burgers. Stuff based on chickpeas can be great, basically a falafel burger. Falafels are awesome. There used to be a cafe on Charing Cross Road in London that did great vegetable fritter, served in a pita bread with salad, hummus and chillis. Those are all fine foods, for me it’s not that veggie alternatives to meat don’t exits. They do and some of them are fantastic. It’s about variety. Giving up meat fur me would be a bit like giving up all nut cutlet/falafel type stuff and all other meat except chicken. I’ve not tried these new faux meat burgers, but will when so get the chance.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- zymhan 7y agoAt the end of dismantling the original claims: > MAA calls itself as a non-profit, but make no mistake: This outfit is a supplement-pushing e-commerce company that collects and sells consumer data. By MAA’s own admission, it gets a commission on sales of supplements from other affiliates -- and none of the bogus products it pushes have been evaluated or approved by the US Food and Drug Administration or any other governmental authority.
- chrisweekly 7y agoYeah the ctfassets.net PDF should be the post's link. Awesome response by IF. (Also, their burgers are pretty damn good; enough to make it way, way easier to do the right thing.)
- dang 7y agoThanks. We've changed the URL to that from https://www.care2.com/causes/impossible-foods-responds-to-glyphosate-allegation.html https://www.care2.com/causes/impossible-foods-responds-to-gl... (which is a banned site on HN incidentally).
- minimaxir 7y agoSo it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=care2.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=care2.com Interesting.
- searine 7y ago"Mom's Across America" is a well known science denying hotbed who stoke fear of GMOs, chemicals, and vaccines. They don't care whether or not glyphosate is safe or not. They care that impossible foods is getting headlines, and they want to get a piece of it by introducing FUD. Impossible is 100% right to do a hard reply to this. These people aren't interested in honest debate or product safety and the world needs to know it.
- roywiggins 7y agoThese people sell barely-regulated supplements such as this extremely normal "hydrogen water": https://shop.momsacrossamerica.com/collections/health-solutions/products/active-h2-60-tablets-60-day-supply https://shop.momsacrossamerica.com/collections/health-soluti... > An additional benefit is that H2 Elite generates an electron-rich potential (-ORP) in the water (you can measure it!). This rare property is uniquely found in fresh, raw living foods and juices, mothers milk and many of the world’s healing waters. And this extremely safe "Restore". https://shop.momsacrossamerica.com/collections/health-solutions/products/restore-for-gut-health https://shop.momsacrossamerica.com/collections/health-soluti... What's in it? "it is a carbon-rich, alkaline liquid, with lignite-derived trace organics and essential trace amino acids". Mmm, lignite-derived organics. I think this is just water.
- kbutler 7y agoI love that they claim completely unspecified "health benefits" of -ORP (but "not on the scale of molecular hydrogen) while deriding the previous claims of also unspecified "health benefits" from pH of water (high pH or low pH?). And that the ingredients list in the text doesn't match the ingredients list in the image of the bottle.
- UnFleshedOne 7y ago> What is Molecular Hydrogen, H2? > Hydrogen is the first and most abundant element in the Universe! So let us sell you some for low cost of $60! Is this a new way of selling snow to Eskimo?
- 7y ago
- spilk 7y agoThis sounds like when that mommy blogger raised a completely misguided stink about "yoga mat chemical" being present in Subway bread.
- ceejayoz 7y agoYup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vani_Hari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vani_Hari
- hannob 7y agoThis isn't helpful. I don't like use of pesticides and I think there's a reasonable controversy to be had about the dangers of Glyphosate. But the environmental impact of meat production is so enormous desastrous, we should welcome every possible alternative. Whatever the Glyphosate (and GMO) concerns are, they are tiny in comparison.
- goda90 7y agoKind of like the conspiracy theory that some conspiracy theories are made up by governments to make theorists look ridiculous, sometimes I wonder if science-blind anti-GMO sentiment was manufactured by these big agriculture companies to draw legitimate attention away from truly studying the pesticides we're using.
- caust1c 7y agoThat was the first thought I had when I saw the title of the organization "Moms Across America". Sounds like it was named by a corporate team of lawyers, PR and Marketing professionals for politically charged yet monetarily motivated attacks against "ankle biter" companies.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
- intopieces 7y agoIf I recall correctly, the Glyphosate cancer allegations come from farmers who inhaled it day in and day out for years - a totally different ingestion model from eating it in small amounts.
- tptacek 7y agoThey also came from farmers who were using glyphosate solutions that included many other chemicals, and no doubt came into contact with a variety of other pesticides. A direct link between glyphosate and actual illness has not been established.
- sauwan 7y ago>has not been established Then why are lawsuits that claim those links have been established winning regularly in courts now?
- tptacek 7y agoBeats me. I think Impossible is right when they say: “Proven to be carcinogenic” is a ridiculous claim, refuted by multiple government agencies, including EFSA, Germany, Canada, and the World Health Organization (WHO), who determined that glyphosate exposure in the human diet is unlikely a carcinogenic risk. No regulatory authority in the world considers glyphosate to be carcinogenic to humans at current exposure levels.
- sauwan 7y agoWell, I'm certainly not an expert on this, but my understanding was that WHO had identified it as probably a carcinogen. https://www.iarc.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/MonographVolume112-1.pdf https://www.iarc.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/MonographVolu... Other studies show the link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1383574218300887 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138357421... Now, admittedly, I don't have a strong background to stand on here, so I'm open to being convinced otherwise. And I would agree with the overall thrust of Impossible's claims here that this is likely far too low a level to be worried about. But I'm not sure I buy it that there are no connections, particularly for high levels that are breathed in during farming.
- cwkoss 7y agoIt seems that at some dosage of glyphosate, the gut microbiome would be altered in a way that would make it more hospitable to pathogenic bacteria and less hospitable to beneficial bacteria. The real question is what is the shape of this dose curve. How much glyphosate is needed to shift the relative proportion of beneficial to harmful bacteria 1%, or 5%? Probably much more than found in Impossible burgers, but it would be nice to have more research on glyphosate's effects on the human gut. Does chronic ingestion of glyphosate from unwashed raw produce have any statistically significant effect on the human gut? "The presented results evidence that the highly pathogenic bacteria as Salmonella Entritidis, Salmonella Gallinarum, Salmonella Typhimurium, Clostridium perfringens and Clostridium botulinum are highly resistant to glyphosate. However, most of beneficial bacteria as Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium, Bacillus badius, Bifidobacterium adolescentis and Lactobacillus spp. were found to be moderate to highly susceptible." https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Awad_Shehata/publication/233886989_The_Effect_of_Glyphosate_on_Potential_Pathogens_and_Beneficial_Members_of_Poultry_Microbiota_In_Vitro/links/55559b6608ae980ca60af0a9.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Awad_Shehata/publicatio...
- joshdance 7y agoGlyphosate is commonly detected at these low levels in both organic and non-organic foods. In fact, the minuscule levels of these chemicals that were detected in both the Beyond Burger and Impossible Burger were less than 1/1000 the limit set by EPA for glyphosate residue in dried pea (8,000 ppb) and soybeans (20,000 ppb), respectively. They were even almost 100-fold lower than the glyphosate limits set by USDA for ORGANIC certification of pea protein (400 ppb) and soy protein (1,000 ppb) - ie, the glyphosate levels measured in both products would easily pass the glyphosate-residue requirements for organic certification of soybeans or peas, respectively. What does 11.3 ppb [=11.3 ug/kg] mean in terms of how much glyphosate plus AMPA would be present in one 4-oz.(113g) serving of Impossible Burger? The answer is 1.3 micrograms [11.3 ug/1000g x 113g]. This is almost 1000 times lower than the no significant risk level for glyphosate ingestion (1100 micrograms per day) set by California Prop 65. The safe daily limits for glyphosate exposure set by FAO/WHO and the EPA are much higher. Well said.
- mindfulplay 7y agoWhy do they even bother answering allegations? If the other group believes whatever they believe in, any answer or evidence will only bolster their claims because they are already way into the pseudoscience camp. I don't like the taste of it but by golly I am going to support these new fangled vegan stuff: they are doing the right thing. Without GMOs a billion people in India will not be alive today. So let's not give these people any more attention than they deserve.
- howard941 7y agoFailing to answer may be construed as a pregnant admission.
- EForEndeavour 7y agoIs "pregnant admission" a typo, or a mutation from the phrase "pregnant pause"? If the latter, the metaphor is lost, as "pregnant" does not mean "tacit." https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/7/messages/348.html https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/7/messages/348.htm...
- howard941 7y agoIn that you're familiar with the metaphor I'm puzzled that you find it inappropriate. Where did it stray? One's silence when faced with an allegation where denial of a material allegation is appropriate is often construed as being "pregnant with admission" of the allegation.
- dhimes 7y agoThe problem is that if those voices are the only ones talking, eventually people who don't know better are going to start believing them. They need some ammunition against such stupidogenic propaganda.
- bpyne 7y agoUnfortunately, reason isn't at play here. It would take just a fraction of customers for the restaurant chains, supplied by Impossible Foods, to express fear of the burger's contents to cause chains to drop them. Large corporations are notoriously risk-averse. Even if people in the companies believe it's complete nonsense they aren't going to gainsay customers' fears. Impossible Foods isn't in a financial position to have the restaurant chains pull out. So they're trying to "take control of the narrative". It was an absolutely fantastic response. They kept it factual, with a bit of sarcasm, and turned the light on the "mom's group". Kudos to whomever thought up the strategy and wrote the response.
- amazingman 7y agoThey should just tell Moms Against America that the Impossible Burger is also a homeopathic medicine :)