4 ms·

Did you really read the article to see if you think it's worthy of the same derision? There is a lot of space between concrete evidence of significant harm and

Did you really read the article to see if you think it's worthy of the same derision? There is a lot of space between concrete evidence of significant harm and the kind of silly worrying that Lowe is mocking.

legitster 4y ago
Yes! There was only one actual scientist quoted in the article: > “And that brings up the question of, why bother testing in animals and showing that some of these [chemicals] cause cancer in animals if we are not going to somehow relate that to human health,” Hunnes said. Still, Hunnes said that removing some of the chemicals from Californians’ diets would be a good thing. "Overall, I think the fewer additives in foods and the less processed foods that we eat,” she said, “the better off we will all be.” They never actually confirmed the danger of these ingredients and stuck with a very generalist response. Some of the ingredients on the banned list were included in Lowe's article - and much of Lowe's post is an explanation about how lots of causal links to cancer in animal trials don't actually correlate to causes of concern in humans.
- soco 4y ago
  Like another commenter pointed out, it's one thing to place the burden of proof on the consumer - to prove it's harmful (the US way) and another to make the producer do the homework - to prove it's not harmful (the EU way). And before somebody says "think of the economy" I rather take an economy not based on poisons I don't have the means to prove. PS this reminds me an older topic about Nestle warning that guaranteeing their cocoa is slavery-free would increase the price for the customers. Well thank you I prefer my chocolate also slavery-free (and the world too).
  - legitster 4y ago
    > to prove it's harmful (the US way) and another to make the producer do the homework - to prove it's not harmful (the EU way) This is a huge oversimplification of the difference between US and EU food rules - and I would argue pretty inaccurate. Both regions just prioritize things differently. The US arguably has much stricter rules about food when you consider all of the requirements around preventing food-borne illness (part of the reason we have so many additives is because US regulators have pretty high bars for pantry goods not making consumers sick). An example of this would be the European horse meat scandal from a few years back - something like that would have been almost impossible to happen in US facilities for how often they get USDA inspectors. Do you actually have a source that this was Nestle's official opinion? The irony of your example (to me at least) is that the actual Nestle slavery scandal referring to actually involved the palm oil industry. Palm oil is really only used en masse in the European market because of ... EU restrictions on hydrogenated oils! And in almost every way (environmental, human rights, even health) palm oils are probably worse than what they replaced!
    - soco 4y ago
      I'm not sure if I understand you correctly: do you mean that the US has a much better control of their rules, while the EU might have stricter rules but is lacking proper implementation? Anyway, here's what I mean about Nestle https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/nestle-says-slavery-reporting-requirements-could-cost-customers-20180816-p4zy5l.html https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/nestle-says-slavery-...
      - legitster 4y ago
        I'm just saying the rules are aimed at different perceived problems. The article you linked is actually very favorable to Nestle. Their actual statement was that Australia's reporting requirements were unnecessarily different than others'. And they actually reprimanded the Australian government for not including penalties in their version of the bill!

legitster 4y ago

Yes! There was only one actual scientist quoted in the article: > “And that brings up the question of, why bother testing in animals and showing that some of these [chemicals] cause cancer in animals if we are not going to somehow relate that to human health,” Hunnes said. Still, Hunnes said that removing some of the chemicals from Californians’ diets would be a good thing. "Overall, I think the fewer additives in foods and the less processed foods that we eat,” she said, “the better off we will all be.” They never actually confirmed the danger of these ingredients and stuck with a very generalist response. Some of the ingredients on the banned list were included in Lowe's article - and much of Lowe's post is an explanation about how lots of causal links to cancer in animal trials don't actually correlate to causes of concern in humans.

soco 4y ago
Like another commenter pointed out, it's one thing to place the burden of proof on the consumer - to prove it's harmful (the US way) and another to make the producer do the homework - to prove it's not harmful (the EU way). And before somebody says "think of the economy" I rather take an economy not based on poisons I don't have the means to prove. PS this reminds me an older topic about Nestle warning that guaranteeing their cocoa is slavery-free would increase the price for the customers. Well thank you I prefer my chocolate also slavery-free (and the world too).
- legitster 4y ago
  > to prove it's harmful (the US way) and another to make the producer do the homework - to prove it's not harmful (the EU way) This is a huge oversimplification of the difference between US and EU food rules - and I would argue pretty inaccurate. Both regions just prioritize things differently. The US arguably has much stricter rules about food when you consider all of the requirements around preventing food-borne illness (part of the reason we have so many additives is because US regulators have pretty high bars for pantry goods not making consumers sick). An example of this would be the European horse meat scandal from a few years back - something like that would have been almost impossible to happen in US facilities for how often they get USDA inspectors. Do you actually have a source that this was Nestle's official opinion? The irony of your example (to me at least) is that the actual Nestle slavery scandal referring to actually involved the palm oil industry. Palm oil is really only used en masse in the European market because of ... EU restrictions on hydrogenated oils! And in almost every way (environmental, human rights, even health) palm oils are probably worse than what they replaced!
  - soco 4y ago
    I'm not sure if I understand you correctly: do you mean that the US has a much better control of their rules, while the EU might have stricter rules but is lacking proper implementation? Anyway, here's what I mean about Nestle https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/nestle-says-slavery-reporting-requirements-could-cost-customers-20180816-p4zy5l.html https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/nestle-says-slavery-...
    - legitster 4y ago
      I'm just saying the rules are aimed at different perceived problems. The article you linked is actually very favorable to Nestle. Their actual statement was that Australia's reporting requirements were unnecessarily different than others'. And they actually reprimanded the Australian government for not including penalties in their version of the bill!