4 ms·

I was joking today that my son who's just starting to eat solid foods already seems to be approaching some of the suggested serving sizes for adults. This is t

I was joking today that my son who's just starting to eat solid foods already seems to be approaching some of the suggested serving sizes for adults. This is typical of public health organizations, they completely ignore reality which actually makes their advice worse than useless because people ignore it altogether instead of at least using it as a guideline. Sort of like when you go somewhere that says the speed limit is 5 mph. It's not even possible to drive that slowly so you just ignore it entirely. A sort of related article this made me think of: Ultra-Cautious CDC Wants You To Cook Your Prosciutto and Salami https://reason.com/2021/08/25/ultra-cautious-cdc-wants-you-to-cook-your-prosciutto-and-salami/ https://reason.com/2021/08/25/ultra-cautious-cdc-wants-you-t...

maxbond 3y ago
I think it's more likely that the serving sizes are gamed by companies to be as small as possible so they can report eg the lowest amount of sugar on the nutrition facts label they can get away with, rather than that the regulators are out of touch and think people eat in tiny portions. That article is pretty silly. There was a salmonella outbreak, so for a brief time, for a specific batch from a specific brand the CDC advised people to cook those meats. That outbreak put 12 people in the hospital. Salmonella outbreaks kill people (though not this one in particular - probably because of this recall), especially children, the elderly, and the immunocompromised. And Reason's objection is, "no one wants to do that?" This just really misunderstands how this works. Grocery stores, restaurants, school cafeterias, and nursing homes around the country threw out the contaminated meat, and it probably saved lives. It almost certainly kept people out of the hospital. (I took a ServSafe food safety course, the sort you'd take to be a restaurant manager or server, and there was a big focus on understanding & actioning on these CDC reports.) Maybe individuals didn't choose to cook their meats. Whatever. Most of it was probably thrown away before they had the chance to roll those dice. In light of the life saving nature of this system, Reason's criticism is incredibly shallow. Naturally they spin it into some antimask rubbish. (I imagine the real reason for the ridiculous portion sizes is that

maxbond 3y ago

I think it's more likely that the serving sizes are gamed by companies to be as small as possible so they can report eg the lowest amount of sugar on the nutrition facts label they can get away with, rather than that the regulators are out of touch and think people eat in tiny portions. That article is pretty silly. There was a salmonella outbreak, so for a brief time, for a specific batch from a specific brand the CDC advised people to cook those meats. That outbreak put 12 people in the hospital. Salmonella outbreaks kill people (though not this one in particular - probably because of this recall), especially children, the elderly, and the immunocompromised. And Reason's objection is, "no one wants to do that?" This just really misunderstands how this works. Grocery stores, restaurants, school cafeterias, and nursing homes around the country threw out the contaminated meat, and it probably saved lives. It almost certainly kept people out of the hospital. (I took a ServSafe food safety course, the sort you'd take to be a restaurant manager or server, and there was a big focus on understanding & actioning on these CDC reports.) Maybe individuals didn't choose to cook their meats. Whatever. Most of it was probably thrown away before they had the chance to roll those dice. In light of the life saving nature of this system, Reason's criticism is incredibly shallow. Naturally they spin it into some antimask rubbish. (I imagine the real reason for the ridiculous portion sizes is that