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This is just green washing on the level of “93.65% natural ingredients”.
by ahoka 9mo ago
This is just green washing on the level of “93.65% natural ingredients”.
- reaperducer 9mo agoThis is just green washing on the level of “93.65% natural ingredients”. I keep seeing products in the supermarket with big "Made with REAL ingredients!" labels on them. As opposed to what? Imaginary ingredients? Classico pasta sauce is the most recent offender.
- ExoticPearTree 9mo agoChemicals. That’s what they mean by real ingredients: no chemicals. Like orange juice: can be from a chemical powder or real oranges.
- wmeredith 9mo agoBut that's total nonsense. Everything in our physical world (including water, air, food, and human bodies) is made of chemicals. They can be naturally occurring or artificially manufactured.
- ExoticPearTree 9mo agoYou can nitpick and be pedantic about the wording I used, but if you equate artificial flavors or ingredients with natural ones…
- ryandrake 9mo agoIs it really pedantic? Everything is ultimately a chemical compound. H2O is a chemical. Where do you draw the line between "chemicals" and "not chemicals"? Is it more about what you can find in nature? You can find acetone in nature.
- GuinansEyebrows 9mo agoyeah, this is kind of a definitional example of pedantry. you probably understand what people are trying to say when they talk about "chemicals" but instead of engaging with the actual conversation, you spin off a metanarrative to pick apart the word choice as if that's directly relevant to the point they're trying to discuss. not trying to pick on you specifically, because sure everything's a chemical, and i don't really care to fight about that, but you asked :)
- ryandrake 9mo ago"Chemical" is just a really, really vague and poor word choice. I honestly don't understand what people are trying to say when they use it. Food and chemistry are inextricably intertwined. You can't even talk about food without talking about all of the various components food is made up of. Not a single food item out there isn't made up of chemicals. Some found in nature, some created in a lab or factory process. Some healthy, some not. Some with long names, some with short names. Some have effects on food taste, longevity, appearance. Some are inert. It's really a meaningless word to use in the context of one's food.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- u8080 9mo ago>I honestly don't understand what people are trying to say when they use it Like, banana-flavoured milk product vs banana yogurt - seed oil and potato starch compound with artificial flavorings vs REAL milk yoghurt with REAL banana. It tastes different, it has different nutritional value and overall "chemical" product feels scammy because it tries to mimic proper one. This is all about words, like, why do we use "Artificial" in Artificial Intelligence?
- LinXitoW 9mo agoWhat is real banana? How much processing is allowed for it to be still real? Considering the selective breeding of banana, is banana even still real? Chemical is just a bad word choice. Artificial, or ultra processed get closer to the issue. They still are vague with a lot of grey area. If you cook at home, you're also highly processing your food. The fruit in winter is likely also artificial, in some sense: Grown against the will of god/nature with pesticides, in a tent, in a climate that doesn't naturally feature them, devoid of flavour because they were artificially bred for yield, color and size, etc.
- ben-schaaf 9mo agoCould you describe the difference between the artificial flavour vanilin made in a lab, and the natural flavour vanilin extracted from a vanilla bean?
- eloisant 9mo agoOK for vanilla, however most of the fruit artificial flavors are compound that have nothing to do with the elements from the natural fruit but at some point, someone in the food industry decided it tasted "similar" to the natural fruit. For some of them, like cherry or coconuts, the artificial flavor tastes nothing like the natural flavor.
- ben-schaaf 9mo agoTo my knowledge benzaldehyde is the most common cherry flavor, and I agree it doesn't taste much like cherries. It's also a naturally occurring compound we produce from cassia oil, and it's naturally contained in almonds, apricots, apples and cherries. As for coconut there's Lactones, which - you guessed it - occur naturally. > OK for vanilla, however most of the fruit artificial flavors are compound that have nothing to do with the elements from the natural fruit but at some point, someone in the food industry decided it tasted "similar" to the natural fruit. Care to provide a source?
- snowwrestler 9mo agoThis is a good example of how easy it is to fool people if they don’t have their own understanding of how things work. Highlighting this has been a priority in my parenting. My child is having a great time trying to scare friends about the dangers of the chemical dihydrogen monoxide, which is found in a surprisingly large number of manufactured foods.
- ExoticPearTree 9mo agoRight. And wonder bread is awesome for your health.
- array_key_first 9mo agoNobody said it was. But it's not bad because of chemicals, because all bread is created with chemicals. As for natural versus artificial - that's also bullshit. There's many natural ingredients that are poison, and many artificial ones that are good for you. I mean, if I eat home made fried chicken everyday, you can bet your ass I'm not gonna live very long.
- snowwrestler 9mo agoWonder Bread is horrible for your health, but it’s not because of “chemicals.” Orange juice is also bad for your health BTW!
- reaperducer 9mo agoAsbestos is all natural.
- kstrauser 9mo agoDon't forget poison ivy, amanita mushrooms, and box jellyfish.
- prmoustache 9mo agoCooking is chemistry anyway.
- sib 9mo agoAfter all, Polonium is a REAL ingredient - but I would't want it in my pasta sauce...
- port11 9mo agoWhat level of materials recycling would be required for you to not consider it green washing? It’s a genuine question, since I don’t like Apple and agree that we buy tons of stuff we don’t really need. That said, our bicycles can’t be insured anymore, but having AirTags at least alleviates some of the angst over leaving them in public places.
- GoatInGrey 9mo agoRecycled plastics actually produce microplastics more than virgin plastics do. Some studies on recycled polyester garments found that they dump an additional 50% more or so into the environment than non-recycled polyester fabrics. And those non-recycled fabrics already release enormous quantities over their lifespan into the water supply and open air (via your dryer exhaust) already. Dumb example for the sake of discussion, you could understand why recycled plutonium would not be a healthy thing to weave a sweater out of. It's less about the recycling and more about the material itself.
- port11 9mo agoI’m aware, which is why we don’t buy products with recycled synthetics fabrics for our baby. Ironic, since so many brands are hellbent on promoting the recycled fiber as more sustainable. But: the AirTag is made of hard plastic (polypropylene?) through injection moulding. I’m not sure it leaks even a tenth of what fiber would. Just a thought :)
- vostrocity 9mo agoRecycled polyester is crap, just like virgin polyester. It's just a way for brands to make it seem like they're hip and sustainable, when you're basically wearing crude oil on your body.
- adastra22 9mo agoPlutonium is probably safer than some of the materials we do use in clothes.
- 9mo ago
- thiht 9mo agoIt’s never possible for things to be good with people like you. It’s not 100% recycled, which would be better. But surely, this is better than 0% recycled??
- GoatInGrey 9mo agoIronically, it's worse. I just wrote another comment about this. Recycled plastics carry more toxic load and shed more (and more fragmented) microplastics into the environment. Recycled plastics only win out on carbon emissions. Moral of the story: plastic is just not good. Avoid buying things made out of ANY kind plastic if you are going to regularly wash and mechanically agitate them. You won't eliminate 100% of washed plastic in your life, but it's surprisingly easy to get rid of 80% of it without sacrificing quality of life.