3 ms·
To point out how confusing this is: If you add a knife tip to a cow carcass to extract the steak, that is adding a highly artificial substance to the food at so
by IAmBroom 9mo ago
To point out how confusing this is: If you add a knife tip to a cow carcass to extract the steak, that is adding a highly artificial substance to the food at some point.
Likewise if you use steel balls to tumble-crush shells into calcium carbonate powder (don't know if they do, or if it's even a product, but neither are the point here).
"We are required to inform this table that your naturally wild-caught salmon had, briefly, at one time, a small hook inserted into its mouth. It was otherwise wholly without artificial feed nor other additives."
How do you write a law that slices between those ideas and hexane, clearly?
- dyauspitr 9mo agoOn a case by case basis that generally aligns with common sense. Most people can instantly recognize a hook and knife are very different from adding a solvent to food. Drug laws are a good analog for this. I don’t think the universe of possibilities in this space is prohibitively large. You can probably begin by broadly calling petroleum and petroleum products artificial.
- SPICLK2 9mo agoThere's a rich heritage and history of solvent-based foods. Vanilla essence, sloe gin, etc.
- dyauspitr 9mo agoEthanol would probably be classified as a natural solvent. The edge cases fall off very quickly, this can definitely be done on case by case basis without introducing onerous bureaucracy.
- SPICLK2 9mo agoEven if it were distilled from petroleum?
- dyauspitr 9mo agoEthanol is not distilled from petroleum. Industrially it is produced by distilling plant sugars and starches.
- SPICLK2 9mo agoIt can be distilled from petroleum, and there is the key distinction that wasn't answered - are "natural" ingredients ones that could be made by "natural" (I'm assuming that "biochemical" is meant here) processes, or are they ones that are made by "natural" processes? Or is it just petroleum that is the problem? Where does salt fall here? Why isn't petroleum natural, when it is plant-based?
- dyauspitr 9mo agoA good starting point would be to broadly classify petroleum and its products as artificial.
- SPICLK2 9mo agoApologies for so many questions, this is a very interesting line of reasoning. What makes petroleum artificial compared to any other substance found on (or in) earth? It seems you are proposing that "any food that has had a petroleum product added to it at any stage is artificial", which is an oddly narrow focus. For that matter, does this definition of "artificial" extend to the range of substances that can be synthesized with bio-feedstock? To expand on our discussion, would this mean that ethanol made other feedstock is natural, but made from petroleum is artificial?