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Commented on Pinkberry's "natural" desserts are made of toxic labratory gunk
Xopher -- yeah, but I figured that it might be disingenuous if I didn't describe their functionality. :) Pollyanna -- the key tradeoff for good food is cost and time. The problem is that too many of the poor have...
Commented on Pinkberry's "natural" desserts are made of toxic labratory gunk
[F]ood components interact in ways that we don't even dimly understand. Where they exist in food, they seem to work. When removed from food and turned into additives, they sometimes have unpredictable effects. Now that I can't argue against: fruits...
Commented on Pinkberry's "natural" desserts are made of toxic labratory gunk
By the way, let me just say that I *do* find dangerous the fact that industrial food formulations are cheaper, dollar-per-calorie, than healthier food. If you're poor in America, then the food you can most easily afford will absolutely not...
Commented on Pinkberry's "natural" desserts are made of toxic labratory gunk
Suggesting that it might be healthier to eat food than unfood is not luddism. Okay, that's a valid point. But I take issue that the idea of adding emulsifiers and starch systems to milk and yogurt creates "unfood." Case in...
Commented on Pinkberry's "natural" desserts are made of toxic labratory gunk
Here's a quick trip through some of the ingredients, given my layman's knowledge of industrial food chemistry. Sucrose, Fructose, Dextrose: Ice cream manufacturers usually have a mixture of sweeteners, since different starch-derived sweeteners have different thermal properties. Contributes flavor and...
Commented on 9/11 and drinking water security
A few years ago, the feds reportedly conducted an anthrax-susceptibility test in the north Texas area in which they dumped a microorganism (probably B. subtilis) in local water supplies and tested the treated water for contamination. As it turned out,...
Commented on Afghanistan: death sentence for downloading, distributing report on oppression of women
"I don't believe that western civilization has been improved by the collusion (probably unintentional, but nonetheless mutually supportive) of big oil and Islam in keeping the people sitting on huge oil deposits ignorant and powerless." Hardly unintentional -- Wahabist Islam...
Commented on Afghanistan: death sentence for downloading, distributing report on oppression of women
To begin withj: the death sentence for apostasy is completely against liberal norms, and is absolutely unjust. To be sentenced to death for apostasy, you have to have takfir declared against you. The four Sunni madh'habs generally don't approve of...
Commented on Organlegging nurse sold diseased corpsemeat for dental implants, knees and disks
'Ere we go: good article on the whole ugly business....
Commented on Organlegging nurse sold diseased corpsemeat for dental implants, knees and disks
This case was broken back in 2006. The former oral surgeon was the ringleader -- he ended up with a Demerol addiction and without his medical license, so he became chief organlegger for RTI, a major tissue bank. (RTI claims...
Commented on Large truck converted to mobile home
Actually, it's a UNICAT TerraCross, a "world travel" vehicle. Still my first choice for comfortable, zombie-proof postapocalyptic travel, though....

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Sister Y commented on Pinkberry's "natural" desserts are made of toxic labratory gunk
Takuan, I guarantee that if LD-50s were printed on food and drink labels, that information would almost instantaneously find its way into fraternity hazing rituals....
Antinous / Moderator commented on Pinkberry's "natural" desserts are made of toxic labratory gunk
Interesting about bananas. We can grow them here, so you can get whatever type you can find at the nursery. Lemons have the same story. In California, you can't buy anything other than Meyer Improved. And don't even ask about planting Phoenix robelinii, Phoenix reclinata or anything that might crosspollinate with Phoenix dactylifera, the date palm. There are no date farms left, but the date laws live on....
James Ashenhurst commented on Pinkberry's "natural" desserts are made of toxic labratory gunk
51 : it's pretty clear you can't put a finger on a single ingredient on that list as being toxic. You'd rather deal in generalities than specifics. As for your "food vs. unfood" spiel, a great number of scientists SPECIALIZE in taking food ingredients in "unnatural concentrations" (your phrase) and feeding them to animals, looking for signs of toxicity. In order for food additives to be approved, they have to pass rigorous standards for toxicity from the FDA. Propylene glycol, to take one example, has been fed to rats at up to 5% of total feed weight without adverse effects,...
Takuan commented on Pinkberry's "natural" desserts are made of toxic labratory gunk
all moot, look at the news, the food price hysteria and hoarding is turning into a self-fulfilling prophesy and soon enough we'll all be fighting over butter and dirt cakes...
Antinous / Moderator commented on Pinkberry's "natural" desserts are made of toxic labratory gunk
I think your "food vs. unfood" argument is totally full of crap. Well, enjoy your long slide into ill health then. Food science has been a complete failure to date, and we are in far worse health than we were fifty years ago when people still ate real food. Maybe you should get your head out of the test tube and look around you. You think that you represent science, but frankly, you sound more like a phrenologist desperately clinging to an outdated vision of how things work....

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