Ban food dyes, artificial or not, or at least limit them somewhat. People have this illogical knee-jerk reaction to the words artificial and natural as if those imply some kind of value judgement. There’s tons of natural stuff you don’t want anywhere near you and plenty of artificial stuff that’s super beneficial, people need to stop assuming natural means healthy and artificial means unhealthy.
Agreed. I debated specifying artificial or what not. I would argue that beet powder is a dye. Nothing wrong with it. The problem exists when the extremes are exercised within the definitions. Companies can’t just color in the lines. Gotta find some way to corrupt it for profit.
I say that all the time, so instead I’d like to steelman the “natural > artificial” perspective.
There are, let’s say, a few hundred things or so in nature that are good for humans. Apples, nuts, etc. This makes sense, since humans evolved in nature. There are natural bad things too, but when people say “natural is healthier” they obviously understand that poison exists in nature. We can extend this list of good things to include artificial things which seem “natural” because people have been eating it for generations with no apparent problems, like tofu – or cooked food. If you stick to just eating these few hundred known good things, you most likely won’t cause problems for yourself, even if you’re missing out on artificial superfoods and modern medicine etc.
In contrast, we’re constantly inventing artificial things, and we haven’t had generations to prove they’re worth. Now there’s thousands, millions of things to put in our bodies. Theoretically, they’ve all been FDA (or analogous organization) approved, and the FDA is quite conservative, but even if the FDA is 99.9% accurate (which it ain’t), things still slip through the gaps all the time. So anything artificial is a bit risky, since it hasn’t had generations to prove itself.
I think all that is true, but it’s just one side of the picture, since it ignores the benefits of artificial foods and drugs. Seems to me like this comes from a case of extreme conservatism or deontology. If you’re extremely conservative and/or not remotely utilitarian, it makes sense to go all-natural, right?
Ban food dyes, artificial or not, or at least limit them somewhat. People have this illogical knee-jerk reaction to the words artificial and natural as if those imply some kind of value judgement. There’s tons of natural stuff you don’t want anywhere near you and plenty of artificial stuff that’s super beneficial, people need to stop assuming natural means healthy and artificial means unhealthy.
Also yes, ban fucking pharmaceutical ads.
Agreed. I debated specifying artificial or what not. I would argue that beet powder is a dye. Nothing wrong with it. The problem exists when the extremes are exercised within the definitions. Companies can’t just color in the lines. Gotta find some way to corrupt it for profit.
I say that all the time, so instead I’d like to steelman the “natural > artificial” perspective.
There are, let’s say, a few hundred things or so in nature that are good for humans. Apples, nuts, etc. This makes sense, since humans evolved in nature. There are natural bad things too, but when people say “natural is healthier” they obviously understand that poison exists in nature. We can extend this list of good things to include artificial things which seem “natural” because people have been eating it for generations with no apparent problems, like tofu – or cooked food. If you stick to just eating these few hundred known good things, you most likely won’t cause problems for yourself, even if you’re missing out on artificial superfoods and modern medicine etc.
In contrast, we’re constantly inventing artificial things, and we haven’t had generations to prove they’re worth. Now there’s thousands, millions of things to put in our bodies. Theoretically, they’ve all been FDA (or analogous organization) approved, and the FDA is quite conservative, but even if the FDA is 99.9% accurate (which it ain’t), things still slip through the gaps all the time. So anything artificial is a bit risky, since it hasn’t had generations to prove itself.
I think all that is true, but it’s just one side of the picture, since it ignores the benefits of artificial foods and drugs. Seems to me like this comes from a case of extreme conservatism or deontology. If you’re extremely conservative and/or not remotely utilitarian, it makes sense to go all-natural, right?