Those darn chemicals: Difference between revisions
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===LD50=== | |||
In toxicology, LD50 is the '''median lethal dose'': the amount that would kill 50% of the the population. | |||
{{comment|(well, half of a test population, which is generally not a lot of them for ethical reasons, so has statistical footnotes)}} | |||
If you want a level to ''really'' stay away from, it's going to be a morbid definition any which way, | |||
and LD50 is a "''definitely'' stay away from these levels of the thing, but wouldn't wipe us out immediately" figure. | |||
Used for toxins, radiation, pathogens. | |||
For chemical and biological things, the unit is often mass of substance per mass of test subject, | |||
often in mg/kg, though the prefix varies from nanograms and micrograms (for things with high toxicity), | |||
to milligrams and grams (for things with low toxicity, e.g. paracetamol). | |||
Such a figure isn't always a directly meaningful figure. | |||
Say, coffee's LD50 is 192 mg/kg, but of ''what''? We don't eat coffee directly, and in terms of liquid coffee (which is mostly water) it's on the order of 25 liters. | |||
...which actually makes the coffee mostly irrelevant. as [[water poisoining]] (LD50 quoted as 90g/kg) would be an issue way before the caffeine would be. | |||
It also does not directly consider whether something is fast-acting or not, digested versus bioaccumulated, and such. | |||
The coffee example is additionally interesting in that you would likely secrete it quickly enough. | |||
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose | |||
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Revision as of 18:14, 20 October 2023
BIG RED TEXT HELLO: This is not health advice, or necessarily correct. Do not make health decisions based on just this. Do your own research, and not just the stuff that agrees with your opinions.
But first
Everything is chemicals, and everything is toxic at high concentrations
Toxin, poison, venom
Things barely worth talking about
E numbers
E numbers just means it's tested
E numbers tend to mostly be things commonly used as food additives.
And that is a large part of why we tested it: to quantify how to use them safely.
They get short codes in the process, which is an easier shorthand to refer to the substance
and the tests. This is often easier more precise and/or easier than a fancier pseudonym and/or more chemical name (things like INCI may help both ways (e.g. water is aqua) but at least tend to standardize the names used somewhat).
Such naming can also make regulation a lot easier to do, including the health testing.
While regulations apply regardless of what name you use, it can make it somewhat easier for you to recognize what's in there.
Some negative fearful snap judgment got all E numbers associated with unnatural and bad for you,
because it's largely just "the set of things we tested", it mostly isn't.
A good number of them are in fact nutrition you absolutely need, or are perfectly healthy, and/or perfectly natural.
Consider:
- E300 though E309 are vitamin C and E,
- E101 is vitamin B2 used as coloring,
- E160c is pepper extract, mostly used for coloring
- E160a is carrot used for coloring,
- E170 is calcium (basically),
- E407 comes from seaweed,
- E322 frequently comes from soy,
- E948 is oxygen
Sure, there are also a few handfuls (out of hundreds) that I don't see having a place in my food, if I have any choice.
And that was part of the point: the testing let us know we don't want it, the name lets us check more easily.
And a few that you'll probably never see - there's rarely any silver (E174) or gold (E175) in food
but they're included for testing purposes, just so that you may know how safe they are when they are used in, say, cake decoration.
See also:
Some things worth talking about
Pesticides
BPA
Phtalates
PFAS
PFOA