Those darn chemicals: Difference between revisions
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===What's in a name?=== | |||
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Selling to a natural crowd? | |||
"Natural pressed extract from Helianthus annuus" sounds better than "triglycerides" (that's sunflower oil, by the way) | |||
Selling to a fancy sscientific crowd? | |||
Call it a micellar aqueous soap. That's actually most of them, it happens to be '[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micellar_solution tiny bits suspended in something else]' (of specifically [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphiphile amphipathic] lipids, but almost all soaps qualify) | |||
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===The things you actually probably want to be there=== | |||
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[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_metabisulfite Potassium metabisulfite], in my wine? Why would you add something that amounts to adding disinfectant? | |||
Well, it helps keep the taste. And color. And avoids botulism. So is also a great way to clean the wine making tools. | |||
And yes, you want to . So it's well studied. E224, to be specific. | |||
And yes, this is one of the sources of winey headaches, in perhaps 1% of us that are sensitive. | |||
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecithin Lecithin] emulsifiers, are they necessary? | |||
If you like stirring a lot, no. | |||
But most of us will think our mayo, peanut butter, and yoghurt, and many other things to be worse without it. | |||
Some people will unnecessarily throw it out, particularly if other products don't do this. | |||
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=Some things worth talking about= | =Some things worth talking about= |
Revision as of 16:01, 20 December 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.
On toxicity
Everything is chemicals, and everything is toxic at high concentrations
Toxin, poison, venom
LD50
Bioaccumulation
Things barely worth talking about
E numbers
E numbers just means it's tested.
It is mostly things commonly used as food additives - so that we can 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:
What's in a name?
The things you actually probably want to be there
Some things worth talking about
Pesticides
BPA
Phtalates
PFAS
PFOA