Greg,
To help move this into the area of tangible impact: can you provide a source for information on the demonstrated adverse health impact caused by food stabilizers and preservatives? It would be especially helpful if the source also considered offsetting benefits (e.g. from the avoidance of consumption of oxydized fats, etc)
I think you know that I can't give loads of scientific/technical data for support of my position. First, it may not be there. There is a chance that no one has large studies of the effect of small doses of toxic entities. Anyway, I don't have easy access. My food choice philosophy has developed from a fair amount of anecdotal evidence, articles written in magazines and newspapers, radio shows, and a reasonable amount of thinking about the topic. I am not a fanatic. Earlier in this thread I stated that given the practical choice I drink organic milk, but if that's not readily available I choose the next cleanest milk down, rSTP (sp?) free. And so on.
As a further example of low levels of toxin possibly causing problems down the line (at a later point in time) we need only look at the use of DDT, a pesticide, in this country. We stopped using it in this country and worldwide many years ago. It was destroying the eagle population and doing a fair amount of harm in the environment. It was banned; the DDT stopped seeping into the environment and a sort of non-DDT balance was restored; the eagle population among other populations grew again. A good thing.
Nowadays, there is a desire to start using DDT in parts of Africa to fight malaria. It is cheap and would be very effective in controlling mosquitoes (and maybe other Texas related varmints?). Good things. I don't necessarily think that this would be a bad choice--if the DDT is used judiciously.
So, I agree, some sort of balance in our social and scientific community is needed, in our decision making process.
I agree with the point you make about food choices being important in the overall health of people. I think the vast majority of the problem is that people eat foods in unhealthful proportions (not enough vegetables and whole grains, too much meat and starch, etc), and that many of us simply consume more calories each day than we burn.
Now, somehow converting that observation into concrete action is where I think our paths will diverge. I want people to make the right choices based on their own enlightened self interest. What would you propose as a way to get people to eat more in a more healthy way? I do not believe it is the place of the state to force adults to change behaviors that are not adversely affecting others.
So, my perception of the problem may not converge with yours, and your notion of enlightened self interest may not match mine. This is sad--possibly. In my ideal food world, "enlightened self interest" means I have the knowledge available to make an informed choice regarding my foods. As a direct example of my inability to make a good choice: many companies directly lobby the gov't so that they don't have to label their products as "containing GMO products. They specifically are trying to hide the facts about what they sell. How can I make a decision when the information is specifically and explicitly hidden from me? To my mind, in this case, I want a gov't that will make sure such information is readily and easily available to me. That way I can make an enlightened choice.
I see many examples of the gov't behaving covertly when it shouldn't. And I infer that many times and much information about food is hidden from me when I would like it available so that an informed and spot choice right at the choice sight can be quickly made efficiently. One might say that this information is readily available if you just google it, that it is easily findable. But practically speaking, this really isn't true. For most folks, life is busy. They buy lots different products on a regular schedule. Because of this, they need to trust the gov't or someone to do the right thing, to make sure that the products are safe. This means more than meeting minimal standards nowadays. Most folks don't have time to do a thorough investigation of every single product they buy. They're busy raising children, working, fixing the house, making car payments, [-]wasting time on message boards[/-], etc. They don't have time to add a huge number of additional chores for all the safety issues related to them and their less enlightened children. It is much more efficient to hire the process out to [-]competent[/-] experts, such as the ones gov't could find if it was properly chosen and managed. [But we may disagree on the innate ability of gov't to act competently?
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So, enlightened self interest is vital to me too. And all of our society and each individual should have correct information available to make individual and collective choices. In fact we should all contribute funds to furthing enlightenment in our children by raising money for schools
. But this costs money doesn't it? And, currently we have a group of folks who have as a [-]primary[/-] goal the reduction of the cost of gov't and minimization of it's size. This to me appears to run counter to what 'enlightened self interest' really means. Or am I wrong? There is the possibility that business could provide that 'enlightening' factor. But [-]all[/-] most evidence that I see leads me to believe that those businesses are primarily interested in their own self interest--not mine. That sometimes they lie to us and try to fool me in order to further their own self interest and expand their profits by misrepresenting their products.
Thankfully, we share some enlightenment about an economic philosopher that solved this difficulty for us. Adam Smith, the fellow that talked about the invisible hand, also said that business interests can't be left alone to their own devices, that some governing entity, a controlling group needs to ultimately govern that invisible hand group. Because if those business folks are left solely to their own devices nothing good will come of it. But you already know Adam Smith said this, don't you?
So, samclem, what is your definition of freedom?
It affects the taste, and there is no need. I have studied beer a lot, it is a hobby, and every source tells me that there are NO dangerous microorganisms that can survive in beer! And I have NEVER seen any evidence contrary to that. There are some very active home brew forums, they discuss everything under the sun related to brewing, and if people were getting sick (other than from the obvious occasional over consumption) it would be known.
