Beware Of The Marketers

[FireMan]

A question to be asked, to which does it matter? Some one mentioned Asians using MSG for decades ............and with what results. It all comes to man trying to take care of things, whether it be healthwise, politics, science (which with time can be questionable), money or power or all of the above. The quest for what......... History shows a poor track record, is it improving?

[Huskee]

Same! I am a skeptic and my wife believes most of what she sees on labels. We are often at odds with this sort of thing. I feel like most things are put on labels by someone with a financial interest or another agenda, she believes everyone is good and trying to help us and labels tell the whole truth.

[Meathead]

I love the way you have dug into this. I have made significant revisions to the original post in the book manuscript and after doing some more digging I will post the revised version. Crowd sourcing!

[Meathead]

Sorry I did not respond sooner. I have been reading member comments and revising the manuscript which I will publish shortly. I think I have addressed your issues therein.

[Meathead]

Good gracious. I knew she was a quack but this is so over the top it sounds like it was written by the Onion.

[CaptainMike]

This is a very interesting thread that I check in on from time to time. Something that often comes to mind for me is when these and many other "hot" topics become politicized, monetized, and occasionally weaponized they begin to lose credibility (at least with me). Much like what grantgallagher shared about not seeing the full context of a study, you must ask "why" or "why not". Usually a case of "follow the money". I generally quit buying "organic" because this. Just my opinion, but it seems to have devolved to simply a marketing gimmick with only anecdotal benefits that are not wholly supported. That is not to say that we shouldn't do all we can to protect our food and food sources, I just don't buy the hype. Now, off to the Farmer's Market.....

[Willy]

Ah! We're successful! We've deceived you into thinking we're "thinkers". LOL ;«)

More seriously, do feel free to join in. It's fun and this website has successfully encouraged civil discussion, something not found on many websites

[obiQsmoker]

I just want to thank all of you for this. I have no background or knowledge to offer, but appreciate, SO appreciate, the information you folks are willing to share, and the respectful and thoughtful manner you share it. It’s refreshing. While I thought I was joining a BBQ community, little did I know the amazing group of thinkers I’d encounter.

[Willy]

Welcome to the conversation! I hope you stick around, especially given your background. I agree that nutrition is an "impossible" subject to study well. In "In Defense of Food", Michael Pollan discusses the very real, and hard to overcome, difficulties. I also think the media, in general, does a poor job of explaining the "latest study", hence the public's perception of the science is skewed unfairly. Science journalism is a specialty field and most journalists haven't the training for it.

[Willy]

@Murdy

What other "salient differences" are there?

[Murdy]

Further, limiting the comparison between organic and non-organic to the presence of chemicals ignores other salient differences between the two.

[Murdy]

Briefly, and off the top of my head, I'd note that I said "capable of pushing back hard" -- I think there's a bit of a Coke/Pepsi thing going on. Coke never used to compare itself to Pepsi in commercials when it was number one, because it did not want to imply an equivalence with number 2 (while Pepsi, seeking to elevate itself, was targeting Coke with things like the Pepsi Challenge). I suspect if the organic industry significantly cuts into Big Ag's profit, you will see that pushback.

[grantgallagher]

And also full disclosure at the irony of me posting in this thread. I work in pharma marketing. My job is to make sure the science is properly integrated into promotional materials and no one is telling porkies. Feel free to take that with as many pinches of salt as needed but i do take pride in making sure anything that comes out of our shop is fully supported by current science. Does that mean we will never get anything wrong...hell no. But we do try

[grantgallagher]

Btw, i gave the "eggsample" of eggs and cholesterol here. But honestly i feel the same rationale applies for long term human health. Obviously some things are easily proved very bad for you, but most chemicals, natural or synthetic, fall into a grey zone for me. I liked one of the earlier posts about the effect of GMOs being measured in nature ie natural gene transfer. Thats cool and it shows probably causational relationship. Most others are association at best.

[grantgallagher]

So far ive refrained from posting in this thread and just been following with keen interest. I have loved the discussion. Nutrition (and everythig it encompasses) is a fascinating subject IMO because it is pretty much impossible to study. The level of investment from studiers and participants to properly control for variables over a long period of time is probably impossible. Eggs and cholesterol are my favorite theme to highlight the futility. As im sure many of you have probably seen, a recent study just said eggs are bad again.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...stract/2728487

of course it really helps that the full text is not available to the general public. I have access but i cant share the article because that would violate multiple laws.

what is great about studies like this is that they do not control for how the eggs were cooked. Just like studies that say potatoes are bad but when you dig into it you find out most people "potato" consumption was via french fries.

I did my undergrad in biochem then graduate in immunology. Nutrition and how we pretend to understand it will always be something that fascinates me. Give me a study that looks at people who consumed poached vs scrambled, cooked in the same salt content water or with the same amount of the same butter or oil (for example) that says both groups had the same result and ill appreciate it. But as i said, close to impossible to control for the length of time needed for a study like that.