“Chemical” is now used with the meaning of “ultra-processed ingredient with either unknown origin or unknow effect on your body”. It is not the first meaning of the term but I guess it is a meaning now and we have to deal with it.
The problem with that is that it is a completely meaningless distinction. Some of the worst chemicals we often put in our foods are certain kinds of nitrates that are used as preservatives, but those same nitrates occur naturally in celery. If you just eat celery the concentration is low enough to be harmless, but it can be concentrated naturally. If you’ve ever seen celery juice or celery powder on the list of ingredients for a food it is the exact same thing, and just as bad for you.
Naturally occurring isn’t the same as healthy. Most plants are some degree of poisonous. They don’t want to be eaten, and can’t run away. That’s just how they defend themselves. We farm the ones we are well adapted to eat, but even with that and millennia of selective breeding it’s still not perfect. Ultra processed foods are bad for you because your health is not a priority for the people doing the processing, not because there is something inherently worse about industrially synthesized ingredients. They can be anything we want, and they are currently mostly addictive and only satisfying for a very short amount of time, but that is a decision, not an inherent flaw.
I mean, the entire first point I made there was about how that was meaningless. Having the exact same chemical called a “chemical” sometimes and not others actively hurts our ability to communicate about what’s in our food. That’s not your fault, but it still bothers me.
“Chemical” is now used with the meaning of “ultra-processed ingredient with either unknown origin or unknow effect on your body”. It is not the first meaning of the term but I guess it is a meaning now and we have to deal with it.
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The problem with that is that it is a completely meaningless distinction. Some of the worst chemicals we often put in our foods are certain kinds of nitrates that are used as preservatives, but those same nitrates occur naturally in celery. If you just eat celery the concentration is low enough to be harmless, but it can be concentrated naturally. If you’ve ever seen celery juice or celery powder on the list of ingredients for a food it is the exact same thing, and just as bad for you.
Naturally occurring isn’t the same as healthy. Most plants are some degree of poisonous. They don’t want to be eaten, and can’t run away. That’s just how they defend themselves. We farm the ones we are well adapted to eat, but even with that and millennia of selective breeding it’s still not perfect. Ultra processed foods are bad for you because your health is not a priority for the people doing the processing, not because there is something inherently worse about industrially synthesized ingredients. They can be anything we want, and they are currently mostly addictive and only satisfying for a very short amount of time, but that is a decision, not an inherent flaw.
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I mean, the entire first point I made there was about how that was meaningless. Having the exact same chemical called a “chemical” sometimes and not others actively hurts our ability to communicate about what’s in our food. That’s not your fault, but it still bothers me.