2010: Jagged Little Pill

[robotparker]

MichaelApproved, I feel your pain. I get into these kinds of arguments with the granola bars in my town all the time! Don't even get me started on radiation vs ionizing radiation. If I see this bullshit story pop up on my newsfeed one more time, I'm gonna start breaking beakers over people's head.

[MichaelApproved]

Originally Posted by robotparker

MichaelApproved, I feel your pain. I get into these kinds of arguments with the granola bars in my town all the time! Don't even get me started on radiation vs ionizing radiation. If I see this bullshit story pop up on my newsfeed one more time, I'm gonna start breaking beakers over people's head.

Do you post that link in replies? If so, what type of responses do you get?

[robotparker]

I do. Usually I get no response, but every now and then I'll get some claptrap along the lines of, "ain't no way it's safe to eat something that's full of microwaves," as if a.) waves can injected and stored in something and b.) adding "wave" to a word automatically turns it into some deadly futuristic weapon.

[Keith]

I'm going to "poison?" Michael with cyanide and use his above texts as my defense.

Wait! The new KATG iPhone app is out! Michael's rhetoric is forgiven!

http://KATG.com/app/download

Download and rate 5 stars! Drop a review also. It's the natural thing to do (if that's even a word).

[WSEIII]

Keith's Alaska vacation is almost over, but if I were to guess I'd say this happened. Keith fell overboard somehow missing the propellers, met Old Gregg and the two of them played love games.

[Tomrl94]

Where there is a toilet, there is a way.
I think JFK said that.

[Sakugenken]

Words don't exist in a vacuum. When someone says they don't like all the chemicals in food, I of course know they are talking about harmful additives not all chemicals in general. Sometimes a student is worried when an English word has many meanings and I explain that we can usually understand by context. Yes "gay" also means "happy and excited" but if a friend turns to me and says in a serious voice "I am gay." I don't ask, "What are you happy about?"

[MichaelApproved]

Originally Posted by Sakugenken

Words don't exist in a vacuum. When someone says they don't like all the chemicals in food, I of course know they are talking about harmful additives not all chemicals in general. Sometimes a student is worried when an English word has many meanings and I explain that we can usually understand by context. Yes "gay" also means "happy and excited" but if a friend turns to me and says in a serious voice "I am gay." I don't ask, "What are you happy about?"

Read my posts and you'll see I addressed this point already. The word chemical is meaningless because it doesn't advance the conversation. Saying you don't like "harmful additives" is also meaningless.

Speak like you're passing legislation. You can't pass a bill that bans "harmful additives" because it's completely ambiguous. You're not saying anything of substance.

"I don't like things that harm me" No shit. We can all agree that we don't want something that's harmful. Now what? Now nothing because we didn't actually say anything meaningful. Had we specified an actual additive, we could avoid it or ask our government to ban it. Neither of those can happen because the conversation didn't move forward.

Look what happened when people addressed a specific ingredient like transfat, it got banned. People learned to avoid it and gov't moved to ban it because people talked about a specific additive they didn't want to consume. Be specific and things get done. Talk in ambiguous generalizations and it's just a circle jerk.

Same goes for things we want to consume. Saying you want "natural" foods is meaningless. There are so many things in the supermarket that are "natural" yet not good for you. Stake, butter, oil, fried chicken, and potato chips can all be natural.

Try being specific and ask for fruits, vegetables, lean chicken, and whole grains. Now you're giving someone a list of actual foods they can look for when selecting food options.

[MichaelApproved]

Originally Posted by jezna

But what do you mean by harmful additives? What quantities of additives?

The most "harmful additive" is sugar, which can go by HFCS, cane juice crystals, caramel, beet sugar, sucrose, dextrose, fruit juice, etc,etc, etc. All of those words for literally the chemical (oh no! a chemical! that we can either make from a lab, or purify from beets!) sucrose: a chemical that remains the same no matter how or where you purify it. Also, no one will argue that eating an apple is bad, yet its full of sucrose. Does adding it to an oreo make it bad? The answer to this ridiculous question is: yes, if you eat too many oreos.

The same is true for any substance. If you eat too much celloluse (fiber), you're going to have a bad time. Is that a harmful additive? Yeah, if you eat too much of it.

Persvatives? salt is a perservative. Is that a harmful addditive? Yeah, if you eat too much of it.

The same is true of all "harmful additives" that you describe but have no definition or meaning at all.

YES! Thank you!

You're right that how much you eat is just as important as what you eat. Everything is a poison, it just depends on the dose.

[bithead]

Originally Posted by MichaelApproved

I know that it's what people are trying to say but even the words "Harmful Chemicals" are devoid of substance. It's so ambiguous, it doesn't move the conversation forward. Some people believe preservatives are harmful chemicals. Well, salt is a preservative. Unless you go into a little more depth, the conversation is little more than a circle jerk.

Besides, I think Michael gets-off on this kind of conversation.