this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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  • buy organic food with no preservatives
  • look ingredients
  • salt (inorganic preservative)

Image of a cat looking down at the camera.


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[–] [email protected] 128 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

buy food without any kind of preservative

spoils in a day or two

shocked pikachu face

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That’s a big problem in makeup too! Companies want to put out “clean” and “natural” makeup but makeup isn’t typically used very quickly. Makeup with no preservatives going bad is common.

[–] [email protected] 96 points 1 year ago (5 children)

"Organic" and "nonGMO" are two things that will actively make me avoid your product.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

One of my personal pet peeves, along with people who act like "clean energy" simply means no smog or visible particulate emissions.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That did and in some places does still matter. Homes moving away from heating with coal to natural gas reduces smog. Thus it is seen as clean energy. Because everything is cleaner in the true sense of the word clean. Green is often a better predictor.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes, I get that literally clean energy is important and in many places it would be a significant improvement. It can also be easier to explain that we need to move away from fossil fuels based on tangible pollution, not the nebulous "greenhouse gasses" and "global warming", especially when talking to conservative folks.

Still, I feel like public awareness of the issue is... questionable. Whenever I read about some government program to fund more renewable energy, or hear politiciants discuss it, it's almost always the literal clean, not green clean. Invisible emissions will still mess up our climate, and more people should know that.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Stupid question, what's wrong with organic?

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nothing inherently, you can go ahead and eat apples from your apple tree.

The main issue with "organic" foods is that the term is usually very badly regulated. Sometimes there is no difference between "organic" and "non organic"... besides price. Sometimes "organic" foods use very ecologically unfriendly techniques, or are grown/processed in countries where supply chains are not inspected anyway.

Then there's the fact that if something is different, it may not always be an environmental or health win. Growing your food in 30cm of water may be one organic and traditional way to avoid using pesticides (see: rice), but doing that with corn in the middle of Arizona would obviously be a terrible idea!

Anyway, overall I don't think organic foods are worse if you're well off enough that the price is not an issue. But you shouldn't feel personal guilt for buying whatever's cheaper, because quite often the alternative does not justify the price anyway. Eating truly "organic" food unfortunately requires a lot more involvement than picking the green package at a national supermarket chain.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sometimes there is no difference between “organic” and “non organic”

Probably the most amusing example is strawberries: it's essentially impossible to grow them without using non-organic pesticides (and there are such things as organic pesticides despite the near-universal but incorrect belief that "organic" means "no pesticides") so the USDA allows them to be labelled "organic" if they're grown with non-organic methods but then replanted and treated organically for a few days before being harvested and shipped to market.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I imagine the USDA as a tired underpaid fast-food employee that has to deal with moronic entitled customers.

- "I want an organic strawberry!"
- "I already explained to you that strawberries cannot be grown without non-organic pesticide."
- "Are you telling me no?!"
- "I'm telling you that what you want is agriculturally impossible."
- "Do you have any idea who I am!?"
- "Ugh.... you know what? Okay."
* Takes a perfectly regular "non-organically" grown strawberry.
* Slaps an "organic" label on it.
- "Here you go. One organic strawberry. Thank you for shopping with USDA!"
- "Was that so hard?"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought people in the US calling food "organic" was akin to our "Agriculture biologique" in France, which is heavily regulated at an european level. Is it nit the case?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The AB label is regulated yes, which is almost equivalent to the EU green leaf. Then there are various private labels. In the US it's all up to private labels I believe.

Anyone can put "bio" and a vaguely green packaging on anything though AFAIK. And I don't think the average consumer is very knowledgeable about which label means what; I certainly am not.

Then there's the problem of fraud, and various issues with the way the EU defines "biological agriculture", but I don't really know much about either.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

It's a bullshit marketing term to appeal to pseudoscience and anti-intellectuals.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's a heavily abused and arbitrary marketing term that doesn't actually indicate anything about what the food is made of or how it's made or grown. It also doesn't indicate anything about how healthy the food is or how good it tastes. At most it's slightly better for the environment in some areas with some brands when used properly, but even then regulations are too lax and inconsistent worldwide for it to be a trustworthy label.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is false. The reality is that USDA organic does have meaning. It's certainly less meaning than implied, but the binary thinking leads to an incorrect view like yours. I actively avoid organic if it's more expensive, but when it's about the same, it's clearly somewhat better to some degree

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not everything that is labeled organic is USDA Organic.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Right. I'm just saying that it's untrue that organic has no meaning. As usual, you gotta do your research

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wasn't aware there's anything wrong. Albeit more expensive, I prefer to not eat pesticides. 🤷‍♂️

https://wqscert.com/usda-organic

Granted, I'm not sure there are long-term medical studies proving any harmful effect of doing so.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Organic foods can and usually do have pesticides, and those pesticides are just as harmful to you as the artificial ones. For instance, Rotenone was an organic pesticide used for decades that is strongly linked to parkinsons and has since been banned in North America.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Depends on where you live. As far as I know the term is not well protected in many countries, so it means next to nothing there.

However, I live in the EU / Germany, where we have several organic farming standards that are all fairly strict. Generally, organic actually means organically produced food here, grown without artificial pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and so on.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's code for "same shit but more expensive" As with all the labels, the intent is to shark people's ignorance with meaningless buzzwords.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's more expensive, and it's typically not that much better than inorganic.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same, but I'm also a vegan, and the organic and/or non-GMO product is often the only one without animal ingredients.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just out of curiosity since I assume you know more about this, is "plant based" the same as vegan? Because that's the hip new term but I've always wondered if they're equivalent or if they do have some animal products which is why they're dancing around the word vegan. I've never gotten a straight answer from the people at the store/restaurant.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unfortunately, the answer is "It depends". Although plant-based foods are usually suitable for vegans, it isn't a regulated term, so you can't be sure. Also, I think the term "vegan" has negative connotations that "plant-based" doesn't, so marketers prefer to use that term instead.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because I doubt there is anything we eat that's non gmo, we have been influencing the genetics of plants around us for centuries.

For example saying you only eat organic watermelon is fucking stupid, look at how it looked 2000 years ago and how it looks now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Genetically modified generally refers to direct modifications to genes done in a lab. As opposed to selective breeding.

Organic often refers to the use of fertiliser and pesticides. So produce that is grown with compost rather than synthetic fertiliser and synthetic pesticides.

It's completely feasible to produce organic watermelons and solely consume organic watermelons. It only refers to how the fruit was grown. Not the variety.

There are GMOs that are created in a lab. Commercial varieties breed mainly for shelf life and volume. Then there is heirloom variety's, older varieties generally breed prior to over commercialisation of farming that has made food more bland and bigger. All of these can be grown organically.

In fact it's very easy for the only watermelon you eat to be organic. Especially if you grow them yourself, as many gardeners use organic methods exclusively.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Congratulations?

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Fuck organic food where can I buy some silicon based food?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're telling me you've never had a cobblestone cobbler? Not even a sand-wich?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

All about that Germanium based food personally

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reject modernity, embrace salt as currency.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This sounds like a protest slogan.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Don't worry. It was there for flavor. Not preservation.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I realize the ambiguity of whether organic really matters, but there is a strong link to pesticide use and the eventual extinction of bees-

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-agriculture/save-the-bees/#:~:text=Many%20of%20these%20causes%20are,causes%3A%20pesticides%20and%20habitat%20loss.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Vitamin E (tocopherols) are also preservatives that can be added to organic food.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Spoiler:
Spoiler work differently here :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The wealth of misinformation and personal opinions in this thread is… it’s just classic.

It’s incredible that as we are actively engaging in conversation on the internet we fail to use this modern marvel to better ourselves. Instead, we choose to bear our ignorance and influence impressionable minds.

I mean, I know this a meme and maybe not the right place for fact checking, still…

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/organic-food/art-20043880

https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/nutrition-basics/organic-food-fact-vs-perception

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/health-benefits-organic-food-farming-report/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why are people transcribing memes?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

So that vision impaired people or people with whatever other impairment can enjoy the content. The text can be read out by a screen reader.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

that cat seems to be missing the top of his head. Where is the rest of his head?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

He ate too much organic food with salt in it and got smooth brain.

It's a huge conspiracy that the big seasoning companies don't want you to know.

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