By Xaander 2021-04-01 13:18:46
I've had conversations with Mayo Clinic doctors before about the relation between food consumed, digestion, digestion disruptions, and how that may correlate to the growing number of food intolerances we see in people these days. They have no idea how it works. Allergies are straight forward, but the immune system still has mysteries they're trying to solve in relation to intolerances. I personally think much of the problem stems from the use of certain (but many) preservatives by food processing companies. Just because a substance is FDA approved, doesn't mean it is without side effects, and the longer it takes for a side effect of a particular substance to manifest, the longer potentially dangerous substances will be on the market for before anyone finds out.
For those who've studied the law, "safe" rarely means perfectly safe. It often means only a handful of people died or developed apparent side effects from exposure to a substance per million people.
Even then, there are sometimes known concerns, like the cell phone radiation issues – if it takes a long time for a cancerous growth to form in response to consistent low doses of radiation, that gives companies an extended timeline to argue it was all the other choices that individual made that led to the cancer. This example isn't about food, but the concept is applicable to the things we eat.
Genetic modification of food is a tool. It does plenty of good, but there are lingering questions. Even if we know the entirety of something, a plant structure, for example, if we don't have a complete understanding of how substances effect the human body, then there could be problems. Does modifying an orange tree to better grow in poorer soil or a different climate make its fruit change in a way that has a negative impact on our bodies? It's hard to say. Even if it did, are the gains made by that change worth whatever the new detriment is? It's always a balancing act. It's just the more subtle a problem is, and the longer it takes to show symptoms we can detect with current medicine, the less likely it is there will ever be any accountability.
With processed foods, many of the preservative chemicals used to save companies money by increasing the shelf life of their products are now being found to cause or exacerbate auto-immune disorders. Longer shelf life helps the consumer too, to an extent, but the costs we pay for convenience aren't always clear. Most people assume the current state of their knowledge of the human body is the totality of the reality.
Even seemingly innocuous topics like, "the food we eat", can touch on market principles and economic frameworks. It shouldn't be inherently political, although I agree the words of our friend seem to have been structured in a way to be provocative on some level. Even things like capitalism and communism aren't "buzzwords" to me. Buzzword is more of a buzzword these days in that sense, as a way to minimize something without having to engage with it.
It would be possible to discuss the concepts that make up those frameworks in a civil, meaningful way, but I do recognize they are a quick path to make people lose their ***. If it's not a responsibility that can be handled, then it's best to avoid it. Sad as that may be. Also, there seem to be a lot of people who want "random thoughts" to not be a general, all-encompassing concept, but, rather something akin to "random thoughts about memes" or "random thoughts about cats". I don't really care either way, but if the space isn't specifically defined, then all the conversation topics just need to coexist.