Mac and Cheese and Still More Baloney

This is sort of a Part II follow-up to my Food Babe vs Sci Babe post. It's (mostly) about Kraft Mac and cheese, but I'm going to share a funny thing that happened to me first.

I tweeted out my blog post as per usual, but this time someone actually read it! And liked it! So we ended up tweeting to each other, and though I had no intention of ever interacting with Yvette, now called Sci Babe, I accidentally tweeted her directly during that conversation. Oops. And she replied.  For the most part, I try not to get into confrontations with people over social media as it's generally pointless. If you read the thread, you can see who's sharing propaganda and making insults, and who is sharing real science. After she asked me if I needed a nap, I decided that she did not deserve a response. And with that she blocked me. Maybe she read my blog post? Maybe it's because I called her French Canadian? Maybe she just really wanted there to be sexy pictures of Theo Colborn on the TEDX site? I will probably never know.

And that's how you communicate science!

"There's a group on Facebook called " Banned By Food Babe" that boasts nearly 6,000 members. Reasons for being banned include "I asked for her qualifications" and "I pointed out that water was a chemical." Some members of the page were former fans of hers who were banned when they asked questions of clarification. Any dissent couldn't possibly have merit within the ranks of the Food Babe Army." - Sci Babe on Vani Hari.

I pointed out that there's an entire field of research that negates the claims she makes that the dose makes the poison. Hypocrite much?

Okay. Now, on to the macaroni!

mmm. the cheesiest.

Kraft Mac & Cheese has announced that it will be removing all artificial dyes and preservatives from it's most iconic blue box. Kraft already makes a different product for sale in overseas than the one they have been selling here. It's easy to see why consumers would feel cheated by such a large difference in the ingredient list. Consumer demand spoke, and Kraft listened.

Now, mac and cheese isn't the most nutritious food to begin with, but for those who like to indulge in a treat now and then but prefer to avoid a lot of additives, the blue box has become an option once more. For those people who are eating this, or serving it to their children because they live in a food desert and it's one of the things they can afford - an improvement in the ingredients is just that, an improvement. Clearly if a product can be made without synthetic ingredients, then why not? There is no nutritional value in preservatives or artificial colors.

There are legitimate concerns about them however. From a recent article in Scientific American:

"Bernard Weiss, professor emeritus of the Department of Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center who has researched this issue for decades, says he is frustrated that the FDA has not acted on the research showing the connection between artificial dyes and hyperactivity. "All the evidence we have has showed that it has some capacity to harm," he says. "In Europe that's enough to get it banned because a manufacturer has to show lack of toxic effects. In this country it's up to the government to find out whether or not there are harmful effects." Weiss supports banning artificial colors until companies have evidence that they cause no harm. Like most other scientists in this field, he thinks more research, particularly investigating dyes' effects on the developing brain, is imperative."

This really illustrates how different regulations are here, compared to Europe. They take a precautionary approach, while the U.S. takes a reactionary approach that caters to industry. Are we really surprised by any of this though?

Speaking of people who cater to industry interests, my BFF Sci Babe isn't into taking a precautionary approach either. She says artificial colors are safe, and that by taking them out, and using real food ingredients to add color it's probably not making the food any safer. She says that people have already written her to say that their kid is allergic to paprika! She says that public concerns about artificial food dyes and additives "comes from a place of: because I don't understand the science, I think it's unsafe."

Please tell me if I'm misunderstanding this then. There is a fair amount of real scientific evidence that points to artificial colors being a trigger for behavioral problems in children. The amount of these colors in food has increased over the last 60 years, and children are likely consuming more dyes than previously believed. Removing these from a child's diet is shown to be an effective way to treat ADHD, which costs society billions of dollars each year.

So, scientific evidence aside - does not wanting to eat things that aren't food make you science illiterate? I'm not buying that, and neither should you. People ought to be able to decide what they are and are not willing to put in their face. Erring on the side of caution is not something to be belittled over. Once again, Yvette takes the side of industry - and then tells you if you don't then you just don't understand science. Woman needs to open a deli, lunch meat falls out her mouth every time she opens it.

Diluting the Truth

I recently came across a blog post by a woman married to a farmer - Nurse Loves Farmer - which sets out to debunk people using adjectives like 'drenched' or 'doused' when describing the amount of herbicide applied to GMO crops.

Nurse claims through a set of mathematical equations and this infographic that the amount of glyphosate containing herbicide applied to their crops is so tiny that using the words 'doused' or 'drenched' is just silly talk for dumbasses who don't understand farming.

Please read this before complaining at me (again) about 'stolen' content, Sarah.

This is claiming that the amount of herbicide used is equal to just a soda can per acre. But is that accurate? She mentions a little further down in the post that "these results will vary on the brand of glyphosate a farmer uses, its concentration and the method in which it’s used for." Wait - concentration? Whatever could she mean?

I went over to the website at Purdue University and this is what I found regarding formulations for agricultural use: 

"Water-Soluble Concentrate (WSC): Water-soluble concentrates from a true solution when added to water and are applied with water as the carrier. ... There are usually 2 to 6 pounds of active ingredient per gallon of formulation. Example: Arsenal, Formula 40, Garlon 3A, Krenite, Roundup Pro, Tordon K,  Vanquish, Veteran 720."

*link and emphasis mine

The brand Farmer uses is by Syngenta, called Traxion.

It is a liquid concentrate. That soda can amount is being mixed with several gallons of water, and that solution of herbicide is being applied with an agricultural sprayer that puts out a spray somewhat similar to the water misters in the grocery store that keep your lettuce crisp. So whether or not 'drenched' is a correct adjective to use, I can't say - I'm not going to argue over semantics. But if you are mixing concentrate with water to reconstitute it, (forming a true solution) it is incredibly misleading to tell people you're only using an eye dropper's worth per square foot. You're out there with a sprayer, not an eye dropper - let's get real.

This is akin to me telling people that this pitcher of juice only contains 12 oz of juice.

I'm guessing you wouldn't believe me because obviously, it's 48 oz of juice from concentrate. If I diluted it further I could say that it was just 48 oz. of juice cut with however much water I used. But to say that it is diluted, when it's really a reconstituted product is flat out lying. There really is no getting around that.

Nurse is distorting the truth, and misleading the public in order to make a defense of her husbands agricultural practices. After all, Nurse loves Farmer.  She further commits another blunder at the end of her blog post when she uses a favorite phrase of the chemical industry (one which they base their safety testing on) and Skeptics alike.

"A really important thing to remember is: the dose makes the poison. This goes for anything—not just pesticides used in agriculture!"

Anything? Really? Anything at all? She links to another blog with another infographic to back up this statement, which got some of its information from 'various Wikipedia entries' to make a list of things that follow a linear dose response. Now while it's very true that there are things that this applies to, it does NOT in fact, apply to 'anything'. 

What Nurse is either unaware of, or purposefully ignoring is the field of endocrine disruption science. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, glyphosate based herbicides have been shown to have hormone disrupting effects. From Endocrine Review:

"For decades, studies of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have challenged traditional concepts in toxicology, in particular the dogma of “the dose makes the poison,” because EDCs can have effects at low doses that are not predicted by effects at higher doses. Here, we review two major concepts in EDC studies: low dose and nonmonotonicity. Low-dose effects were defined by the National Toxicology Program as those that occur in the range of human exposures or effects observed at doses below those used for traditional toxicological studies. We review the mechanistic data for low-dose effects and use a weight-of-evidence approach to analyze five examples from the EDC literature. Additionally, we explore nonmonotonic dose-response curves, defined as a nonlinear relationship between dose and effect where the slope of the curve changes sign somewhere within the range of doses examined. We provide a detailed discussion of the mechanisms responsible for generating these phenomena, plus hundreds of examples from the cell culture, animal, and epidemiology literature. We illustrate that nonmonotonic responses and low-dose effects are remarkably common in studies of natural hormones and EDCs. Whether low doses of EDCs influence certain human disorders is no longer conjecture, because epidemiological studies show that environmental exposures to EDCs are associated with human diseases and disabilities. We conclude that when nonmonotonic dose-response curves occur, the effects of low doses cannot be predicted by the effects observed at high doses. Thus, fundamental changes in chemical testing and safety determination are needed to protect human health."

Nurse had better get herself a fact checker. Her Skeptic friends are doing a really lousy job.

For more reading on endocrine disruption see The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX).