Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

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Food production is really, really complex. If an organic burrito was labelled with every process involved in its production, it would come with a label the size of a telephone directory.

What I am talking about is "doing you have the right know what's happening?" What that is printed on the back of a given label is a different matter, you think?

Some people think that FTLB is unsafe, but they have no evidence for that claim. It has attracted a vastly disproportionate amount of attention, seemingly only for reasons of squeamishness.

Sure, for reasons of squeemishness. Industrial scale food production is complex. Some of the details make people squeemish even if they're safe. Other details make people squeemish and are in fact things to worry about.

The relevant question is should light be able to be shed everywhere. Should industrial be forced to openly defend unappealing but safe practices or should industry have a giant hammer to shut up any mention of things with "bad visuals"?

>What I am talking about is "doing you have the right know what's happening?" What that is printed on the back of a given label is a different matter, you think?

The article we're discussing is about a change in USDA labelling requirements. I'm not really sure what you're talking about.

The article described changes in description regulation but it wasn't about whether "pink slime" had to appear labels, since it never did appear to begin with - "finely textured beef" previously could be mixed with regular ground beef and not labeled. Not it's no longer classified as something different - where it seems reasonably clear this is a somewhat different product.

And this change was essentially just the last push to stop any negative publicity surrounding this product, with the lawsuit again ABC looming prominently. And in the lawsuit, you have liable laws that give steep monetary damages for what we've discussed - pointing to details that are true and "icky" if arguably safe.

Edit: Link to discussion of ABC liable trial from lead article.

https://newfoodeconomy.org/heres-look-pink-slime-trial/

Smells very much of a SLAPP suit imo. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...

To me the main issue is improper animal husbandry and disgusting slaughterhouse practices directly impact food safety. Grinding beef at the slaughterhouse, using additives even though ammonia is used to make it safer does not make it safe. Bacterial contamination in conventionally processed ground beef is much higher, prevalence of multi-drug resistant bacteria for example was 18% for conventionally processed vs. 6-8% for organic and grass fed respectively. If you scroll to the bottom of the article there are some informative bar graphs. https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/food/how-safe-is-your-gr... Unfortunately for consumers the US Government deregulated the term "grass fed" as of two years ago, therefore it now means there is no legal standard to the term and doesn't really mean anything. You have to trust the supplier. http://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/release-usda-revokes-... edit: fixed second link

> If an organic burrito was labelled with every process involved in its production, it would come with a label the size of a telephone directory.

o with one or two 2D barcodes

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