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Comment by geddy | Hacker News Reader

Watched a great documentary on Netflix called `Stink!` that was about all the crap found in all sorts of products under the hidden phrase "fragrance" (or in some cases, "parfum"). All sorts of chemicals you've never heard of to make those garbage bags smell like apple orchards.

Very informative and, if you're like me and are constantly panicked that everything's trying to kill you, I recommend it.

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>All sorts of chemicals you've never heard of

Is that supposed to be a meaningful measure of anything at all?

Not GP, but...

It's just an expression. Not everything has to be technical or technically correct to get a particular point across.

Not OP, but on a tangent, if I find chemicals renamed, I get extremely suspicious about the other ingredients. Some obvious examples, aqua = water, sucrose = sugar, or one of the many numbered ingredients etc.

It indicates to me that the supplier are deceptive in manipulating the important information for consumers.

Or maybe people with corn allergies feel safe when they see sucrose instead of HFCS?

Curious about this part:

> Very informative and, if you're like me and are constantly panicked that everything's trying to kill you, I recommend it.

So are you saying this will help me STOP worrying that everything is trying to kill me? I'm kinda to the point where I feel like if you aren't eating organic broccoli for breakfast lunch and dinner, than you're killing yourself. So I'm not sure I need any MORE information to enforce that.

I was unclear about this - yes, if you're prone to worrying about everything trying to kill you, `Stink!` will not make that any better. Quite worse in fact, as (assuming you're like me) I now skim all the ingredient lists on deodorants and shampoos and what-not for this "fragrance" offender.

Regarding the broccoli, I'm right there with ya. `Stink!` won't help, but it's not super negative and will simply make you more aware.

The reality of the situation is that living will eventually kill you someday. It's merely a matter of how quickly you get there and how much you suffer along the way.

This is a terrible viewpoint, life should be an enjoyable experience and if people (or pesticide companies) are lowering that enjoyment we as a society should act and throw heaps of regulations to force a better outcome. I have no pity for any profit margin that even comes close to my care for our collective enjoyment of life.

...I don't know what viewpoint you're projecting onto my statement, because I'm not defending pesticide companies with it.

Parent and GP expressed that they often worried everything was trying to kill them, I'm trying to provide some perspective on that.

A lot of people value pesticides/herbicides/fungicides because they make food affordable or available. In the past people starved due to lack of pest control [1,2].

Without modern agriculture it’s doubtful if 7 billion humans could survive on this planet and their footprint would be even larger.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagues_of_Egypt [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

The Great Irish Famine is less about potato blight and more about an economic system that saw the majority of crops grown during famine exported for profit, while those who tilled the soil were forced to rely on a single monoculture crop to sustain themselves (the potato).

Irish merchants and farmers had complained and demonstrated against the export ban and closure of ports during a previous famine as prices had plummeted.

It was far more the over dependence on one variety and potatoes being such a large part of diet from tiny farms being so common. Presumably from having been divided too many times on inheritance.

> It was far more the over dependence on one variety and potatoes being such a large part of diet from tiny farms being so common. Presumably from having been divided too many times on inheritance.

Tenant farmers, by virtue of their tenancy, didn't inherit land that could be subdivided. Absentee landlords didn't manage their Irish properties directly, and had middlemen collect rent for them. Middlemen chose to subdivide properties in order to extract more revenue, leaving only small parcels for tenant farmers to feed themselves from.

The Wikipedia article[1] does a surprisingly good job of covering the causes of the famine:

> The middlemen leased large tracts of land from the landlords on long leases with fixed rents, which they sublet as they saw fit. They would split a holding into smaller and smaller parcels so as to increase the amount of rent they could obtain.

>...

> The 1841 census showed a population of just over eight million. Two-thirds of those depended on agriculture for their survival, but they rarely received a working wage. They had to work for their landlords in return for the patch of land they needed to grow enough food for their own families. This was the system which forced Ireland and its peasantry into monoculture, since only the potato could be grown in sufficient quantity.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Causes_...

I hate to be the one to inform you but organic broccoli isn't any healthier than conventional broccoli.

And I hate to be the one to inform you, that I tend not to take random internet comments to heart. But if you're saying that eating organic food in general has no health benefits vs. conventional food, I'd love to read whatever source you've derived that from. I always keep an open mind.

There have been many studies on the topic. The occasional differences are statistically significant but not significant enough to impact health. Here are a few reviews:

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/92/1/203/4597310?maxto...

> Conclusion: From a systematic review of the currently available published literature, evidence is lacking for nutrition-related health effects that result from the consumption of organically produced foodstuffs.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19640946

> CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods.

https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/1355685/organic-food...

> Conclusion: The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods. Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Discussion of those papers: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/no-health-benefits-from-org...

Discussion of meat and milk: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/organic-vs-conventional-mea...

There's ~no correlation between nutrient content and levels of toxic contaminants. If one added a lethal dose of botulism toxin to some food, it wouldn't change the nutrient content. But it would still kill you.

That's because "organic" by the FDA's definition is bullshit. There are all sorts of exceptions. For one thing, it's difficult to find arable land that hasn't been contaminated with persistent pesticides.

Also, some kinds of indirect exposures are allowed. For example, say that you raise "non-organic" chickens. You can feed their waste (after sterilization, of course) to your dairy cattle, and still market the milk as "organic".

If you could find uncontaminated land, you could produce actual contaminant-free food. Well, maybe not "contaminant-free", given all the crap floating around, but much closer.

Whenever I feel this way, I try to remember that humans have _never_ lived longer, healthier lives than we do now. On balance, we’re doing pretty well.

The smell of an apple orchard is all sorts of chemicals you've never heard of - that's how smell works.

That's a major factor of why I avoid seed (vegetable) oils as much as reasonable... Mostly stick to butter, lard, coconut oil and sometimes nut oils. If it isn't animal derived or cold pressed, I tend to avoid it.

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