(no subject)

[alexseanchai]

Can someone define "chemicals" for me? In the sense of the word that's contrasted to "natural" and "organic", the sense referenced when saying "don't eat anything containing something you can't pronounce", the sense that's being criticized when observing that apples contain unpronounceables such as tyrosine and dihydrogen monoxide.

Comments

[madgastronomer]

I dunno, a lot of the things they complain about DO have nutritional value. Vitamins, minerals, calories from sugars. People object to high-fructose corn syrup as "unnatural" and "chemical", and that definitely has nutritional value, because it has calories. People object to MSG as "chemical", but it's the sodium salt of an essential amino acid, and provides your body with that amino acid (plus sodium, which is a very necessary mineral; it just happens to be one that most of us get an abundance of). Companies add vitamin D to milk and iodine to salt because those are essential things that many people don't get enough of, and people complain of those as being "chemicals".

Of course, many of those people don't actually understand what constitutes nutritional value, and probably think that the "chemicals" provide none at all, so from a subjective viewpoint, it works.

[silveradept]

True - I was thinking "in the opinion of the person complaining" when I was writing it, but never made that explicit, because you're right about a lot of those "chemicals" having purpose and value from a more scientific perspective.