The free market will regulate this since at some point, saw dust will become rare
Or humans become scarce.
Look at what them meat bags survived in the past, they can eat the sawdust all day long and they won't die out.
"How much sawdust can you put in a Rice Krispy treat before people notice?"
Answer: As much as they can legally get away with. If you've ever eated grated Parmesan cheese from the store, you've eaten sawdust. They list it on the can as "cellulose."
Sawdust is not (just) cellulose and cannot be listed as such on nutrition labels. Sawdust, i.e., wood shavings, contains many other compounds, especially lignin. Wood is refined by e.g. the Kraft process to separate the lignin from the cellulose, giving a suspension of cellulose fibers in water called "wood pulp." I didn't look, but I would imagine that calling wood pulp "cellulose" on a nutrition label is fine, 'cause that's what it is.
Now, none of this invalidates the crux of your argument that cellulose can be used as a cheap filler, such as in cheap "Parmesan cheese," and no disagreement here that that shit is scummy af. However, there are some legitimate uses for smaller amounts in foods, such as anti-caking, thickening, and literal dietary fiber.
I love insightful answers like these. It scratches my food science itch.
wtf, how can they get away with that
It's all about companies putting things on the label that are technically true but deliberately misleading. For years, Kraft sold "100% Grated Parmesean cheese" that was nearly 8% cellulose. I assume their excuse if they got caught would be, "Well, our cheese is '100% Grated' just like it says on the label." Meaning, everything in the can WAS "100% grated" but it was NOT 100% cheese. The first reports on this were around 2015, but it looks like their more recent containers don't have the word "100%" anymore. They're constantly playing these stupid little word games with their customers.
Money.
Before the FDA, they used to put formaldehyde and cow brains into milk. It killed children and they knew it killed children, but they tried to tell people it actually made children stronger and that we didn't need the FDA.
In the vast majority of cases, every step we've taken away from libertarianism has been a huge improvement.
Just like you can get away with eating cellulose from other plants. It's usually called fibre and everyone likes fibre.
it's not harmful so i guess as long they print it on the can it's just unethical but not yet illegal.
Pay off the regulators
Fun experiment. Look at labels when shopping and make note of standard fillers like "cellulose".
I usually think of myself as a libertarian, but end up getting into arguments with other people who think they're libertarians. My version of the libertarian government has a very powerful EPA, child protective services, and fda. Because the freedom to do what you want with the things you own does not extend to polluting. Children are their own humans and needs their freedom protected, you don't own them and can't abuse them just because they live in your house. Also you can make and eat whatever you want, but you're not allowed to poison people.
It's like the phrase, your right to wave your fists in the air ends at my nose. Do whatever the hell you want, as long as it's not hurting anyone. But it's not a trust based system.
I always identified as libertarian, then had surgery, lost my job, became homeless. I've seen firsthand how important things like Medicare, ssi, social services are. Yeah, a lot of people using these programs are lifers, don't care about getting a job. But there are a lot of people who just need help, women fleeing domestic abuse, people with legitimate physical or mental disabilities that make it hard to hold jobs. Many see this help as essential, but temporary, they want to get back on their feet, start working.
Those "lifers" will quite often also just not be fit to work. Physically, sure, but they might be mentally fucked. I don't mean full schizophrenia or something, just... broken people. Saw it all around me growing up, literally in my neighbors. People that were at some point just discarded. They can't get a job and the longer they can't get one, the less likely it is they'll ever get one. They fall into alcoholism, health deteriorates... 20 years later the chances of them getting a job are slim to none because nobody would hire them. They just end up stuck, lost in a system that doesn't care about them.
I know a lot of libertarians. I think a lot do accept that the government is going to do some amount of provision for poor or sick people or children. But many are very skeptical of these services, it's true.
Please don't take this the wrong way. I'm assuming you're saying you're philosophically libertarian, and not Libertarian as in a particular party, because you didn't capitalize the word but could be mistaken...
So you're a liberal that doesn't like to label themselves that way? Why throw your hat into a ring with all the rest of that batshit crazy shit if you believe in a strong centralized government and regulation (ie support for a strong FDA, EPA, and CPS)? The things you appear to support are philosophically liberal ideals. What things make you want to label yourself libertarian that conflict with a liberal philosophy?
Again, genuinely curious because libertarians tend to be either liberals that don't like that label, or batshit crazy racists that want the end of times so they can shoot minorities. And I'm just endlessly fascinated by both types of people. Also I'm always on the look out for the elusive 3rd type of libertarian.
Not the one you responded to, but I do see myself as libertarian socialist - which is nothing else than an anarchist.
The right side always seems to want to steal the labels from our side, because freedom and liberty sells good...
A liberal on the other hand is a very comformist stance in my opinion
Also I’m always on the look out for the elusive 3rd type of libertarian.
You mean the original libertarians? Lol!
I can (probably) sum it as "Person's freedom ends where rights of other begins."
Same here, my version of libertarianism is basically socialism, which tends to greatly offend other "libertarians". And socialists too, for that matter.
I mean, it's still sort of a trust based system even with the FDA. It just becomes, "do I trust the FDA?" instead of the market or someone else. I think they're generally pretty good. But then sometimes they get pressure from Big Dairy and stomp all over farmers producing almond milk because calling it milk is deceptive in their eyes. And other times they block life saving drugs from being approved for years while sick people die, even after the drugs have been proven safe. So, there's still trade offs.
I don't think an FDA with token regulations that companies can follow to the letter without actually providing safety (and to some extent EPA) help that much. I think especially for food safety the best way to ensure it is not by providing the shield of "we were following FDA regulations" and instead by allowing companies to be very vulnerable to suits.
As they say, "Either the government chooses the rules, transparently, or the company does, secretly. Take your pick."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/herbal-supplements-targeted-by-new-york-attorney-general/
I mean, they're doing it anyways without a free market, so long as you stamp not tested by the FDA or some shit. You can claim all kinds of crap and get away with it now.
Thanks for that! Surprising that the 15% they couldn't tell the difference!
I haven't been able to drink milk since I discovered that the FDA allows a certain amount of pus in each carton.
If the allowed amount was "literally none" then the cost of adherence and monitoring would make milk too expensive to produce or it would be poorly enforced and nothing would be different. The same is true for insect parts, rat hair, and other contaminents in literally all processed food. Perfect cleanliness simply isn't possible, and you'll never notice anyway.
This. This is why there's an episode of Bob's Burgers about their daughter lying at school about the funeral parlor next to the burger shop and her dad's food having corpses in it and the FDA investigating the restaurant because it potentially had more than 0.4% (?) of human flesh content. Why any at all? At such a small amount it's impossible to detect, completely safe to consume, and would be well less than a single finger in literal tons of hamburger. It's gross, but you'll be fine just like you have so far.
That, and farmers have to drink milk too; if there was pus in the milk, they'd care enough to do better, and they do because that's why we give cows antibiotics sometimes.
Now, if the government decides to loosen all those regulations, THEN I'll be worried.
Wanna hear how many rodents crap on your vegetables in warehouses throughout the US before the get loaded in trucks?
Well, mastitis is very common in an animal that consistently lies on dirt to rest. And when you think about it, pus is nothing more than immune cells and their secretions fighting bacteria, but it's diluted to the point what it's negligible.
On the other hand, coprophagia is also inevitable and part of everyday life but nobody curls their upper lip at that! Lol
But yeah, studying microbiology changes people. *twitches*
I'd advise against learning about how any other food or drink is prepared in that case. It's more gross than un-gross across the board.
Is this real in any way or purely satire?
Not sure about the picture, but the concept is real. The UK had to implement bread standards to prevent this sort of thing.
I hate how we have so many problems getting food standards correct. You got one extreme with the market cutting quality and you got the other extreme with government killing innovation. I should be able to buy a beer that was made by some microbrewer madman with strange taste combos I should also be able to buy real freaken ice cream not frozen dessert treat.
https://youtu.be/AKDal51f5LU - william osman actually tried it
It’s from this: https://www.somethingawful.com/photoshop-phriday/science-fair/1/
Edit: I guess the sawdust version turned up later, but the original “minorities” version is from that
It's not purely satire.
In fact, they did polls with people who knew one rice crispy square was 15% sawdust and the other had none and people couldn't tell the difference. Even knowing.
https://youtu.be/qmI4Ipyi86c?si=_N-PBSEJk9cc62jc
People have actually done it
Parmesean flavored sawdust cheese-like crumbles
Is that Linus Techtips?
Don't think so. But I remember the picture, I think from an Onion article from the ancient internet of about 15 years ago.
It's the same as people putting water in milk in the past
Water is still put in the milk, aside from i being economical it's also because drinking milk from cow directly could give you diarrhea and taste is too much form many people. I've seen the process on bio farm with manual milking.
I had an internet discussion with someone who believed that all regulations are bad. I don't think s/he's a troll, but tried as I might I couldn't get this person to agree that at least some regulations might be good.
Can't remember off the top of my head, but one argument was that even for major safety violations, the market would put them out of business, and other companies won't do it. I said that this would be after the damage is done and people/environment are hurt, but the person said that regulations are reactive anyway and companies would just stop doing it. It was very frustrating trying to get this person to agree that maybe some regulations can be good.
