my chemical un-romance

since part of my job now is to collate news briefs related to the subject matter in the journals i work on, i get to spend the first two hours of every morning sipping my coffee and edumacating meself re whatever's on the wire, stretching contentedly in the rhombus of sunlight that beams down throught the skylight. oh, i am a happy little girl these days, my honeys—but not so happy that i forget to get angry about the bad news, and you know there's no one i'd rather rant to than you. today i would like to shake my tiny fist about groceries, and don't change the channel yet, because it's really more important than you think it is right now.

we all know that it's important to pay attention to what we eat for the sake of our own health, but it's easy to forget that your food choices have an impact that extends far beyond your personal experience, and it seems that without a fairly extensive amount of research even the best intentions can be thwarted by what food retailers probably can't tell you and food manufacturers would rather not. i was surprised that my (now much-loved) nemesis, zp, didn't comment on steven shapin's new yorker article on the organic-food boom, since she's such a farm-stand junkie and seems to appreciate a higher than average degree of awareness in that realm. perhaps she'll grace us with a perspective now (*HINT*). i enjoyed it, even though it didn't tell me much i didn't already know and some of shapin's points were things i've mentioned here myself (albeit in a far more petulant tone). i'll always buy organic when i can for the chemical-fertilizer-sparing effect alone, but i don't kid myself about it being the solution to any significant global problems. i do feel good about being vegan, because industrial farming is dreadful for all things great and small, but i understand that the lifestyle is very much not for everyone. the cost alone is prohibitive, and if you don't take the time to teach yourself how to balance things appropriately, it can be more than a little harmful. but it was the right choice for me, and i don't need anyone else to make it as long as they're taking the time to make some kind of well-reasoned decision about why they choose the foods they choose. if your own health isn't important enough then i suppose it's unlikely that you'll be moved by the pathophysiologies of others, but if you disagree (and there are some saintly beings who are honestly more concerned about the rest of the world than about themselves), i, like shapin, would like to recommend michael pollan's the omnivore’s dilemma, which, while at times on the preachy side, has a heart that is very much in the right place, and i would also like to ask you to read this article on how an artificial flavoring is likely doing a lot of irreversible damage to a lot of people. go ahead, take as much time as you need; i'll wait.




welcome back. i missed you.

diacetyl is naturally occurring in a number of foods and is a common additive in many, many processed foods, used to impart a buttery flavor. it isn't more harmful to ingest than any other unpronounceable item in a list of ingredients, but chronic inhalation exposure appears to be pretty gosh-darned dangerous. the massive quantities of the chemical used in the manufacturing of superbuttery foods like microwave popcorn naturally lead to the worst harm being done to employees dealing with those foods, some of whom have airways so badly scarred that they're on lung-transplant lists. it's just something to think about; if you try not to buy from companies that take advantage of pennies-a-day overseas labor and check to make sure your coffee is fairly traded, you might want to scan the side of your snack food's packaging for this substance. of course, you might also want to write a letter to your favorite popcorn manufacturer and ask it to please, please inititate some safer exposure regulations for workers handling diacetyl, and maybe one to OSHA asking that they dedicate a few more resources to establishing exactly how long-term exposure to diacetyl affects human health, seeing as how that's more or less their job. it might also be a good idea to ponder the full ramifications of this spooky statement, found in the news article referenced above:

we don't know if diacetyl is the agent (causing lung disease). when you get into the world of flavorings, there are so many flavorings it's difficult to determine which chemicals are the causative agent.

gives you the chills, a bit, doesn't it? it's an admission of guilt (i.e., they know that something they're using is dangerous) being used to deflect attention from the thing they are guilty of. curious. meanwhile, i'll keep, you know, shaking my tiny fist and rinsing out the cups and not knowing what the hell to do about anything.

thanks for putting up with all that.