GWS General Chat: Damn I feel like a boss when I have one in each hand.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > GWS General Chat: Damn I feel like a boss when I have one in each hand.

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Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I am by no means attempting to start one, but what is a "food purity argument"?

# ¿ Feb 16, 2016 22:41

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 03:26

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

taqueso posted:

The only true "cat food" contains "poop", or no true "cat food" contains "poop".

therattle posted:

True chili does not contain beans. A burrito does not contain lettuce. Etc.

AnonSpore posted:

My personal favorite is what goes into a carbonara

OK, thanks- I wasn't sure if it was about food purity regulations, which are about how much poop is legally mandated/allowed in cat food/breakfast cereal/whatever.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2016 03:28

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Trebuchet King posted:

Alright, then I'm going to drop a shameless plug for my place of employment, Mr. Henry's. Apologies for the crudeness/mobile-unfriendliness of the website (I think I killed all the .pdf-only menus, at least) but on the entertainment page we've got all the acts out to about mid-April. You can book a table for the Fri/Sat acts but it's through a yelp thing which is different enough from opentable to be unintuitive (or I can receive PMs).

~~The Goon Bump (TM) appears to have crashed your site.~~

Disregard, working now.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2016 17:11

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Someone in the DC/MD area tell me if Il Pizzico is still as good as I remember it.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2016 17:57

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Steve Yun posted:

freeliving froglet can't browse SA at work but she says it's still great

All is well with the world.

Founding Farmers can go vote for Jeb!- when I ate there the service was spotty, the food was mediocre and the menu was a giant wall of naturalistic fallacies.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2016 22:04

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

bartolimu posted:

I should really start posting warnings about Guy Fieri eateries in this town. Don't get me wrong - I love Guy to death, he's a wonderful man who's done a fair bit for American restaurant cooking and food culture. But his corporate structure in Vegas is loving dire. The catering wing is a joke; they've been fired from several large venues for going exponentially over-budget and/or under-performing on food quality, presentation, service standard, etc. The Guy Fieri Kitchen & Bar in the LINQ is where dreams go to die - everything there tastes like cold, limp failure. Sadly even Tex Wasabi isn't immune to the Fieri-brand malaise. And it's a drat shame.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2016 22:08

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

bartolimu posted:

I like Guy Fieri.

Have you ever seen Guy Fieri and Wolfgang Pock in the same room at the same time?? makes you think

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Mar 3, 2016

# ¿ Mar 3, 2016 22:47

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Marta Velasquez posted:

Wolfgang Puck loves everything he ever encounters.

edit: dammit, the morph software is choking on making a gif out of the two of them in that arms crossed pose.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Mar 4, 2016

# ¿ Mar 4, 2016 00:07

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

In searching for images of Fieri for those mspaint hackjobs above I've encountered a number of his fine products that I'd be happy to share.

Conceptually good, 9/10

Pushing it, but a surprising array of flavors work in sausages, could be OK maybe? 8/10

Umm... 5/10

No- no! Pull up, Guy! 3/10

Going Full Fieri 1/10

Does anyone have a Fieri cookbook?

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Mar 5, 2016

# ¿ Mar 5, 2016 11:23

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Marta Velasquez posted:

Starts at 9:30.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcRpneZT-KE

regional blocking.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2016 01:50

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Soylent is The Worst.

Its creator is late-stage Howard Hughes, without the skills or business acumen. Absolutely peak Valley. Enjoy this blog post where he tries to live like a Dune character:

quote:

Hygiene
I awake the morning of the challenge and throw off my cotton sheets with disgust. From this moment on every drop counts. I brush my teeth without water and put on dry deodorant. Relieving myself in the toilet is not an option. For a moment I consider following Clinton�s advice: �if it�s yellow let it mellow�, but decide to go full Bukowski instead: �sometimes you just have to piss in the sink�. Could we engineer more efficient kidneys?

For number two I had to plan in advance. Inadequate sanitation is an enormous quality of life problem globally. The most popular toilet in the world is no toilet at all as 4 in 10 people in the world defecate in the open. Flush toilets use enormous quantities of water so I needed a way to make it unnecessary.

Feces are almost entirely deceased gut bacteria and water. I massacred my gut bacteria the day before by consuming a DIY Soylent version with no fiber and taking 500mg of Rifaximin, an antibiotic with poor bioavailability, meaning it stays in your gut and kills bacteria. Soylent�s microbiome consultant advised that this is a terrible idea so I do not recommend it. However, it worked. Throughout the challenge I did not defecate.

In lieu of showering I sprayed myself with AOBiome�s custom skin bacteria blend. Body odor is caused by the emissions of proliferating skin bacteria, as unique as a fingerprint. The Nitrosomonas eutropha taking over my skin now metabolizes ammonia into odorless nitrite and nitric oxide. Success! I wish I had a strain that excreted lipases, as my hair was still greasy.

Direct water usage: 0L

Virtual water usage: 0L

# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 20:00

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

While I'm punching down, let me also punch up- the FXcuisine guy seems more than a little crazy in his fetishization of traditional/"slow" food, particularly when he uses it to indirectly attack, say, health regulations. More generally, both him and Soylent Man feel like they're typing their posts singlehandedly.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 20:11

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

taqueso posted:

Poe's Law strikes again.

wait, so fxcuisine is a joke? Excellent! It's played so straight I couldn't tell!

# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 22:58

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

taqueso posted:

Sorry, was referring to the soylent guy.

oh. so, it's real. :smith:

For the record, so is soylent guy.

It's not real speck (let me tell you how to pronounce it, prole) unless it's aged in the open air above an active kitchen in the wooden rafters of an ancient chalet under conditions that would give an EU ~~health~~ inspector (who hates slow food, btw) a heart attack. The waiting list for this hole in the wall you've never heard of is so exclusive. You'd know the difference if you saw it, but you're probably used to lovely industrially processed artisan meats protected under a PGI. That's not good enough. I would post more pictures, but I'm trying to clean the ejaculate from my black backdrops.

edit: now I'm getting soylent banner ads. The struggle is real.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Mar 12, 2016

# ¿ Mar 12, 2016 02:46

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Mr. Wiggles posted:

How do I find a good personal injury attorney in Reno?

Maybe ask the lawgoons here:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3266659

# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 17:54

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Alton Brown's apparently a lifelong Southern Baptist, but not one of the really horrible congregations. My understanding is he went through a deeply unpleasant divorce and has had problems with people targeting his kids through social media, which may be a factor in his public persona. I've never heard any good sources regarding racism on his part(everything online seems to trace back to one person's blogpost). On the other hand, the naturalistic fallacy "you can't pronounce those chemical names on the ingredient list" stuff on Good Eats was pretty frustrating to witness.

Nooner posted:

tbf that does sound pretty good and I have most of the stuff I need, so might pick up the rest of the stuff and have that for brekkie tomorrow. but for now dinner is the question.

GBS is trying to get me to either eat A. poo poo or B. Nachos, please save me GWS

Porque no los dos?

# ¿ Apr 14, 2016 00:42

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

pile of brown posted:

8oz cream cheese + 8oz grated white cheddar in robocoupe until smoothish
Fold in:
1 roasted diced bell pepper
2 roasted diced jalapeno
1 bu chopped green onion

Smear on chips/spoon/significant other and eat.

Please don't smear jalapeno on your significant other.

# ¿ May 21, 2016 05:20

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Since I researched it a year ago, here's a brief MSG safetychat effortpost

Executive summary- it's harmless in humans in any normal setting, you'd have to be completely insane with it to even theoretically hurt someone. The best evidence anyone could find for an effect was still anecdotal, unblinded, and required people to eat whole grams of MSG, raw, at once.

The only reason there's even remotely a belief it causes problems in the US is because of the following reasons:

1. Labeling feedback effects. When more people believed that MSG could hurt you/was a way of hiding cheap foods/was cheating/could incude or reduce satiety, food manufacturers began labeling their stuff as "MSG-free". It was a bit like gluten labeling- you did it even if it made no sense. Many labels still carry the statement, and thus people see them and think there's a reason they're there.
2. Foreign markets. Some false beliefs about nutrition and health are, incredibly, even more prevalent overseas than in the US. Immigrant populations (particularly from Europe as far as I could tell) are a renewable source of concerns about MSG. Maybe there's a labeling regime difference in the EU- I'd need to check.
3. John Olney. A moderately famous medical researcher from the 60s-70s who did some important work on neurotoxicity and forms of brain damage. Like any number of successful scientists, he developed fringey policy beliefs later in his career and wanted much tighter restrictions on a bunch of food additives that contain/are amino acids that in any way interact with the nervous system, including aspartame (potentially legitimate because of the phenylalanine/PKU issue, though that's not his rationale) and MSG. This was mostly because these substances can have harmful effects in rodent, and in some cases, monkey, model studies. This article represents pretty much the tail end of the debate in the sciences, by my reckoning. People have mostly moved on, but Olney was influential, so it will still be awhile before the position is entirely forgotten.

There is a plausible harm mechanism here for those who are interested. This is because MSG is an amino acid and a number of amino acids can, in theory, with a sufficient dose, basically overstimulate the brain, causing neuron death. This is what happened in the mouse and primate studies Olney did, which is why he developed a strong opposition to MSG. But note that this isn't new There are a ton of food ingredients that can do massive damage to humans, at way smaller doses. The only cautionary lesson to possibly take from this is to not do cinnamon-challenge style dare binges of individual flavorants, especially natural ones. A bunch of them can cause very harmful effects eaten alone in nutty megadoses.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jun 22, 2016

# ¿ Jun 22, 2016 18:51

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

SubG posted:

And it's worth pointing out that this applies to glutamate, not MSG per se.

Right, my bad. You can see the order of that post got a bit scrambled, I wasn't sure I shoulda included that section in the first place.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2016 04:06

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

But is it gluten-free?

# ¿ Jun 24, 2016 21:55

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

bongwizzard posted:

All of that sounds amazing, but like, I kinda just want to sit in my room and watch Shark week and masterbate. Not to the Sharks, I mute it first.

But, the crab fat fried rice does sound appealing and I will head there tomorrow to see if I can get my groove back. That being said, where does a crab have fat? I have eaten many a crab and never noticed anything that seems fat-like.

I was setting up an image joke here with sexy sharks and fat crabs, but the image search results were too horrifying to post.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2016 06:36

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

That Works posted:

I'm developing a college course right now on pseudoscience. I probably won't get to teach it until Fall 2017 but have to get a syllabus together by Spring 2017 to get vetted by my Dept Chair etc.

I have a couple of non-food related topics I wanted to touch on (known causes of autism/ vaccines risks real vs perceived, homeopathy, etc etc). There are a lot of food / nutrition related topics that also would be useful to discuss and I can reach out to a professor in Nutrition to help as well but figured this might be a good place to get some ideas as well.

For food related stuff I'm thinking of covering "Diet and pH", "Fat, cholesterol and human genetics" and maybe spend 1 lecture going over a bunch of dietary fads that looked good on paper but haven't necessarily panned out, ie Oat Bran, Atkins, Fat-free, etc.

Purpose of the course is for freshman/sophomores from all areas (actually hoping for more non-science majors) to get a general understanding of pseudoscience topics since these are people that generally become 'at risk' to believe many fads/ bullshit on social media. Any other pervasive food / nutrition things yall run into that is bogus?

Are you aware of the pseudoscience and Monsatan threads?

I study bioethics and the communication of science (primarily among scientists), with a heavy focus on bad science. Hit me up with details of your course by PM if you'd like to have a longer conversation.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2016 19:15

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Steve Yun posted:

Here's a really good article by Harold McGee about it, which also points out that the presence of alcohol also reduces the amount of water soaked up by the starch in the batter:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/dining/07curious.html?_r=0

(rhetorical question): How is the new york times so good at cooking and food/restaurant reporting, and so bad at food/nutrition/policy/evidence?

quote:

Is Sushi �Healthy�? What About Granola? Where Americans and Nutritionists Disagree

We surveyed Americans and a panel of nutrition experts about which foods they thought were good or bad for you.

Their survey was "here's a list of food, state how healthy they are as a percentage". Their "panel of nutrition experts" was a random survey of a nutritionist association. Nutritionists are a completely unregulated pseudoprofession in the US.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2016 20:22

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

The pizza is Processed and Unnatural. Red meat, cheese, and bread, are Unprocessed and Organic.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2016 20:48

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Salt's a bit more complex than that- there are some possible genetic complexities such that different upper thresholds are a problem for different people, specifically with relation to blood pressure (not obesity). It appears that high salt intake very likely does lead to increased blood pressure, but there are several other individual-level factors that are an issue. None of these are very well understood, and they are frequently overstated. The current DRI does desperately need an evidence-based update, but that hasn't happened yet. In the meantime, following the DRI won't hurt you.

The current source of my rage is added sugar, which the FDA has (insanely) made a separate line item on the nutrition label. Given the lack of a clear definition, it's going to be abused for years, and mislead the public for a generation.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2016 18:00

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

It would be infinitely preferable to bar the use of the phrase "added sugar" from packaging altogether, because it's meaningless from a labeling standpoint. Added sugar isn't distinct from other sugars in any way- the concept of it is practically nonsensical. It's another way to attack "processed" foods. It also creates a health halo effect for foods without added sugar, independent of their composition (blended fruit juice is the classic example here). In the context of weight loss, it's another distractor from calories, which are all that matter. It's really frustrating to me because the people advocating for it are abusing nutrition research methods in absolutely mind-bogglingly stupid ways, and I know a bunch of the researchers involved.

It also isn't well-defined in the regs, so there are a dozen ways to circumvent it. In your ketchup example, I could probably purchase a sweetened constituent tomato pastefrom another branch of my own company and get away with avoiding listing it in the added sugar line despite the same total sugars label. It requires a whole new purpose determination in constituent that's going to take forever to hash out and will not be consistently enforced given FDA budget limitations.

Squashy Nipples posted:

The new proposal is to list "added" sugar separately from the total Sugars line. So the definition here is "dietary sugar".

The rule's been finalized, so it's happening. I'm usually very defensive of the FDA, but I have no idea why they are doing this. They also missed their chance to update the DRIs(like sodium) when they were setting up the new label.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Jul 14, 2016

# ¿ Jul 14, 2016 22:28

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

MiddleOne posted:

I think that might already be a thing actually...?

Well in the EU at least.

EDIT: Labeling here is carbohydrates, with segmenting added to denote how much of those are derived from sugars.

We've got that, too, that was in the old edition of the nutrition label as well (the EU labeling regime was heavily derived from the US one, iirc). The difference is that this label also splits off an additional subset of sugars that are ~~evil~~ added.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2016 00:08

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

The "ratio of naturally occurring to added sugars" doesn't mean anything. The amount of added sugar being labeled only seems useful because people attribute incorrect meaning to it.

Added sugar doesn't determine how sweet food is (that's a combination of substances in the product), or how "natural" it is (that's a meaningless term), or how healthy it is for weight control (that's calories).

Number 1 Sexy Dad posted:

A little two-serving box of Kroger brand tomato soup has as much sugar as a drat can of Pepsi. I only even looked at the label after I tasted it and was like "what the gently caress." I emailed Kroger asking them to change their nonsensical recipe and instead they sent me a coupon for another box of their soup.

Not everything has to be candy. I think added sugars label would be a nice to have.

GMO labeling passed the Senate or something but the lobbyists got the law to allow them to hide it behind a QR code. Something like that, I'm sure I'm not getting it totally right. So now if you check your label (if your data even works in your grocery store) they can track all your poo poo thru some skeezy website. Also if you're poor and don't have a data plan you can go gently caress yourself I guess.

E:Also gently caress QR codes, why the gently caress should I have to get my phone out and open some malware riddled app when the label could say "GMO" in the same amount of goddamn space

That's...not remotely anything like what happened with the GMO labeling bill. The QR code was a poison pill provision added by people opposed to GMO labeling, because the bill itself was the product of lobbying by interests in the "natural" food industry.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2016 18:16

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

There's a DnD Monsatan thread thisaway. Short version: non-GM practices (such as the things we used before roundup) are much worse from pretty much every angle, the people attacking Monsanto are much worse, and pretty much all of the arguments against Monsanto are illusory at best.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2016 05:27

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

What would be the worst thing to sous vide (aside from your child)?

# ¿ Jul 27, 2016 02:26

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Paper With Lines posted:

Like would actively make the food worse than a neutral state or would just be dumb?

Whichever provides maximum comedy. Sushi?

# ¿ Jul 27, 2016 19:04

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

William Stoner posted:

My girlfriend and I have been watching The Great English Baking Show or English Bake Off recently. It's one of the best cooking shows I have seen! First season is on Netflix and the rest need to be torrented from brits.

It's a great change from US reality T.V. and does a great job of just being a nice little baking competition held on the weekends in a tent by a handful of Brits. It has some educational value and a good amount of ideas for interesting bakes as well.

If you like baking, consider checking it out.

This show is fantastic, particularly the first couple seasons where things don't drag. The design absolutely minimizes conflict and everyone is pretty much always pleasant with each other. And the baking is great.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Aug 10, 2016

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 16:37

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

There needs to be a great American bake-off episode starring midwestern casseroles.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 20:38

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

The Midniter posted:

I'd actually rather there not be an American version of TGBBO, casseroles or not. It would be full of unnecessary jump cuts, tense music, fights between contestants, sabotaging of other people's bakes, lame(r) jokes, overly critical and underqualified judges, needless pre-commercial break cliffhangers, and just overproduction in general.

This is better left in the hands of the Queen.

MrSlam posted:

Despite my red-blooded patriotism and homespun downtown homecooking attitude I gotta agree. American version would be very inferior.

C'mon, folks. There is joy to be had in witnessing Something Awful.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 20:53

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQzwTrZ6Q7M

For those who were curious earlier.

bartolimu posted:

It's the FDA's doing. They mean well - and, frankly, our food safety regulations hadn't been updated in 70 years so they definitely needed touching up - but they choose stupid hills to die on. My cheesemonger can't even get pasteurized brie from overseas right now.

Let's maybe keep some perspective on this. Unpasteurized milk and associated products have been one of the major vectors for antibiotic-resistant infection outbreaks in the US in the past year. Even with the federal ban, a handful of people doing the in-state thing still die from unpasteurized milks and cheeses every year. Unpasteurized dairy products aren't worth their supposed taste benefits.

Do you know why your cheesemonger can't import pasteurized brie? What countries?

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Aug 21, 2016

# ¿ Aug 21, 2016 17:51

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

rgocs posted:

Where did you get this estimation? According the CDC, between 1998 and 2011 there were 2 deaths related to raw milk.

I work with several people doing CDC antibacterial resistance research-the CDC website is outdated, and also doesn't tell the whole story because the dataset is limited. The massive rate of reporting failure means that you can multiply any reported number by about 20, over a sufficient time period. People don't report infections (even deaths) due to foodborne illness correctly because unless it's fairly obvious (everyone at a raw milk party getting infected), it's hard to trace.

There's also been a major uptick in infections over the past few years because antibacterial resistance has become much more of an issue. At that point it stops being about individual people and starts being about the spread of infections for which we have no treatment. The number of infections is currently increasing by about a factor of four about every five years. This is due to a combination of more resistant bacteria and states removing in-state restrictions on unpasteurized milk.

Please understand that both in terms of threat and clarity, this issue is up there with vaccine safety. There is no good reason to not pasteurize dairy products.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Aug 22, 2016

# ¿ Aug 22, 2016 14:38

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

bartolimu posted:

The FDA is not currently allowing the import of Chantal Plasse pasteurized Brie from France. Or at least it wasn't last week; these things change and the FDA's communication with the public is so laughably poor it becomes impossible to keep track which fit of pique they've decided to have or how long it's going to last. Chantal Plasse is one of the best-regarded affineurs in the world, I've eaten probably hundreds of pounds of her cheese. (I have a cheese problem.) Her cheeses are safe; she sources them from good producers and keeps them appropriately and god damnit I just want some loving Brie from Meaux even if they did have to pasteurize it to send it here.

The FDA keeps complete up-to-date public records of its import restrictions. I can find no record of any bar on the import of pasteurized cheeses from Chantal Plasse by the FDA. Where did you hear it was being restricted from? The two potentially relevant documents are here and here. If there was an import restriction on a pasteurized product from this supplier, it was because a spot check revealed bacteriological contamination.

More generally, dairy products that are not pasteurized are innately unsafe. The other forms of compliance or quality involved are irrelevant if the product isn't pasteurized.

bartolimu posted:

How many of these supposed under-reported unpasteurized dairy deaths were due to cheese, compared to how many were due to drinking raw milk or making raw milk yogurt? Because both of those things are vastly more dangerous than raw milk cheeses. It's sort of the difference between eating raw turkey and turkey jerky (which is totally a thing and completely safe), what with the addition of salt and bacterial competition from the cheese microbes.

The majority of cheese scares have been due to environmental contamination. One example: the freakout the FDA had a few years ago about aging cheese on wood that prompted Uplands to cancel production of Rush Creek Reserve (a spruce-bark-wrapped domestic beauty) for a year, because any cheese aged on wood planks overseas was being stopped at the border. That lasted about 8 months or so, then they let everything back in because - SHOCKER! - cheese manufacturers in Europe don't kill their customers on either side of the Atlantic.

The risks of other unpasteurized dairy products are considered fully analogous by the CDC-I mean, the rate can vary between different cultivation mechanisms, but the problems are the same. Infections due to the consumption of unpasteurized dairy products in France, where those products are most common, are in fact also more common. The EU and France in particular have very poor tracing and reporting standards, so it's harder to get good numbers on the number of deaths. There's a lot of industry capture in that area generally- domestic food companies were some of the main drivers of EU integration, once a number of legal concessions were made to their benefit.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Aug 22, 2016

# ¿ Aug 22, 2016 17:15

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

SubG posted:

The propensity for rhetorical exaggeration means that you can divide any anecdotally reported number by 20.357123, so it balances out.

Under-reporting is a massive problem in epidemiology, especially cases of foodborne illness where it's hard to identify the specific cause. If anything, 20-fold is a low estimate. People are really bad at linking their symptoms to something they ate if the causation isn't obvious. In particular, cases of e.coli and campylobacter (two bacteria that are now showing up in the US in strains resistant to treatments of last resort) are often falsely attributed to the flu.

Mr. Wookums posted:

Cheese is something that game theory dictates you should take the risk.

Particularly with the increasing incidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, you are asking those around you, and society at large, to also take that risk.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Aug 23, 2016

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 01:24

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

rgocs posted:

I have this impression that when outbreaks are serious, the source is almost always tracked down. e.g. spinach contamination in California in 2006, E.coli in Canadian beef in 2009. I get that the risk of illness due to raw milk is greater than that due to pasteurized milk. However, there are other sources of outbreaks that are way more prevalent and dangerous, but somehow we can live with those? According to the CDC, comparing outbreaks linked to raw milk vs ground beef between 1998 to 2014 (http://wwwn.cdc.gov/foodborneoutbreaks/):

Raw milk: 42 outbreaks, 451 illnesses, 39 hospitalizations, 0 deaths
Ground beef: 422 outbreaks, 5,324 illnesses, 587 hospitalizations, 11 deaths

Even with under-reporting, why isn't then ground beef banned if it's clearly more dangerous than raw milk? Hell, spinach has caused 6 deaths in the same time period.

You're not taking usage rates into account. Ground beef has those numbers with near-universal use-when a huge proportion of the US eats ground beef with some frequency, those are the numbers of outbreaks. Raw milk has those numbers with extremely limited use. There's a reason pasteurization was such a huge deal. Additionally, outbreaks w/r/t ground beef are universally traced to improper handling (meat safety regulation has unusually excellent tracking because of how it's funded and structured under USDA). Spinach and lettuce are more of a mixed case, although tracking is improving as FSMA implementation continues, and new HACCPs are being developed for them. The product that you should apparently avoid is alfalfa sprouts- there's a major contaminated lot of those like every other month. There already is a way to make dairy products safe. It's called pasteurization.

rgocs posted:

Are these antibiotic-resistance bacteria the result of regular antibiotic use in animal feed? Because if so, then aren't whatever companies involved in it, asking us and society at large, to deal with the burden of antibiotic-resistance bacteria just so they can maximize their profits?

Sounds like you should take your worries about antibiotic-resistance bacteria to the cattle industry and not trying to fix their poo poo by keeping people from enjoying true cheese.

Antibiotic use in industry on animal feed isn't really related to causation in the context of dairy products. That said, yes, USDA/FDA have increased restrictions on antibiotic use, and industry is actually cutting down in advance of additional rulemaking that's in the pipe (Perdue's apparently setting the standard there). Also, "true"?

SubG posted:

It also isn't clear that this is the source of DV's number in the first place, but whatevs.

I work with CDC-funded researchers who study antibiotic resistance and the perception of it by the public. Foodborne illness is, if you're talking within the US, the nadir of accurate tracing and reporting. I said 20 (over sufficient time to account for variance). The usual way it's expressed in the office when it's explained to a lay audience is "for every case we know about, there are dozens that go completely unreported". Or depressed sighing. They do a lot of that, too. Pretty much every outbreak that's not an immediately obvious case of grouped infections doesn't get reported because it doesn't get identified. That includes deaths- grandma just got sick and had a heart attack. CDC publicizes the information they have, with the knowledge that in some cases it's massively inadequate, because it still conveys the message they need to convey.

rgocs posted:

Agreed. However, I could not find the number of people that drink raw milk and people that eat ground beef; I'm guessing the ratio is closer to 20.357123. The only related measurement I could find was within the number of reports of milk related outbreaks, how many were from raw milk and how many from pasteurized milk. I think it was something like ~75% are raw milk. Still, that's just states that pasteurized milk is safer than, raw milk; not that raw milk is the devil.

Infections coming from pasteurized milk products come from milk that has expired. raw milk by definition functions as if it has already expired because it already contains the infectious microorganisms-and then it also has additional spoilage problems. Again, by comparing a ratio of the number of cases you're still ignoring the relative numbers of people who consume the different products.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Aug 23, 2016

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 07:08

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 03:26

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Allstone posted:

I think the argument being made is that due to it being a thing about antibiotic resistant bacteria, safety compromises affect the wider community rather than the individual

Exactly. This is what makes the calculus so obvious and frustrating- that and that people are rejecting an obvious centuries-old safety procedure. The situation is highly comparable to vaccine denial-people are free riding and increasing risk of harm to both themselves and others. The difference is that with vaccines, people at least do it out of an (unfounded) fear of (infinitesimal) risk of harm. Raw dairy people want to eat slightly different-tasting cheese.

rgocs posted:

I am not an expert in cheese making. But from what I understand the way cheese is made from unpasteurized milk is by adding special microbial cultures which grow throughout the cheese manufacturing process, out-competeting the harmful bacteria. Which in turn makes the raw-milk cheese safe. The French and other European countries seem to be doing fine. Sure, they have had cheese-related outbreaks, but that doesn't make them ban unpasteurized cheeses altogether. They react more the same way like the US does with other products, if they detect a contaminated batch they discard it.

A couple of cheese-making companies tried to push the French government to allow them to make AOC Camembert from pasteurized milk (special kind of Camembert that is required by law to be made from unpasteurized milk). They were using the excuse of safety to increase their profits. They wanted to be allowed to use pasteurized milk so they could cut the costs caused by the analysis required to ensure their cheese was safe. The government said no, they could not call it that if it was made with pasteurized milk. Eventually the companies went back to raw-milk because the French apparently rather have their good cheese than be 100% risk free.

Again, the EU has massive, massive regulatory capture by regional food producers, that lets them set up near-absolute market identity control on different food types. This was a thing within countries before EU integration (AOC were the French approach, although they were generaly more analogous to conventional geographic identity regs), but it had to be dialed up to 11 and overturn a lot of existing IP law in response to greater opportunities for new companies to compete with people who had previously had a domestic monopoly. That's what the PDO system is. Camembert de Normandie, e.g., is legally defined so that only a specific set of companies (who functionally control the legal definition) can sell their product. It's an unambiguous cartel system. The reason this move to offer a pasteurized version of the cheese failed, I guarantee you, was because it would let some companies (in or out of the cartel) increase pressure on some companies that currently had a monopoly on the product. Other PDO cheeses made the transition to pasteurization without a fight because the entire set of companies were able to make the transition and still exclude competitors.

The PDO system creates a number of legal problems overall, but it's really only when companies are leveraging it to block basic safety practices that it's worth getting upset about.

rgocs posted:

Where does it come from then? You made the point of linking antibiotic-resistance bacteria and raw milk. What's then making these bacteria resistant?

Antibacterial resistance forms continuously. Abuse of antibiotics can accelerate the process, but it still occurs regardless with appropriate use. Pasteurization kills the antibiotic resistant bacteria (and the rest of it), so that it doesn't become a significant risk of transmission.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Aug 23, 2016

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 15:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > GWS General Chat: Damn I feel like a boss when I have one in each hand.

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