they used to put brick dust in chocolate bars, and sawdust in bread
edit: heck, they just caught someone recently intentionally putting lead in
applesaucecinnamon that was used in applesauce, which has been used off and on as a sweetener since at least ancient rome, where a bunch of people went crazy and died from consuming a sweetener made by boiling grapes in lead potsCopper sulfate used to be added to canned peas because it turns green when it oxidizes, making them look greener.
Copper sulphate is straight up poisonous, enough will kill a passion and low amounts will hurt them.
Anyone who wants to learn more about this history, there is a great episode of the “ridiculous history” podcast that goes into the story that finally got food regulations in the US. A team of people who volunteered to be poisoned to help prove that certain things are unsafe to put in food.
enough will kill a passion
Those poor, poor passions!
It’s also HEAVY, so something light sold by weight just needs a liiiiittle lead to be a lot cheaper to make
This is what caused that pet food scare back in the 00’s. Some Chinese manufacturer realized that they were being paid by weight, not volume, so they added heavy metals to their cat food and it poisoned a few cats here in the US.
China executed that guy btw.
I mean if you think about it, cinnamon is essentially sawdust right?
Not wrong…
Very wrong. Cinnamon is king.
Just in case you weren’t actually aware, that wasn’t a statement about the quality of cinnamon as a spice. It’s literally made frome ground up tree bark.
TIL
I just mean because cinnamon (the spice) is the bark of the cinnamon tree, which when ground up is a form of sawdust. Delicious sawdust, but sawdust, nonetheless.
Fun fact: Cinnamon (Cinnamomum) is the genus not the species. There are Ceylon trees and Cassia trees and a bunch of others but no specifically Cinnamon trees.
TIL. Fascinating!
Ha, I did not know that.
Spices lose their flavor over time. Yours are too old; throw them out and replace them.
Or at least start using a fuck-ton more than the recipe calls for until you use up the old stuff.
You’re missing the point. Copying what I wrote above:
I just mean because cinnamon (the spice) is the bark of the cinnamon tree, which when ground up is a form of sawdust. Delicious sawdust, but sawdust, nonetheless.
Ackshually, sawdust isn’t bark. It’s wood.
Wow, this is a very good point because as we all know it’s impossible for a saw to cut bark.
So, then “sawdust” just becomes anything that a saw can cut?
Anything that’s part of a log. That includes bark, I imagine.
Edit: we still cool bro
Oh shit, I got whooshed. 😳
Wasn’t there lead found in other spices, too? Like tumeric or something?
Yep!
recently
My wife loves apple sauce, who did this to her
WanaBana Apple Cinnamon Fruit Puree pouches, Schnucks cinnamon-flavored applesauce pouches and variety pack and Weis cinnamon applesauce pouches were recalled
it was actually the cinnamon in the applesauce being cut with lead to significantly increase it’s weight, thus it’s value. It was an Ecuadoran cinnamon processor called Carlos Aguilera
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/24/nx-s1-5119336/cinnamon-lead-fda-recall-what-we-know
Thank you!
That should be okay now. I totally expect no subsequent tests with results showing any contamination.
My favorite “we had to regulate this” is coal mining. You see, the larger a coal mine tunnel, the more work and time it takes. So smaller tunnels will be more profitable. So in some places they preferred smaller women and children, so they could make make smaller, easier tunnels. This one I only ever found one source on, but supposedly one mine owner noticed that snags on clothing were slowing things down in the narrow tunnels so he insisted on sending them in nude. Nothing more capitalist than naked coal mining children.
The fact that these fucks were not regularly dragged from their mansions and beaten to death blows my mind
That’s because you view things like this as isolated acts done by a few people. But don’t forget, only 1/3 of US voters tried to stop a man who openly declared himself a fascist, had already had a direct hand in the spread of a world wide plague that killed millions.
The “they didn’t know what they were getting into” excuse is no longer valid. And yet 2/3 of voters were fine with him being reelected . The reason those people weren’t dragged from their mansions and beaten to death was because of all the other monsters who were protecting them. The people who weren’t committing atrocities themselves, but benefited from it enough to help it keep happening.as humans, our arguably greatest trait is the ability to adapt to almost any circumstance. unfortunately that also often makes us accept unacceptable living conditions because changing them involves too high of a personal cost.
You’re not dragging Trump out and beating him to death. So why expect of your ancestors what you can’t do today?
I’m not shaming nor advocating btw, just explaining.
I mean a single rich guy owning a mine in a time pre-internet seems a lot more doable than the literal most protected guy in the country.
Plus my children aren’t literally dying in the mines
I realy would like to fact check you on this, but i will definitely not search for “naked coal mining children”. “Trust me bro” will have to do it for this one.
That miners often worked naked or partially naked is definitely true. That children, men and women worked together in mines is also true. If it’s legally allowed, then it’s going to happen basically.
That there were owners who preferred children/women over men, is probably false. They will have tended to do different jobs in the mines, but I can’t recall having ever read anything about a mine that preferred to not employ any male miners.
That the workers worked naked because of owner mandates is also going to be false, because those miners used to be paid according to how much they extracted, so there was no reason for the owner to have such a mandate. Instead it was the workers their own choice: some clothes hinder them in their work (heat, snagging, dust) + the job eats up clothes + they have to pay for their own clothes = they’re not going to be wearing many clothes at work.
For more fun stuff on why the FDA should exist, but also some of their bad stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1UD3qjA5A
Welcome to The Jungle, we play dirty games.
Food safety costs a lot, so fuck the FDA
-Food companies, basically.
Fun fact:
The precursor to the FDA was created during Theodore Roosevelt’s administration. After the book was published, Roosevelt sent federal investigators to the Chicago slaughterhouses to validate the conditions detailed in the story.
The investigators reported that the conditions were worse than described in the book. And that was after the slaughterhouse owners got wind that the feds were coming and had everything cleaned from top to bottom.
Hard to imagine what “worse” looks like because the conditions detailed in the book are truly appalling.
Additional fun fact, The Jungle was meant to highlight the poor working conditions in slaughter houses, but the outrage was related entirely to the poor consideration for the meat that the public was eating.
I sang that in the style of Guns N Roses.
Good ole Bubbly creek https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubbly_Creek
if Upton Sinclair was alive today he would flip his lid
such a good read. should be required by all.
Not sure if you intended this, but you can absolutely get what you wrote to work with the timing (and same rhyme sounds/pattern, basically) of the first few lyrics of Guns N Roses ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, with minor modifications.
Welcome to the Jungle,
where we play dirty games.
Food safety sure costs a lot,
so fuck the FDA.
We are the people who hate fines,
Whatever they may be.
If you got no money, honey,
We got your disease.
etc.
(Wonderful that some of the lyrics don’t have to change at all, nor really the chorus, yay internal bleeding.)
That was my intention. Good on ya!
Sha na na na na na Shingles, eeeeek!
I read the original to the tune without thinking about it!
It gives “Watch it bring it to your n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n knees, knees” an entirety different context! 🤮
I mean… the original song’s use of that phrase arguably references a woman basically being forced to give bjs to her dealer in order to get drugs she’s now addicted to…
All of this is terrible!
Sad thing, that original song would still apply - but now for safe baby food, carrots, or maybe a sack of flour. A lot of people are going to do things that they never expected to do.
We are going to live an cursed existence. 💩
It wasn’t chalk, it was borax. And that was because it neutralised the sour taste of turned milk.
What Conservatives would like us to forget is that many regulations are written in blood.
Whenever a corporation does something good (for example, make a charitable donation) rest assured it’s been calculated that the positive PR will make it financially worthwhile.
And it reduces its tax burden.
It decreases your tax burden in the same way that giving away all of your money to charity decreases your tax burden.
And in case people need it cleared up: Donating at a register during checkout also does not help the company on their taxes. Its the same as you donating individually except they get the PR for it.
I hate it when a store asks me to donate at the register. I’m probably spending more than I want to anyway, and I’m sure the store has a bigger budget than I do. I’m like “fuck off, stop guilt tripping me, and donate yourself.”
Them getting the PR for it is a financial inventive (future sales) even if it doesn’t save them money on their annual balance sheets. It is comparable to advertising.
Yep but honestly I still don’t think the benefit matches what they spend. Especially true since they often match donations or make their own large donations.
And after all, if they’re helping money go to charity by advertising it to their customers, I’m fine with them getting a little benefit in return.
That’s a wild misrepresentation of how write-offs work.
If your tax rate is 30% and you make write off a charitable donation of $100, your tax bill goes down $30. Spending 100 dollars to save 30 isn’t the key to riches.
There’s no way to save money through charitable donations.
How is that a misrepresentation? You justified what I said.
The implication was that they make donations for the write-offs. That’s not accurate, because it’s never cheaper to make a donation and write it off than it is to just pay the taxes.
Not quite never. You just need the tax rate plus marginal change in lost benefits/increased obligations to exceed 100%. For example there’s a breakpoint in the UK around childcare over 100k income that makes it way worth salary sacrificing to get below if you have kids. I can imagine there are similar niche things for small businesses around audit requirements or whatever, but not enough of an expert to know.
Sure unbridled capitalism is the way to go as there has never been starvation under capitalism.
Same logic with antivax people.
1000% my first thought. These nutjobs who say “just get some fresh air” are coasting upon the millions of dead and buried who paid the price for us to have longer healthier lives. Strict stringent food safety. Mandatory vaccines without exemptions.
“Measles doesn’t kill anyone!”
No you fuck, measles doesn’t kill anyone TODAY. That can change real fast.
Safety regulations are written in the blood of those who died from unsafe practices.
Look up Harvey Washington Wileyand and his poison squad for the fun story.
That’s gonna make the cows mad. And mad cows will make US mad.
So what’s killing us now? Because last I heard life expectancy is dropping.
Deregulation has been going on for a while. It’s been a major policy of the last several Rep. Presidents.
Also, sedentary life styles are far more common, then there are the more wild card things, like the microplastics epidemic, and many other things.
Quality of medical care being driven down, and its price being driven up, by insurance middlemen.
heart disease, cancer, COVID-19 and drug-overdose.
Infant mortality is steady,
under 25 mortality increased very slightly.
over 65 went up by 20%, that’s where you find most of the heart disease and covid deaths, and it doesn’t decrease the life expectancy that much, since they’re already old.The big problem is in the 25-55 bracket, because they’re dying from overdoses a LOT, and that’s hugely decreasing life expectancy. There’s alcohol consumption too, which increases cancer risks and deaths. Cancer screenings have dropped off in this bracket too, thanks to cost, so “preventable” cancers like breast-, lung- and colon cancers are killing more people.
It seems to be less of a direct regulation issue, and more of a “life sucks, so people do drugs”. Which one can (and SHOULD) argue is also a regulation issue, just less directly.
From the wiki: “By the 1930s, muckraking journalists, consumer protection organizations, and federal regulators began mounting a campaign for stronger regulatory authority by publicizing a list of injurious products which had been ruled permissible under the 1906 law, including radioactive beverages, the mascara Lash lure, which caused blindness, and worthless “cures” for diabetes and tuberculosis. The resulting proposed law was unable to get through Congress for five years, but was rapidly enacted into law following the public outcry over the 1937 Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy, in which over 100 people died after using a drug formulated with a toxic, untested solvent.”
I believe I’ve heard that the FDA was actually beneficial for capitalism as consumers would entirely avoid certain products out of fear, making it difficult to sell even legitimate goods.
