Context was the idea of a government banning certain popular foods
Statement wise “I don’t want the government to tell me what to eat” or variations could mean basically anything. Most of the time it’s posturing on behalf of the idea that a lack of government regulation is a good thing which ignores a rather bloody history of food suppliers adulterating food with harmful substances in the name of preservation / cheapening production cost or using production practices that cause the likelihood of contamination of food.
Once you scratch the surface of the argument you can usually figure out more exactly what they mean and it often isn’t things like government subsidy programs publishing food pyramids based on shady science and economics rather than in the interest of health.
Often it’s based out of perceived personal inconvenience or the appearance of moral judgement such as when there’s some sort of health labelling initiative.
In Canada there are a lot of things that are not considered legal additives for food that are used in the US and the difference in strictness is in part because the Health care system in Canada is funded publicly. Producers of foodstuffs cost the government money directly if whatever they put in it has no nutritional value and causes known health problems. Rather than let companies create messes and tragedies which the government is on the hook to clean up when people’s health fails they remove the issue at it’s source. In the US there’s less incentive as these costs become scattered in the form of individual medical bills and oftentimes the savings are from food being shelf stable for longer. Shrugging one’s shoulders at the fallout or claiming its an exercise of “freedom” is in service to those who make money hand over fist.
I think it’s more like government can ban what can be sold as food and make advice. They can’t really stop you from drinking bleach or eating the grass in your yard or whatever. They can only prevent you from feeding it to someone else or selling it as food.
Meat isn’t a food that could be banned in the same way as, say, Red Dye #4 or force-hydrogenated fats or high fructose corn syrup. They could make farmers cull whole herds of cows if mad cow broke out i guess, but there are wild hogs, backyard chickens and goats, it’s just not a controllable food.
I come from a dynasty of educators. I cannot emphasize that enough. At Christmas I had to explain what a molecule was. Amongst them were several teachers and administrative individuals.
At some point, you need to revisit and refresh your understanding of the world. People can and do forget information they learned 30 or 40 years ago if they’re not making use of it on at least a semi-regular basis.
Bro, a molecule! I do Uber so I’m definitely not using chemistry on a day to day basis. But a fucking molecule‽ Come on man…
But a fucking molecule‽ Come on man…
Genuinely curious if you could pass Chem 101 exam from your Uber driver seat. Do you just know the word or could you actually speak on it.
I really don’t know where you’re going with this dumbass statement, but I can assure you that I know the meaning of one very common word.
So you just feel confident that you know the layman’s definition of “molecule”. Cool.
Omg, you’re trying to sound smart! It’s so cute!
So let me explain to you what the word “molecules” means. You have these individual building blocks of everything. They are called atoms. When one atom is bonded, whether covalently, ionically, metallic, or van der walls(to be fair I still don’t know what that means) it is considered a molecule.
Do you want me to dumb it down more for you?
No? Are you going to shut the fuck up now? Cause I actually have a degree in this shit.
Unregulated anarchy vs nanny state. There’s a wide spectrum in between we can argue about, but let’s not get too far toward either extreme.
As a (social) anarchist, yeah there’s a wide range. The government shouldn’t tell people what they’re allowed to eat, in my opinion, but they should protect them from dangers and exploitation. We don’t usually have the tools, or the time, to test all our food to ensure safety. We need government oversight for that. However, they shouldn’t go too far beyond that and force us to eat particular things.
Kinder eggs should NOT be banned, and Americans have an inferior product because of it.
…but also I agree with the banning of Red dye #3.
It’s banned in the US because we’re sue-crazy. Companies can’t rely on the common sense of their customers here. Even if the egg comes with a blinking neon sign that says there’s a non edible toy inside, someone would sue (and win!) claiming that it’s not enough and the toy shouldn’t be there in the first place.
Even if they don’t win the case, court cases in general can be extremely costly. So companies will try to avoid getting sued as much as they try to avoid doing things that would actually lose them a lawsuit.
I was about to protest, but grog calls for red dye #2, so we’re all good.
The ban is against putting inedible objects inside food. It’s a sensible ban imo.
Most fruit have inedible seeds inside, yet those aren’t really an issue. Yes, these are marketed specifically towards children, which could be part of the issue, but it’s a bit ridiculous.
I live in a place where kinder eggs arent banned and i dont often find rocks inside cheap brownies. Theres a way to have both lol
It’s a toy. A succulent little toy.
I see you know your judo well.
Without a warning, sure. But they aren’t trying to hide that there is something inedible in there. It’s not even a “hey, there is a prize inside one of the brownies in this box.” It’s, “there is something inside this thin chocolate shell. Break it to see what it is.”
In a right wing “anarchy”, dangerous foods will appear in the markets all the time.
In a left wing anarchist society, the community would consult their experts on food safety then band together and colletively stop making such foods, and stop importing those from other communities.
That’s anarchy? Wow, that’s dumb. They should not just collectively decide something. They should write down what they decided so that people who couldn’t attend or that later come from outside the community know what has been decided. Or, even better, if I know I can’t participate in the decision (or don’t want to) I should be able to pass my voice to somebody who’s there who I trust. Or, even better, just in case that person spontaneously gets sick or dies, to a group of people. Maybe, to get some consistency with people getting to know the details of the decision making process and the prior decisions, only redistribute these stand in votes every few years or so. Just to get the anarchy organised a bit.
That sounds great!
Wait a minute… That doesn’t sound like anarchy… That sounds like democracy!
That’s not anarchist at all…
I have to admit I never really understood how anarchist societies were supposed to work. Now that you’ve pointed out they are just people banding together to make collective decisions based on expert information, I can’t fathom why I ever thought they could go wrong.
Simple: they wouldn’t work that way.
Left anarchism, like everything left, only works on paper.
Here’s a few holes:
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Who decides who is and isn’t an expert? Jim Jones was considered an expert by the Jonestown people, RFK is considered one by maga.
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Assuming we find a way to establish an “expert” category of citizens, that’s already hierarchical. You now have a ruling class since these people get more of a say than the average person by virtue of their role, and don’t have a completely flat anarchist society anymore but instead a sort of representative technocracy.
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Moreover anarchist societies are supposed to not employ coercion, so even if you had experts whose opinion dictates norms, how are you going to enforce them?
Anarchists (left and right) reinvent the state, just shittier, less consistent, and without founding principles, every time they are put in front of the practical needs of a society where not everyone agrees with them.
Some go as far as inventing authoritarian oligarchies, just ones they happen to agree with and thus support.
Sorry, I thought my sarcasm was obvious.
Oh god you have no idea how many believe this in earnest (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Some go as far as inventing authoritarian oligarchies
tankies are authoritarian, their “leftism” is just a disguise to obtain power
They are authoritarian and marxist leftists, they are not mutually exclusive, if anything they are more likely bedfellows than not, by necessity.
You can’t have a free economy without decentralised price controls (i.e. a market) and you can’t have a market without ownership, so you will eventually end up having a control economy if you remove private ownership from the equation, and control economies are fundamentally authoritarian.
The ultimate means of production is the person, and you don’t get to own it exclusively, even if it’s yourself.
I think some market-based leftists have proposed various solutions for this problem, like mandating that all companies be run as coops. But I’m still skeptical of these for a number of reasons.
That’s also a non-solution, all it does is make scaling a company a huge mess, and contractorship basically mandatory for any kind of expansion.
I.e. I don’t hire anyone cause they would need to buy into the co-op, or they’d have their surplus value taken and thus be exploited, so instead everyone makes self-employed ““co-ops”” and hires eachother as contracting businesses.
It’s literally just capitalism with really stupid centralist extra steps.
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This would mean they’d be against food safety regulations, would it not?
It would not.
Having traffic laws isn’t the same as banning cars, either.
Banning foods is the same regulation as banning golf carts from being licensed.
Nobody’s gonna stop you from buying a golf cart and driving one (growing your own meat and eating it) but it’s deemed unsafe for you and society to drive one on the highway so you legally cant. (No right to food that’s bad for society)
You can’t access golf carts on the highway (can’t access bad food in the grocery store)
Food regulations are (mostly) about restricting food producers in ways that I already want/approve. Food safety, so I know there isn’t mercury in my baby’s formula.
It’s necessary especially because companies want their profits, more than they want to produce good food.
“Government dictating what I can eat” is restricting me about my own body, in ways perhaps I disagree with.
This would mean they’d be against food safety regulations, would it not?It would not.
Having traffic laws isn’t the same as banning cars, either.
Of course it is. Part of traffic legislation literally involves banning certain types of vehicles, either in certain areas or on any kind of public road in general.
Exaclty … certain types in certain areas with a reason. That’s regulation. You wouldn’t just ban all vehicles. Do I really have to spell this out?
Exaclty … certain types in certain areas with a reason. That’s regulation.
Which is just what I wrote, yes. Excising every unmaintained or outdated vehicle from traffic everywhere for example is just as valid a regulation as excising a certain type of food - any food - from general consumption. There’d simply have to be a good reason. And once there is, yep, what can and can be eaten gets dictated.
Again, that’s already how it works, in traffic and in cuisine.are you being intentionally obtuse? obviously they wouldn’t ban all vehicle, that wasn’t suggested in the OP either.
Are you?
We’re talking about banning one of the major things that is food. If you ban meat, you only have plants and fungi left. So yes, I think banning an entire branch of transportation is a decent analogy.
yes, however as far as I am aware there are no laws in the us against any private vehicle usage on private land. Unlike the FDA which criminalizes owning or consuming certain chemicals.
The difference is having a car on your land is your problem. Having dangerous chemicals that leech into the ground and water is a problem for everyone around you and the generations down the line.
yes, however as far as I am aware there are no laws in the us against any private vehicle usage on private land. Unlike the FDA which criminalizes owning or consuming certain chemicals.
You may have reached the limit of that car-metaphor there.
I don’t know. Pretty sure bleach isn’t allowed in most drinks but you can feel free to drink as much as you like at home.
jk if that’s not obvious
Most cities do ban many cars, because they harm air quality.
Buying meat supports an industry that also causes immense climate destruction, so it’s the same idea
Yes. People who oppose science-backed food regulations are dumb or selfish or both
Hyperbole-loving drama queens.
There’s a big difference between food safety and not eating meat. One is about companies putting dangerous stuff in food that can potentially harm people, the other is about something which humans have been eating ever since they existed. I understand that there are some arguments to be given about why we shouldn’t eat meat, but those are definitely not as widely supported as disallowing the companies to inject “poison” into our food. In my opinion banning meat definitely would go way too far, the cost of banning meat far exceeds the benefits for public wellbeing.
And if you wanted to stop people eating meat, you would subsidize plant based food so by virtue of economics every person would eat at least 70% government funded plant food.
Or you could just stop subsidising the meat industry
Also lab-grown meat. If we could replace meat from animals with meat grown in a lab, I think a lot of meat-eaters would make the switch. Currently lab-grown is pretty expensive from what I understand, but over time it should get cheaper as the technology becomes more widespread.
I think this would go a very long way to helping.
Oh, that is already happening now. The average person in the west eats about 70% plant based foods, mostly ultra processed. In the US specifically corn subsidies mean corn is in every processed food, hence the ubiquity of HFCS (The C is for Corn).
True, it can be a double edged sword. But if there was a broader scope of what could be planted and subsidized, issues like that with corn wouldn’t be as prevalent I would think. Since so few are subsidized, corn gets a ton of attention.
Dictating what you eat and banning things you shouldn’t eat are very different things.
Moreover, most governments (unless it’s a religious thing) don’t ban what you can eat… they only regulate items sold and marketed to you as food. E.g. I don’t think we have any laws that ban you from guzzling bleach, but I’m pretty sure you can’t legally pick up a cuppa hot bleach at your local beverage shop. INAL.
Banning the ability to legally make a choice is effectively the same thing as banning the choice itself. It doesn’t matter if you’re legally allowed to consume something if it’s illegal to obtain it.
For example, I’m in VA. When Democrats last had power they legalized possession of Marijuana, and created a path towards establishing legal vendors. When Republicans took over, despite saying they wouldn’t do this, they removed the path to create vendors, so it’s illegal to purchase. It is technically still legal to grow it, but that’s the only legal option, and it isn’t an option for most people. In effect, it’s almost as illegal as it was before.
Yeah, they ban the sale of items which shouldn’t be eaten, so there’s none for the consumer to choose, even if they wanted to. I mean obviously I’m referring to somewhat edible things, and not saying that everything that isn’t edible is banned.
Depends on where you live, but yeah, I imagine drinking dangerous chemicals isn’t necessarily illegal in itself. However I know there is a law in Finland saying you can’t sell like methanol from gas stations to ppl “if you suspect it’s going to be consumed”, because some drunks mightve done that in the past.
Not really a problem, but just remember such a law existing.
Let’s ban marketing meat as food. You can sell dead animal tubes, but you can’t call them sausages.
You shouldn’t eat corpses
jagged_circle likes his meat live
Depends on the species, to be fair.
Love me a nice bit from a fresh deer corpse.
You’re talking about two different things.
Context was the idea of a government banning certain popular foods
This would mean they’d be against food safety regulations, would it not?
It’s entirely possible to be in favor of food safety regulations and opposed to the government banning foods outright. In fact, I think one could safely presume that those are the positions most commonly held by most people.
Horse meat is illegal.
Not around the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_meat#Around_the_world
And in the US it was banned in the context that people were selling cheaper horse meat as expensive beef - so the ban was more for food purity reasons then anything else.
Not here. I think the aversion to horse meat is mostly a US thing.
England too, and I think many cultures world over, actually.
But in the UK we had a scandal some years ago because retailers sold ‘beef’ that was actually part horse. So it was misleading customers into eating a meat they’d find objectionable.
Yeah, with the horse meat in the lasagne and other stuff. We had that in Germany, too. But really the issue was more about faulty labeling than the fact that it contained horse meat.
Having ate horse in the past - when it was legal I can assure you that the ban is entirely a perfect example of needless regulation. I never had it , but friends of mine said the best ‘buffalo wings’ they ever had was from a resteraunt that was shutdown for serving dog - they were catching local pets which is a good regulation, but the lack of legal ability to get dog is needless.
Americans are weird about dogs - a dog farm would be burned to the ground (with the farmers in it) if ever someone tried to set one up here. Any other social issue sure, it’ll be american pseudofascist insanity, but man don’t mess with the puppies. We care way more about them than other humans.
But dog breeders are fine and good.
Frame it from the perspective of the american liberal. Dog breeders are good because I get a pretty puppy. Dog farms are bad because it’s what savages eat, dogs are pets.
There’s been a huge cultural shift against dog breeding as a whole, including sweeping legislation to curtail puppy mills, ensure the genetic health of breeds and to enact animal welfare laws with specific aim to ensure breeders take care of the dogs. All of these are lead by both liberal and conservative groups - thats the “weird about dogs” I was referring to, It’s basically the only truly bipartisan issue we’ve got left in this shithole.
Kinda feel like your drive to feel superior to liberals has distanced you from the reality of what’s actually happening.
Not something I was familiar with but ok, that’s good?
Feel free to swap it with casual neglect of pets then? That’s something I see from all sorts of people in my area.
No. Americans are weird about cows and pigs. The dog regulations make sense.
No it isn’t. Not in Canada anyway.
And…?
Which is stupid.
Oddly enough, so is horse dick!
Now, anyways.
It wasn’t always the case. It took a porn star dying after porn makers in the 2000s forced a horse to rape a woman (yes, I typed that right), and film it. The practice had been going on since the 70s, but now a woman died. So lawmakers got together and said “Ya know what? No more sleeping with horses. I don’t think anyone will argue that proposed law, and I can use it on the campaign trail next election!”
And so it was. No more horse fucking porn.
And I guess the meat is also illegal. I’m sure there’s a story there too.
It took a porn star dying after porn makers in the 2000s forced a horse to rape a woman
Uh. You’re going to need to cite a source on that. I’m aware of a man that died after he was mounted by a horse, but AFAIK that was a case where the man was entirely willing because he some really fucked up fetishes.
i feel like there’s a lot of astroturfing in the comments here, how depressing
Anything besides just eating a little less meat.
I really don’t get it. There’s definitely a group of ideologues that are pushing anti-meat on here, and flood any post on the topic. Something like that either needs funding or volunteers coordinating. I’m guessing either extremist anti-meat groups, or big ag astroturfers trying to make them look bad.
There are about 75 vegan communities on Lemmy.
There is one carnivore community
Lemmy has a very vocal anti meat population, and they are extremely active about it.
I don’t think it’s coordinated, I think they feel very strongly about their identity, and when they see something wrong they get zealous and angry.
Having moderated a controversial community here: yes there are bot voters, but they are not as common as people think.
Oh cool.
It definitely does not require coordination.
You are on Lemmy, which attracts leftists. Hence all the communism memes. Leftists heavily overlap with vegans. Hence, there are a disproportionate amount of vegans on Lemmy, ready and willing to spread anti-meat talking points at any given moment. This is all quite straightforward.
Well when these things get posted, you’ll see an unnatural flood of downvotes & angry comments come in. Definitely seems like some kind of coordinated brigading. Or could just be one asshole with a bot farm.
What evidence do you have that it is unnatural? How can you tell the difference between brigading and simply lots of vegans showing up by chance? If we assume 2 out of 5 Lemmy users are vegans or think we should eat less meat to save the planet, and almost all lemmy users simply scroll the front page, then this seems like a completely expected phenomenon
Sure, I’m making some assumptions based on patterns I’ve seen.
It means that they’re not a nuanced thinker.
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We’re in a climate catastrophe, and the meat industry is one of the major contributing polluters causing it.
So it makes sense to ban factory farming, because it’s killing us.
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Almost anyone I’ve ever encountered that would say that phrase exactly like that, also doesn’t get vaccinated and foams at the mouth if you tell them they shouldn’t drink raw milk.
Now, personally, I would rather my food be safe for human consumption but I also don’t want to be nannied. Hotdogs ain’t healthy but I like them. But unlike raw milk or undercooked meats, the unhealthy stuff in the hotdog isn’t going to make me so sick that it can make other people sick.
I have had raw milk in the past - long before it was the in thing. I visited a farmer (his daughter wasn’t as hot as I was lead to believe) and they just got their milk from the tank after milking was done. Since then I can’t stand store bought milk. Though I suspect fresh is what matters more than raw.
Still knowing what I do now I won’t drink it again.
Carefully cleaning the udder and teats, and very quickly refrigerating raw milk should significantly reduce the risks of bacterial contamination and growth. This is not done in most cases though, so raw milk usually carries a much higher risk of listeria.
Having had listeria once–contaminated green beans–I very much do not recommend it.
Iirc, Europe has raw milk. They only do basic filtration. That’s why they don’t refrigerate it.
european milk is definitely pasteurized and refrigerated, not sure where on earth you’ve seen room temperature milk…
we do however also have extra pasteurized milk, which is more tolerant of storage conditions and time
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In the 90s they linked hot dogs to cancer.
But EVERYTHING is linked to cancer.
But also everybody is getting cancer.
Increased seatbelt usage correlates to increased cancer rates.
We’re in a climate catastrophe, and the meat industry is one of the major contributing polluters causing it.
So it makes sense to ban factory farming, because not only is it making us sick. Its literally causing mass death and extinction
Most people who say that do so for dogmatic reasons, not because they arrived at this conclusion after careful analysis. It’s the political point of small government.
These are the same people who will probably be first in line shouting for government intervention when their drinking water is full of chemical waste.
You can try to reason with folks like that but you probably won’t change their mind. Just try not to shout at them.
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