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Showing posts with label superbious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label superbious. Show all posts
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Rage Against the Capital Punishment Machine (Link)
Monday, April 29, 2013
Dumber Ingredients for a Dumber Consumer (Link)
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| Copyright © Superbious.com and Garrett Will 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved. |
Give it a shot
So this is my last post for now, because I'm leaving this dump I've reluctantly called home for the past eight months. I don't know how long I'll be, but I'm guessing a couple weeks of absence at the most. Until then, adios.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Upcoming Superbious article teaser: "Dumber Ingredients for a Dumber Consumer"
I've submitted a piece that will tackle the issue of over-simplified ingredients lists replacing the functional, thorough ones which include IUPAC systematic names, like "sodium chloride" (which is commonly known as "table salt"), or "potassium sorbate", amongst many others. I'll loosely elaborate below.
There's a mindset where a consumer will avoid purchasing an article of food if they read an ingredients list consisting of any number of ingredients they cannot pronounce, nor that they understand of their purpose & composition. Many of such are ignorant (wilfully or otherwise), indoctrinated by the media or disingenuous nutritionists (often a combination of such, since nutritionists are provided platforms to share information with audiences), or are simply put off by the complexities therein. A basic understanding of chemistry should be in order and would be an appropriate response to this mindset, right? Well, this isn't a perfect world.
It's certainly true that there are ingredients that are questionable in their use, but generally speaking, not all inorganic compounds found in our foods are malign. Plus, one should not be intimidated by them simply because they cannot read, verbally or mentally, their chemical names. As I mention in the article (which should be available tomorrow as of this writing), vitamin B12's IUPAC name is "cyanocobalamin", and for anyone under the ill effects of the above-mentioned mindset, that name, if found on an ingredients list, may be off-putting. A simple solution, especially in this digital age considering that consumers are sometimes armed with tablets or smartphones, would be to do research on the spot. But you can't always expect people to take responsibility. Sometimes, unfortunately (for the sake of the market), people with such mindsets, whether they peddle it or not, may make waves through the media. Such press can be damaging to a food company's PR image, so they act on restoring it any way they can.
Without getting much further, since the upcoming article will be the primary entanglement of this discussion, these food companies are responding by dumbing down ingredients list. If the trend continues, and more troubling, worsens over time, then you won't see such items as "potassium sorbate", but rather just salt. Instead of telling you what is actually in the tomato sauce dotting the frozen pizza you're buying, it'll just say tomato sauce. And that's the problem I tackled, for your (eventual) reading pleasure.
There's a mindset where a consumer will avoid purchasing an article of food if they read an ingredients list consisting of any number of ingredients they cannot pronounce, nor that they understand of their purpose & composition. Many of such are ignorant (wilfully or otherwise), indoctrinated by the media or disingenuous nutritionists (often a combination of such, since nutritionists are provided platforms to share information with audiences), or are simply put off by the complexities therein. A basic understanding of chemistry should be in order and would be an appropriate response to this mindset, right? Well, this isn't a perfect world.
It's certainly true that there are ingredients that are questionable in their use, but generally speaking, not all inorganic compounds found in our foods are malign. Plus, one should not be intimidated by them simply because they cannot read, verbally or mentally, their chemical names. As I mention in the article (which should be available tomorrow as of this writing), vitamin B12's IUPAC name is "cyanocobalamin", and for anyone under the ill effects of the above-mentioned mindset, that name, if found on an ingredients list, may be off-putting. A simple solution, especially in this digital age considering that consumers are sometimes armed with tablets or smartphones, would be to do research on the spot. But you can't always expect people to take responsibility. Sometimes, unfortunately (for the sake of the market), people with such mindsets, whether they peddle it or not, may make waves through the media. Such press can be damaging to a food company's PR image, so they act on restoring it any way they can.
Without getting much further, since the upcoming article will be the primary entanglement of this discussion, these food companies are responding by dumbing down ingredients list. If the trend continues, and more troubling, worsens over time, then you won't see such items as "potassium sorbate", but rather just salt. Instead of telling you what is actually in the tomato sauce dotting the frozen pizza you're buying, it'll just say tomato sauce. And that's the problem I tackled, for your (eventual) reading pleasure.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Next instalment of BILL "SORE LOSER" O'REILLY is coming soon
Over at Superbious, I have to-date dropped four individual articles on Papa Bear, our favourite senile "no-spin" blowhard at Fox News. Each one covers a different instance where O'Reilly displays his insanity, usually as a sore loser reacting to criticism or to the ever-changing tides of time.
The fifth one will tackle his apparent jumping the shark on the support/non-support of gay marriage, and playing the victim card (unnecessarily I must add) when being called out on it by his more passionate colleagues in the media or simply quoted verbatim by those who otherwise don't share his viewpoints. He called Dana Milbank at The Washington Post a 'liar' for simply pointing out what O'Reilly said. If that's not insanity then I'm Norman Bates.
Stay tuned, I'll likely put up a placeholder & link here for when the post gets published or is in the process of getting published.
The fifth one will tackle his apparent jumping the shark on the support/non-support of gay marriage, and playing the victim card (unnecessarily I must add) when being called out on it by his more passionate colleagues in the media or simply quoted verbatim by those who otherwise don't share his viewpoints. He called Dana Milbank at The Washington Post a 'liar' for simply pointing out what O'Reilly said. If that's not insanity then I'm Norman Bates.
Stay tuned, I'll likely put up a placeholder & link here for when the post gets published or is in the process of getting published.
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