I agree with you until you bring foodbabe into this. She’s notorious for hand-picking things that meet the MAHA agenda. For example, the oats argument, yes there is a ton of crap in the ultra processed Quaker oats, but that’s an old recipe. Here’s what they sell at target:
There’s not always a one-to-one comparison, and I agree shady companies in the US have free rein over what crap they add to our foods, but this has already been debunked.
They changed the recipe after it received significant attention. Before then the company was happy to use food coloring on Apples to pretend it had strawberries while actually providing strawberries in another country.
The thing is you can’t bring attention to every single product, which is the point of regulations around deceptive packaging.
I don’t know for sure but it looks like in the image the oh so simple is a different product line. Seemingly similar to all of Lays chips which come in normal and the healthier line.
The McDonald's fries are the exact same ingredients, the FDA just requires more granular specifications which look "scary". Those are the bracketed "sub"-ingredients you see versus just "Vegetable Oil" for the other side.
As to the additional anti-caking ingredient, I can't tell you. No idea if it's omitted from the UK side due to regulatory reasons or it's actually included but has no requirement to be listed, since it's included in a plethora of British foods in the same places that it's used in the US (things like powdered/confectioner's sugar):
Either way, it's not particularly nefarious (despite her scary red highlight added to it).
As an aside, saying this as someone who's tried McDonald's in probably 60+ countries. It's all the same thing (except a few countries in Asia; Korea and Japan notably), especially like for like (Double Cheeseburger for Double Cheeseburger). I have no idea where this "European McDonald's is healthier/better" idea sprang up, outside of European superiority complexes (probably due to the need to self-justify how insanely busy McDonald's are in Europe). Especially in a country who's most famous takeaway item is overgreased fried chicken/fish and fries/chips tossed together in a bag, then covered and shaken in even more salt and condiments; possibly with a handful of cheese tossed on for good measure.
The "scary red" polydimethylsiloxane is in basically everything, and it's inert, non-toxic and non-flammable. It's permitted in the EU as E900. It's an anti-foaming agent used in trace quantities to prevent oil from splattering on the employees.
There were no negative effects on rats at over 2g/kg. [1]
Also: canola oil is a rapeseed oil. You can imagine why a lot of people are more comfortable calling it "canola" than "rapeseed" (and hence why it's written that way on US packaging).
Canola was also originally a trademark (name comes from "Canada oil low acid") - it's made from rapeseed that was specifically bred for low erucic acid. It definitely made it easier to market.
Yeah, take the Doritos as an example: the UK bag lists "Cheese Powder", the US bag lists "Cheddar Cheese" with sub-ingredients in parentheses (plus Whey and Skim Milk).
What is in the UK Doritos' "Cool Original Flavour" (read: Ranch) ingredient? Maybe something like Tomato Powder, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Buttermilk, Natural and Artificial Flavors?
Whoa, hold on. RFK may be right about this one thing in the same way a broken clock happens to occasionally be right, but let's not rush to take away his nutcase title. He has some truly messed up opinions about a variety of topics.
I'm being flip, but it's not a lie. He doesn't know where the brainworm came from, and it was revealed later that he has been eating roadkill meat his whole life.
Exotic parasites is a known risk when eating roadkill. It's not a difficult connection to make.
Speaking to reporters in a hallway after court ended Wednesday, Kennedy was asked whether he picked up other roadkill.
“I’ve been picking up roadkill my whole life. I have a freezer full of it,” he said, eliciting laughter.
Kennedy campaign spokesperson Stefanie Spear later said by text that he wasn’t joking. She said that’s how Kennedy — a falconer who trains ravens — feeds his birds. She added that he no longer has the 21 cubic foot (0.59 cubic meter) refrigerator, which had been in New York’s Westchester County suburbs.
How's that a lie? It came from his own mouth! It's his PR person who walked it back and cooked up an explanation.
RFK Jr is not a child. He's in full control of the narrative he wants to portray about himself. If he wants to go say kooky things to reporters, he can't be upset if people think he is a kook. And he clearly seems to personally enjoy the reputation of being a kook, based on willingly he throws out jokes about it.
I have no problem with him being a kook! It's just ironic how many criticisms and conspiracy theories he throws out there about others and yet how seriously people want to take him.
He explained it was for his birds. If you don't believe the words from his mouth, now you're in conspiracy theory territory and believing what you want to believe instead of what is documented. You're free to do that, but understand that it's a lie.
Where did he say he actually eats the roadkill? One source?
Eating roadkill is not that uncommon in the US. So it's not a crazy connection to make. He admitted to having a walk-in size freezer of the stuff and that he's a redneck.
> He loaded the dead bear into the rear hatch of his car and later showed it off to his friends. In a picture from that day, Kennedy is putting his fingers inside the bear’s bloody mouth, a comical grimace across his face. (When I asked Kennedy about the incident, he said, “Maybe that’s where I got my brain worm.”)
Now this is clearly a joke. But the important thing is, he clearly enjoys trolling reporters. If you are not happy with the way RFK Jr. is treated in the media, take it up with RFK Jr.
> If you are not happy with the way RFK Jr. is treated in the media,
To be fair, he didn't say that. He cited "the media" as a source. He was talking about you, who's said a few things now that the media didn't say with the justification of "not a crazy connection to make."
I understand where you're coming from, but I'd be more accurate to say e.g. "If you are not happy with RFK Jr.'s image," as opposed to trying to make that person out as an anti-media crusader.
He's not even really a food safety crusader, he's just a vocal proponent of the "whole foods movement". Other than that, he's a former heroin addict Kennedy dynasty failson.
>truly messed up opinions about a variety of topics.
I would actually really like to hear what the messed up opinions are, when I've watched interviews with him they've seemed pretty reasonable. He cites sources for basically all the claims he makes.
I hesitate to dive into this because I'm really not interested in arguing the nuances of RFK with people on the internet (not you, others). RFK Jr. has a long history of controversial statements regarding COVID, COVID vaccines and being anti-vaccine, or vaccine-skeptical as his supporters like to frame him.
For me, one of his most controversial statements in recent memory had to be during a press conference he gave in 2023 when he stated that COVID might have been "ethnically targeted" to "attack Caucasians and Black people" and that "the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese."
He tried to defend the statement by citing scientific studies, which is a habit of his that his supporters admire about him. However, actual experts in the field pointed out that his interpretation of the studies was flawed and there was no credible evidence to support the idea that COVID was engineered or had evolved to target or spare certain groups.
Yeah, this shit is why I was hesitant to dive into the topic. You've made several leaps of logic here that I don't feel like debunking or discussing further, and I'll note that you've conveniently forgotten to defend the most controversial part of his statement – that the engineered virus supposedly curves its lethality away from Ashkenazi Jews as well, which would imply that that group also had something to do with its manufacture.
It’s entirely possible that it’s a coincidence, groups of people share genes in common. It’s actually rather unlikely that a gene, especially one that seems to confer some resistance to the effects of a virus, would exist for only one group of people in the entire world.
I would love to hear about my leaps in logic honestly.
Nobody is saying that it was definitely ethnically targeted, but it IS plausible. Just because the ethnicity involved makes you uncomfortable doesn’t mean that it’s not possible.
Your comment suggests it’s an outrageous notion, but if that’s true then just give a decent argument why it’s actually outrageous.
Chinese leadership have specifically mentioned ethnically targeted bio weapons:
>In 2017, a textbook published by the People's Liberation Army National Defence University called the Science of Military Strategy debuted the potential for biological warfare to include "specific ethnic genetic attacks."[10][11] The same year, former People's Liberation Army general Zhang Shibo authored a book that concluded that "modern biotechnology development is gradually showing strong signs characteristic of an offensive capability," including "specific ethnic genetic attacks" (特定种族基因攻击).[10] In 2020, a professor at the same PLA university spoke of the "huge war effectiveness" of a "targeted attack that destroys a race, or a specific group of people."
RFK Jr is not a good person, is not a smart person, and we should not attempt to whitewash or legitimize him. He has a complex early life, but his actions today are his own choices.
Based on the provided transcript, the accusations and criticisms against RFK Jr. focus primarily on:
1. Allegations of Sexual Assault:
• Multiple allegations have been reported, including by Vanity Fair. His response to these allegations has been a mixture of acknowledgment and apologizing directly to at least one accuser.
2. Acknowledgment of Past Wrongdoings:
• RFK Jr. himself has admitted to having a problematic past, described as “skeletons in the closet,” though these have not been exhaustively detailed in the transcript.
3. Entitlement and Privilege:
• Growing up as part of the Kennedy dynasty, RFK Jr. is characterized as having displayed behaviors shaped by immense privilege and a sense of entitlement, including unruly and eccentric conduct during his youth.
4. Controversial Political Views:
• While not explicitly detailed in this transcript, RFK Jr.’s political stances (e.g., vaccine skepticism and other fringe views) have been controversial and polarizing, drawing criticism from various quarters.
There is no mention in the transcript of more serious accusations, such as criminal activity beyond the sexual assault allegations, nor evidence of deeper scandals. However, the discussion also suggests that there may be more allegations or controversies not covered explicitly in the transcript.
I fail to see how your link supports your questioning or your statement, could you explain it? It looks like it's just the opinion of the owner of the Los Angeles Times, a person that some might feel is heavily biased.
> LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is a doctor and transplant surgeon and invented drugs to fight pancreatic and other forms of cancer. He ACTUALLY talked to RFK Jr. and after listening to him talk and what he had to say instead of relying on mainstream media propaganda, he changed his opinion on him.
RFK Jr has frequently and publicly claimed that the side effects and dangers of most all vaccines are worse than the diseases they prevent. There is no legitimate data that even suggests that is true. You can get into the minutia of potential dangers and health effects of vaccines all you want. But when you look at the actual outcomes, like with COVID, the public is far, far better off having taken them and RFK's fear mongering endangers the public health.
They’re all talking rubbish. Trump said he will finish the war in UA within 24 hours. They are just talking stuff angry people swallow like pelicans.
You have elected a bunch of ego driven loonies. Just accept it and hopefully you still get to vote in four years time. What a great time for this planet.
Moderation matters. If you eat mostly whole, nutritious foods, it’s totally fine to eat processed food occasionally.
No food is inherently unhealthy or bad, so I don’t think there’s any issue with him eating McDonalds on a plane. Maybe he was in a hurry, or just wanted to be social and stopped there with someone else who wanted it.
What is unhealthy is when the majority of your food is not nutritious, which is currently the case for most Americans. So why not try to make common American foods more nutritious by default, as they are in most other wealthy countries?
It was awesome living in a European country for a couple of years as an American. You learn that ingredient lists at the grocery store really are shorter in ways you don’t expect. It’s easy to buy a fruit yogurt that is just yogurt and fruit, for example. Not “yogurt, sugar, artificial and natural flavors” as you’ll find in many popular foods in the US. It was noticeable with a lot of different food choices.
Also, whenever we would come back to visit the US, after living there for a year or so, we would always have mild digestion issues and stomach cramps for a week or so. This was common among many expats that we talked to. We visited over a dozen countries while we lived there, and the US was the only one that had that issue.
But when you say "whenever we would come back to visit the US ... we would always have mild digestion issues and stomach cramps for a week or so" this does imply that there's something wrong with American processed food, and this isn't an issue of moderation.
Despite not liking the man, I actually agree with RFK on the healthy eating and think it's good that he has raised awareness of it. Red dye has finally been banned, this is good! Heck, I'm very liberal, this kind of regulation is what the US should have been doing a long time ago and happy to see it happening.
My point about RFK was not that he eats processed food sometimes and therefore he's a hypocrite, it's that he's willing to compromise his values for access to power. But hopefully it's just that one time to get on Trumps good side and he actually makes some good regulation about poisonous foods! The market is good at a lot of things, but not at keeping things healthy, so I'm glad republicans are seeing the value of regulation over unwavering belief in the free market.
Let me be more explicit about my point. I believe RFK genuinely wants to promote healthy living, and I agree with that. But Trump requires loyalty to be part of his inner circle and forcing RFK to eat mcds is getting RFK to prove that loyalty. RFK obviously hated eating that burger. My point is, if he’s willing to compromise his values for access to power does he really prioritize his values or does he prioritize access to power?
No “gotcha”, I’m not a partisan. I don’t like Trump but there are a few things he’s done I like, but even with those I often don’t like HOW he did it. For example Greenland, I think that’s great for USs long term prospects (shipping routes), but to say military action is on the table is reckless. Not every criticism is a gotcha, and just because I disagree with 90% of what RFK believes doesn’t mean I don’t think his commitment to healthy eating is good. Maybe that you read a criticism as an absolute indictment of someone shows you have more purity tests than what you criticize.
I just don't see the rationale in framing it as a morality and value test in the first place that is worth reading into.
I have a diet I try to follow in general. I break it all the time and it's not a big deal at all. Sometimes I'll eat a cheeseburger with my coworkers. What does that say about my character? Should it say anything?
How much can one hate a burger? It's not like he is a Hindu or the burger contained his first born child.
I mean, he says "Campaign food is always bad, but the food that goes onto that airplane is, like, just poison" on a podcast, and a couple of days later he's looking unhappy eating a mcds burger with trump in a very publicized photo.
Eating a cheeseburger is one thing, but he literally calls it poison.
Anyway, I hope he does succeed in pushing more regulation on what chemicals we have in food. I'm pro regulation for things like this - the market's always going to go to what's cheaper so regulation is needed to prevent companies poisoning consumers. I'm glad the republican party has come around to this point.
A broken clock is right once a day. RFK Jr. is not the nutcase we're told he is, he's a very slight different kind of nutcase that's just as bad because he mixes legitimate concerns with his absolutely insane point of view, and uses the same spurious arguments for both, muddying the water for everyone.
Are you against the FDA releasing all the data from the pharmaceutical companies so that others can conduct their own studies from full data? Right now every single head of the HHS, FDA and CDC want to protect pharma companies and let them hide all their data. RFK Jr. is the first candidate that isn't looking for a job in industry afterwards and wants to actually free the data for the sake of the American people. For that alone I think he should be head of HHS.
As far as I've seen the only debunking has been done on single vaccines like MMR, not on the full schedule of vaccines. And it's a lie to say that they have been thoroughly debunked. Studies have shown that some vaccines can cause allergic reactions. Autistic children have over a 3X rate of food allergies or neurotypical children. Doesn't that warrant studying that maybe adjuvants are causing an immune response and the immune response causes autism?
My money is on the neurological development of autism involving some form of hyper-connectedness which also expresses itself in the gut in over-sensitivity, causing the allergies.
That, and perhaps the reason there are so many forms of autism is that the actual development of the brain is impacted so much by environment. If the children are given healthy, constructive environments to learn to interface with the world on their own terms, they'll have a better chance of benefiting others than if they're treated poorly and allowed to practice maladaptive patterns.
The covid vaccine nearly killed my father (which means covid itself probably would have) due to activating previously undiagnosed sarcoidosis, but subsequent vaccinations mediated by immunological awareness were safe and effective for him as with others.
Anyway, don't expect net positives out of RFK. He might be "independent" but you need many independent experts to reach a good understanding. Trump's administration isn't going to end corruption, it's just going to streamline it.
I respect your speculation and I think that by studying with the full data we can get closer to a real answer, rather than everyone throwing their hands up and saying "there's nothing we can do!"
If all we get from RFK Jr. is releasing of all the data that the FDA and CDC have, that is a win for society. Autism is a huge problem and no one is talking about it. The autistic kids from the 90s and 2000s are still being supported by their parents, but what's going to happen in another 20 years when their parents are dead? Will we have millions of autistic homeless people on the streets? It's going to be overwhelming and we need to fully study this. One in 34 kids in the US have autism, what are we going to do in 50-60 years?
So many people who opposed him and then take the time to understand what is actually saying, not what they have been told he is saying, come to realize he is completely sane. Bernie Sanders is on that list fwiw.
The proof here seems to be an interview with someone (owner of the LA Times) who talked with RFK for a few hours came away believing he knows more than doctors. Is that right?
Not knowing something isn't what makes them idiots. Spouting off about it as though they do is what ruins their credibility. At the very least it demonstrates that they're bad at vetting their sources.
I was talking about Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong not Dr. Ben Carson. Care to show any evidence that Soon-Shiong is an idiot?
Just because one doctor is stupid doesn't invalidate all doctors, does it? In that case, Dr. Ben Carson would be proof that Dr. Fauci is also an idiot.
Of course not, but it highlights the risk of Appeal to Authority: one's expertise in a specific field does not make them experts in others, even ones adjacent to their own. For a more local example, I have a lot of experience writing Python. Someone outside the field might mistakenly think my opinions on, say, Java, are equally informed. They're not.
Of course not. That would make him an expert on developing oncology drugs, not on the ethics of drug safety and especially not on communicable disease control.
If chemotherapy meds had the incredibly low adverse reaction rates of common vaccines with the same typically high effectiveness, I bet his general opinions on the subject would be different. No, of course we shouldn't require school children to get preventative chemotherapy because the risk-reward ratio would be awful. And of course we should vaccinate them against polio because there's trivial risk in the prevention compared to the life-altering effects of the illness.
He filed to get the FDA to revoke the polio vaccine. He’s rabidly anti-vax, routinely spewing lies that have been debunked repeatedly. He is absolutely a nut case that happens to have some points of view that many could agree with.
My wife's a doctor, and had patients begging her for leftover Vioxx samples after Merck pulled it from the market, preferring to take their chances with heart issues rather than living in agonizing pain that Vioxx was especially good at treating.
Just because a drug works well doesn't mean that it's moral to release a drug that knowingly kills tens of thousands of people a year and then hide that data.
I agree. In my opinion, hiding the risk was the sin, not releasing the drug. Many, many people with chronic pain conditions would gladly accept the risk.
It's kind of the same with any treatment: chemotherapy may make you incredibly sick before it saves you. Willow tree bark may fix your headache but cause you to bleed profusely. Homeopathy may make you die of whatever you were sick with before it cures your dehydration. Everything has its tradeoffs.
We need to the full information in order to make our own choices. Right now pharma companies hide a lot of the information, including from clinical trials from drugs. All the data should be released and not hidden so that people can make their own choices on what medications they take and if they want to risk taking it, that's fine because they have all the information and they can make their own risk/reward judgement.
Looks like you, me and RFK Jr. are perfectly aligned.
protip: do not drink fanta, do not eat mcdonalds fries, do eat oats (but just buy real oats and throw in raspberrys or whatever), do not eat chips. Doesn't matter whether you are in the US or UK :)
Food Babe is a terrible source with an agenda. If you actually look at the safety profile of the things involved the differences are minimal. The real risk comes from all the sugar and simple carbs in both.
- The fry ingredients are exactly the same, the US just requires more granular labelling. PDMS is used in oils in Europe too. Maybe in McDonalds oil maybe not, unclear. It's authorized for use in the EU as E900, and it is inert, non-toxic and non-flammable. It's added to stop the fryer oil from spraying on the employees.
- Both Fantas are bad.
- The oats are comparing two different products. 1/4 the label in the US is mandatory breakdowns not required in the UK. 1/4 of the label is the "creaming agent" (starch, whey protein, casein protein, some oil -- nothing a bodybuilder wouldn't consume) and 1/4 is the added vitamins and minerals not present on the UK label. The only meaningful difference appears to be using strawberry-flavored apple chunks. Does it make a difference? Probably none.
- The doritos in the UK list an ingredient that's just "Cool Original Flavour" lmao that FB somehow decides not to highlight. The US requires a breakdown of the components of said "flavor." And the use of annatto vs FD&C dyes which there's really very little conclusive evidence one way or the other. But fine, I guess we can stop using Azo dyes.
The real question is: does swapping Azo dyes for anatto make Doritos measurably healthier or is the problem that you are eating Doritos.
As an oatmeal connoisseur, I'd be remiss not to point out that the two oatmeal products being compared there are not the same. The American product is specifically "Strawberries and Cream," which looks like it was deliberately picked because it adds a few extra scary-looking ingredients from the creaming agent; whereas the UK product is just "Heaps of Fruit," sans cream.
The UK product contains freeze dried strawberries and raspberries. The USA market "strawberries and cream" contains no strawberry, instead it has freeze dried apple dyed red with added strawberry flavor.
I don't believe natural is inherently good nor artificial inherently bad but the USA product is objectively lower quality. IMHO it is cheaply made crap to fool people that do not read the ingredients.
I say if your product mentions strawberries and you get dyed apples instead the problem is not the person failing to read the ingredients list, something has gone wrong at the legislative level.
The American version is identical to the UK version until "natural flavor." The US version then adds some vitamins plus tricalcium phosphate, salt, and beet juice concentrate. The only "scary" ingredient is tricalcium phosphate, which appears to be an anti-caking agent.
It says "Tricalcium Phosphate is a source of phosphorus that also provides the essential mineral calcium." Which is actually what I suspected, it's another added vitamin that has the benefit of also being an anti caking agent.
Why does our version need an anti-caking agent when theirs doesn't? And why do we need to get calcium from checks notes oat meal (the non-cream version, mind you) when people in other countries can get it from things it's in naturally, like milk?
There may be ostensible reasons why some of the extras we get are theoretically useful, but I'd still wonder why we're the only ones who go to all the trouble (when we don't seem to come out ahead for it, health-wise).
For some reason, the quaker oats uk website doesn't list it though, perhaps they're new formulations.
I imagine it's used to keep the fine powders (powdered salt or milk powder depending on the product) from caking. If the previous version didn't have any salt, then it might not have needed it.
I find this particularly interesting because it is due to market conditions, not legislation, that many Canadian foods have switched to colors from natural ingredients.
These companies appear to believe that Canadians prefer fewer artificial ingredients, and that Americans don't seem to care. Very curious.
It is happening, albeit slowly, here in the USA as well. Trader Joe’s generally has no added artificial dyes, fruit by the foot now is naturally colored, Whole Foods of course, and Wegmans bakery products.
Its just that there still are so many products you don’t expect- marshmallows with blue dye to make them more “bright white”, candies/sprinkles, any children’s medicine in syrup form (although you can now get some in dye free form finally)
It's more of a commentary about how food in the US is overly colored for no other reason than it looks cool, sometimes at the detriment of the health of the consumer.
Neither color of Fruit Loops is natural. American food is colored to look cool, because cool sells better with Americans. Canadian food is colored to look dull, because dull sells better with Canadians.
It's just how cereal is made. Before fruit loops are loops, they are grain mash. That grain mash is mostly uniform in color and brown-ish. In order to have a bowl filled with loops where some of the loops are yellow and others are green and others are blue, they add different colors of dye. It's the same whether it's neon green or organic green - the dye is added at the end for appeal to the consumer.
I looked into it, and from what I can tell the only link to cancer they've found so far is in male rats exposed to high levels of it, but they haven't found evidence that it causes cancer in humans or other animals.
What's odd to me is that it's still fine to sell food like bacon, where the link to cancer in humans appears to be much, much stronger.
…or cigarettes, which are available for sale everywhere.
If unhealthy foods are to be banned, we must also ban cigarettes and alcohol. If we are to let people be bodybuilders, or body destroyers, then all of these things should be available for purchase.
Ultimately it is a special kind of arrogance to tell people what they are or are not allowed to do to the one thing they unambiguously own and control: their own body.
Keep in mind that the negative effects (beyond the coughing and diminished lung capacity) of cigarettes have only been publicly admitted to and explicitly taught only very recently in the history of tobacco.
The tobacco industry fought tooth and nail against any suggestion that tobacco products are linked to cancer and even advertised cigarettes as healthy.
I agree with you in principle. I would caution against taking for granted what we know today to be very clearly unhealthy and cancer-causing. It is often an up-hill decades long battle against incredibly wealthy interests to get to the truth.
Ok, well then, I’m sure no Americans are eating high levels of foods that contain dyes. So, surely there are long term 20 year plus studies on cumulative effects, right?
in the US, priority #1 is fiduciary duty to shareholders. if customers are buying, and we make it more expensive to make, then shareholders will be mad!
Azo dyes, in the quantities used in food, do not cause cancer. What causes diabetes and cancer is obesity which you're likely getting from consuming the food -- dyed naturally or artificially. The dye is ancillary. People need to eat less of the Doritos, the azo dyes aren't the problem.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/uc265y/a...