In case you’re a buffoon (like me) and thought someone was out here meticulously hand-poisoning applesauce:
An FDA spokesperson said that one of the agency’s theories for the WanaBana cinnamon applesauce contamination was “economically motivated adulteration.” (…)
Economically motivated adulteration, or “food fraud,” can occur when a cheaper ingredient is added to a product to enhance it or bulk it up, but is not disclosed, according to the FDA. One example, the agency said, is when lead-based dyes are added to spices to give the product a certain color.
We love cutting corners to maximize profit at the expense of our consumers
Turmeric is also frequently affected by this. A lead compound with a bright yellow color can be used.
I’m not gonna dox myself by saying precisely what I do for a living, but I am involved in public environmental health, and in the past have conducted home investigations in child lead poisoning cases. For years, foreign spices have been a problem, particularly for immigrant families who visit relatives overseas and bring spices back from south asia in particular.
During and immediately after covid, however, we started finding domestically sold spices coming back from lab testing with high lead results. Sam’s club, wal-mart, etc. We used to tell families to buy domestically instead of bringing things back from India, Pakistan, etc, but even that isn’t safe anymore.
You might – might – be safer with higher end organic products but I really just don’t trust anything anymore. This isn’t a new issue, but it’s definitely becoming more widespread.
if the spice you’re using is water-soluble, you can mix it with water and then use a water testing kit. they sell water-testing kits at the hardware store; ones that you send off to a lab are more reliable (but also more expensive).
you can also buy lead-testing swabs on the Internet. some of these are not reliable, so I’d recommend testing the lead-testing swabs. use a swab on something that you know is lead (a fishing sinker, a car battery, etc) and another swab on something that you know is lead-free (most things in your home, hopefully) and make sure you get the expected results.
note that lead-testing kits are not food-safe, so you should not just put pipettes / test swabs / etc into your spice jar. spoon out a small amount (onto a plate or whatever), test that small amount, and then throw that small amount away. (and then wash the plate.)
gonna add this consumer reports investigation from a couple of years back that made the rounds. they looked into a bunch of american spice brands and found that this is a huge problem across brands, regardless of whether or not it’s organic (exact quote: “CR’s tests could not determine whether one brand was consistently better or worse than any other. And organic products did not have consistently lower levels than conventionally grown ones”).
I highly recommend reading through the article @alugard linked because it gives a lot of good information.
Also, close to the bottom, it gives a rundown of the spices that were tested with a helpful visual graphic for which brands and which spices were more concerning or less concerning, starting with this disclaimer and table:
[Text description: A screenshot with the header in larger bold text that says “CR’s Herb and Spice Test Results”. Below it in smaller text is a paragraph that reads, “CONSUMER REPORTS tested 126 herbs and spices from 38 brands for arsenic, cadmium, and lead. (We did not test spices that tend to be used in baking, such as cinnamon and nutmeg.) We tested two or three samples from different lots of each product. Our findings are a spot check of the market and cannot be used to draw definitive conclusions about brands. The products are organized alphabetically by type. Within each group, the products are listed according to the degree of concern. Regularly consuming ¾ teaspoon or more daily of a product in one of the concerning categories could, over time, pose a health risk to children as a result of the combined levels of the three heavy metals. Unless noted, they could also pose a risk to adults. The more red boxes next to a product, the higher the concern.” Below the paragraph is a graphic of four categories: a green circle with a white checkmark in it, labeled ‘No Concern’; a single red circle labeled ‘Some Concern’; two red circles next to each other labeled ‘Moderate Concern’; and three red circles next to each other labeled ‘High Concern’. /end text description]
Whiiiich is definitely helpful if you’d like to be more careful with what spices you use based on the information available. (That said, they only tested 38 brands, and there are a lot more out there than that. Again, I highly recommend reading the article.)
Tags:
#here’s the other thing I was referring to re: turmeric #food #home of the brave #PSA #poison cw #what’s the warning tag for brain damage‚ I feel like that should have a specific tag
I actually used to hate it! Like, actually despise it! Yellow was too bright, too loud, discordant, unruly, and clashed with everything. Nothing like what I wanted in my life, nothing I wanted to be.
When I first moved away from home, everything I owned was black. Jet back. As black as I could get. Smooth, cool, sleek, discrete, calm, unassuming. Flexible, cohesive, agreeable black. Fashionable black.
I had a really, really bad time. Unrelated to the decor. It was my first year out of a toxic place I’d grown used to my whole life, my first year acknowledging a mental illness I’d believed to be normal, my first year fending for myself with very little money or sleep or companionship.
I’d grown up on instant white rice and unseasoned ground beef. One day I realized that everything I’d been raised on tasted like cardboard. While out on an assignment, I passed a tent with a woman selling spices, and bought myself some turmeric. I went home and tried making curry with it. It was so yellow.
Another time, my professor took us out to a modern art gallery. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but when we got there, the whole building had been painted bright sunshine yellow.
The artist’s theme was “happiness”.
What it is. How we make it. How to share it.
All bright, lovely yellow.
The house I grew up in was beige. The walls were white. The appliances were post 9/11 stainless steel. My job was to be quiet, compliant, presentable and agreeable.
Black goes with everything. Black is neutral. Black is quiet, reserved, elegant and mysterious.
Yellow is warm. Yellow does what it wants. Yellow tastes sweet and spicy and hot and cool, like a summer breeze, like sunflower petals, powdery like dust on a long dirt road and soothing like well-worn linen.
I still like the look of black. I like the look of most colors. But I like the way that Yellow makes me feel.
Do you understand?
Thank you to everyone in the notes sharing why they love yellow!
Tags:
#art #fanart #comics #storytime #colourful #I love this #(…though I did not notice the fridge horror the first time I read it) #(even though I know I had read https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/09/they-got-the-lead-out-turmeric.html by then) #((possibly I hadn’t learned yet that even rich countries struggle with spice contamination to a significant extent)) #((even if not *as* much)) #(let us hope that the turmeric was‚ uh‚ not *too* yellow) #poison cw #this probably deserves some other warning tag but I am not sure what #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
big shoutout to the gas station near my house which is running a deal on energy drinks and thought the best way to express this on their large LED sign was to make it read BANG MONSTER 2/$5
#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #juxtaposition #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
why did you people come up with russian names for what is supposed to be a movie set in italy. what was the thought process here. why does she sound like she walked out of a tolstoy novel
an insane response, but i can’t fight this. carry on
im being hunted for sport in the notes
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#Goncharov #meta #unreality cw #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
At least for US users, Classic Who is apparently now on Tubi. It’s completely free (with ads) and looks like a great option if you’re interested in the show. There are a few episodes not available (An Unearthly Child because of the rights drama and some of the animated missing episodes, I’m told) but it is basically all of them.
Tags:
#Doctor Who #the more you know #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
now that’s a lot. Dabbing unicorn Love Is Love Zipper US Flag.
The best part is that a lot of these are vertically oriented and they only have a left-facing flag background to edit it over, which results in a ton of the american flags being flown upside down, which is a symbol of distress.
Alright, so the crimes against vexillology are uncountable so we’re not going to count them. Instead I’m going to say that my first reaction to “American flag skull + autism” was to automatically parse all American flag skulls as the Sport Death flag and go “makes perfect sense, Senior House (RIP) had tons of autistic people”.
#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #it got better #flags #home of the brave #juxtaposition #computer generated images #embarrassment squick? #this probably deserves some other warning tag but I am not sure what #war cw? #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
so there’s this ‘cursed conlang circus’ running at the moment. and you gotta see some of these entries, like holy shit.
Tags:
#language #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
Every time Sean Astin makes a statement on whether or not Sam and Frodo were indeed gay for each other in lord of the rings he’s always like “well we have to acknowledge that attitudes around sexuality have changed dramatically over the past several decades and since authorial intent is only up to speculation, the story is open to multiple readings, some of which might have different significances for different groups of people also they kiss on the lips because I said so”
Rosie: “This is my husband Sam, and that’s his husband, Frodo. Frodo is my husband-in-law. I’m not into him, he’s he’s a bit too ‘elfy’ for my taste, but Sam likes him, and that’s fine with me. As far as I know, Frodo can’t give Sam children, but Frodo looks after ours all the same, so I don’t mind sharing Sam if it means another pair of eyes on the wee ones. In all honesty, our family tree is right simple compared to some hobbits. Yes, I’m referrin’ to you Lobelia, over there pretendin’ you ain’t eavesdroppin’. Still bitter you ain’t got either of my boys or their house, eh?”
Tbh it’s canon that Frodo invited Sam and Rosie to move in to Bag End after their wedding and they all lived there for a couple of years until Frodo went to Valinor, so yeah. Running with it.
And once Rosie dies, Sam says his goodbyes and disappears after him.
what’s funny is people assuming that rosie would somehow be too dim or naive to KNOW that sam loved frodo, instead of looking at a guy who would loyally follow a beloved friend to hell and then help carry him home again, and not be like ‘oh i can’t not fuck that.’
Polyamory, specifically polyandry, would be an interesting solution to the oddball population of the Shire.
The Shire is excellent farming country, with consistently good weather, and only one tough winter in living memory; hobbits like to produce large families; they’re resistant to disease, rarely violent, and encounter few dangers. It is usual for hobbits to produce many children, so that (for example) Bilbo and Frodo are unusual in both being only children, with no siblings, and not having children of their own. All of this should point to a population that increases every generation if not doubling outright. Young people (and their ideologies!) should rapidly outnumber the old with an ever-increasing effect and impact on society. However, the Shire has a surprisingly stable history; it never seems to increase or decrease greatly in population, and the bell curve of age seems… demographically balanced? There certainly isn’t a conflict from rising young bloods challenging the middle-aged reactionaries; there’s no unemployment; there are no housing crises or waves of emigration, or even a tendency for young people leaving home to marry. Meanwhile, not only does the Shire not suffer from internal pressures, but it remains obscure and hardly noticed in global politics.
What makes sense here is that adult hobbits form a loose group. Four parents in a polycule, between them all, may produce four children. All four parents claim to have four children. An outsider would assume this meant the adults had eight children.
Hobbits therefore are not especially fertile or fecund. They simply have large families. Much of their interest in genealogy is due to the complex relationships of blood-kin, hearth-kin, love-kin and pledge-kin, who must all be carefully tracked and measured – not just because you need to make sure that you don’t climb into bed with an un-permitted degree of blood-kin, but to track family alliances and carefully quantify the precise level of thoughtfulness to put into the proper present to gift your father’s lover’s lover (too much implies a degree of intimacy that might upset the polycule.)
Thus, while a hobbit matron may tell a startled dwarf that she has seven sons, she might only have borne five of them herself, and have one hearth-son by her wife, and a pledge-son of her first husband’s. There are between three and four fathers involved at various stages of production, from conception to pledge-duty, but there is debate about the precise number of fathers, as one child was festival-conceived and therefore provisionally pledged to the Brandybucks until more distinctive paternal traits should materialise. It’s expected that four of the sons will be uninterested in women, and their contribution to family life will be in raising hearth-children and pledge-duty. However, this level of detail is normally negotiated later in conversation, as a mutual overture of friendship. So she’s just clear and simple: yes, certainly, she has seven sons. Yes, they’re all hers. Yes, that’s fairly normal – yes, hobbits like big families. How big? That’s really hard to say! Well, about thirteen hobbits live in her house… er, she has forty-three nieces and nephews. Yes! She has nine siblings, that’s correct, but some of them are still babies themselves..
In this way, a bewildered dwarf might assume that hobbits are absurdly fertile, producing an average of seven children per couple, at an absurd pace.
When in fact, with about half of hobbits never bearing biological children, the population of hobbits is pretty much always the same.
Tl:dr, hobbit population works perfectly well, both internally and in the perceptions of outsiders, if the majority of the Shire is gay, they’re all polyamorous, and they all firmly claim to be parents of high numbers of children. Of course Frodo fathered Sam’s kids – he named them! They were pledge-kin but not hearth-kin, as Frodo needed a lot of quiet and stability in the home.
No outsider ever parses hobbit genealogy well enough to understand this except for Gandalf, who never explains anything either.
Since “pledge” kinships are multidimensional and can occur in different directions, hobbits can form – and formalise – family bonds simply because they choose to. Gandalf doesn’t tell anyone that the formation of Thorin’s Company, the Fellowship of the Ring, and Belladonna Took’s Accidental Troop of Mercenaries* are legal formations of pledge-siblings, a hobbit family structure usually claimed to increase social class and prestige (as high numbers of pledge-kin confer distinction on a hobbit, being a sort of popularity vote/endorsement that adds greatly to their social power. Incidentally, this is partly why Bilbo was both controversial and successful in his pledge-claim of Frodo; outsiders mistook his “bachelor” status as someone living outside of heteronormativity, while the Shire was bewildered and increasingly annoyed by his rejection of pledge and hearth commitments. By rights Bilbo had too few pledge-kin, and too little parenting experience, to claim rights to an orphan, especially one from Brandybuck hearth; but conversely, his social status was high enough that his belated bid for his very first pledge-son couldn’t reasonably be denied by anybody.)
In short, all of the hobbits enjoyed achieving even larger families on their adventures, legally and without argument or debate. It’s free real estate. If nobody else is going to sibling these losers, we will. (The condensation of so many entanglements at once also legally made Pippin his own father-in-law.)
Gandalf never explained.
* see the post about the Old Took’s “enchanted diamond cufflinks” that obeyed the wearer’s commands; which were probably, given the general state of things, two lost silmarils recovered by his Remarkable Daughters and gifted to him because things stay small and safe in the shire
Only through Boromir while Boromir was alive! Pippin’s familial claim through Boromir technically dissolved on Boromir’s death, as Denethor hadn’t been privy to it, and those bonds rarely stretch to a stranger when the person in the middle has died before introducing them; although Pippin, who was well-brought-up, perfectly and politely rectified the problem at once by simply swearing himself as Denethor’s pledge-son. but through his blood-cousinship to Frodo, who was older than Boromir, his status as the Took double-primarc (don’t ask) and the proximity-enhanced status-doubling effects of having a five-way cousin in Merry, Pippin was demonstrably higher status as a pledge-sibling and was also his own father-in-law and approved of himself. As such, he would have significantly raised Boromir’s social status and marital prospects in the Shire.
Inheritance follows parent-child pledge as the primary consideration, with matrilineal descent as the secondary. Pippin would have been bewildered to gradually understand that Denethor held his two sons in such odd and different standing :-/ hobbits don’t recognise kingship so it would’ve been very upsetting and disappointing to Pippin to understand how Denethor stood in position of sworn-father to a whole city of people without even being slightly fair to his younger hearth-son. Aragorn is demonstrably much better dad-material and therefore had Pippin’s vote. Pippin, by virtue of being an excellent father-in-law to a spectacularly promising young son-in-law, also considered himself a better candidate for king of Gondor than Denethor, by outranking him in Dad Competence – but was too busy by the time he realized this to point this out .
Ironically, the events in which Pippin realized this made Faramir his own hearth-son – so Pippin won in the end and took a great interest in ceremonially approving of Eowyn. Gandalf never explained
Salvete, Gaius Iuli’us Caesar sum et pilorum album quam nivem habeo et aureos, sed interdum virides lauros et imperium Romanum construxi et eius eram quasi primus Caesar (sic merui nomen meum) et multi indicant mihi me Marcus Crassus similem esse (si non scitis Marcus Crassus, vobis opus est pecunia). Brutus non est filius meus quod est bonum nam ET TU, MI FILI???!?. Iamia sum sed dentes albos et rectos habeo. Pallidam cutem habeo. Etiam, maga sum magicum ludum, nomine Pigverruca, visitans quod desinam (ego sum MMCXIV), veni, vidi, vici. Classicus sum (si vos id non suspexistis) et multas togas emptas in Basilica Iulia habeo. Ratio amo et bellum Gallicum gero. Veluti, hodie omnia Gallia occupata. Omnia Gallia? Certe! Non est vicus parvus inter Aquarium, Babaorum, Laudanum et Brevisbonum. Ambulabam foris Pigverruca. Ninxit et pluvit et Gallia divisa erat in partes tres, quod me fecit felix. Marcus Porcius Cato me observavit. Digitum medium illo monstravi.
My Latin is pretty rusty, but I know enough to say that it’s a bunch funnier, so let me take a stab at translating. I’m breaking down the original so if I make any ridiculous mistakes through not having taken Latin in 15+ years, other people can correct me.
“Salvete, Gaius Iuli’us Caesar sum” – Greetings, all! I am Gaius Julius Caesar
“et pilorum album quam nivem habeo et aureos,” – and I have spears that are whiter than snow and golden
“sed interdum virides lauros” – but sometimes green laurels
“et imperium Romanum construxi” – and I built the Roman empire
“et eius eram quasi primus Caesar (sic merui nomen meum)” – and I was, like, its first Caesar (that’s how I got my name) [note: a more literal translation is “thus I earned my name”, but it’s obvious that this is a direct reference to the line “that’s how I got my name” in the original]
“et multi indicant mihi me Marcus Crassus similem esse (si non scitis Marcus Crassus, vobis opus est pecunia).” – and many people say to me that I seem to be like Marcus Crassus (if you don’t know Marcus Crassus, your work is money). [translator’s note: “your work is money” is not a phrase I’m familiar with. Google Translate suggests “you need money” as a more idiomatic translation. My best guess is it might mean something like “you work for your money instead of being a patrician with a family inheritance”.]
“Brutus non est filius meus quod est bonum nam ET TU, MI FILI???!?.” – Brutus is not my son, which is good because AND YOU, MY SON???!? [note: this is the more classically attested version of Caesar’s last words, famously quoted in English as “et tu, Brute?” or “and you [are killing me too], Brutus?”
“Iamia sum sed dentes albos et rectos habeo.” – I am a [vampire?] but I have white and straight teeth. [note: I’m more familiar with the Lamia as a Greek female monster similar to Scylla but with only one neck. However, Google Translate’s suggestion of “vampire” seems likely accurate from the obvious context.]
“Pallidam cutem habeo.” – I have pale skin.
“Etiam, maga sum magicum ludum, nomine Pigverruca, visitans quod desinam (ego sum MMCXIV), veni, vidi, vici.” – Also, I am a female witch [at?] a magic school, named Hogwarts, which I will stop visiting (I am 2094), I came, I saw, I conquered.“ [note: “Veni, vidi, vici” is famously what Caesar said when deciding to bring his army to Rome and become its ruler.]
“Classicus sum (si vos id non suspexistis) et multas togas emptas in Basilica Iulia habeo.” – I am classical (if you didn’t know) and I have bought many togas in the Julian Basilica.
“Ratio amo et bellum Gallicum gero.” – I love reason and I conduct the Gallic [French] wars.
“Veluti, hodie omnia Gallia occupata. Omnia Gallia? Certe!” – As if, today all Gaul is occupied. All Gaul? Definitely!
“Non est vicus parvus inter Aquarium, Babaorum, Laudanum et Brevisbonum.” – It is not a small village between Aquarium [pun: fish tank], Babaorum [pun: rum cake], Laudanum [pun: opium product] and Short Good.
“Ambulabam foris Pigverruca.” – I was walking outside Hogwarts.
“Ninxit et pluvit et Gallia divisa erat in partes tres, quod me fecit felix.” – It snowed and rained and Gaul was divided into three parts, which made me happy. [note: Caesar’s history of the Gallic Wars famously begins “Gaul is divided into three parts”.]
“Marcus Porcius Cato me observavit. Digitum medium illo monstravi.” – Marcus Porcius Cato [the Younger, a famous opponent of Caesar’s ambitions] stared at me. I put my middle finger up at him.“
The year is 50 B.C. All Gaul is occupied by the Romans. All? No! One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Babaorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Petibonum…
#okay so this one is closer to 8 business *months* (2023-05-14) #I don’t think any of the others are nearly so old though #My Immortal #language #oh look an update #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
oh the Reply All host* has a kind of spiritual successor podcast called Search Engine that’s ticking off most of the same boxes for me. It’s not explicitly about the internet but it’s about digging around trying to find answers for really specific questions, and it has a very similar vibe/editing/production.
Currently listening to “Why can’t we just turn the empty offices into apartments?” (Which thus far basically aligns with the stuff I thought I knew about the subject and has the same extremely-listenable quality that Reply All had)
Other eps of interest to me include “How sad are the monkeys in the zoo?” “How do I find new music now that I’m old and irrelevant?” and “Wait, should I not be drinking airplane coffee?”
Not a ton of eps out yet, like 15-20 maybe? Apparently they’re gonna do 40 and see how much support they get and if it’s enough then they’ll commit to 40 more and so on.
very tangential to “is it okay to drink the airplane coffee” -> lately i was reading about Germs On Planes and also Germs While Hiking -> apparently you sometimes get hiker-epidemics of norovirus on popular hiking trails, because there’s no running water to wash your hands with, and hand sanitizer DOES NOT KILL NOROVIRUS
which was news to me! maybe it’s not news to other people.
Tags:
#PSA #illness tw #vomit cw #unsanitary cw #norovirus is fucking terrifying #(she says as someone who probably has Long Norovirus) #((though she was never tested to confirm it was that and not some other stomach bug)) #(true‚ my new baseline is actually overall *better* than my old one) #(but those first two weeks fucking sucked and the next six weeks were not great either) #(and it was a few months after that to psychologically adjust to the permanent appetite reduction) #you ever read the Wikipedia article? #my main takeaway from reading it was that if you are ever eating in a restaurant #and someone‚ *anywhere* in the restaurant‚ vomits #abandon your food and leave immediately #(I don’t know what I’m going to do if I’m *working* in a restaurant and this happens) #(99.97% filtration might actually not be enough against fucking norovirus) #tag rambles #(I don’t queue tag rambles‚ so that I can keep track of which posts to put in the comment roundup) #(so you’re getting this one upfront) #(have fun)
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