Do people like eating a chemical found in caulk, glue and carpeting?

[jmowreader]

There are a LOT of chemicals used both in food and industrial products. Salt is used to make sodium hydroxide and chlorine gas, acetic acid is used to make hundreds of different plastics, lye is used to make grits...azodicarbonamide fucks up the environment less than other foam-blowing agents, which is why it's so popular. Turns out it's not legal for food use in Europe because the pure powder is a respiratory sensitizer, and the European Community (which has great worker-safety laws) doesn't want to force bakers to buy the kind of personal protective equipment you need to safely handle it.

If you don't want to eat this, I support that; running around screaming "OMG THEY USE THIS IN YOGA MATS!!!" is a bit counterproductive because there are so many chemicals used in food that also wind up in products.

[Scootaloo]

1. Do you know that some percentage of tofu is drywall?

Yup, good ol' calcium sulfate - gypsum - is used as the coagulant in most varieties of tofu.

[jmowreader]

2. Sure did

It's in bread and beer too...and most calcium supplements.

[Scootaloo]

3. As if you couldn't tell from the taste

[jberryhill]

5. Yes, and?

I guess next you are going to tell me that Milk of Magnesia isn't really milk.

[Scootaloo]

7. Nor is there a country named Magnesia

[eppur_se_muova]

13. Not a real country, apparently ...

a Greek toponym, derived from the tribal name Magnetes
Magnesia (regional unit), the southeastern area of Thessaly in central Greece
Magnesia ad Sipylum, a city of Lydia, now Manisa in Turkey
Magnesia on the Maeander, an ancient Greek city in Anatolia
Magnesia Prefecture, a former prefecture of Greece
Magnesia, a mythical city-state in Plato's Laws

The element magnesium is named after magnesia, not the other way around.

The origin of the name manganese is complex. In ancient times, two black minerals from Magnesia in what is now modern Greece, were both called magnes from their place of origin, but were thought to differ in gender. The male magnes attracted iron, and was the iron ore we now know as lodestone or magnetite, and which probably gave us the term magnet. The female magnes ore did not attract iron, but was used to decolorize glass. This feminine magnes was later called magnesia, known now in modern times as pyrolusite or manganese dioxide. Neither this mineral nor manganese itself is magnetic. In the 16th century, manganese dioxide was called manganesum (note the two n's instead of one) by glassmakers, possibly as a corruption and concatenation of two words, since alchemists and glassmakers eventually had to differentiate a magnesia negra (the black ore) from magnesia alba (a white ore, also from Magnesia, also useful in glassmaking). Michele Mercati called magnesia negra manganesa, and finally the metal isolated from it became known as manganese (German: Mangan). The name magnesia eventually was then used to refer only to the white magnesia alba (magnesium oxide), which provided the name magnesium for that free element, when it was eventually isolated, much later.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manganese#History

[Viva_La_Revolution]

19. no.. the cow is named Magnesia..

duh.

[mike_c]

4. OMG IT'S A CHEMICAL....

The anti-science is strong around here, young Skywalker.

(Just in case it needs to be said, I'm not criticizing your OP, I'm agreeing with it. Sarcastically.)

[Igel]

12. Could be worse.

Once had a student claiming that she was a Xian.

And her body was most definitely *not* made up of atoms and molecules. Only things were made of atoms, not people.

Really. And we stress out over fundie rejection of evolution?

Or the very much non-fundie girl who wanted to be a science teacher. Then during a standardized test review, when she was 17, it was mentioned that females produce eggs and males produce sperm.

"No way! I thought I made sperm! You mean I make eggs?"

I fear for my country's future.

[alittlelark]

22. What KIND of chemical? That is the question.

I have very little chemical science education in my Anth BS (almost 30 years ago)...

But I KNOW that chemicals interact w/ each other in ways that are not researched because they are not profitable to research.

W/O a profit motive there is no research - aside from universities years from now.....(possibly too late...)

[RC]

6. I'm not sure how to break it to some people around here, but

what we call water is a chemical also.

[ElboRuum]

8. ZOMG!!! DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE (DHMO)!!!

It's in everything!!111!1111!eleventy-one!!1

[RC]

10. That's right, you'll need your Hazmat suit and respirator.

People get killed by that stuff all the time. You'd think they'd learn after a while.

[liberal_at_heart]

21. +1

[rrneck]

9. Good book...

http://www.amazon.com/What-Einstein-Kept-Under-His/dp/0393341658

What Einstein Kept Under His Hat: Secrets of Science in the Kitchen

Robert L. Wolke received his B.S. in Chemistry from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now Polytechnic Institute of N.Y.U.) and his Ph.D. in Nuclear Chemistry from Cornell University. He has taught chemistry(in Spanish)at the University of Puerto Rico and the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, and is now professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh.
His books include Impact: Science on Society; Chemistry Explained; What Einstein Didn't Know; What Einstein Told His Barber; What Einstein Told His cook (nominated for both the James Beard Foundation's and the IACP's awards for best technical or reference book), and What Einstein Told His Cook 2 (also James Beard and IACP nominees). Further Adventures in Kitchen Science. His four "Einstein" books have been translated into more than 20 languages.
From1998 to 2007 he wrote a food science column (Food 101) for the Washington Post. His journalism awards include the James Beard Foundation's award for best newspaper column, the IACP's Bert Greene Award for best newspaper food writing, plus several awards from the Association of Food Journalists and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. In 2005 he won the American Chemical Society's Grady-Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public.
His extracurricular activities have included stand-up comic monologues and consulting for UNESCO in Bangladesh.

[SidDithers]

11. Evil scientific materialist rec...

Sid

[el_bryanto]

14. I made really good pickled onions yesterday

But I used Apple Cider Vinegar so that's completely different.

Bryant

[jmowreader]

16. They don't make acetic acid-free vinegar

[el_bryanto]

17. I don't know about acetic acid free vinegar - this vinegar had apples in it. nt

[Warren DeMontague]

15. I only eat wholly organic, natural products, like "Castoreum"

MMmmm! Nature!

http://www.businessinsider.com/11-disgusting-ingredients-that-arent-advertised-in-food-2012-3?op=1

[frwrfpos]

18. go eat cancer causing chemicals and additives that are banned elsewhere

I fully support your right to eat cancer causing agents that have been banned except in this country. Please by all means eat as much as you want every day. Eat twice the daily allowance

[hatrack]

20. FDA Commissioner Steven Hoyer Concurs!

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