What are we talking about when we talk about chemistry

assorted-biscuits Today I read yet another chemist who, posing as a new Sheldon Cooper, discredits a food blogger who, for her part, basically says what I have often written in this blog too: that the excess of industrial products in our diet makes us bad, and it is making us fat, or at least it is among the full-blown causes of obesity. Basically, the chemist says that chemistry is in everything we eat and therefore, when a blogger talks about “eliminating chemistry from food” or “beware of chemistry in food” or “beware of industrial products” simplification, given that, for example, even vinegar or sodium bicarbonate can be translated into chemical formulas. And anything in high quantities is toxic. For example water. Drinking too much water causes poisoning. The problem with this chemist, as well as with other people who are brilliant trying to reiterate the obvious, is that even calling anything common sense as “pseudoscience” has outlived him. Common sense is common sense and it has nothing to do with science. If I am writing to you to avoid buying snacks with kilometer-long lists of ingredients or in general to avoid the “chemistry” on your plate, I know that I am telling you two things clear and simple and I know that writing them like this you will understand them in exactly the same way generic but effective in which I wanted to understand them. That is, by chemistry: all additives, preservatives, artificial dyes, thickeners, phosphates and those chemical agents that are generally only additives, i.e. they do not add anything to the product itself, but are used for the purpose of making the product more palatable (consistency, fragrance and all those characteristics that make the product more attractive from an organoleptic point of view), “more doping” (it never satisfies me) and to postpone its expiry. And by one kilometer long ingredient lists I mean the self-evident: one kilometer long ingredient lists.
There is no need for a star chef to know that a shortbread is a shortbread biscuit, which our grandmothers knew how to make at home (but also many other women now) and which in general contains: flour, sugar, butter, eggs, flavorings (for example lemon peel). Let’s say you add a yeast (it doesn’t always fit in the pastry). It would be flour + sugar + butter + eggs + flavorings + yeast. Do we want to add a pinch of salt? So be it. There are seven ingredients in all. Now let’s see the ingredients of a shortbread of the most famous brand of Italian biscuits:

Wheat flour, sugar, palm vegetable fat, fresh eggs 5%, raising agents (sodium hydrogen carbonate, ammonium hydrogen carbonate, monopotassium tartrate), fresh pasteurized whole milk, glucose syrup, salt, milk proteins, honey .
I count twelve ingredients. Butter has been replaced with palm oil, indeed, with palm vegetable fat, a misleading indication. Now, you don’t need a chemist to search the internet for the effects of palm oil on our cardiovascular health and in particular on cholesterol. I don’t want to crusade palm oil, but world-renowned endocrinologist Ray Peat does it very well for me . Why is palm oil instead of butter? Because it costs less.
Shall we talk about glucose syrup? As you can see it does not replace the sugar in the recipe , but it is added to the sugar in the recipe. Ah, and to top it off there is honey, the third sugar. Can we say that some of these ingredients are, how can I say, in excess of the original recipe? Can we say that some of these ingredients that we do not know well and that “our grandmother would not recognize as food”, palm vegetable fat or glucose syrup, are harmful to health? Yes. So when we talk about “chemistry” in a generic way or about “excessive, long and with unknown names” ingredient lists, instead of pointing the finger at the improper language, it is no longer possible to understand thatare we talking about ingredients we don’t even know and misleading labels, so we literally don’t know what we’re putting in our mouth anymore? Yes, come on, yes. Make this effort, rather than reiterating that an empty calorie doesn’t exist because a calorie is neither full nor empty (but go?). I’m a college graduate too, worked in science newsrooms, and I’m fussy about many things in life, but fleaing common sense isn’t going to make me smarter. And when we go to the supermarket, it would be better to be guided by this common sense.