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There was a bit of media excitement when a startup called Clear Food claimed it had found all sorts of dastardly things in hot dogs: human DNA in 2 percent of the samples — mostly the veggie dogs; meat in 10 percent of the vegetarian foods; pork in products that were supposed to be pork-free.
A note on human DNA in food: We aren’t talking about a “Soylent Green is people” scenario here. Instead, it’s probably a speck of a cook’s skin that self-exfoliated at just the wrong time.
I have very mixed feelings about this. I’m all for using objective data to figure out what foods are healthy and trustworthy. But I worry that Clear Food’s testing will, instead, turn up things that sound gross but have no real impact on our well-being. As I read the nutrition headlines I get the feeling that the American eater is trapped in a house of horrors, continually running from monsters. Every time we throw open a new door to escape, there’s another demon. Gah, cancer-causing bacon! Aaaaaah, gluten! Nooo, meat in my veggie dog! Is Clear Food going to provide the enabling technology to turn our food paranoia into full-blown paralytic orthorexia?
Read full, original post: Why you shouldn’t panic about human DNA in veggie dogs
