Easier said than done, though.
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The myths associated with food multiply exponentially, partly due to ignorance, but above all due to the multiplicity of media that live off of it. clickbait and social networks, that disperse the myths themselves or transform them into even more dangerous myths.
Don't let them mess you up with your food, from the doctor in Food Science and Technology Miguel Ángel Lurueña He has come to put some order and tell us that almost everything we took for granted was actually not true.
Food myths
In 2018, in various national media, It was claimed that McDonald's fries could be the solution to baldness. In reality, the news echoed a Japanese study that talked about producing hair follicles in culture dishes and manufacturing small silicone structures to serve as support and could be implanted in the skin of laboratory mice.
Don't get confused with food: An essential guide to know if you are eating well: 313 (Imago Mundi)
The relationship with French fries was only fortuitous: that used silicone, called dimethylpolysiloxane It is used as a food additive (E 900) in different foods, including frying oils, where they fulfill the function of preventing splashes and the formation of foams. Nothing else.
News like this, distorted by the media, is published every day, which added to all the myths perpetuated by our grandmothers, makes books like these essential: full of useful, practical and, above all, demystifying information. For this reason, the book has been a source of inspiration for entries in Xataka Ciencia such as If there is more air than potatoes in your bag of potatoes, it is not necessarily to deceive you..
"Organic" bananas, "antibiotic-free" meat, cookies enriched with vitamins, yogurts that "help our defenses." To eat safely and healthily you don't need to complicate your life. There's no need to count calories or juggle, either. The problem is that we are very clueless. It is not surprising. Every day we receive an enormous amount of information that is not rigorous and even contradictory. Is a daily glass of wine good for your heart or dangerous for your health? And if you look at advertising, it's even worse: what does it mean that a tomato sauce is “100% natural”? Furthermore, we do not have enough knowledge to properly interpret food labels and recognize their ingredients. In short, the world of food today can be summarized with three words: misinformation, ignorance and distrust.
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The news
Books that inspire us: 'Don't let them mess you up with food' by Miguel Ángel Lurueña
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
Often, we open a bag of potato chips and, surprise, it is half empty, even though it seemed completely full because it was actually full of air. However, this strategy is not the result of marketing. In reality it is somewhat more complicated and has to do with the preservation of the potato chips themselves.
Being half empty, the bags can fill with air, but a very special air, an atmosphere that protects the potato.
Light and oxygen
Potato chips and other similar snacks go rancid easily when exposed to light and oxygen. To avoid this, opaque bags are used to act as a light barrier.
In addition, inside there is a protective atmosphere: the air is replaced by a mixture of gases that protect the product, as explained Miguel Ángel Lurueña in his book Don't let them mess you up with your food:
In the specific case of French fries, nitrogen is normally used, which is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and inert gas, that is, it does not react with other compounds and is safe for health. For this protective atmosphere to be effective, the ratio between the volume of gas and the volume of food must be equal to or greater than two, which explains why there is so much "air" in the bags and so few potatoes. Incidentally, this protects the product against breakage due to impact or crushing, that is, it serves as an "airbag".
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The news
If there is more air than potatoes in your bag of potatoes, it is not necessarily to deceive you.
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
The Dutch Golden Age It was a period of great wealth for the Dutch Republic. International trade flourished with the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This attracted immigrants, so the growth of the most important ports and cities was also stimulated.
During this time, the 17th century, art and science flourished, as can be seen in the famous works of the Dutch masters: Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer and Steen. And heterodox thinkers also arrived. The most iconoclastic of them all was, without a doubt, Spinoza. And that's how it changed our ideas of the natural world.
Spinosists
The most controversial philosopher of the time, Baruch Spinoza, he came to consider whether there is an ideal form of government, what is the responsibility of rulers towards their people, and other questions that seemed untouchable, such as the existence of God.
At the same time, it gained prominence Johan de Witt, a brilliant intellectual, a specialist in mathematics and law, who was also a very attractive boy. Despite coming from an aristocratic family, he was a fervent defender of republicanism. At 28, he was named Prime Minister of the Netherlands. De Witt longed for the country to be governed by the idea that the successors of kings and princes were those who were born from their wombs, but rather those who were chosen for their merits.
Those ideas were accepted with quite a bit of acceptance: not in vain, 30 % of all the books published in the world were published in Amsterdam. We were, therefore, facing a literate people and, furthermore, with a lot of editorial freedom.
But De Witt also had opponents: on the one hand, the orangers, who believed that every country needed a monarch; On the other hand there were the orthodox calvinists, who believed that all government needed to be founded on the Bible.
Spinoza idolized De Witt, and decided to leave his deepest philosophy behind to get down to work and support him with a new book intended for the general public. For the first time in history, someone declares that the basis of politics should be individual freedom, also adding that the democratic government was the closest to the state of nature and the most akin to said freedom. The book was published in 1670 and claimed things like the Bible was human and full of errors.
And, like religion, the government also had to abandon that mystical halo and submit to rational, scientific and secular principles.
The impact of the work was so profound and caused so many commotions that even De Witt had to join the voices that condemned him so as not to end up committing political suicide. However, De Witt was assassinated for espousing such unorthodox ideas. Spinoza could not believe how far human barbarism reached.
But, even though the attempt at a republican, humanist form of government, far removed from obeisance, had not finally caught on, those ideas did not completely die. They caused philosophical and political resonances in half the world. A new term even appeared: “spinosista”, from Spinoza, which meant subversive, extremist, dangerous, and even atheist. The Spinosists, however, were growing in number, and for them the term was synonymous with modern, rational, lucid, free of superstitions.
It was also a type of thought that fuels the trait of ambivalenceThat is, not being sure about everything, continuing to investigate, not proposing fixed recipes for complex problems. You can learn more about this feature, as well as its advantages and disadvantages, in the following video:
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The news
Spinoza was such a groundbreaking philosopher for his time that his followers were branded extremists, dangerous, and even atheists.
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
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