misunderstanding chemistry

In the Pipeline is a blog written by an organic chemist who works in pharmaceutical development. He writes with intelligent laypeople in mind.

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/06/21/eight_toxic_foods_a_little_chemical_education.php refutes some of the misinformation in a fearmongering Buzzfeed article called "8 foods we eat in the U.S. that are banned in other countries." (The article is actually about chemical additives, some of which are not actually banned in other countries.)

I have felt especially fed up by pseudoscience lately (possibly having something to do with the latest shenanigans of the AMA *cough*). So this post scratched a particularly irritating itch of mine. A couple of excerpts:

If we're going to play the "made from the same atoms" game, well, strychnine and heroin are derived from the same harmful chemicals as the essential amino acids and B vitamins. Those harmful chemicals, in case you're wondering, are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.
...
If you're having chicken and rice and you want to worry about arsenic, worry about the rice.

Read the comments if you like to see people named "Anonymous" questioning whether the blogger is a real scientist.

If you like that, I also recommend the posts with the tag "Things I Won't Work With." Some of them are laugh-out-loud hilarious. http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/


None of this is intended to be an opinion about what anyone does or does not eat.