Comments on: “Free Speech About Science Act”

By: Ben S

Ben S — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:20:33 +0000

The etymology of antioxidant suggests that this compound is against oxygen, and we all know oxygen is good for us, so of course it follows that antioxidants must be bad. Down with antioxidants!

Wait a second, this isn’t the climate thread..

By: DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 17:52:57 +0000

Robert: If Hershey’s can get away with labeling its chocolate-flavor syrup “fat free” then I can’t see why it’s unacceptable for drink manufacturers to claim that their drinks have antioxidants in them.

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 04:45:47 +0000

This is an odd situation that it’s hard (for me) to take a side on. For example, many makers of green tea would tout the anti-oxidant content, but the plain old coffee that everyone drinks contains even more! (For example, see this article quoting the American Chemical Society: http://www.physorg.com/news6067.html )

So it was sort of misleading for makers of “healthy organic green tea” to say “rich in antioxidants” when there was nothing particularly special about it. And, in fact, assuming antioxidants are healthy, advertising that causes someone to switch from coffee to an alternative product that has antioxidant labeling may cause a consume to make a choice that is less healthy.

By: Le Mur

Le Mur — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 14:44:28 +0000

The orchards might have lucked out – now some researchers are claiming that (some/most/maybe all) “anti-oxidants” cause cancer, to the extent that they’ve had to shut down some studies for ethical reasons.