And because they often are included in food products, and there’s a fair amount of regulation around mixing non-food with food.
Ok guys, seriosuly no offence, but are you all from the states? I don’t want to do the usual US bashing, but I’ve never seriously seen silica gel in any kind of food, and especially in oral medicines that are individually packaged in protective atmosphere. So I feel like like it’s a cultural difference
Judging by the backlash I saw online on that butter recall because of the missing “contains milk” statement, it seems like few will miss the regulations.
In the long run, looser regulations could prove to be a Darwinian solution to most current issues.
A lot of good, smart people can’t afford to eat food they know for sure is safe. Hell, in food deserts it wouldn’t matter much either way.
It’s a mistake to imagine most regulation is just brainless nonsense. It would be like imagining the entire legal industry is composed of burglars suing home owners because they slipped in the kitchen whilst robbing the house and concluding we could easily do away with it.
Looser regulations is incredibly unlikely to effect only or even mostly the stupid or even only or even mostly the poor. Firstly the primary food supply for rich and poor right up to the 1% generally comes from the same ultimate sources the rich just A) mix some more expensive stuff in B) have people who fetch and prepare the food for them.
Also people are incredibly laughably bad at enacting food safety by voting with their feet even when a particular restaurant is making people sick. Oftentimes the actual sickness may take days to manifest and may not be connected obviously with the ultimate source. Now that is for things that at least directly sicken people. Things that are merely unhealthy may have an ultimate effect that is only visible at the population level where you see significantly more people get cancer in the next 10 to 20 years.