Author: Andrew Sullivan

Brad Plumer considers the absurdity of labeling food as “all-natural”:

In a recent essay in PLOS Biology, [Cambridge geneticist Ottoline] Leyser argues that it’s time to kill this mistaken idea once and for all. Basically everything in modern agriculture is unnatural. “The cereal crops we eat bear little resemblance to their naturally selected ancestors, and the environments in which we grow them are equally highly manipulated and engineered by us,” she writes. “We have, over the last 10,000 years, bred out of our main food plants all kinds of survival strategies that natural selection put in.”

There’s more along these lines. “Agriculture is the invention of humans,” she adds. “It is the deliberate manipulation of plants (and animals) and the environment in which they grow to provide food for us. The imperative is not that we should stop interfering with nature, but that we should interfere in the best way possible to provide a reliable, sustainable, equitable supply of nutritious food.”

Roberto Ferdman provides a chart on the subject:

The list of lucrative food labels is long, and, at times, upsetting.

Many of these labels are pasted onto food packages for good reason. It’s imperative, after all, that consumers with celiac disease be able to tell which food items are gluten free, or that those with milk allergies be able to tell which are made without lactose.

But some are utterly meaningless. Take food labeled with the word “natural,” for instance. Actually, remember it, because it’s probably the most egregious example on supermarket shelves today. The food industry now sells almost $41 billion worth of food each year labeled with the word “natural,” according to data from Nielsen. And the “natural” means, well, nothing. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn’t even have an official definition or delineation of what “natural” actually means.

Update from a reader, who passes along a classic Carlin skit on the subject:

Another reader takes issue with Ferdman’s reference to people with “milk allergies”:

Please, please don’t continue to spread the misconception that lactose intolerance has any relationship whatsoever to genuine allergy. It contributes to widespread misunderstanding of what allergies are, and, in particular, how serious genuine allergic reactions can be.

Lactose intolerance is a digestive disturbance. It is very unpleasant and uncomfortable – and definitely something to be avoided. I am afflicted myself and I know what I’m talking about here. But, accidental ingestion of lactose is not a life-threatening situation.

Genuine allergic reactions, on the other hand, can definitely be life-threatening. Every year there are reports of deaths due to genuine allergic reactions to accidental ingestion of peanuts or shellfish. Applying the term “allergy” to conditions that are nowhere near life-threatening trivializes the word and makes education of the public much more difficult.

A reader sides with Tyler Cowen on the question:

Once again, Chicago leads the way while New York sleeps – especially in the restaurant world. Consider Next Restaurant in the city’s Fulton Market District, run by famed chef Grant Achatz. You can only get a table by buying a ticket or by buying a subscription to the three different menus that the restaurant offers throughout the year.  I don’t know how many people are on the waiting list now, but when the restaurant opened in 2011, some 20,000 people signed up for the privilege of making a reservation. The restaurant (and its adjacent lounge, The Aviary) are hot, hot tickets, and prices can run nearly $500 a plate. This is not a reservation you miss.

Another is less enthusiastic:

I’m not sure how charging for reservations would fix the problem of customers showing up late and complaining about not being seated. My guess is that someone who has paid for a table is going to be even more pissed if he or she is not seated immediately, regardless of the time of the original reservation. (And is it really that hard for the person taking reservations to simply state that any party arriving more than five minutes late will lose the table, no exceptions?)

Anyway, here’s a compromise:

If I pay for a reservation and arrive late, I’m shit out of luck. But if I’m on time and the table isn’t ready (say, within five minutes), then the restaurant deducts the reservation fee from my bill. I’m sure guests arrive late all the time, but I’d also bet I’m not the only one who’s had a reservation at an expensive restaurant only to be told, “It’ll just be another five minutes” a dozen times before finally being seated.

Update from a reader:

“But if I’m on time and the table isn’t ready (say, within five minutes), then the restaurant deducts the reservation fee from my bill.” There is a corollary to this: If you linger too long after getting your check (say, five minutes), then the restaurant charges you enough extra for it to pay the reservation fee of the people you are keeping waiting.

Another interesting idea from a reader:

In my humble opinion, the best solution is the simplest and fairest one for those restaurants that want to charge for reservations and patrons somewhat wary of doing so. Have the reservation fee be a deposit that’s applied towards the cost of the bill. If the patrons no-show, that deposit is gone.

Use a car:

According to a recent report by the League of American Bicyclists, barely one in five drivers who end bicyclists’ lives are charged with a crime. The low prosecution rate isn’t a secret and has inspired many to wonder whether plowing into a cyclist with a car is a low-risk way to commit homicide. …

Data on the official number of prosecutions in fatal bicycle collisions is sparse, and following up on prosecution is the least-covered point. A May 2014 report from the League of American Bicyclists reads, “We don’t know much about the consequences of most crashes that result in bicyclist fatality.” Based on incomplete data, the report estimates, “Nationally, 45 percent of fatal cyclist crashes had some indication of a potential enforcement action; 21 percent had evidence of a likely charge; [and] 12 percent resulted in a sentence.” Put another way, killing a cyclist with a car was effectively legal in more than seven of every eight cases.

Update from a reader:

I agree with the absurd situation regarding the law and driver vs biker. Sure, there are laws on the books in many places that supposedly protects bikers, such as the one here in Alabama (as well as many places else) that stipulates cars had to clear a certain distance from bikes while passing them on the road. Enforcing them, however, are a whole different matter.

My little brother was side swiped by a car a few years ago.

Luckily, he had just minor concussion from the accident. However, the driver was not charged with any wrong doing with regards to the incident, even though she was clearly at fault. Worse, she sued my family for supposed damage to her car, and we lost because we didn’t hire a lawyer. We were hit with a 1000 dollar judgment.

We ended up hiring a lawyer for a total of $750 (including court costs and subpoena costs), and had the case thrown out on a technicality on appeal (we mounted a pretty convincing appeal and everything, but in the end, the new judge still didn’t find our counterclaim sufficient).

In short, not only the laws, but also the enforcers and the judges, are pretty much against the bikers in most instances. We’re at a point where bikers getting mauled down by cars most likely won’t get any justice, in a criminal case, but might actually be found liable for damages in a civil case.

(Photo of Alvaro Olsen’s ghost bike by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)