The Accidental Activist

09/08/2023

The Republican-led effort sparked a massive turnout and lopsided margins in the state's biggest cities — even some rural counties voted against them.

09/08/2023

The special election could have been a blueprint for red states. Instead, it’s a warning.

07/08/2023

Such hypocrisy

07/08/2023

Facial recognition software has always had trouble telling Black people apart, yet police departments are still using it.

01/08/2023

"The issue is not about running out of water, it's about having water in the right place," Lis Mullin Bernhardt, from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), told Live Science.

01/08/2023

If reelected, the former president would move to make his legal troubles disappear. Constitutional chaos and political mayhem would ensue.

01/08/2023

Its most recent term was a credit to the institution, not the abomination its critics allege.

31/07/2023

Meta’s Oversight Board is taking on abortion. Will it make a difference?

05/06/2023

28/03/2023

The Washington Post examined autopsy and postmortem reports from nearly a hundred victims of past mass shootings that involved an AR-15 style rifle.

08/03/2023

10/02/2023

Clean: a marketing phrase that insinuates products not labeled as “clean” are inferior. Let’s put this to bed once and for all: in the context of consumer products, clean has NO standard meaning.

Products marketed as clean are not inherently superior to products that are not. It is simply a phrase used by marketing professionals, whose job it is to convince you to buy their product over a competitor’s. That’s true whether you’re referring to cosmetic products, foods, supplements, or even clothing or mattresses.

Products labeled “clean” are not:

Chemical-free
“Non-toxic”
More environmentally-friendly
Healthier
Safer
Unprocessed

None of these statements are true.

EVERYTHING is processed before it arrives to you as a consumer. Even fresh produce items are processed, so clean doesn’t mean ‘unprocessed’, even in the context of food.

Since “clean” has no standard definition, companies are free to use it to refer to a wide array of topics. Often, they use the phrase to denote natural ingredients, or ingredients they claim to be safer, or even conflate it with ‘green’, which is another marketing buzzword suggesting one product is more sustainable for the environment.

In reality, none of these are true. Remember: everything is chemicals. And: anything can be toxic (or non-toxic) at a certain dose.

In addition, natural ingredients are not inherently better than synthetic counterparts, both from a safety and a sustainability perspective. Sourcing ingredients from nature can be substantially more detrimental to the environment than synthesizing those same ingredients using chemical reactions in a laboratory.

If you choose to buy products that use the phrase ‘clean’ on them, please just know that there is no definition of what this means, and it says nothing about the quality of the product. Don’t fall prey to fear-based marketing to scare you away from products you prefer simply because they haven’t bought into this newest marketing fad.

Sources:
https://www.foodsystemprimer.org/food-processing/
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/processed-foods/ #:~:text=Examples%20include%20cleaning%20and%20removing,and%20remain%20safe%20to%20eat.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/clean-beauty-has-taken-over-the-cosmetics-industry-but-thats-about-all-anyone-agrees-on/2020/03/09/2ecfe10e-59b3-11ea-ab68-101ecfec2532_story.html
https://ssir.org/articles/entry/there_is_no_such_thing_as_a_green_product #
https://www.unbiasedscipod.com/episodes/clean-beauty-is-all-made-up?rq=clean
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/fullarticle/2751513
https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/natural-skincare-environmental-impact-climate-change

07/02/2023

YES, THEY DO!

07/02/2023

28/01/2023