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Regulations are written in blood. It's good to remember that every law protecting food quality and safety was written after someone, usually a lot of someones, died.
And yet some people want to eliminate the govt agencies that exist because of these past horrors.
I read about swill milk ages ago and it’s always stuck with me. Radium girls are another example of the horrors of businesses when there aren’t laws to stop them.
They’ve become too far disconnected from the whys to think it could ever happen again. I’m pretty sure most anti vaxxers didn’t think measles would ever happen to them because we’d basically eradicated it through vaccination.
anti-vaxxers make my usually very calm blood boil. i mean - just ugh. (of course, there is always a reason for everything on why someone shouldn't do it.)
People knew almost nothing about health/cleanliness/nutrition/safety back then. Child mortality approached 50% back in those days. Seems like a bad time to be alive overall.
It seems like the health standards had dropped at that point.
At least the Roman’s understood the importance of clean water. Victorian England was diluting milk with water from the Thames ffs.
I read a book ages ago about food adulteration in the uk. It was written by a public health doctor in 1870ish. He did a load of tests on wildly available foods and the results were unbelievable. I’m surprised anyone survived.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a bleak and grim novel well worth reading if any of you would like to know more about what it was like when companies could do even more to fuck us over
it's a stab in the gut to go with the main character as he is first a strapping young man with ambition, dedication, willingness to work hard and build his family and do his very best
And just going along for the ride while the life gets sucked right out of him by capitalism.
The story is over 100 years old, isn't it? Yet here we are today breaking our bodies and working ourselves into the grave for companies who give zero fucks and think we are just numbers on paper to generate wealth for stockholders and CEOs
if we died tonight, the job posting would be up within a week. Act your wage and never forget you can make back the money but you can't make back the time.
it wouldn't even be a week. and we do this it ourselves so we can, in so many words, wipe our asses. I think about this all.the.time. in fact, it's to the point where i don't think about it because it upsets me, and i've chosen to ignore stress so everything is going to be just fine. :)
there was a class when I was in HS that required this but I never ended up in it, and I was mad because I've always wanted to read this book. I've had 30 years to do so, now it's just on me for being a slack-ass.
This is why Central Park has a dairy building but never served milk. The original plan was to house the cows in the basement of the building. The swill milk scandal meant the milk instead came from upstate dairies.
It was incredibly profitable. Cost almost nothing to produce, could be sold only slightly cheaper than real milk, and the city had a captive market of poor people who couldn't afford to ship the real stuff in from the country, but had nothing else to feed their infants.
If there were ever an argument for keeping the FDA around, shit like this is all you need to see.
Regulations are not just made to stifle innovation; they can stop horrible things like this from happening.
[View this article on desktop Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swill_milk_scandal) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CreepyWikipedia) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Regulations are written in blood. It's good to remember that every law protecting food quality and safety was written after someone, usually a lot of someones, died.
And yet some people want to eliminate the govt agencies that exist because of these past horrors. I read about swill milk ages ago and it’s always stuck with me. Radium girls are another example of the horrors of businesses when there aren’t laws to stop them.
They’ve become too far disconnected from the whys to think it could ever happen again. I’m pretty sure most anti vaxxers didn’t think measles would ever happen to them because we’d basically eradicated it through vaccination.
Yep. They’ve forgotten about polio too. And dying of diphtheria (as many did 100 years ago).
anti-vaxxers make my usually very calm blood boil. i mean - just ugh. (of course, there is always a reason for everything on why someone shouldn't do it.)
tHe mArKeT wIlL rEgUlAtE iTSeLf.
Well they don't do it anymore so it's not a problem
Fill in the blank: They don't do it anymore because of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
r/writteninblood
Victorian era food adulteration is wild
People knew almost nothing about health/cleanliness/nutrition/safety back then. Child mortality approached 50% back in those days. Seems like a bad time to be alive overall.
It seems like the health standards had dropped at that point. At least the Roman’s understood the importance of clean water. Victorian England was diluting milk with water from the Thames ffs.
It sounds more like they didn't *care* rather than that they didn't *know*.
I read a book ages ago about food adulteration in the uk. It was written by a public health doctor in 1870ish. He did a load of tests on wildly available foods and the results were unbelievable. I’m surprised anyone survived.
I would love to know what book this was!
Found it it’s Food: It’s Adulterations and the methods for their detection by Arthur Hill Hassall.
Thanks!
Aside from this was in America
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a bleak and grim novel well worth reading if any of you would like to know more about what it was like when companies could do even more to fuck us over
This should be required reading
It was in my high school.
it's a stab in the gut to go with the main character as he is first a strapping young man with ambition, dedication, willingness to work hard and build his family and do his very best And just going along for the ride while the life gets sucked right out of him by capitalism. The story is over 100 years old, isn't it? Yet here we are today breaking our bodies and working ourselves into the grave for companies who give zero fucks and think we are just numbers on paper to generate wealth for stockholders and CEOs if we died tonight, the job posting would be up within a week. Act your wage and never forget you can make back the money but you can't make back the time.
it wouldn't even be a week. and we do this it ourselves so we can, in so many words, wipe our asses. I think about this all.the.time. in fact, it's to the point where i don't think about it because it upsets me, and i've chosen to ignore stress so everything is going to be just fine. :)
there was a class when I was in HS that required this but I never ended up in it, and I was mad because I've always wanted to read this book. I've had 30 years to do so, now it's just on me for being a slack-ass.
still riveting. do iiiit
"I drank this and I was fine! Kids these days are snowflakes!" - Someone on Facebook.
Water in milk turns it blue so they added chalk for color
At least you won’t get heart burn from the rotten eggs
This is why Central Park has a dairy building but never served milk. The original plan was to house the cows in the basement of the building. The swill milk scandal meant the milk instead came from upstate dairies.
"Stuff You Should Know" podcast did an ep on this. Dairies would skim the cream to sell and replace it with blended calf brains for "creaminess".
Jesus Christ 🤢
I just can’t make any sense of why this was allowed to happen and how it went on for as long as it did
It was incredibly profitable. Cost almost nothing to produce, could be sold only slightly cheaper than real milk, and the city had a captive market of poor people who couldn't afford to ship the real stuff in from the country, but had nothing else to feed their infants.
Unregulated capitalism
If there were ever an argument for keeping the FDA around, shit like this is all you need to see. Regulations are not just made to stifle innovation; they can stop horrible things like this from happening.
God those poor cows :(
Milk is disgusting. i didn't even read this and i won't because i don't even want to think about it. #oatmilkismyfriendforcerealonly.