tinkr.net

Sometimes I wish I had the time to research all the nonsense I see posted on Facebook. If a title sounds outrageous, it’s 99.99% likely to be bullshit.

Today I saw that the FDA approved paint thinner in kid’s cereal.

Yeah, pretty obviously bullshit, but one of my family members believed it and posted it on Facebook.

A Google search brings up mostly the crank sites. I dug a little deeper and it seems they were complaining about trisodium phosphate in cereal. Which for starters, isn’t a paint thinner, but it is a chemical! Guess what? EVERYTHING is chemicals. I’m chemicals, YOU are chemicals, your computer is chemicals. They are everywhere, and everything. Chemicals have multiple uses, and every chemical is safe and dangerous. It’s really the dosage that matters. Believe it or not, there is an acceptable level for cyanide in public water systems. It’s extremely low, 0.2 mg/L, but there is a level where cyanide is harmless. Just because you never heard of a chemical, or it has a long name, doesn’t mean it’s bad for you.

Trisodium phosphate at high concentrations is a good cleaner. In food, at a much lower concentration, trisodium phosphate is used as an antioxidant.

I didn’t research it any further because who has time for that? This article was just simply chemophobia with a catchy headline. Why people forward crap like this on is beyond me. It’s just more proof that we need more and better science education in our school systems.