On Sunday, we posted Food Babe: Serving up misinformation and rancid advice by Guy Chapman. We have received some feedback on one point related to craft beer:
"She’d have done the public a much greater service by pointing them to better quality craft-brewed beers, which are not only less likely to be mass produced using chemicals, but also taste much better and support family firms."
The author has responded to those comments. Thank you for your comments, it's been a very popular article! Vani Hari sure is a controversial figure and we are pleased to have sparked discussion and intelligent criticism of her claims.
Also note that it was the Editor, not Mr. Chapman, who added the graphics to the story. It appears that one may be a photoshop job ("kemicles"). I did assume this when I saw it but I was attempting a visual statement that Hari tends to also abuse and misuse some facts in her work. I apologize that it may have been misinterpreted. - Editor
"She’d have done the public a much greater service by pointing them to better quality craft-brewed beers, which are not only less likely to be mass produced using chemicals, but also taste much better and support family firms."
The author has responded to those comments. Thank you for your comments, it's been a very popular article! Vani Hari sure is a controversial figure and we are pleased to have sparked discussion and intelligent criticism of her claims.
Also note that it was the Editor, not Mr. Chapman, who added the graphics to the story. It appears that one may be a photoshop job ("kemicles"). I did assume this when I saw it but I was attempting a visual statement that Hari tends to also abuse and misuse some facts in her work. I apologize that it may have been misinterpreted. - Editor
By Guy Chapman
Any statement about the quality of anything related to beer should always of course be prefaced by an implicit "arguably" and the footnote "de gustibus non est disputandum".
My point was that if Hari really wants to protect her readers from "chemicals", why does she not point them towards smaller, and thus more responsive, brewers, who brew on site and in small batches, so do not need to add preservatives and the like? It's a rhetorical question and one based on what I think is a defensible opinion, though one I freely admit may not be universally shared.
Of course any statement about the quality of beer is, as the correspondents rightly point out, necessarily subjective and personal, but the idea that craft brewed beers taste "better" than industrially produced ones is not particularly controversial. It's a subjective judgment but one backed by numerous brewing awards (though these will I guess also tend to skew towards the craft ales).
It would be unwise to place too much emphasis on what is, after all, an aside, but it's certainly true that I have allowed my own bias to creep in, and equally possible that it may raise cognitive dissonance among readers who are fans of one or more of the products discussed. I welcome the challenge to my assumptions but regret that I cannot personally agree to undertake blind tastings, however attractive that idea might be, since I was diagnosed coeliac a couple of years back and am now restricted to gluten free beers, in which choice is sadly very restricted.
So I thank your readers for pointing out my error and stand chastened and corrected, shown up as one who rarely speaks to such a large and discerning audience. Cheers!
Any statement about the quality of anything related to beer should always of course be prefaced by an implicit "arguably" and the footnote "de gustibus non est disputandum".
My point was that if Hari really wants to protect her readers from "chemicals", why does she not point them towards smaller, and thus more responsive, brewers, who brew on site and in small batches, so do not need to add preservatives and the like? It's a rhetorical question and one based on what I think is a defensible opinion, though one I freely admit may not be universally shared.
Of course any statement about the quality of beer is, as the correspondents rightly point out, necessarily subjective and personal, but the idea that craft brewed beers taste "better" than industrially produced ones is not particularly controversial. It's a subjective judgment but one backed by numerous brewing awards (though these will I guess also tend to skew towards the craft ales).
It would be unwise to place too much emphasis on what is, after all, an aside, but it's certainly true that I have allowed my own bias to creep in, and equally possible that it may raise cognitive dissonance among readers who are fans of one or more of the products discussed. I welcome the challenge to my assumptions but regret that I cannot personally agree to undertake blind tastings, however attractive that idea might be, since I was diagnosed coeliac a couple of years back and am now restricted to gluten free beers, in which choice is sadly very restricted.
So I thank your readers for pointing out my error and stand chastened and corrected, shown up as one who rarely speaks to such a large and discerning audience. Cheers!
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