When I read the ingredients of certain foods, I often see something of this sort: “…oil (may contain one or more of the following: soybean, safflower, palm, and/or lard)…” Don’t the food companies know what they’re putting in their own products? Don’t they care? I mean, they’re either putting lard in the food or they’re not. –Ben Schwalb, Laurel, Maryland
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Your feelings are understandable, bubba. As many consumer advocates have pointed out, knowing exactly what’s in a product is no trivial matter. For example, a Muslim or an Orthodox Jew obviously would object to eating lard, which comes from pigs, but wouldn’t mind something like safflower oil. Of wider significance is the fact that animal fats and tropical oils like palm and coconut are much higher in saturated fat than ordinary vegetable oils such as soy, safflower, and cottonseed. Saturated fats, of course, have been associated with heart disease.
It is with great humility that I must point out an error in the Straight Dope. Please don’t feel I am questioning your omniscience; obviously this was the work of terrorists. In your December 16 column, you addressed the timeless question of whether a bullet shot from a gun will hit the ground at the same time as a bullet dropped from an equal height. You correctly stated that if the bullet were shot at 7 miles per second it would reach escape velocity. Your error is in assuming this means the bullet would go into orbit around the earth. On the contrary, escape velocity means just that–the speed at which the bullet would escape the earth’s gravity altogether and fly off into space. Orbital velocity is less–at an altitude of 180 miles, not quite 5 miles per second. As an illustration, the lunar missions had to achieve a speed of 7 miles per second to be able to reach the moon, while the space shuttle ambles along at a leisurely 5 miles per second while in orbit around the earth. –Joseph Kile, Madison, Wisconsin
