[vel0city]

> Most of the food that sits on the shelf for weeks shouldn't be consumed.

Salt? Flour? Oil? Oats? Rice? Garlic? Black pepper? Most ground spices? Nuts? Beans? Honey? Vinegar? Quinoa? All of these can reasonably sit on a shelf for weeks. I guess none of these are safe to be consumed, all just "toxins".

[ghaff]

Or months plus. Flour probably gives better results for yeast breads in the weeks timeline but the average household isn’t buying a new bag of flour every couple weeks.

I do keep nuts in the freezer for the most part.

[Dalewyn]

Depending on who you ask, flour isn't food.

I consider them crazies in the same vein as vegetarians who judge whether something is a vegetable based on how cute it looks.

[sdo72]

That isn't most, and I mentioned synthetic chemicals & preservatives.

[vel0city]

Pretty much all oils are processed foods. Vinegar is a preservative and is a processed food. Most salts are processed and are common preservatives. Flour is a processed food.

The reasons why Twinkies are so shelf stable are largely the same reasons why flour or rice or olive oil is shelf stable.

Better be careful of those chemicals like sodium chloride and dihydrogen monoxide.

[teddyh]

I think it’s the same as “chemical”. When something’s bad, it’s a chemical. When something’s good, it’s not.

I.e. nobody knows what “processed” means, they just know it’s bad somehow.

(Re-post of <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27397900>)

[sdo72]

> Salt? Flour? Oil? Oats? Rice? Garlic? Black pepper? Most ground spices? Nuts? Beans? Honey? Vinegar? Quinoa?

Sure, if you are assuming Americans are mostly eating these things daily.

[vel0city]

Twinkies are made up almost entirely (by mass) of the things listed above. The only major thing missing is sugar.

[sdo72]

Should you check the ingredients again? that's your definition of most?

[vel0city]

Twinkies ingredients, minus the less than 2% (was saying most by mass):

Sugar, Water, Enriched Flour, High Fructose Corn Syrup (sugar), Tallow (animal fat/oil), Dextrose (sugar, from the HFCS), Egg

Twinkies are >98% sugar, flower, oil, with a little bit of egg.

You could substitute the tallow with other similar kinds of oils if you wanted, like say coconut oil.

[kergonath]

> All of these can reasonably sit on a shelf for weeks

Or for years, in a proper cupboard.

[autoexec]

> Salt? Flour? Oil? Oats? Rice? Garlic? Black pepper? Most ground spices? Nuts? Beans? Honey? Vinegar? Quinoa? All of these can reasonably sit on a shelf for weeks.

They're probably full of things that are bad for you too.

Your salt is full of microplastics (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/micro...). Your oats are full of chlormequat. Your spices are full of heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, and lead), and the same is true for vinegar, nuts, beans, and rice. Most honey sold in stores isn't real honey but comes from China and can be filled with chloramphenicol and other illegal animal antibiotics. Almost all of the extra virgin olive oil sold in US stores is fake and can also be contaminated with phthalates. Around half the garlic sold in the US comes from china and according to some this is Communist Sewage-Garlic, and a threat to national security (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67662779) which can also be covered in chemicals (the common claim is methyl bromide is used although I haven't seen anything to back that up)

The quinoa sitting on your shelf seems the least likely to be toxic or bad for you, but you might want to avoid it for other reasons (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jan/25/quinoa-g...)

[vel0city]

You're not wrong. The safest play is to not consume anything.

[kergonath]

None of these issues have anything to do with shelf life, though.