[dyauspitr]

I believe if you’re using hexane to extract the vegetable oils it should definitely be called artificial. A highly artificial substance was added to the food at some point.

Lye is typically not artificial if it’s made from sea shells and wood ash like it has been traditionally. Even the industrial chlor-alkali process just uses salt (NaCl) and water so it’s not artificial.

[IAmBroom]

To point out how confusing this is: If you add a knife tip to a cow carcass to extract the steak, that is adding a highly artificial substance to the food at some point.

Likewise if you use steel balls to tumble-crush shells into calcium carbonate powder (don't know if they do, or if it's even a product, but neither are the point here).

"We are required to inform this table that your naturally wild-caught salmon had, briefly, at one time, a small hook inserted into its mouth. It was otherwise wholly without artificial feed nor other additives."

How do you write a law that slices between those ideas and hexane, clearly?

[dyauspitr]

On a case by case basis that generally aligns with common sense. Most people can instantly recognize a hook and knife are very different from adding a solvent to food. Drug laws are a good analog for this. I don’t think the universe of possibilities in this space is prohibitively large.

You can probably begin by broadly calling petroleum and petroleum products artificial.

[SPICLK2]

There's a rich heritage and history of solvent-based foods. Vanilla essence, sloe gin, etc.

[dyauspitr]

Ethanol would probably be classified as a natural solvent. The edge cases fall off very quickly, this can definitely be done on case by case basis without introducing onerous bureaucracy.

[SPICLK2]

Even if it were distilled from petroleum?

[dyauspitr]

Ethanol is not distilled from petroleum. Industrially it is produced by distilling plant sugars and starches.

[gruez]

>Lye is typically not artificial if it’s made from sea shells and wood ash like it has been traditionally.

There's approximately 0% chance that the typical pretzel you bought is made with dye derived from wood ash.

[dyauspitr]

Well yeah but I addressed how it’s made industrially as well.

[gruez]

>Even the industrial chlor-alkali process just uses salt (NaCl) and water so it’s not artificial.

By that standard is anything artificial? Oil comes out of the ground, after all. At least with "natural" colors you can argue the actual molecule was synthesized by a plant and we're just purifying it, whereas for industrially produced lye it's entirely man made.

[dyauspitr]

Salt and water are pretty “natural”. You can get pedantic about this but there is enough here to classify these on a case by case basis.

[SPICLK2]

Can you define a "highly artifical substance" in this context? As you desctibe it, it seems to be "a subtance that can't be made entirely from feedstock that was once living".