[jongjong]

The chemical contaminant problem is huge. The pressure to always lower food production costs has forced the industry to accept tradeoffs without considering the costs. The tradeoffs are at every step of the chain and if you ask anyone in the production chain about a specific contaminant, they will likely wave it off "no big deal, it's harmless" but by the time you go through the entire supply chain, this would accumulate to large numbers of contaminants from many different sources with complex interactions.

It's interesting that it works like fish and mercury contamination. Big fish accumulate mercury in higher concentrations than little fish. The little fish accumulate small amount over certain periods and are eaten by big fish which rapidly accumulate the chemical. The higher in the food chain the fish, the more mercury. It's a parallel with the degree of food processing. The more processed the food, the more contaminants.

You could characterize it as a general problem that humans and the planet are facing now. We have a problem with long chains. We are neglecting their costs. Even in the software industry, as a software developer, long chains of logic introduce their own problems with slight side effects at every stage accumulating into problematic unexpected behaviors and adding significant maintenance burdens. Guess what AI coding is contributing to? Longer chains of logic to solve the same problem.

At some point we have to put our foot down and reject unnecessary complexity and reject minor conveniences. There is too much fake convenience and fake safety which actually create much bigger inconveniences and hazards in the long run.

Everything in our society seems to be mirroring the debt-based system upon which our society is founded. Everything works like a debt which will have to be repaid later, with interest.