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I'm a role model, always prepared.

Too bad the boy scouts think I'm icky.

He was probably referring to things like alkalosis.

Apparently some people do drink it mixed in water... some sort of cleansing diet thing. You know those health fads.

I have no idea what baking soda is for. Do people actually cook with it? And that's different from the stuff that you put in your fridge, right? That's baking powder?

Or, science and tests and cancer and all that stuff, or maybe it's just the nature fairies that cause people to be sick and fat.



Ah yes, that inedible baking ingredient. Nobody sits down to a heaping bowl of flour or raw eggs either. They are just a "catalyst" for a "chemical reaction". Like that magical fluoride that we put into water that makes out teeth "stronger" but is actually proven to make teeth weaker and therefore necessitates more dental work. Oh, and it contributes to heavy metal buildup in the brain.

But hey, pretty white teeth, yeah? Except that most countries that stopped fluoridating their water saw no increase in cavities or enamel problems that fluoridate is ONLY given to us to prevent.

I didn't come to play a game of semantics, I came to maybe encourage people to do some research. I kept my links of the safe wiki variety so as to allow baby steps.

"Science and tests" determined that things produced "artificially" are bad? Huh.


Erm, no... they're not.


In excessive doses, sure. Hence, you know, the 4 ppm thing.


There's no "semantics" and you sound like Gbaji when he's crying because he's caught in errors. "Semantics, Joph!" You just failed to make a good argument. Live with it.

I'm pulling the semantics card because when you speak in broad terms and say things like "Nobody sits down to eat a pile of baking soda!" it is just an excruciatingly poor analogy. I'm speaking from my own personal experience and research, in that when I was a child of 7 or 8 I had to have dental work done because of "dental fluorosis", which I later found out was caused by consuming too much fluoride as a small child while my teeth were developing. Now, I wasn't eating tubes of toothpaste by any means (and some kids do I'm sure), in fact that only thing I may have done out of the ordinary is use mouthwash fairly often, but regardless, I was a child consuming what are presumably meant to be adult doses of fluoride in my normal environment. Knowing what I know now by reading things outside of the scope of what the media feeds me directly, it is one of the most minor problems associated with fluoride consumption, however it is so oxymoronic and flawed in its manifestation that any even potentially harmful side effects could be eliminated by removing fluoride from water, and in fact would probably even out the cases where fluoride is such a delicate balance between benefit and detriment.

Returning to SPG's original link, this is what it has to say:



Sounds like a pretty delicate balancing act to me, when it comes to "dosing" a child. So SPG needs to be fluoride testing every source of water his child drinks from to ensure no fluoride poisoning occurs? Doesn't this sound a little precarious?

Everyone here is so terrestrial and eager to debate, however when I post 95% of the time it is in an effort to inform people, or get them to consider something from a different point of view at least. Arguing over whether baking soda is "edible" is hardly a worthwhile or thought-provoking endeavor. Attempting to come to your own conclusions about events through research and thought is.

Edited, May 25th 2013 11:40pm by Guenny

It's not an analogy. It's a simple fact that baking soda falls under the broad category of things that can be safely ingested in moderate quantities but are not actual foodstuffs. I originally brought it up because you were on about "pea sized" amounts of toothpaste and I said that, fluoridated or not, eating toothpaste was a lousy idea due to the base components not being edible (including baking soda). In other words, the "pea sized" warning on the toothpaste tube isn't evidence that fluoride is harmful although I wouldn't doubt that a tube's worth doesn't do you any favors.


I really don't know SPG's situation or especially care. That said, "testing every source" is a silly overreaction. The one glass of water from a restaurant two towns over isn't going to be what makes a difference. Knowing what the levels are for your municipality is probably more than sufficient since that's where the vast majority of their water would come from. I'd guess this could be accomplished with a single phone call to the municipal water department. Heck, I get biannual statements about exactly what's in my water.


Informing with erroneous information isn't especially helpful.


Slings and arrows, darling. Slings and arrows.

Edited, May 26th 2013 12:00am by Jophiel

Not anymore I thought? At least for membership.

I hope we can all look back at this and laugh some day. Because I suggested that I brush my teeth with baking soda instead of fluoridated toothpaste, every effort in the world to discuss and discredit baking soda has been taken. The only point I've tried to make is that I believe that the dangers of fluoride outweigh the benefits. I've yet to have anyone even adequately attempt to counter that position. Drawing analogies to baking soda is uninformed and counterproductive at best.



You're trying to analogize baking soda with fluoride by saying "No one eats a tube of toothpaste/No one eats a bowl of baking soda." It's a waste of your effort to keep trying to do so because you begin to spin like gbaji (who indeed was the first one to throw slings?)



Since you choose to play ignorant again, I was originally responding to SPG discussing how he gives his daughter fluoride supplements to boost or replace what is/isn't in their drinking supply. He gave an ADA link where I quoted directly the information insisting that while taking the fluoride supplements, care must be taken not to overdose by checking the multiple water supplies your child uses. Saying it's just silly doesn't make it not a medical fact as offered by the ADA in regard to its drug that it's prescribing to toddlers.



Let's take a look at the wiki quote that you threw at me to try to discredit everything else I've said:



Okay, so in India they experienced fluoride poisoning due to natural formations. Yes, fluoride occurs naturally in water. (!) This is the naturally occuring mineral fluoride, which is present in a lot of drinking water, but we think since a little is good that more must be better, so we add chemical fluoride. There are many types of chemical fluoride, some are used as pesticides, etc, because of the fact that they are a poison. But it's okay to lace our drinking water with it because it keeps our teeth white. This is what we must be telling ourselves.

So it happened once in a third world country with a natural water supply. And the same is EXPECTED to happen in other countries? So it hasn't yet but it's just conjecture? They don't have any 4-5 year studies that yet show children experience bone problems when taking excessive fluoride? Regardless, it causes bone deformations in children if you go over the "sweet spot!" How is that okay except without a little bit of cognitive dissonance?

I'm not insulting you, I'm pointing out the obvious. You claim to want to get to the facts in situations but you are proving to me that you are mostly trained by gbaji to gut react on what you think you know, which is often right, and then post funny little quips that you think prove your intelligence over the person you are failing to prove wrong. I just thought you would like to know in case you cared. I'm offering real information, you saying that it is erroneous because it's detrimental to your world view doesn't mean that it's erroneous to people who actually will do further research and make decisions for their children and themselves based on evidence.

No, I'm not. I said "no one eats a heaping bowl of baking soda" in response you you going on about how you use it in the "kitchen" in "recipes" so it must be food.


And I said that your average toddler doesn't use more than one or two water sources with any frequency. I'm not "playing ignorant", I'm saying I don't know enough about SPG's situation to comment directly on him. Which I don't.


I know. I was laughing because you were previously saying how the fluoride we use in the US for water is "chemical runoff" so it must be eeeevvvviiiilllll while India grapples with the issue of naturally occurring fluoride, placed in the earth by the gentle graces of Mother Gaia.


No, we add it because we don't live in India nor have India's levels of naturally occurring fluoride.


Lots of things are toxic in great doses. Some of those things are beneficial in lesser doses. This is setting aside the fact that just because "some" types of fluoride are used as pesticides, doesn't mean that the stuff in your water is the same compound. More scare terms.


Because, again, we don't live in a region where the water is contaminated with great amounts of naturally occurring fluoride. Should I stop going to the lake because once a giant wave hit Indonesia? I mean, this one time a ton of people died on the other side of the world and in completely different situations because of a giant wave of water so I need to avoid water from now on, right?

That's an analogy, by the way.


No, seriously, it's just wrong. When your argument is relying on scare phrases and misunderstanding things like safe doses, it's just that you're being incorrect. Has nothing to do with my "world view"; I'm not the one with a giant chip on my shoulder because I had to get dental work done and now I'm evangelizing the evils of fluoride. Fluoride generally plays an extremely minor part of my day. Sorry you had too much fluoride as a kid. On the other hand, water fluoridation is credited with dramatic drops in dental caries among children which also require dental work and can result in pretty nasty health effects if untreated so, if only from an actuarial standpoint, we're far better off.

What's up with the lengthy posts? Are you guys going to start a Gbaji fanclub or something?

I'm not the one trying to prove it's eeevviilllll using "LMGTFY" as my cite. For that matter, I'm not the one trying to prove it's evil at all. You're the one making the argument, if you can't make a good one that's on you.

Nice job trying to throw the "Gbaji" thing back at me. Know who else takes the things that stung him most and tries to turn them back on me?...

SpoilerHitler