the EYWC wellness edit Alicia Pope Hey Reader, I shared a video recently on my Instagram of a guy making McDonald’s at home with all the preservatives and additives. It was funny, and also eye-opening. You can watch it here. Watching this video, it’s easy to think: “If we just ban preservatives, pesticides, and additives, the problem will be solved.” But history shows that’s not how it works. When BPA was banned, it was replaced with BPS and BPF, which are just as harmful. Trans fats were...

the EYWC wellness edit Alicia Pope Hey Reader, If your news feeds are anything like mine, you have heard a decent bit about artificial dyes and food colorings. And it can be super confusing to figure out what's actually going on, so I thought I'd summarize some of the important bits here. Here's a quick recap on the background Ultra-processed foods are often colored to look more palatable and fresh than they are. Compared to other countries, colored foods sold in the US have a higher...

the EYWC wellness edit Alicia Pope Hey Reader, There's been a lot of talk about hallucinations this week... and probably not the type you're thinking of. ;) I'm talking about AI hallucinations. This is when AI makes stuff up. This happens because generative AI (like ChatGPT and Gemini) is designed to do just that: generate content. It is not designed to research, summarize existing facts, or fact-check. It is designed to create something that matches the prompt and seems plausible. You can...