Navigating differences in risk tolerance regarding health
Hey Tildoes, my partner and I have been navigating a broad, government level health challenge and I was hoping to pick the hivemind for help on navigating it.
As some of you may have seen in articles posted here, there was a massive fire at the lithium ion battery plant in Moss Landing a few months ago. It ended up spewing a slough of nasty chemicals into the air, which inevitably landed in the surround agricultural fields and waterways. My partner was in Australia when the fire occured, thank god, but was still freaking out about downstream effects. There have been studies from a 3rd party group from UC Davis and San Jose State - that found elevated levels of heavy metals - however those have been downplayed by local agencies claiming there are not major impacts and that distribution was surface level. With everything we know about state and federal agencies oversight, sometimes they are less than transparent about reporting toxic impact factors - like what happened in Hinkley and was popularized by the movie Erin Brockovich. However today the California Certified Organic Farmers put out their own update and press release. They summarized what has happened and seem to be endorsing the safety of the farms they have certified in the area.
So here is the rub: Federal, state, county, and local agencies have determined there is not significant contamination, the CCOF has agreed with these agencies, and my partner is still uncomfortable eating local produce. It feels a bit like we're back in covid times, and she is looking for cherry picked studies to justify strict behavioral and consumption restrictions within our household. We have always agreed to "shift our risk tolerance according to data" and now - with the Trump administration and a general distrust of our fed/state agencies - she's advocating we continue to avoid these foods until there is "definitive proof" that the food is safe.
I'm kind of at a loss of what do to. On one hand, it's a minor thing to change where we get our food. Food systems are complex and we can kind of get it from anywhere. On the other hand, I love my time at our farmers markets, experimenting with new foods, and supporting our local community. I also think the more obscure the process from farm to shelf, the more possibility for health/employee/environmental shenanigans by the producers. To me buying broadly "American" or "Mexican" kale doesn't mean we aren't going to have similar or worse impacts to our food.
I'm trying to find a reasonable middle ground or a bellwether indicator we can use as a go/no-go, but every time I think we've agreed on one it feels like the goal posts have been moved. Do any of you have similar issues or possible navigated differences in risk tolerance during Covid well? If so, how did you do so? I know this is a bit of a random thread, but I'd love to hear what you think!
This sounds more like an anxiety thing than a "two different but both rational perspectives on food safety" thing, to me. That's relevant because in the latter, you decide whose model is best via negotiations and debate, basically. But in the former, it's an emotional question. I suspect this is what's going on when you say the goalposts are moving - you're approaching this from a logical/debate perspective and your partner is approaching this from an emotional/reassurance perspective.
Rather than try to find a middle ground on the actual vegetables, I'd advise that you dig in on your partner's feelings to see how they are doing and why. You're more likely to be successful that way.
Edit:
Please no
Yeah you can't really argue someone into feeling safe. What's acceptable risk for one can be unacceptable to another: 0.001% probability can both be a lot or a little.
@rosco my fellow Tildes member, is your partner fundamentally no longer able to trust the entire structure of regulations and how we know anything? That could be very serious. I hope you get to the bottom of it
Do you trust 100% of the regulatory and enforcement landscape? My guess is "no", which leads to my next question, "Do you trust 100% of your ability to discern what to trust and what not to?"
Easy no and easy no? I fear I've missed your point.
We probably agree right: Some skeptiscm is necessary and good, but having 0% trust in regulations and established methods of receiving facts isn't good right?
Yes, of course, but that's not what I'm getting at: if you trust completely or trust not at all things are easy. I want to know if you've thought about how to navigate the middle bits. How does one get anything done with so much uncertainty?
Aahh I see now, thanks, and that's 100% the ten billion dollar question isn't it.
I'd come to appreciate "true and kind uncertainty" over "false and pogheaded certainty" over the years.
I'd much sooner be with someone who's wrong on nearly everything but practices kindness on a day to day basis, than someone who knows it all but kicks kittens for fun. Turns out, when someone works hard on the much harder to do parts of life quietly, humbly, peaceably, they also tend to be more contemplative and are right about a lot of things.
Eg, if someone has long years of volunteering at the women's shelter and leads a social group for lost young men, it's likely that their view of government policies and the economy are correct. Conversely, a selfish, mean, arrogant, gluttonous, envious man is likely to be wrong about many things.
Thank you for your thoughts, I hope I wasn't too aggressive sounding at first, I'm genuinely curious about how people rationalize their worlds (maybe find clues to use for myself).
I think we can agree to those aspirations you describe. For me it can be exhausting to parse all these interactions into a something that feels defined, like a policy or something.
Yeah, yeah, I hear ya, I also want some kind of logical guideline :) but as I get older and older and older, everything I thought was hard and true and solid always has some angle I hadn't considered, some nuance that I missed, or risk becoming an idol that I set up on a altar to worship even at the cost of hurting people. No more rules for me except being kind. No rules are worth holding above that of the Golden Rule, and how it applies must necessarily vary from instance to instance because it must service individual human beings with unique stories and singular needs. Hell isn't anarchy, it's insistence on being right
Yeah, I'm just hoping we'll be able to find a place where even if we're not 100% happy, we can both live with the outcomes.
Eh, it's hard to tell. I don't think she is going full vaccine truther here, as the USDA and DOI have had some pretty significant hiccups in the past as far as sitting on known health factors to mitigate structural damage (now I'm sounding like a vaccine truther, haha), but I think there is some significant distrust. Unfortunately there isn't much/any 3rd party testing being done now so.... I'm still not sure what we're going to do. One recent nice option is that one of the groups at Elkhorn Slough (where the disaster took place) has shut down their onsite cultivation program for native species while they test their sites for heavy metal and contracted the non-profit my friend works for to fill the orders until they find out how bad things are. So he'll have an ear to the ground on what might be the only independent soil testing happening right now - with the confounding factor that it's not on edible vegetation and it's literally right next to the disaster site.
Oh man...dude it sounds like a massive disaster with impact for a long time :( what a bad time to be having it
That is a very astute observation. I'll try to keep that in mind when we discuss it.
I brought up this thread and some of the really insightful responses and she agreed to do just that. Hopefully we'll be able to better understand each other!
I can't help with your produce dilemma, but I'm struck by this comment:
Have you run into this 'she keeps changing her mind issue' before? Because I'm struck by something my sociology professor said years ago: in conversations, there's a tendency for women to give "I'm listening" feedback by nodding their heads, making little "mm-hmm" noises, etc; and there's a tendency for men to not do those things.
She said that gendered miscommunication of this type was partly what fed into two of the 'classic' gendered communication stereotypes: the wife who complains her husband never listens to her (because he never gives her the "I'm listening" feedback that she gives him); and the husband who complains that his wife is always changing her mind, because he interprets her "I'm listening" feedback to mean "I agree with you".
I'm not saying that's the case here, and I think the suggestion that this is an emotional issue and not a logical one is excellent, but I wanted to bring this up in case one of the contributing issues to your disagreement is a basic difference in communication styles.
I totally appreciate the call out but I think in our specific case that isn't what is happening. Though there is misunderstanding so I think I've made some assumptions.
We deal with most of our friction points using the Gottman method so everything is explicit. When we have disagreements we break it up where one person is speaker and the other is the listener. The listener has to repeat back what the speaker said and ask open ended questions until the speaker is feels like they have said their peace. The listener then has to repeat back what they have heard to the speaker satisfaction. Once that is complete the roles switch and speaker/listener parts happen again. Once there is mutual understanding we then go into proposing a compromise. In this case it was when we saw scientific acceptance that foods from the area are safe. The sticky part has become "What is scientific acceptance"? And as it turns out, that is a can of worms.