“Gluten-free water” by becausecurious

Epistemic status: a curiosity I chased for an afternoon. Facts verified and footnoted; the why is speculation. AI use: research (more examples and their context), review, grammar and light phrasing. No added hormones I somehow know that the use of added hormones in poultry (which includes chicken) is illegal in the US.This means that all chicken meat in the US is produced without added hormones. To my big surprise, chicken packaging in the US explicitly says "no added hormones": Foster Farms Fresh Chicken Drumsticks at Walmart "No added hormones† or steroids ever" Since this is the default state anyway, I found it odd. If all products are like this, why point it out as an advantage? I see the following explanations: Disclosure unraveling. If there are two equivalent chicken products A and B, and A says "no added hormones" but B does not, it is very natural for a consumer to conclude that B has added hormones, otherwise B would have put the claim on its packaging too. So once A starts doing this, B has to do it as well, even though neither of them can use added hormones. Economists call this disclosure unraveling: when disclosure is [...] --- Outline: (00:26) No added hormones (02:39) Gluten-free water (03:59) Unleaded gasoline (04:54) More examples (07:03) Schlitz The original text contained 15 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: October 7th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/J7s9NG8FndwfuW4Rr/gluten-free-water --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.