{"id":3789,"date":"2010-08-06T05:58:43","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T03:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=3789"},"modified":"2015-02-15T09:28:49","modified_gmt":"2015-02-15T14:28:49","slug":"taxonomy-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/taxonomy-lesson\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxonomy: Ur Doing It Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m in the middle of penning a review of USP Labs” Pink Magic, which consists of a blend of three herbal ingredients. Looking at the label, I noted –\u00a0for the umpteenth time\u00a0– an\u00a0amusing discrepancy with the way they’re written,\u00a0vs. the way they’re supposed<\/span> to be written.<\/p>\n

Many supp companies refer to common plant-based ingredients by their botanical names.\u00a0\u00a0For example, “Nelumbo Nucifera” sounds more exotic and “sciency” than simply “Lotus.”\u00a0\u00a0 This makes it harder for customers to figure out what they’re swallowing, of course, but that’s the way the game is played. Let them eat Google, I guess.<\/p>\n

But if the companies\u00a0that do this are really on top of their scientific\/technical game(s) (as they like to insist in their ads), then\u00a0how come they never seem to\u00a0write these names correctly?\u00a0 There’s a particular way in which\u00a0formal, scientific\u00a0plant\/animal\u00a0names are supposed to be written<\/a>… it’s not, for example, “Nelumbo Nucifera” – it’s Nelumbo nucifera<\/em>.\u00a0 The genus name (Nelumbo) is capitalized, but the species name never<\/strong> is. In addition, proper taxonomic names are\u00a0italicized (admittedly, I often\u00a0lose the\u00a0italics myself, but\u00a0this is\u00a0for the sake of\u00a0readablity.\u00a0 TBH, I really don’t care for the font\/size we’re\u00a0using here at UFB. \u00a0\ud83d\ude09 ).<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, the (few) bottles of straight-up herbal supps I have on my shelf conform much better to the standards.\u00a0 For example,\u00a0a bottle of “Heliocare” identifies the main ingredient as “Polypodium leucotomos.” And a bottle of “PM Phytogen Complex” lists “Standardized extract of Pueraria mirifica<\/em>” on the label.\u00a0 Sweet.<\/p>\n

Yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bodybuilding supplement company even come close to following the proper naming convention.\u00a0Ok – it’s not like I’ve ogled every single label of every single product with herbal ingredients on the market – but among the ones I’ve used\/reviewed, the names are always rendered in title case.\u00a0 It’s a small thing, perhaps, but I’m tempted to see it as\u00a0just one more indication\u00a0that\u00a0the claims of scientific expertise made in product ads\u00a0are a bit… hollow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m in the middle of penning a review of USP Labs” Pink Magic, which consists of a blend of three herbal ingredients. Looking at the label, I noted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,28],"tags":[853],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3789"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9121,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3789\/revisions\/9121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}