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UK's FSA Finds No Health Benefits To Organic Food
blackbeak writes "The UK Food Standards Agency's 'Independant Organic Review' results were just released, and the BBC rushed to publish the findings in the shockingly titled article, 'No Health Benefits to Organic Food.' From the article, 'There is little difference in nutritional value and no evidence of any extra health benefits from eating organic produce, UK researchers found.' A peek into the research at Postpeakpublishing provides a slightly deeper look."
There's a reason why we live so much longer now a days compared to middle ages and before and hell, even to beginning of 1900. That is technological improvement, so there's no really any reason why technologically made or improved food would be more riskier.
Technology has improved lots of things in our world and even more during the last hundred years, so why not the food industry aswell. The old ways sometimes.. correction, usually aren't the best way. They're always just based on what people knew at that time and because it got widely known as "truth".
One example about why past times doesn't work good now. Even 50-100 years ago it was a lot more difficult for people to get food. In my country usual food consisted almost 60% of carbs like potatoes etc, because farming land and the climate was good for it, hence it being cheap. And because getting food was still somewhat hard to get, people we're living good and healthy and fit. It's completely different situation now when you can just go to mcdonalds and order fatty food for 1-2 dollars. However just out of history my gov keeps promoting the same ingredient amounts to everyone (specially what pupils/students eat in school), while high bad carbs are really, really bad in the amounts they've being consumed now a days. Food has become so cheap that the habits need to change.
World changes during time.
And hell, I rather eat food thats *NOT* made in cow shit just because its "natural" based on human history and was the only way to make it at the time.
The review did not look at pesticides or the environmental impact of different farming practices.
says it all really.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
With "organic" food, less people die in order to secure the petroleum products used to make fertilizer etc.
The point behind organic food is that it's better for the environment, not healthier to eat. But thanks for the useless study, UK!
Yellow Smarties have same health qualities as red Smarties.
Why is there this weird upsurge in news reports appearing surprised at the bleeding obvious? Apparently, charging for university tuition means only the rich can afford to educate their children. Shock! Horror! Hold the front page!
Eating lard makes you fat!
Smoking is bad for you!
Pope is Catholic!
(etc).
And really, organic food has never been about health. It's more about sustainable practices and all that jazz. Organic food is more an environmental concept than a health concept.
That said, when and if I buy organic foods, it's usually fruits, vegetables, or nuts; and I do so because they are of noticably better quality than standard supermarket faire. For me, it has nothing to do with health OR environmentalism... Organic produce simply tends to be better quality from a culinary standpoint.
Apparently it's more likely than you think. I don't know about how things are over in the UK, but here in the US there has been a systematic attempt to discredit the benefits of holistic forms of medicine, including herbs -almost always funded by the same medical and pharmaceutical establishment that is losing dollars due to people realizing that a proper organic diet and exciercise keeps them out of the doctor's office.
Shit, better post this anonymously lest the AMA's sciencegoons rape my karma.
The report specifically doesn't look into the main reasons why I tend to buy organic - which aren't do to with health issues primarily, but to do with environmental and animal husbandry factors.
In the UK at least, organic farmers do practice lower intensive farming, leaving hedgerows in and wider strips for wildlife to flourish, they're not allowed to use antibiotics to promote growth in cattle (though they can use antibiotics to treat disease).
I've never taken the health issues seriously, but I do take biodiversity (and antibiotic resistance) very seriously and I'm more than willing to pay a little more to farmers who take additional care to help protect the country's wildlife.
There is one exception to this: I do buy organic carrots with health mind. Various studies have shown that carrot skins do retain a fair amount of insecticide and other pesticide residue. I'm a lazy bugger who likes to eat carrots raw without peeling them and so feel marginally happier choosing organic.
Gaining major health benefits from eating organic food would mean that 'normal' food is unsafe, which is hopefully not the case, nothing unexpected here.
The main advantage of organic food is that its production causes less damage to the environment and this is obviously very important.
The personal benefits myth was useful for promoting organic food adoption (out of egoist motives), so it's probably counter-productive for the greater good to debunk it.
organic food has pesticides used on them too. The only difference is the pesticides are organic
The world wants to know.
Deleted
It's quite simple, when i drink standard milk i get horrible stomach cramps and other nasty digestive effects. When I drink organic milk (NOT SOY) I have none of that.
I wonder how the statistics were made to fit into the "lies, damned lies, and statistics" category Disraeli so famously quoted, and how much the multi-national conglomerates responsible for all the chemicals and hormones in our food paid for it.
I know damn well that there is something substantially chemically different when one substance has the same name as another, but the non-organic version causes horrible pain.
For the record, i'm not some organo-nazi, I happened to discover this when i was slipped some organic milk at a friend's house.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Yellow Smarties have same health qualities as red Smarties..
Put down the Smarties, pick up the M&Ms and eat the blue ones: http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2009/07/why-migraines-could-leave-you-blue-in-the-face.html
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste!
It cannot be emphasized enough. Ever try an organic banana, while comparing it to a non-organic? Even country of origin can make a difference in taste.
A plant grown "organically" and one grown in what is now considered normal conditions will almost certainly produce all the same chemicals and take up the same nutrients and therefore have the same health benefits. We might be able to control the proportions of various chemicals in the plant - for example cause more sugars to be produced in sweet corn - but fundamentally it's the same plant and therefore it will produce the same things.
I looked into "organic" farming a while back when I got quite into growing my own vegetables. I couldn't believe the stuff they were allowed to use and still call it organic. Pretty much if it appears in nature, anywhere, it was fair game but I could find plenty of things in nature that are just as harmful as modern man made sprays.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
I have been buying organic food for 30 years or so and it is not because I believe it has higher levels of nutrients, but largely because of the lower levels of pesticide nutrients. For example: a couple of years ago the fields next to our kitchen garden were used for growing potatoes for a major UK supermarket. They were sprayed 2 or 3 times a week with fungicides for about 10 weeks, before being sprayed with sulphuric acid to burn off the tops before harvesting. Of course the sprays drift in the wind, which is worrying for people living just metres from the fields. Of course in the future organic farming (or at least farming with lower levels of chemical inputs) is likely to become more common, as peak oil drives up oil and natural gas prices, pushing up the price of fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides.
That's not the point. The point is that making things properly often makes them nicer.
While there are some organic products which aren't noticeably different, there are also some vegetables which benifit significantly.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
You eat organic food because you don't like the methods of food production, not because the food is healthier.They did not tak into account the amount of pecticides kept out of the environment. It is the same line of attack as saying carbon dioxide concentrations are not poisenous.
Just checked the new import rules on Food Agency website.
Sad to say, Australians are still permitted to import V*g*m*te.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
...Just so much dumb shit happening in that place, accepting bribes to hurt the organic food industry are easy to imagine.
Weight of evidence (WoE) is a phrase used to describe the type of consideration made in a situation where there is uncertainty, and which is used to ascertain whether the evidence or information supporting one side of a cause or argument is greater than that supporting the other side. We all frequently make personal WoE decisions in our daily lives, but more-formal WoE approaches are used in many different kinds of circumstance â" for example, in commercial, educational, health, legal and scientific contexts
The weight of scientific evidence against the use of pesticides is quite frankly, frighting. For a decent condensed summary of many scientific papers from many fields demonstrating the effects of pesticides, (especially on the endocrine system) check out the book/collection of scientific reports Our Stolen Future. In 1995 worldwide pesticide sales were around 30 billion. Who knows what they are today?
from the article : "The review did not look at pesticides", just an useless study because that's just one of the main points making eople eating organic food.
---
Exotic Food Feed @ Feed Distiller
FTA
The review did not look at pesticides or the environmental impact of different farming practices.
Oops ! Isn't it a major point of organic farming. Not only the end product but also procedures and environment ? Many consumers choose organic product not only for it's intrinsic assumed qualities, but out of environments concerns. I'am no pro-organic man, yet that study seams to say little to me.
(...) they report in their analysis that there are higher levels of beneficial nutrients in organic compared to non-organic foods.
Now I am confused. What does this study have to say then!?
Z.
I'm having trouble finding the actual study (which seems to be a meta-analysis more than original research). Does it have controls? Does it actually compare a set of people who are randomly assigned organic vs. nonorganic foods? If not, it's not at all conclusive. The fact that they desire a longitudinal study implies to me that they did not have such a control...
And don't get me wrong, the 'organic' craze has a lot of BS in it. It's not healthier by default, certainly, nor is it necessarily more environmentally sound (the rules for being organic can allow environmentally worse procedures). A lot of nutritionally worthless foods get labeled 'organic' as if that makes them healthier ('organic' butter will still go straight to your thighs...).
What is the point of a study if everyone thinks it was corporate sponsored? I am a cynic person myself but if the study said that organic is healthier then everyone would say it was paid by the green/organic industry corps. btw, I know farmers that just fill out the state forms and get federal subvention for being 'organic', but what they do on the field is something different. Of course they don't spray the shit out of it but its certainly not organic or else the harvest is halved.
A [name insitution here] study has determined that using electric cars does not get you from point A to point B any faster than combustion engine powered cars..
Doh !
--Ivan
Replace "Health Benefits" with "Nutritional Benefits" and it's ok. You certainly won't starve eating non-organic food. And you'll get pretty much the same level of basic nutritional elements (vitamins etc.).
But you will get more pesticide contamination, more genetically modified food, more additives and a few other nasty bits and pieces. And you will create more impact on the environment.
And keep in mind that this was a meta-study, just looking at existing publications. Their selection criteria pretty much guaranteed the domination of conventional food studies carried out by the industry.
-- Truth suffers from too much analysis.
Exactly,
I eat organic for 2 reasons, one is I don't want my body filled with the left over amounts of pesticides (in the case of fruit and veg) and antibiotics and hormones (in the case of meat). I especially don't want my 1 year old son's body being subjected to those if I can avoid it.
But to be honest the main reason I do it is because it tastes so much better. Carrots actually test of carrot rather than crunchy water taste you get from a standard supermarket carrot.
We get organic veg delivered to our door from a local farm and it last much longer due to shorter pick to delivery time scales. There is also the added bonus of getting a wider variety of veg.
As a result I eat a wider range of vegetables, it tastes nicer, and because of the longer shelf life I throw less away. This means that it costs me the same or less than buying normal super market veg. Couple that with the convenience of it delivered to my door it is a no-brainer really!
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
Phosphate fertilizers tend to have radioactivity from trace elements like polonium.
Some plants like tobacco concentrate these substances in their leaves. If you consume their leaves regularly, you might increase your chances of getting cancer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/opinion/01proctor.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/tobacco-firms-kept-quiet-on--polonium-role-in-cigarettes-907194.html
Quote: "There was a 1977 study that found, of the daily intake of the polonium 210 in a smoker, 77.3 per cent came from food and 17 per cent from tobacco."
Now depending on what the source animals have been eating, the manure used for organic fertilizer might have a lot less polonium than the usual phosphate stuff.
Thing is those phosphate fertilizers have been so popular that they're "everywhere", even your organic stuff might have as much polonium.
Lastly, even fully organic stuff can be radioactive. For example brazil nuts tend to concentrate radium (they also concentrate beneficial minerals).
You mean, pseudoscience isn't nutritious? Who would have guessed?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You also get a greater yield per unit land area and less spoilage from pests / disease. Between them, this makes intensively farmed crops much better for the planet in terms of energy efficiency and much better for humanity, as more plentiful food means less global hunger - or would do, if the high-yield crops can be grown in the overpopulated parts of the world, where food is scarce.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I do think that it is hard to imagine it. But, hey, some have a vivid imagination.
like from a toilet. Not enough electrolytes.
Winkey shortcut mapping for 64bit windows. WinKeyPlus
it's this ignorant mind set that supports the omgs chemicals are teh evilz rubbish that's all over the internet.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I choose organic because it tastes batter! Organic produce tends to be more flavorful. My favorite example is chicken. In the US, cheap factory farm raised chicken has an almost spongy consistency, and tastes rather bland. Organic, free range chicken is much tougher and flavorful, I don't mind paying more for food that I will enjoy more. Another example is beef. Cattle that graze on grass produce beef that just tastes better. In addition, the meat contains more CLA (healthy fat) than corn fed. Finally, I feel better about my decision. For animals that are bred to die, at least I know they weren't cooped up all their life. I believe happy animals produce better tasting meat :)
I am what I am and thats what I am -Popeye
Your argument does not fly with me. The study is clearly useful, as most (not you, of course) argue that organic is better for your health. It shows that there is "currently" no clear health benefit. Future studies might show this to be wrong, but for now this if scientifically accurate. Check out this podcast about Organic Food Myths, including that organic food is "good" for the environment... http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4019
Spewing forth opinion and vitriol without any attempt at substantiation of claims is not insightful.
I agree on the taste thing: carrots in particular are a world of difference from "conventional" farmed cousins. They aren't even comparable.
I would wonder what the explanation is then? If you can taste the difference easily then there must be significant difference of some sort. One tastes more like water and one tastes more like carrot. If the more carrot-y one is not more "nutritionally dense" then what is the explanation?
I don't know the answer to that and that is not a rhetorical question.. does anyone have a theory?
And hell, I rather eat food thats *NOT* made in cow shit just because its "natural" based on human history and was the only way to make it at the time.
Jeez. It has fuck all to do with naturalness, but nitrates, phosphates and potassium (NPK).
If you keep taking them out of the soil as you grow crops, the soil degrades till it's no use any more. So you've taken all these nitrates out and you've eaten them. Where do you think they end up? They end up in your shit and piss and they have to be dealt with by the sewage treatment plants. Or dumped in the rivers and oceans, causing algal blooms. That's just dumb.
The other alternative is that you manufacture nitrates. That is called the Haber Bosch process and it involves burning a shit load of fossil fuels to produce the hydrogen and energy required convert the nitrogen in the atmosphere to ammonia. The phosphates and potassium are usually mined. All of which require vast amounts of energy and leave big holes in the ground. As long as energy is plentiful and cheap you can just about get away with this.
Is this like magic or something? The miraculous Walmart magic food onto their shelves? The evil miners and chemical producers dig big holes and burn fossil fuels solely to anger the woolly headed (but nice) environmentalists? America goes to war with *iraq* despite the terrorists being *Saudi* and the supposed terrorist ring being resident in *Afghanistan* and *Pakistan*.
Deleted
Recently I was forced to live without a refrigerator. I bought a few heads of lettuce from the local supermarket; and I bought a few from the local organic farmers' market. Stored under my bed, 80 degree temperatures. Supermarket lasted one day before it was mush; local+organic, nearly a full week.
There is a finite amount of farmland, organic food requires more farmland to grow, I'm not sure what the numbers are but take into account spoilage, pest infestation, smaller fruits, longer grow time, etc.. This is why organic foods cost more, they literally cost more to produce. Now take into account that the U.S. and many 1st world countries feed starving 3rd world countries. Organic foods drive up the cost of regular grain that would be exported to the starving masses because there is less farmland available to grow regular goods, and as more people buy organic foods "because it just feels good" or "because it's good for the endocrine" the more the cost of regular food, and subsequently rescue food, will go up. That means the amount of food given to the starving masses in any given aid country will go down proportionally.
So eat up! the more 'designer' food you eat the more the starving children in Africa will starve, but their used to that treatment, the same enclave of hippy bozos that brought us organic food also vies for the prohibition of DDT in developing countries where over a million people, mostly children below the age of 5, die each year from malaria. Because they want to watch out for the peregrine falcon and all, I mean, where will all the children dying of malaria and starving from lack of food get their whole wildlife appreciation thing from without the peregrine falcon?
You are deluding yourself if you think organic == no pesticides, or if you think pesticides == cancer:
From a very lengthy article that probably won't be read or dismissed as casually as this current study.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
But to be honest the main reason I do it is because it tastes so much better. Carrots actually test of carrot rather than crunchy water taste you get from a standard supermarket carrot.
We get organic veg delivered to our door from a local farm and it last much longer due to shorter pick to delivery time scales. There is also the added bonus of getting a wider variety of veg.
Here is the problem with your argument: you are comparing really fresh organic carrots from the local farm to non-organic ones from the supermarket, which possibly travelled for days before reaching you. Of course they taste better! Why do you think that is? Because they are organic or because they are fresh? I've eaten non-organic tomatos right from the plant, they tasted so much better than store bought ones.
You should keep eating the superior, local carrots. You should not, however, use that as an argument for producing food with less efficient methods like organic farming - the key to better taste is to get the veggies locally.
What you say is true - our lives have been massively improved through the use of technology.
In particular, our success at creating and using machines has been incredible.
We have been much less successful (particularly over longer time scales) at manipulating biological systems -- a quick glance at history (eg. DDT, thalidomide, cane toads, etc) suggests that a bit of caution and prudence might be in order. This is not to say that we should return to an agrarian society, but that we should treat powerful new advances with optimistic caution. With regard to fertilisers, pesticides and antibiotics in farming, I think we've had far too much optimism, and far too little caution.
Why is the phrase "Independant(sic) Organic Review" in quotes? It's not the title of the report, that's "Comparison of putative health effects of organically and
conventionally produced foodstuffs: a systematic review", and it's not quoted text from the linked article.
The report was commissioned by the FDA, but actually produced by the London School of Economics; that's what makes it independent.
There's no need to go to postpeakpublishing (or Database Error as they seem to be called today) for a deeper look as you can read the whole report at http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/organicreviewreport.pdf
The world has changed and we all have become metal men.
Ames Test - Carcinogens and Natural foods: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxE9sYatPAs
I'm was always shocked by how many people around me really believed organic food had any significant impact on their health. I always assumed there's much more to be gained for ones health by keeping a healthy weight, being careful with saturated fats, and just enjoying food while mostly getting all nutrients you need. Also: i think going organic is a kind of selfish luxury. Don't forget the environmental impact of a separate not-so-efficient extra system on top of the "regular" food-chain the organic 'cult' needs. I know what I'm talking about: I used to be a believer...
"Petrochemically fertilised".
1.I'm sorry, I would prefer things to not be shoved down my throat. If that costs a little extra, which people pay for out of pocket, let em. 2.Who do you think pays for all these studies to prove things are good for you or aren't different? 3. Guess what was here first, wasn't GMO. So if you're talking about extra system on top, thats the non organic. 4.Environmental impact? One word, Biodiversity
UK's FSA Finds No Health Benefits To Organic Food
Of course not, the benefits are primarily to taste and conscience.
It's quite simple, when i drink standard milk i get horrible stomach cramps and other nasty digestive effects. When I drink organic milk (NOT SOY) I have none of that.
By the term "standard milk", do you mean homogenized milk? Homogenization breaks the suspended particles (typically fats with proteins) into much smaller sizes, greatly increasing the surface area presented per gram of solids. If you have a sensitivity to some substance in the suspended solids of cow-milk (e.g. a particular protein, sugar, or fat), then homogenization is likely to exacerbate your reaction to it. This effect will occur whether the milk is organic or not, but since organic milk is likely to be unhomogenized, it may appear to be an organic vs non-organic issue.
I also speak from personal experience. I can consume reasonable quantities of whole milk, but can tolerate only small quantities of homogenized milk before digestive problems occur.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Really I mean don't they have their own journals across the pond?
"FSA Finds No Health Benefits" means "fails to find", not "finds that there is no". The latter would require testing the foods. They did not. They read "the literature". There nothing in TFA that indicates whether the literature was as "independent" as their own report.
Since by "independent" they mean "commissioned, conducted, (peer) reviewed and published entirely by FSA", they mean precisely the opposite of "independent". Given this, one can safely assume they would at least feel free to report "no health benefits" when they mean the opposite.
In fact, since by "no important differences" they not only mean but come out and state "A small number of differences" it's apparent they are making the sort of value judgements usually derived from data. In the absence of data (which may well be subject to the same sort of selective re-evaluation and definition contrary to common connotation, or simply manufactured if they even bother to produce any) they apparently feel free to apply the word "important" arbitrarily to suit their intention, already shown to differ significantly from pesky facts and such.
Politicians are protected by the law so that they may support a particular point in discussion or legislation without having fear of reprisal influence their pursuit of the best alternative among many. When this is done with science, it is no longer science, and as far as I know scientists are not so protected. That is, of course, unless they are not scientists despite their presentation as such, but rather politicians. Finding out the facts in this matter would simply require filing charges of scientific misconduct against the individuals that maintain the results and summary presented here are accurate, and wait to see whether their asses are yanked out of a well deserved fire by politicians.
A last little bit of blackish white is the "fact" that "The FSA commissioned this research as part of its commitment to giving consumers accurate information about their food, based on the most up-to-date[1] science[2]."
[1] They used literature spanning half a century, making most of their information not "the most up to date".
[2] They did no science, they only claimed to have done a literature review, examining other results of unspecified selectivity and unproven objectivity. To present their results as science is as fraudulent as the claims made that are contrary to conventional acceptance or even other claims of their own.
Entirely neglected is the main reason people buy organic foods -- control over additives, in terms of determining which are suitable and acceptable (ie. simple nitrates as preservatives) as well as those which they maintain should not be permitted at any point within the system (ie. livestock 'nourishment' additives in the form of material processed from dead animals; the origin of mad cow disease). Perhaps FSA felt more confident in lying about the irrelevant rather than risk getting caught lying about what people know enough and care a great deal about.
A rebuttal against the FSA piece is available from first professional organization is the UK approved for licensing and regulation of organic foods and producers:
http://www.organicfarmers.org.uk/blog/
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
"No Health Benefits" is a very inappropriate title. They are merely saying there are no significant nutritional differences. They did not include any studies which analyzed long term health benefits, e.g. overall illness or mortality rates of people who eat organic foods after many years.
In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
"less efficient" How much so ? and source ? what about polluting ourselves and the environment with stuff that stays poisonous for a LONG time ?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
The purpose of farming is food. The purpose of food is to sustain us.
Technological advances in farming over the last century have significantly reduced the risks involved in raising crops, weather and blights etc, which in turn have resulted in higher yields with less effort/cost. Seasons no longer matter, we can buy almost anything we want at any time of the year, we can now artificially create the right conditions all year round and if that turns out to be too expensive then we just get another country to grow it for us.
But these fantastic positives do come with some negatives, ie there is/can be a cost.
There is an occasional cost to us directly, in the form of less than healthy additives that some times find their way into our food, There is also the issue of taste, I have tested this myself many times and it is true, produce grown naturally in gardens tastes much better than mass produced (grown out of season) equivalents we can buy in our supermarkets, the difference in some cases is simply astounding.
There are also environmental factors, the impact of larger farms that produce more on natural habits, the damage to flora and fauna by the use of chemicals, deforestation, the introduction of foreign species and generally upsetting the natural balance etc etc. Which, in a round about way, is kind of bad for us now and potentially disastrous for our descendants.
We are also encouraging lesser developed countries to destroy their own environments too.
The harsh reality is, we cannot go back to a totally natural way of food production. It's too risky, we would lose too many crops and we would suffer third world famines from time to time, no one wants to starve, right? It also costs a fortune to raise crops this way, due the quantities of crops that you were unable to harvest and sell.
Unless the world is totally turned on it's head, we no longer have the time to provide for ourselves, we all have jobs and when we are not working we are spending time with loved ones or indulging in our hobbies. This is not going to change, living in caves and foraging all day may be appealing to a few but for the majority it's uncomfortable and unappealing. We NEED the food/farming advances we have made.
But we SHOULD strike balance, the here and now should not be our only concern, the 'leave it as you found it' ideal should play a larger role in our decision making, than it currently does. As far as I am concerned that should be higher on a governments agenda than if we are illegally downloading music that we have not bought (add your own big business agenda here).
I am not an environmentalist or a tree hugger but I do want my sons son/daughter to grow up in a world that we haven't ripped to pieces. That is why I believe there is a NEED for some of us to still be doing things the natural way and that there is a need for ALL of us to at least make a percentage of the things we consume come from these sources. As we can't rely on governments to spend their time on these issues, we can use consumer power to help strike the balance.
Who would like the soapbox next?
Quit trying to force your choices on the rest of us.
What?
HA HA, organic milk. Laughed my arse off! ... Just exactly how does organic milk differ from the "other" type? I have visions of a star trek "Borg" cow somehow hooked up to a milking cube.
You got a troll mod, but I suspect you are asking a genuine question. The whole system of production is relevant. If you use artificial fertilizers etc on your pasture, you don't produce organic milk. Although it doesn't appear this way to a customer reading a "Certified Organic" label on a product, essentially it is the farm that is certified organic, not the product. The product is organic by virtue of being produced on an organic farm.
In Australia, it takes years to achieve certification for your farm. Any prohibited chemicals can't be used on that block of land at all or no produce from that land can be sold as certified organic. If you wish to produce some organic goods and other non-organic goods, you need two separate blocks of land. IIRC you can't even have chemicals stored on your organic block. For livestock, even bought feed supplements have to meet the requirements to retain certification.
I don't have a citation, I've just worked on both organic and non-organic farms (a long time ago, things may have changed).
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Organic farmers sugar their carrot fields. It's ``natural'' and makes carrots taste sweeter.
It is the presumed lack of health deficits. The Organic label carries some clout, because (to the best of my knowledge) there has been no massive recall of e-coli tainted beef, or salmonella tainted produce, from organic producers. I buy organic ground beef from Costco because a) it tastes great, and b) It is my belief that due to smaller producers with cleaner methods (i.e., not feeding the cattle brains from other cattle) my chances of contracting some contaminated meat or hideous prion disease are greatly diminished. If the Organic producers abuse this trust, race to the bottom line, and abandon cleaner procedures to make more profits in the short term, many people who think like I do will abandon them and they will go bankrupt.
There are two important factors often overlooked in the "organic" vs. conventional debate. First is cost. Is it better to have produce that is slightly less nutritious but cheaper so that people eat more of it? Simply stated, if conventionally grown salad greens are cheaper will people eat more of them (and be healthier) or will more people (poorer people) eat them when they wouldn't at a higher price (and be healthier)? Second is practicality. The great Nobel Peace price winning agronomist Norman Borlaug has stated that in common analysis there simply isn't a way to change the world to 100% organic produce. There simply isn't enough sh*t to support feeding the world's current population plus reduced efficiencies of organic farming methods are an issue. http://www.reason.com/news/show/27665.html
"it tastes so much better". --QFT
Never knew carrots or eggs tasted so damn good until I stated eating orgainic. Broccoli is suddenly edible. And fresh asparagus is yummy.
The research was done by an agency with a HEAVY agenda.
Bias = bad science = a bullshit conclusion.
The writer should drink a cup of the pesticides that he would normally consume in a year from his non organic greens..
Then chop up his corpse and feed it to his peers.
I paid top dollar for some "organic" corn the other day. When I got home and saw where the worms were through the top 10% of the kernels I wished they had used some "organic" pesticide.
On the other hand my chickens got feed some organic food (yum corn worms). Now nothing left to do but wait on organic eggs!
We could solve a lot of the problems we have if every nation had a national lottery where there were as many 'winners' each year as there were children born. Then the winners are culled, placing the population growth somewhere in the negatives (people will still die outside of the cullings). Eventually the population will get back down to sustainable levels and we won't *need* to modify our food or worry about 'high yeild' farming.
Of course knowing people this will just turn into a massive "people that look like me versus people that don't" scenario and ther will just be massive ethnic cleansing as everyone tries to kill enough of everyone else to keep the growth down.
Stop breeding and there will be fewer problems.
...I thought the whole point of organic food wasn't necessarily that it was healthier, but that it was kinder to all parties involved (animals and soil included) and had a more "natural" taste (whatever that may be). Hm.
Simple test and the one that convinced me to try to eat organic when I can.
Grab two oranges at the grocery store - one organic and one regular and come home.
Have someone peel them and serve them on two plates as a blind taste test. After taking bites of both you will understand very quickly why I purchase organic when I can.
There's a great grocery store near my house called Sprouts (imagine a Whole Foods Market without all the near iPod level smug and pretentiousness). It focuses on two things.
a) Getting foods from local sources, or farms as nearby as possible.
b) Getting more organic produce whenever possible.
Now, this place consistently has better looking, fresher, and better tasting produce than any of the other grocery stores around. Maybe it's because of column a), maybe it's column b) , maybe it's a little from both. Either way, for a reasonably small price increase we get far better produce so the wife and I make it a habit to shop there.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
The UK government article to which the Slashdot summary links says at the end, "Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority."
There is no claim that organic foods are more nutritious. Organic foods are intended to be free of poisons like insecticides.
The idea is not that eating foods with traces of insecticides and other poisons would cause immediate sickness. The idea has been that, over time, avoiding poisons would be good for health. Testing that theory would take many years.
This is a comment posted to this Los Angeles Times article, Organic food no more nutritious than conventionally grown, review finds: "I don't buy organic because I believe it has "extra" nutrients! I buy it because of the things it DOESN"T contain!!! Look at all the food recalls just this year."
Another comment: "I have a friend who lives near several farms. He and his wife are both dying of cancer. The health department checked their well water and found it with high levels of farm pesticides. THAT is the cost of conventional farming in addition to the pesticide residue that you consume each time you eat conventionally grown produce."
There is a flip-side to organic/local food though - it costs more because it consumes more resources to produce, resources like energy. Perversely, there is significant environmental impact involved in organic/local food production in terms of land usage and fuel consumption. This article has some interesting info about the counter-intuitive costs of buying local.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Processed foods and raw meat, I usually buy organic. Raw fruits & veggies, I'll buy organic if the price and quality are within my tolerances. I buy/eat a lot more of the latter than the former (which is now why I'm now 30 pounds lighter and all my health problems have disappeared). I've never been under the impression that organic fruits & veggies have 'better' nutrition, although some folks do believe that. I buy organic for what's NOT in it: preservatives, dyes, hormones, antibiotics, etc. And I'm not alone.
As usual, the media tells half the story in an attempt to sensationalize it. John Stewart, please take this one on?
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
Not to mention livestock....the commercial stuff is pumped full of hormones and anti-biotics. Hell, no wonder little girls these days are starting to grow tits at 10 years of age, so many McBurgers filled with growth hormones...and in the milk that goes with it too.
Girls sure didn't look that mature when I was growing up....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Exactly. When I started seeing the Reuters headlines yesterday about this study, I really wanted to give the editor a little shaking. Nutrition is not the end-all-and-be-all of health. There are MANY other factors in health. My whole life my family has tried to eat organic foods when available, and it has never been for nutritive value.
I don't think there is a lot of nutrition in inorganic food...
Can you tell the difference if you don't know if the food is organic or not? A lot of things go into how you perceive the taste of something, especially something subjective like how well you like it.
For example, once I was drinking with some friends, one of who was drinking an expensive beer. He wouldn't touch the cheap stuff. So, while he was out for a minute, the rest of us switched the rest of his beer with an equal amount of cheap beer that happened to look very similar. When he got back, he didn't realize what we'd done until we told him (and gave him the rest of his expensive beer, of course). The point is, he didn't perceive the difference because he didn't know about it. He expected it to be good, so it was good.
If you expect organic food to taste better, then it will taste better.
Of course, I don't expect even a blind taste test to change anyone's habits. My friend still drinks expensive beer, and if you get more pleasure out of organic food, even if it's just because your perception, then more power to you!
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
Considering just a few days ago in the news I saw this article on GM, GMOs and their possible contribution to cancer and other diseases. I have found it interesting on how research comes out on certain products questioning their safety only to have another article (usually government supported) coming out at the same time talking about the benefits of the same item around the same time. Maybe the lack of any benefit with Organic Food's is precisely what we're to expect with good food - the fact that it doesn't kill us IS the benefit! I think tfa distracts from the real problem by attacking a non-existent one.
http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0438.htm
Trans-fats are carcinogenic? Nope, their problems are their effects on vascular disease on diabetes. Absolutely no link between trans-fats and cancer.
My problem with organic foods is how it's viewed as so black and white - people seem to think if it's not organic it is therefore genetically modified etc., which is just not true! There should be no negative stigma associated with using 99.99% likely harmless 'chemicals' (awful word) to prevent crop-eating diseases.
Also the world's most potent carcinogen is a) organic b) caused by a fungus eating crops (preventable).
I've posted about this before, so just ignore if I repeat myself.
Last winter I read a book by Gary Taubes called Good Calories, Bad Calories. His reading of the research indicates that the simpler the carbohydrate is, the more it tends to trigger fat storage by causing insulin secretion. This is similar to, but not quite the same as a food's glycemic index. E.g., ice cream has much more refined carbs than its GI would suggest. Sugars, whether conjugated or not, tend to cause the "worst" response, with simple carbs like white flour just about as bad. The flour is easily broken down into sugars early in the digestive process. Carbs that require more processing, like whole-grain flour -- since it's stuck to other substances in the seed -- are "better". He makes a particular point about white flour and white rice, since both grains have had most of their protein, fat, fiber and vitamins/minerals removed in processing. This processing was initially done to make these products easier to prepare, keep longer and resist being eaten by pests (remember the "lesser of two weevils" joke?).
The book is worth a read whether you buy-into or even care about the dietary implications. It's also contains a fascinating history of food processing, diet and nutrition research.
p.s. I am not a nutritionist, and I'm only relating Taubes' book as I read and understood it. If you hate low-carb diets or dieters, it is not my fault.
I am not a crackpot.
There is one difference, the price.
The Slashdot summary says, "UK's FSA Finds No Health Benefits To Organic Food".
That's wrong in two ways. It was the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine that did this study: Nutritional quality of organic foods: a systematic review.
That abstract says NOTHING about the effect of traces of poisons in conventional food. It is ONLY concerned with nutritional differences: "Objective: We sought to quantitatively assess the differences in reported nutrient content between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs."
Also, the abstract says, "The analyses were restricted to the most commonly reported nutrients."
The majority of all organic food production comes from the billion dollar operations of the Albrecht brothers, owners of, among other things Trader Joe's and Aldi. They produce their organic (or bio brands) in prairie sized farms where the yields are significantly lower than their regular fifty per cent smaller prairie sized farms producing similar foods grown using more traditional farming methods. However organic foods are significantly more expensive than those from agri-business production, and the ticket price of these foods is even greater. It makes no difference to me whether someone wishes to eat organic or agri-biz products, that is their free choice, but the organic methods are sufficiently inefficient to significantly damage the net world production of food and lead to starvation in those countries unable to afford the higher prices and greater consumption of farmlands for lower yields. The use of "organic" fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides (such as pyrethrum) are also far more damaging to consumers than the rigorously tested and approved "chemicals" of the agri-business. This is one of the reasons for the increase in the incidence of food poisoning from leaf crops in the US.
This subject was covered by Brian Dunning more than two years ago, something that regular listeners to Skeptoid http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4019# will be familiar with.
Since I consider it unethical to eat organic foods (unless I grow them myself), I never purchase them where I have a choice.
But don't mistake me for an axe-grinder, I am just a pragmatist. During the Chernobyl disaster,when I lived in Scotland, I did not allow my children to drink contaminated British Milk and during the Great British BSE epidemic we dined for almost a year on delicious Scottish steak which at the time supermarkets could barely give away despite the fact that it came from (agri biz!) non-dairy certified herds. When the yuppie owner of Iceland (British Frozen Foods store) declared they would no longer sell genetically modified products, I voted with my feet and bought all the (cheaper, mostly lard and sugar) GM stuff in other supermarkets since I had eaten GM all my life (sheep with shorter legs, cows with more muscle tissue and hens with higher egg production) before then I experienced no significant loss. If something or someone could create a scare over Ben & Jerry's and Peanut Butter M&M's my diet would be so much richer in delicious combinations of fat and sugar at lower prices.
Brian Dunning makes the rather obvious observation: that people who want their food produced according to positively medieval methods would be the least likely to apply the same criteria to their medical treatment - with the natural exceptions of the herbalists, homeopaths and general moon-children.
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if you disagree, reply. If you carry on modding down when it's not merited, you will lose karma in meta-moderation, and lose the ability to moderate. Just sayin'.
[FUCK BETA]
I'm an IT worker (thus my presence here) . . . but I'm also in the process of starting up a small organic(ish) farm. I'm not sure what 'organic' means to most people anymore so I hesitate to call it that. Sure I think my food is healthier because it's fresher, because I use carefully chosen varieties for better flavor and better health, and because I ensure that it is growing in healthy living soil teaming with good microorganisms. But my FARM is also healthier - I'm not causing cancer rates to go up by spraying vast amounts of chemicals onto your food and into your water. I'm not spraying as much manure as the land can legally handle onto the food. I'm not using huge machinery (1 20 HP tractor, another larger tractor planned in the future). We have a small sustainable farm - some livestock, some vegetables, some land producing, some land resting. We are as ethical and careful about how we treat the land (and your food) as we can possibly be. I don't need government subsidies - I sell a quality product for what the food costs to produce plus some. I'm finding that people like that, and are willing to pay for it - sometimes it's more than supermarket food, sometimes less. It we can get by without adding a chemical we do (which means almost no chemicals, since on a small farm it's just not needed - if I don't want to eat it or it's derivatives, I don't want to inject it into an animal or spray it onto vegetables). The biggest difference is sustainability - my farm doesn't need vast inputs to work, and in produces plentifully. I'll argue with anyone that this model would produce enough food for us to continue to feed the US and the world, and do it in a healthier and more sustainable fashion. The place that model falls down the most is in massive corn production, but I'd argue that corn is in too much stuff anyway (I fully expect the higgs-bosen to be a pioneer hybrid corn variety when found).
But to be honest the main reason I do it is because it tastes so much better. Carrots actually test of carrot rather than crunchy water taste you get from a standard supermarket carrot.
That's nothing to do with the fact that they are organic. The reason organic food tastes better is because it is a premium product. The farmers grow more tasty varieties which have lower yields, and they do other things like reduce the time from field to market (which you can more easily do for lower volumes), sell them with stalks on etc. etc. You could get better yields from the same crop by using pesticides to reduce loss, but still do all the other things that make it a premium product. It would then taste as good as organic produce but could be made cheaper. For a long time there wasn't much of a market for this but many supermarkets are beginning have premium varieties from non-organic sources, and they taste good.
My parents have always grown their own vegetables and they use every spray under the sun to fight pests and regularly fertilise. The fact is that their produce tastes better than even the organic stuff from the supermarket, simply because it is even more of a premium product in that it is only harvested minutes before use!
Recently I was forced to live without a refrigerator. I bought a few heads of lettuce from the local supermarket; and I bought a few from the local organic farmers' market. Stored under my bed, 80 degree temperatures. Supermarket lasted one day before it was mush; local+organic, nearly a full week.
When I got up this morning, the last thing I expected to read about was someone storing lettuce under his bed. Guess I can get to work now.
I am not a crackpot.
OK, after reading comments I actually went back to read the fine article. Some points that struck me:
Peter Melchett, policy director at the Soil Association said they were disappointed with the conclusions.
"The review rejected almost all of the existing studies of comparisons between organic and non-organic nutritional differences.
Continuing the Mellchett quote: "Without large-scale, longitudinal research it is difficult to come to far-reaching clear conclusions on this, which was acknowledged by the authors of the FSA review.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
kick the editors who compose headlines in the nuts.
What people will come away from the BBC article with is:
What the researcher says is:
[emphasis mine]
Now how are we to interpret the lack of evidence? It depends on how the evidence is gathered. This appears to be a meta study looking at data in published research. The researcher did not (nor does he claim) collect evidence himself to answer this question. Nor did the researchers who collected the data he is using attempt to answer this broad question. He tried to see if evidence collected for more specific purposes could answer the question, however the bar for disproving the null hypothesis in this situation is very high. Still, it's worth looking, because data is hard to come by. Nutrition science is shockingly underfunded for such an important field. Every time I've tried to look up abstracts on nutrition subjects, it seems there is very little data in relation to the volume of literature when compared to other fields.
It seems to me the researcher gets it just right here: the published evidence does not support the hypothesis. Since the published evidence was not collected for that purpose, that's a far cry from disproving the hypothesis. He even points out that nutrition is not the sole justification for choosing organic produce, and is careful to couch what he says to avoid implying that. But he can't win. Reporters are fanning out across the UK soliciting "man in the street" opinions of the headline writer's opinion of the research.
And this is the BBC, whose news makes American hard news look like Entertainment Tonight. I shudder to think what American "news" outlets will do with this.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'd agree, though the fat wouldn't need to be added; all McD's needs to do is ensure their ground beef has the proper fat content before cooking to meet their standards.
There will also be a bit of fat in the bun, not many breads don't have some sort of oil in them, and raised bread requires salt.
Same deal with the cheese & pickle.
I don't read AC A human right
But to be honest the main reason I do it is because it tastes so much better. Carrots actually test of carrot rather than crunchy water taste you get from a standard supermarket carrot.
Organic carrots usually are not bitter either.
Organic foods are healthier, they are simply not nutritionally healthier. Try not to let your prejudices get in the way of your comments.
TFA says about testing non tainted foods, well that includes foods that have used pesticides etc...so the one reason to grow organic foods to begin with, is something they have taken out of the equation...of course now their is almost no difference between the 2, it was never about the nutrients inside, more the fact about the poisons on the outside!
Arseholes!
Girls sure didn't look that mature when I was growing up....
I disagree with this statement. Males naturally mature at a slower rate than females. I know that to me it seemed like overnight girls suddenly had breasts. That was definitely not the case, but I just noticed them because I started caring. Just because I didn't notice them before that doesn't mean they weren't there. Being a mature male at this point you look back at younger girls and realize just how early they "bloom".
Do you Gentoo!?
I've personally always preferred the inorganic food. ;-)
The placebo effect can be *very* powerful. Unless people are conducting double-blind taste tests, I'll remain highly skeptical of any perceived differences between supermarket and "organic" vegetables and produce.
mainly the limousine liberals who propose organic farming are idiots. We don't have the infrastructure to support organic farming for all and we never will. Corporate farming supports out lifestyle. So please sit there in your fucking yuppie condo and praise the impossible dream that only you can afford. eat shit and die.
Shamelessly stolen link from this post.
As for pollution, is dumping tons of manure over a larger area (thanks to lower densities) *really* better than chemical fertilizers? Not to mention increased odds of salmonella contamination, among other things.
We get organic veg delivered to our door from a local farm and it last much longer due to shorter pick to delivery time scales.
I bet a regular farm grown carrot delivered from a local source would taste equally good. Having bought organic (the crunchy feely kind) and regular (the normal kind of "organic") food from the same store, I didn't see much of a difference. The key in both is the time-to-table, and fresher always tastes better than old.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
i think we all need to realize that with out the responsible use of cretin pesticides, and fertilizers, a lot of local small farms would not exist and most the world would stave. americans and wealthy western counties are spoiled and really should learn a little bit more about the benefits of some GM foods. Do some research into modified rices like "golden rice" which could save millions of children who die and suffer from malnutrition. also read a little about Norman Borlaug who in 1970 won the Nobel peace prize for is work with GM wheat and other grain's. it is commonly said the he has saved more than a billion lives.
Now i think both sides are right and wrong, but isn't our responsibility to seek the balance and over site over corporate farming and advances in science that could both saves our earth and help those that need science to live a healthy life. lets not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
No company has ever really said that organic is healthier, they just try and imply it with their commerical, guess why they dont say it out? Because its simply not true, this is not the first report that finds this fact.
Also more alarming, organic food harms the environment more than normal production! Organic farms have 30-50% less crop yields per acre, so per kg produced food they spread more nitrate into the lakes etc.
The chemical residues from normal farming is not harmfull, however normal food is poisonousness (fungouses), this is specially true for organic food.
The stores takes larger marginals on organic food, so there are larger economical powers behind organic farming, alot of people tend to not understand this and thinking organic farmers are fighting "evil" monsanta etc.
I thought slashdot was a place where people listen to science, but for some reason when it comes to food, people dont listen. The majoirty of agronomist are against organic farming, se for instance Norman Borlaug, the man saved 250 million lives by modernizing farms in developing world, they would have died without the use of modern fertilizers.
1 (the small reason) - My wife, son, and I like the taste better. Significantly. Additionally, since it does go bad faster (for us), we're forced to buy an approrpriate amount of fruit/vegetables, and we don't go through the "toss out those 6 tomatoes we bought and then decided not to have a salad that week" syndrome. I go to the store more frequently and buy less, which works for our situation, maybe not yours.
2 (the HUGE reason) - Pesticides. Not so much for my wife and I, but for my son. He has a condition which does not allow him to process toxins normally, and they seep through his stomach lining and pass through the blood-brain barrier. All kinds of scary stuff shows up on his tests, and something (I don't know if it's this or something else, the doctors don't either unfortunately) is severely impacting his speech development.
Now, I don't know whether toxins or pesticides are directly causing any of that, but I do know that the levels of pesticides, heavy metals, and other fun chemicals are off the chart in his lab tests. They are at normal levels for both my wife and I. Since we have switched to organic, they have been slowly coming down. This may be causal, this may be correlational, but you know what - I don't care. If it helps my son, I'll do it.
If you want to eat organic, by all means do so. The main change I found in friends who wanted to eat organic (more anecdotes) is that they eat more fruit and vegetables than they used to. So maybe that's their health benefit - not that these fruits/vegetables are healthier, but that they've made a healthier choice in general.
I hate to break it to you, but for the last 3 or so months that you were in the womb, you were floating in your own excrement
Excrement is foul only because of the levels of bacteria and microbes growing in it. Same with urine. AFAIK, the womb is essentially sterile, and the fetus' stomach hasn't been seeded with e-coli. So your statement is really quite misleading. It's not excrement as we think of it, but rather, recycled amniotic fluid, and a few cells from an unformed, unused intestine. Finally, it's also a very small amount.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Organic means that shit loads of chemicals that damage soil, groundwater supply, and cause dead zones hundreds of square miles in size in the Gulf of Mexico are not used. This is a good idea, because it takes into account the fact that you probably want to eat in ten years as well as today, and you'll need soil that supports vegetable life in order to do so.
Organic means you don't stuff a cow full of antibiotics that cause it to be ill, infecting it's milk production with blood and puss, just so Monsanto can sell a product that's completely worthless to everyone but Monsanto.
I buy organic for the same reason I buy everything consciously, because I like going to sleep at night knowing that I have done my best not to contribute to this. That's why I don't eat at Chik-Fil-A, because the founder is a huge contributor to a hate-filled religious university in Rome, Georgia, as well as someone who buys chickens that are crammed together in their own shit for 6 weeks until they're boiled alive. It's called being an informed consumer. It's how the market is supposed to work.
You can be a cynical little bitch all you like. That doesn't change the fact that you're stupid for believing that organic lobbies have more evil designs than any other lobbyists in DC. And I'll bet dollars to donuts that people who buy organic are far more knowledgeable about food as a whole than people who eat Twinkies and regularly drive through McDonalds.
What an awesome straw-man this is. Unbelievable. "If you only study the areas where organic and conventional foods are the same, then we find no difference between the two." Really? I would never have guessed.
it's an amazing level of difference in some cases. You can absolutely tell the difference if it were a blind test. I understand skepticism on the matter, but I would ask for a little slack in that I am not exagerrating at least in the case of the carrots I have sampled.
I have had organic carrots that taste like other carrots too: large scale prepackaged ones, typically. Maybe it's a freshness issue.
I have had organic carrots that taste like other carrots too: large scale prepackaged ones, typically. Maybe it's a freshness issue.
And now you get to the rub. In all probability, it's exactly that. The problem with supermarket carrots is that they probably haven't been picked and packed when the carrot is perfectly ripe. Then, it sits in a container, and ultimately the store shelf, for quite some time before hitting your table. Big surprise that that carrot doesn't taste as good as a carrot that was grown and picked locally.
So what you claim is an advantage of organic produce is, in fact, an advantage of locally grown produce, a completely orthogonal topic.
Not all carbs are bad, and you need them to process other nutrients. Complex carbs like sweet potatoes, whole grain rice/pasta, and oats are good. The should be consumed with a portion of lean meat (protein), and veggies/fruit. Although healthier than most, you are still what they call "skinny fat" and I wouldn't be bragging. Eating pasta meals out of a box every night is probably not the best diet.
English needs a new word for chemicals, one that doesn't fill weenies with baseless fear.
they also glossed over the fact that organic foods generally taste better. like loads better.
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
Please do me, and everyone else here, a favor and shut up unless you actually know what the hell you are talking about. I don't chime in on the discussions of different programing languages because I'd be completely out of my depth. You Obviously are out of your depth, along with most other /.ers, and should refrain from posting in these discussions unless it is to ask a question, because that is all you are educationally qualified to do.
Contrary to popular belief, Organic food does use pesticides and fertilizers. They are just limited in which ones they are allowed to use. The pesticides are of older categories, derived from other plants, hence being acceptable as "organic". However, they are not as effective as the newer ones (which is why we use the newer ones in the first place) and in order to work effectively require much higher application rates (lbs/acre) and more frequent applications (10-12 times/season instead of 3-6).
Even with the use of these "Organic" pesticides and fertlizers, they cannot produce the same number of bushels/acre. That means that they need to use more acres to grow the same amount of corn or soy. Never mind all of the diesel fuel consumed by running the tractor over more land more frequently in a given season.
When it comes to animal agriculture it's even worse. Chickens have a Huge dietary requirement for the amino acid Methionine, but grains are poor sources of Methionine. In order to meet the requirement without doubling the number of days to market (from 7 to 14 weeks) all conventional, as well as all "Organic" broiler chicken diets contain a source of synthetic Methionine activity. All regulations governing organic animal production allow for a Methionine Exception.
Without these exceptions, producers would be forced to either double days to market or achieve adequate Methionine levels by dramatically over feeding crude protein (~30% vs. the normal of ~20%). The excess amino acids that make up the Crude Protein would be catabolized and stored as fat, with their associated Nitrogen groups excreted as waste. Excess waste Nitrogen is a Huge environmental issue because Nitrogen is usually the rate limiting nutrient in saltwater environments. Excess Nitrogen from fields and composting poultry litter can end up getting into local water and causing Eutrophication.
Alternatively in "Modern" broiler chicken diets you can actually feed diets containing as little as 12% Crude Protien, with extensive use of synthetic amino acids. This results in identical or occationally superior performance on the part of the growing birds, and Dramatically Reduced levels of Nitrogen in the animals waste. This also saves money for the producer, limits the potential for negative environmental impact, and is practically required if you are going to stay on the right side of environmental regulations here in the US.
There is nothing "Environmentall Friendly" about Organic food. Organic food and Sustainability are actually antithetical to each other. I would say that buying organic food is financial masterbation, except that's not fair to masterbation. They both make you feel good, but only Organic food is actually bad for the environment.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Cool! Do they use Unicorn shit to power the delivery truck?
I'll grant you that pumping your food full of hormones is a bad thing, but I fail to understand why everyone always brings up the antibiotics as well. Wouldn't you rather eat a healthy cow instead of a sick cow? What am I missing that makes antibiotics bad in livestock?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Shamelessly stolen link
"locally produced" != "organic"
As for pollution, is dumping tons of manure over a larger area (thanks to lower densities) *really* better than chemical fertilizers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FertilizerYes; besides, organic fertilizer can also be dead plants.(we're also ignoring how much oil we have left ...)
salmonella: clean your food.
and what about the Poisons?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Dedicated Monsanto geneticists, working for the good of humanity and a badly-written space filler in the newspapers, have produced a fabulous array of valuable new cash crops with 100% all-natural artificial flavors that developing countries can grow to pay the interest on their ludicrous debts to the International Monetary Fund.
"Bananas that taste like banana flavoring!" said Cylon Number Six of Monsanto Public Relations. "Strawberries that taste like strawberry flavoring! Brewed coffee that tastes like instant! I was really disappointed the time I ate a strawberry as a kid, it didn't taste anything like strawberry flavor. Now your kids will never have to suffer the same way."
The wholly natural artificial flavoring builds on examples from nature: bacon with the magical taste of bacon, Quorn with the magical taste of Quorn and Budweiser with the magical taste of urine. The latter example also produces urine with the magical taste of Budweiser.
Some flavors for specialist niches were not a success. "Ice cream that tastes like vanilla dental dams turned out too gritty for the lesbian market, probably because no-one actually uses them." Authentic(tm) ManJuice(tm) chewing gum for the gay market was considered too "outre" at this time, as no-one could actually bring themselves to use the word "tasteless."
The company looks forward to continuing to feed the world at very reasonable rates on heavily patented non-breeding seed. "Without us, the poor would starve. Starve, you hear? Naturally grown Big Macs with the magical taste of a New Jersey chemical vat will save the world. Anyone who hates Monsanto hates humanity and probably turns tortoises upside-down in the desert," said Six, nibbling on a Red Dye No. 1 fruit fresh off the vine. "We do what we must because we can."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
"locally produced" != "organic"
Doh, you're absolutely right, my mistake (ironic, too, since I've been taking others to task for conflating the two). Here, try this one. To quote:
More acreage == less efficient.
and what about the Poisons?
Uhh... to quote a sage I read once: "clean your food". Ignoring the fact that I have yet to see a citation that actually links disease to pesticide contamination, something you'd think would be relatively easy given how hot a topic that must be.
30% of the world would be dead in 2 weeks.
Plus the risk of food disease and personal health safety are far higher with organic foods. Look at the type of farming the last 3 major food health issues stemmed from: organic or 'natural' farming.
Most Organic farms are run by the same companies that run farms that aren't Organic. You can charge more for Organic, produce lower quality produce and make idiots think there helping the enviroment.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
hh... to quote a sage I read once: "clean your food"
you quite happily ignore the fact that those poisons CAN'T be broken down by nature, and ergo : acummulate in nature and our bodies. how long can we afford THAT ? also see, for example : http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/pest/effects.html
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
and what about the Poisons?
Oh, and by the way, in that article I cited, he tackles the pesticide myth. My favorite quote is this:
Yup... *way* better than traditional farming techniques. :rollseyes:
Organic foods can be grown using pesticides, but they must be organic pesticides only. What does this mean? Not a lot, as many organic pesticides are just as harmful as synthetics (or worse). Many so called "natural" pesticides haven't been tested thoroughly either, so long term exposure is not known.
...
e.g.: Rotenone: An effective organic pesticide and breaks down quickly, but is toxic to humans. Has possibly been linked to Parkinson's. Nicotine is natural but extremely toxic.
Just because something is organic or natural doesn't mean it's not deadly. Do a search, plenty of scientific papers detailing these results. FWIW many organic farmers try not to use pesticides
you quite happily ignore the fact that those poisons CAN'T be broken down by nature, and ergo
ROFL. You rail against pesticides, then cite DDT, a pesticide that's been banned in the western world specifically because it isn't biodegradable? Please.
Read that whole article. Modern pesticides are biodegradable. Meanwhile, organic farms require up to 7 times *more* "organic" pesticides to do the job, which means *more* toxic chemicals sprayed on your food and into the soil.
any other sources maybe ? ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming
let me say this : organic farming is NOT simply throwing other kinds of poison on our food
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Organic foods can be grown using pesticides, but they must be organic pesticides only. What does this mean? Not a lot, as many organic pesticides are just as harmful as synthetics (or worse). Many so called "natural" pesticides haven't been tested thoroughly either, so long term exposure is not known.
The antibiotics is a great reason for eating organic. The reason your food tastes better might be because it's a local farm, so they're picked fresh and ripe instead of food hauled across the world, ripening during the trip.
"I have a friend who lives near several farms. He and his wife are both dying of cancer. The health department checked their well water and found it with high levels of farm pesticides. THAT is the cost of conventional farming in addition to the pesticide residue that you consume each time you eat conventionally grown produce."
My guess is they live near large, improperly drained livestock farms. Pesticides and herbicides will runoff into waterways, not in to wells. My entire family farms, everyone in my area farms, everyone in my area uses wells for water. Out of my ~20 immediate family, only one had cancer, and that was my grandmother with breast cancer. I could pull the rates, but I would about guarantee you our cancer rates are average.
As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable Slashdot 2.0.
Modern pesticides are biodegradable.
YOUR SOURCE ? another than http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/good_wood/tox_herb.htmmonsanto please ...
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
It's not a matter of being a conspiracy theorist. Consider the facts: The study focuses on the nutritional value exclusively; not overall health benefits, of which nutritional value would be a factor.
This is referred to as "nutritionism" by some:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutritionism
You miss the whole by looking at only the parts.
organic farming is NOT simply throwing other kinds of poison on our food
That's a lie, whether you realize it or not. Citation, from the very Wikipedia article you provided. Note, the pesticides listed are precisely the ones described in that article I provided.
My guess would be:
a) Placebo affect / just your imagination / bias
b) freezing
c) preservatives
so, they will have to be replaced by something better, plain and simple. organic farming is something that's still in it's infancy, but it is certainly better than regular, industrial farming.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Well, one reason is that overuse of anti-biotics in ANY animal (humans too) is a bad thing.
This is one reason we are starting to see more and more anti-biotic resistant strains of 'bugs' out there. Over use selects for the resistant strains, which them proliferate and cause a lot of problems for us.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
YOUR SOURCE ? another than http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/good_wood/tox_herb.htmmonsanto please ...
Very well:
Citation showing that Glyphosate breaks down. It may take a while, but it does *not* bioaccumulate. It also breaks down in water fairly rapidly.
Meanwhile, Atrazine is already banned in the EU and there are calls to ban it elsewhere, so that's a non-issue, IMHO.
In fact, of your cited source, Picloram is the only one that looks nasty for the environment. That said, there's little evidence it's harmful to humans. But I will concede your point on that particular chemical.
organic farming is something that's still in it's infancy, but it is certainly better than regular, industrial farming.
Wait... what? You admit, then, that organic farming uses dangerous chemicals. And they use more of them, too. But it's "certainly better than regular, industrial farming"? Something tells me you're experiencing a little cognitive dissonance.
The point isn't that organic foods have "magical health properties" - it's to avoid the additives and anything unnatural in industrially produced foods.
They have it backwards - it's almost like the following scenario: You have four bowls of soup, three of which are poisoned - four people sit down and eat the soup, and three of them die. We don't say "Gee, one of those soups had magical health benefits, that's why this guy lived," we say "three of those soups had poison."
I am not saying that non-organics are all bad, or anything - I personally like organic stuff because it generally tastes better, but if you're going to study this, study the food which aren't organic - in all of their various forms.
That's the thing too - it is very difficult to accurately study this sort of thing - a single study isn't necessarily going to show results unless it has all sorts of foods, some that are GM, some where different pesticide techniques are used, some where hormones are used etc - and it might not be that this stuff is even that harmful in occasional doses - but over a lifetime this stuff may have determental effects - and unless you are studying a large segment of people, monitoring everything they eat and comparing them to a control group made up of their twins who are eating organic versions of th same foods - how are you going to have truly reliable results?
uses dangerous chemicals.
Yes.
And they use more of them, too
No, they are trying to limit the use ... (or they should, at least)
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
We could easily feed the world if the industrial nations wouldn't insist on their daily hamburgers and steaks.
If some jackass in India or China can take my job by bidding below me, they can starve. At least while I'm unemployed I can hit the dollar menu and enjoy a tasty hamburger because we Americans have enough land to feed ourselves. If they can't overseas, well, its not my problem. They take my job, I take their food. Screw them.
This is my sig.
Actually the main reason is that supermarket carrots are grown for size, appearance and shelf life. A big, straight, bright-orange carrot won't taste the same as a small wonky one as it's been grown specifically take on as much water as possible so it grows quickly, but hasn't actually developed any more sugars or anything that gives flavour.
Because antibiotics are given constantly, regardless of whether the animal is sick or not. Which is an excellent way of making the antibiotic in question useless due to immunization of the bacteria.
The answer is clearly not obvious.
The answer is oil.
Machinery without energy is scrap metal. Food production correlates directly with energy production. What we are doing these days is converting oil into food. You can only produce as much food as the horsepower you have available lets you.
Deleted
One of the best things I read in Michael Pollans "In Defense of Food" was that an apple grown today has only about 30% of the nutrients of one grow 50 years ago probably because the spend so much less time on the vine and in very nutrient stared soil. This is probably one of the reason we are all getting so fat, we are eating 3 times as much to get the same nutrients.
Not sure what it is like in the UK as I am from Canada. I know a while back I watched a TV show produced by the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) that looked at food labeled "Organic" in supermarkets. Bottom line in many cases it is complete marketing BS. Just like when you see some product labeled "Made in Canada" can mean that the packaging was produced in Canada, but the actual product itself is imported from China. Another example were products labeled "Heart Smart" supposedly being healthier for you. It found that companies basically paid an organization to be able to use the label, and the the standards were pretty low. Canada (and I am sure the UK) has standards as to what can legally label itself "Organic", the problem is that for the most part these standards are pretty low, and not enforced for the most part.
Your best bet for real organic food is to wake up early Saturday morning and go to a Farmers market, or your local butcher, and ask where your food comes from. It isn't that hard.
Keep in mind that one source of the difference in "taste" between some of the organic produce you're eating and the supermarket stuff isn't just that it's organic, but that it's also likely a separate cultivar. Heirloom tomatoes are typically available at Farmer's Markets (organic or not) and have a variety of different flavors that you just don't get in the boring "standard" tomatoes that you find at the supermarket.
I'd say they are also missing out on economic and market impacts.
But it might discourage some talking out of the ass by the pro-organic folks.
I have a small market garden I use to supplement my IT income.
I grow in a largely organic fashion because people will pay more for organic produce, and my production costs are higher with chemicals.
I say largely because I don't meet the distance requirements for use of synthetics like bifenthrin for controlling ants and ticks, and I'm not above using a small amount of triple super phosphate when establishing asparagus or fruit trees or berry bushes.
And I've also encountered people's misconceptions about food.
An ear of corn with a bit of worm damage and frass at the tip garners a "Eww yuck!"
A cucumber scarred by cucumber beetle larva garners a "Eww yuck!"
Most people don't care how food tastes, they care how it looks. And non-organic farming creates pretty produce that arrives on the same sort of timetables that drive retail.
So, on the one hand, if I were to migrate to truck farming, a non-organic approach would give me more consistent market times, more consistent visual quality, and less labor, non-organic is currently the way to go. But as long as I'm willing to invest more labor and deal with some inconsistencies with produce availability, organic works better for me.
I want to eat a genetically engineered cow fed nothing but other cows, high fructose corn syrup, antibiotics, and estrogen. I want the meat irradiated right before I eat it. I want it trucked 2000 miles to me.
I can say a few of things. First I'm totally in favor of organic food because it lets farmers make more money without having to do much of anything differently (a tax on the gullible). Interestingly enough, I doubt most organic food connoisseurs really know what makes organic food "organic." It's not quite as simple as just "no chemicals," although that's a key part.
Secondly the unwashed masses have pretty much demanded pesticides on fruits and veggies since blemished fruit doesn't sell (except in organic markets where blemishes and insect infestations are "features). Until we can convince people that it's okay for your apple to not be a perfect shade of red, there will continue to be unnecessary pesticide use.
Thirdly, in the realm of weed control, years of over-tillage and over-use of herbicides have led us to a situation where herbicide resistance is a massive problem. Ironically this means that we're now more dependant than ever on new herbicides. But compared to pesticides, herbicides are quite benign. Most of them are not toxic after they touch the soil and break down into their constituent organic parts. Herbicides work in different ways. Some grow the plant to death. Others target photosynthesis, or stop plant growth. Personally I hate handling any chemicals. I'd love to be able to farm without them. But with weeds if you don't use herbicides the next year has an order of magnitude more weeds. So I think if they are used wisely we can get the food we need without harming the environment.
Despite what people say about sustainable agriculture, "organic" farming as many people would like to see, is actually quite harmful (without controlling weeds) and certainly not sustainable as a food source for the whole world. Entropy and the principles of chaos rule this world, I'm afraid. Weeds thrive when we remove the native plants that previously held them at bay, for the sake of farming.
As an aside, if people really understood how the food supply works in the developed world, they'd immediately stock up on food, at least a few months' worth. Our system is completely "just-in-time." All it would take is massive hemisphere crop failures from climate change or a volcano causing a cold spell,a nd we'd all be out of food. in just 3 or 4 months. Just like that. And massive crop failures have happened before (particularly in the southern hemisphere). I read once that the world wheat supply at any given time is about 3 months. Scary stuff.
No, they are trying to limit the use ... (or they should, at least)
Except they don't. They use 7 times as much because the chemicals they use aren't as effective, remember?
Look, you can think wishfully all you want about that *should* be happening. But then there's reality, and you're gonna have to cope with the fact that it doesn't match your expectations.
Actually there is growing evidence that the early development is due to fat levels, not hormones. So the McBurgers are still to blame, but for a much more nefarious reason.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
I mean, the idea that the shills who write up this claptrap, actually believe that the public at large have feeble enough minds to accept amazingly fallacious tripe like this, is a symptom of the radical level of their delusion. that's the kind of logic that you use on 6 year olds to get them to eat their vegetables. Just stating wild, base level, counter-intuitions and hoping nobody calls your bluff. That is what the scientific method in the service of industry has become; that is hugely and properly shameful. And, not to mention the fact, that the issue that they choose to focus this chicanery around is the fundamental quality of the base of your life, your food supply. Literally lying to the root...frakking unconscionable! Here's another breaking headline!!! It's not the cessation of breathing that kills you, it's the want of air... I mean for crying out loud...
As a foodie and also as my partner is a chef,we both eat as healthy food as we can and are both non-meat eaters. Our reasons for stopping eating meat was two fold firstly the added hormones and secondly the addition of antibiotics to the animals, hoping to prevent disease. We also have access through my partners brother who has an allotment plenty of fruit and veg and it tastes altogether better than when we buy fresh from our local supplier. And as the writer points out we can keep the food longer than supermarket bought produce. Ian
I eat mostly organic food, but I don't pretend it's more healthy than regular food in general. For animal products, I absolutely believe it is, since the animals that produced them aren't given antibiotics, growth hormones, etc. The few times I've eaten meat this decade, it was organic, but these days I don't trust the meat industry at all, organic or otherwise. I stick to organic yogurt, cheese, and occasionally eggs.
I've come to realize that part of the higher price of organics is that they also serve as the gourmet versions of foods, since people apparently believe that something organically grown is inherently more tasty (I don't think that's the case) and in any case wouldn't be happy paying a lot for an organic product that was of poor taste or appearance. So out of the matrix of four possibilities (conventional, gourmet, organic, organic gourmet) you get the extremes, conventional and organic gourmet.
This report aint woth it's weight in used bog roll the FSA are a bunch of government brown noses most of them would not even know fresh food if you stuck it under their noses the live in BK and such places and they aint even old enough to know what good fresh fruit and veg is about the Supermarkets rule how and what they respond and Supermarkets do not like organic it means they have to pay proper money for it so they loose out .
Ahhhhhhh shame tough
It's widely known that the significant health benefit of organic produce is the lack of pesticides. Other benefits do not appear reliably or significantly in studies. It's also unclear how much benefit is gained from a lack of pesticides, but it is clear that these chemicals are damaging to people in higher concentrations.
In general, it's extremely difficult to show significant benefits from any given food, given how long the results take to show, the rest of the study group's diets, and so on. Most decisive studies are deliberately skewed.
The facts remain: organic foods do not have deliberately added poison, while conventional foods do. Organic food production also does not relese nearly the level of pollution in poisons, fertilizer, and microbes into the world. It also typically leaves the soil in amore healthy state for sustanied production.
That's it. It's not a magic healthy pill, as this study confirms. But that isn't news.
-josh
You do not know what you are talking about.
I currently live in a community with many farmers, and most of them are smarter than me, university educated and generally very well informed. They know their plant and soil ecology/biology backwards and forwards, and have the years of experience and product to show for their efforts. Several of your points make it clear that you have NO idea what you are talking about.
Because I didn't want to be like you, I took the time to ask questions. In fact, just last week, I attended a workshop for a local community farm with featured experts who came to advise on soil health, and I can tell you that the science of organic farming is lightyears beyond what most people think. For instance, in the last ten years alone, there have been amazing discoveries made about the life cycles and inter-relationships at work in the garden. --One of the more startling I learned about was the symbiotic relationship between certain common fungus strains and the plants they inhabit. Kill the fungus, decrease crop yields by as much as 30%. --And we, the human race, are actively exploring the science behind why this is so. Or at least those of us who are paying attention. Those eating ho-hos and living in ad-based states of denial don't know much of anything.
Essentially it comes down to this: the systems which naturally evolved over millions of years are incredibly efficient and smart, and when you learn how to tweak those systems using the lego bricks which naturally exist within their ecologic spheres, without introducing foreign agents, you can raise clean, healthy crops which don't come laced with poisons and dangerous genetic uncertainty factors. There's a reason Australia has too many rabbits; it's called, "Irresponsible scientific conceit". --The belief that humans are not connected to and stand apart from the rest of the biosphere; that we are smart enough to be able to whack Life with chemical and genetic mallets without taking the time to learn about the subtleties of biological relationships and that we will not be affected in our ego-centric bubble reality.
It takes the WORK of study to be a successful organic farmer, whereas it only takes money and intellectual laziness to spread a bag of the latest corporate powder on your land. I've met both types. It's like the difference between a hard-core television viewer and a mountain climber. One has a brain made of goop, the other has eyes filled with sparks.
Which are you?
-FL
I know pretty much about food. And the diseases bad food causes.
And I can tell you, that those diseases don't come tomorrow. They take decades to grow. And this is why they are so hard to track back to their causes.
Luckily, a nice man called Max Otto Bruker gave only what you would call "organic food" to the 50,000 patients of his clinic over a range of 50 years. And then collected that vast experience into books. (Which unfortunately are only available an German).
He found the Kollath table to be basically true: http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vollwertleben.info%2Fhtml%2Fbody_kollath-tabelle.html&sl=de&tl=en&history_state0=&swap=1 (I could only find a German version. I hope it makes any sense. In case of problems, use dict.leo.org)
"Basically", because of course, your body can cope with bad food for a time, and is pretty flexible. So you can of course eat trash food. Just not as your main diet. And you can often fix bad nutrition by eating something that fixes the balance on the next day.
It is impressive, how many diseases, that we thought were because of old age, are really because of bad food. (Hint: Most of them!)
And one other thing that he found out, is that there really actually are groups who want to denounce and destroy you, because you attack their business model. They were on the level of Glen Beck: One day they call you a Nazi. The other day a communist Jew. And the third day, they make up some other bullshit. Even today. Totally crazy beyond belief...
Same thing as in "Thank you for smoking". Just with absolutely no conscience.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The thing to remember is that just because you are smart enough to know that there aren't extra nutrients in organic food doesn't mean that everyone is. Also, just because the people that sell you your organic food don't tell you that it is more nutritious, doesn't mean that others aren't telling people that their organic food IS more nutritious.
Many people all over the place, either directly or indirectly, insinuate that organic food has more nutrients. Yesterday they were discussing organic food on Wisconsin Public Radio and both the guest and the host alluded to the nutritional benefits of eating organic. This is thought pollution of even the most intellectual crowd. Now, I'm not going to argue against organic food, because it does have many benefits, however it is important to know exactly what those benefits are.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
Ask any professional star chef, what his secret is, and the number one answer will be, that he uses the most fresh and unprocessed food that he can get his hands on.
So actually, eating more healthy will taste much better, when you can cook! Organic products are even better because they are not so much diluted. Which is pretty obvious.
Also, processing costs money. So you can save money too.
I call that a great deal! :)
Even if you do not care for the health benefits, think of it like this: You can earn money for eating more tasty food!
You would be crazy not to take that offer, wouldn't you? ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Wider range of vegetables? You are kidding, right? Don't you have seasons over there? Supermarkets will get off-season veggies and fruits from far away places, if you only eat local, you have to eat with the season.
For what it's worth, my family includes a few agronomists and for a while we did deliver fresh fruit and vegetables to the door (I did quite a few of the deliveries myself). So if you have more variety locally than at the supermarket, then your supermarket is really worthless.
The plural of anecdote is not evidence. As for pesticides, you do know that it takes MORE of the organic pesticides to have the same effect as the chemical pesticides? And no, they're NOT harmless.
There is absolutely zero evidence of a longer shelf life, or of better taste, beyond your anecdotes.
Nutritions aside. Organic food contains more, more diverse and better microorganisms. Humans need those to stay healthy. On the other hand, food that has been exposed to pesticides contain more pathogens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flora
It is not merely trite to point out that all food is organic. It cuts to the heart of the matter. In popular usage, "organic" has taken on its marketing/legal meaning, which varies from country to country, but usually includes a grab-bag of particular faddish details related to the growing of the produce, all of which have nothing at all to do with the dictionary meaning of "organic", and which for the most part have nothing to do with producing healthier plants (and in some cases even working against that). It would have been surprising to learn that individuals of the same species that meet these legal definitions would end up significantly differing in their makeup in ways that offer health benefits.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
The organic farming industry uses plenty of pesticides. In fact, because they use "organic" pesticides which are less effective, they're actually forced to use *far more*.
The "organic == no pesticides" meme is a myth, plain and simple.
Pesticides would not stop bacteria and other beasties from chowing down on your lettuce. Perhaps the organic lettuce was also rinsed in dilute bleach solution (fairly common practice to get rid of pesticides, bacteria, and to keep veggies fresh longer). Perhaps you just got really lucky on the organic stuff and really unlucky on the supermarket stuff.
To review: the plural of anecdote is not data.
"I challenge you to find cheaper food than the organic produce grown within a few miles of my home. If people would focus on buying locally produced veggies and meat, it would cut a huge chunk of transportation cost (and waste) out of the system."
You're lucky to have an organic farm within a few miles of your home that will sell you produce cheaper than the industrially-grown, mass-market product available in cities.
I live in the downtown core in a city, and every Saturday I buy produce at one of three farmer's markets. It costs me at least 30% more to shop there, compared to shopping at a Safeway/Save-On/whatever, and for some things it's over 50%.
I can afford it, so I go ahead and shop there. But I would never look down on somebody shopping cheaper - which, in these parts, means shopping non-organic.
I see a contradiction between statements in the two linked articles, so I'm confused.
BBC: Gill Fine, FSA director of consumer choice and dietary health, said: ..."What it shows is that there is little, if any, nutritional difference between organic and conventionally produced food and that there is no evidence of additional health benefits from eating organic food."
postpeakpublishing: According to the study's Executive Summary: "This review does not address contaminant content (such as herbicide, pesticide and fungicide residues) of organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs or the environmental impacts of organic and conventional agricultural practices."
I can see how the study would fail to show evidence of additional benefits, if it didn't address contaminant content. But that same omission makes it impossible for this study to show that there is no evidence of such benefits.
I resolve my confusion by concluding that Gill Fine (ironically, an executive of the agency that commissioned the study) either didn't read the Executive Summary, or has poor reading comprehension.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
...But to be honest the main reason I do it is because it tastes so much better...
I remember the first time I entered an organic food market. I was amazed that walking through the produce aisles I could actually smell the different fruits and vegetables. Ordinary supermarket fare is often heavily wax coated and/or bred (modified?) so that the scent of the produce is all but non-existent. I haven't purchased a supermarket strawberry in years that actually tasted like a strawberry.
Ok, you are confusing the issues here. Pesticides in the water can be a problem. However, organic food produciton is not the answer. Contrary to popular belief, organic production allows for the use of some pesticides. Mostly from older categories that are no longer in widespread use. The reason they are not in widespread use is that they don't work as well, require more frequent application, and require much heavier application rates (more pounds/acre). All of these characteristics trace back to them being derived from plants, which is why they can be used by organic farmers. The net result of all this being that there is more pesticide runoff from organic farms than from modern agricultural practices.
Consequently, GM crops like the infamous "Round-Up Ready" varieties actually are better for the environment because they require far less pesticide applciation both in number of passes with the sprayer, and pounds of pesticide/acre.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Little girls are developing younger than they used to because the are fatter than they used to be at the same age. Onset of puberty is tied more closely to hormone indicators of body mass, than to age. If you limit feed your daughter, she will enter puberty later. The alternative has been happening because of the high body fat most Western children are developing at younger ages. Bovine hormones have nothing to do with it.
Besides, all animal hormones need to be tested for cross reactivity with human receptors before they can be approved for use in livestock. There are also mandatory withdrawl periods for all medications in livestock feed. If your animal products test positive you are going to be in deep trouble with the USDA and FDA.
The poster child for the animal hormone industry is BST, which has actually been injected directly into the blood stream of humans and been shown to have absolutely NO effect. It's because it is a protein hormone and the necessary protein receptor in humans is too dissimilar from its bovine analogue
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
I'll grant you that pumping your food full of hormones is a bad thing
Why? All animal hormones are tested for cross reactivity in humans. Even if they don't cross react, there are manditory withdrawl periods for all medications. Tests are run to determine how long the compound resides in the animals tissues and then extra time is added on to ensure that there is none present.
The poster child for the animal hormone industry BST has even been injected directly into human bloodstream and been shown to have ZERO effect. This is because BST is a protein hormone, and the necessary protein receptor in humans is too dissimilar from its analogue in Cattle.
As to the antibiotics. There are mandatory withdrawl periods in livestock for those too. If they didn't, people all of the country that are allergic to various antibiotics would be keeling over dead at dinner as a result of their allergies. Since that DOESN'T HAPPEN, it's means that these antibiotics are NOT in the meat. Same thing goes for Milk.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
They taste differently because the vegetables in the supermarket are much older than what you get at the farmer's market. For some vegetables, it means that they are picked so that they will ripen during transport instead of on the plant. If you were to visit a non-organic farm and get the vegetables at the same stage as the organic farm, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Farmers like organic crops since they can eliminate costs and selling the product at higher prices to suckers more than compensates for the lower yield.
Hey sopsaa. I don't have any mod points but I just wanted to thank you for the points you're making throughout this thread. Sustainability is good, but the answer isn't to throw away the technology that has, thus far, allowed us to keep ahead of the famines and disasters predicted by people like the guy who wrote the population bomb back in the 60s. It's a busy day at work so I don't have time to debate all the misinformed and misguided on this thread, but I'm glad to see someone keeping up he good fight.
Exactly,
I eat organic for 2 reasons, one is I don't want my body filled with the left over amounts of pesticides (in the case of fruit and veg) and antibiotics and hormones (in the case of meat). I especially don't want my 1 year old son's body being subjected to those if I can avoid it.
But to be honest the main reason I do it is because it tastes so much better. Carrots actually test of carrot rather than crunchy water taste you get from a standard supermarket carrot.
We get organic veg delivered to our door from a local farm and it last much longer due to shorter pick to delivery time scales. There is also the added bonus of getting a wider variety of veg.
As a result I eat a wider range of vegetables, it tastes nicer, and because of the longer shelf life I throw less away. This means that it costs me the same or less than buying normal super market veg. Couple that with the convenience of it delivered to my door it is a no-brainer really!
If you don't want to eat pesticides, too bad. Organic doesn't mean no pesticides, it means that they use "organic pesticides". Like copper sulfate. Most modern pesticides are developed to specifically kill only the stuff we want it to kill and nothing else. Please stop letting a bunch of ignorant nature nutcases lie to you. Genetically targeted pesticides don't hurt humans. Organic pesticides do, though. Copper sulfate is a carcinogen, but it's used by many organic farmers anyway. It doesn't even work that well at killing the bugs. So you still get bugs in your food along with a nice dose of cancer agents. Honestly, that's why I specifically AVOID organic foods when I can. It's a buzzword that most certainly has nothing to do with "healthy".
We see more antibiotic resistant strains of bugs because of HUMAN abuse of antibiotics.
How often do you come into contact with pigs or chickens eating antibiotic treated food? Most never do. Most people don't even come less than with 3 degrees of separation of a farm animal.
If you are thinking "what about antibiotics in the meat/milk?" I can assure you that your fears are unwarranted. Many people are allergic to some sort of antibiotic. If these antibiotics were getting into the meat or milk, those with serious allergies would be dropping dead over there steaks. Antibiotics that get into milk would stop the cheese making bugs in their tracks. In fact, if you get caught selling antibiotic tainted milk (every load from every farm is tested), you will be forced to buy back no only your milk, but any other milk that was mixed with yours. Second offense and you can't sell milk for several months, third offense can lead to a life time refusal to purchase your milk (killing your farm).
Well what about bacteria with resistance genes that get on the meat and then into us? That would be a valid concern, except that most bacterial species that colonize the gut of pigs, chickens, cattle, and any other livestock specie are "Speciallists" they cannot set up shop in the human intestine for more than a limited period of time. The predominant bacterial Genus in Humans is bifidobacteria, but they usually make up a negligable portion of any other animals enteral microbiota.
Essentially the "Animals are to blame for Antibiotic resistance levels" is FUD spread by the human health industry to try and cover up for their reckless use of antibiotics in human health. While most never come into contact with livestock being treated with antibiotics, everyone has interacted with someone that was prescribed antibiotics they didn't actually need, or that didn't take their meds for the full period. THAT is the true cause of the rise in resistance genes.
That is why in the decade ore more since the EU banned all sub-theraputic use of antibiotics in livestock, and the theraputic use of many antibiotics important for humans, there has been no decrease in antibiotic resistance gene prevelance in livestock or in humans.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
In theory, but not in practice. In the decade or more since the EU has banned all sub-theraputic use of antibiotics in livestock, and the theraputic use of antibiotics important for human medicine, there has been no reduction in resistance levels. There hasn't even been a change in resistance levels in livestock, despite all of the generations that have gone without ever being treated with some of these antibiotics. It's all red-herring encouraged by the human health industry to hide the fact that they are irresponsibly using antibiotics in human medicine.
How many people do you know that have been given antibiotics they didn't actually need, or failed to take all of their meds. I'd bet that everyone in the western world has done both at least once. Besides, sub-theraputic doses of antibiotics are only routinely fed at certain stages. Mainly during weaning because it frequently occurs during the time when the maternally transfered immunity is wearing off and the piglets immune system is still coming online. Otherwise antibiotic use is avoided because they are EXPENSIVE.
Yes it can be abused by some producers, but those abuses are no where near as systematic as the antibiotic abuses seen in human medicine.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Organic foods generally taste better than conventional foods. In the US, 'organic' is a certification, similar to the way kosher is a certification. But lets use the term as meaning, no pesticides, no hormones, no sprayed on viruses, no genetic modifications, basically no 'help' from technology. You know, just real food. 'Sustainability' is about to become its own section in the NY Times and I hate to use the term, but.. 'Organic' farming is completely sustainable. Its really the industrial food production model that is unsustainable. Most US farming going to producing gmo corn for biofuels, JIT delivery, &c. Our current farming methods are only sustainable if you think producing garbage food that leads to less healthy humans and props up medical & big pharma is a good way to move forward. I'm sure someone could create a study proving that one group eating real food were no healthier than another group eating only cardboard, so it must be true. Are the high priests of science actually magicians?
which is most likely psychosomatic. If you pay more for something, you expect it to be better, and will believe it to be so even if in blind studies you can't tell the difference. It's all about what your expectations are going into it.
Besides, if you are like me and 'eat to live' instead of 'live to eat' any percieved difference is usually not worth the cost.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
But do more people die because organic food reduces the total amount of food producable per acre of farmable land (perhaps contributing to deforestation as new farmland is required)... Something to think about...
They also have fresh "All-Sorts" licorice and regular licorice in about 2000 flavors. The first time I went there, I bumped into something, looked down, and beheld a wooden barrel filled with mini peanut butter cups. Then I saw the row of bins with 500 types of trail mix and snack mixes. About then I passed out from the emotional overload.
Yeah, but audiophiles think a $5000 audio cable makes their music sound better. The human mind is unreliable and arbitrary; the placebo effect colors everything you experience.
Give me a *double-blind test*, scientific *proof* that the majority of people think organic produce tastes better, even when they don't know it's organic, then maybe I'll give you some credit.
Until that happens, you're just spouting placebo as far as I'm concerned.
Comment of the year
If you care about organic certification, learn a bit about the certification process; the best bet is to look for certification stamps from private bodies like Oregon Tilth, and be leery of lobbyist-certified bodies like the National Organic Program. In Canada, consider the more regional certifying bodies.
And always, always, choose buying locally from a farmer you trust over supermarket organic brands. Smart smaller-scale farmers don't poison their kids by overspraying, even if they aren't certified.
Damn those pesky terrorists
While it is nice to see everyone getting focused on the health benefits of organic produce, lets remember that when it comes to fruit and veg, these things are just a byproduct of Superior soil engineering (organic farming). From my view as a worm farmer, organic farming is really putting nature back into the system where it belongs. Eating veg that has been sipping on chemical cocktails is equiv to taking home a alcoholic crackhead from the bar. She/he is alive and breathing but only just. Take away the chem and the body dies. Plants, soil and the web of life that supports it are all needed to sustain the cycle of life properly. When you remove the web and replace it with half measures and only the basic chemicals and microbes, you get what you put in. Half baked frankencrop. The current popular methods of farming with chemical magic is old. I think it was about 200 years ago when a fellow figured out that adding N P K to farm land that had been leeched of it's nutrients due to over farming would replenish the soil. It has taken all this time to really understand how devastating this type of farming is to the soil. I talked to a farmer yesterday that recently changed to an organic farming method. He told me that the result of paying attention to the soil first and treating the crop as a byproduct of proper soil managment has resulted in 50% less irrigation, ZERO need for pest control, reduced soil tillage due to an explosion of worms in his soil doing it for him and the best part of all, crops that sell at market with an increased margin of 20%. So in the end, regardless of what the FSA has to say about organically produced crops, there is no better way to farm a plot of land than to do it in a way that is in tune with the entire web of life under and above the soil. To the guy that is going to say that you can't feed billions and do it organic. Bullshit. Prove it.
Thing is, I can walk into my local supermarket, and I'll find organic and inorganic carrots presented in exactly the same way. I can buy them as whole carrots, or peeled baby carrots in a bag, or whatever. I can taste the difference easily between organic and those without long-chain carbon molecules or whatever the opposite is.
There may be no difference in nutrient value, but it isn't a matter of fresh vs. bagged.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You should not, however, use that as an argument for producing food with less efficient methods like organic farming - the key to better taste is to get the veggies locally.
It isn't just freshness, though that's enormously important.
Often smaller family farms are planting more interesting and tasty varieties, as well---varieties that you can't get in the supermarket because they don't fit in as well with large-scale equipment or rapid growth.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Reminds me of a snack table put out by our chemistry department that had little signs that said 'these food items are made of chemicals'. Or the episode of 'Yes, Minister' where voters concluded that since dioxin was poisonous, meta-dioxin must be too.
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
QUOTE The review did not look at pesticides or the environmental impact of different farming practices. ENDQUOTE
I always thought the main reason for eating organic fruits and veggies was the pesticide factor. So this "study" was really incomplete and didn't report on one of the main pluses to eating organic.
QUOTE "Also, there is not sufficient research on the long-term effects of pesticides on human health," he added. ENDQUOTE
It's really interesting that no one want's to test and see how harmful pesticides are and how much gets absorbed into the actual food. That washing fruits and veggies don't really get rid of all the chemicals that are sprayed all over it. Sad really.
and has the exact opposite effect that is claimed. Expensive audio cables don't, to my knowledge, reduce sound quality. They just fail to deliver improved audio quality.
Organic food is believed to be safer, more nutritious, and better for the environment, when in fact it is no safer or nutritious, and WORSE for the environment. That's the truly frustrating part.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Organic food is simply the latest way for the rich to inexplicitly assert their moral superiority over the poor.
I enjoy reading all of these posts from people complaining about the unsustainability of "organic" (which, BTW, is nothing more than a marketing term in the US) farming.
So industrial agriculture is better? Your idea of "sustainable" is depleting the topsoil, pumping it full of fertilizers based on fossil-fuel, and then having most of that nitrogen leach out into the water supply to choke out marine life? Sounds like either a short-sighted solution, or willful rationalization to me.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
There is no claim that organic foods are more nutritious.
Technically incorrect. I direct you to the Nutritional Considerations page of the Organic Trade Association.
http://www.ota.com/organic/benefits/nutrition.html
There are many claims that organic food is nutritionally superior to conventional alternatives.
The UK FSA study is narrow in scope, and it's purpose was to provide a counterpoint to statements like "Research by visiting chemistry professor Theo Clark and undergraduate students at Truman State University in Missouri found organically grown oranges contained up to 30 percent more vitamin C than those grown conventionally."
Yep, that's our finding too.
The thing about supermarket foods is that, by the time you get it home, it's been picked for a long damn time. Weeks, months - who knows. Same for beef, eggs, poultry, and dairy: it takes a while for all those things to get to the consumer.
We've bought eggs from the farmer's market or from a local friend/farmer before, as well as milk - straight from the cow with the little black floaties in it, still (mmm full-cream milk, not any of this homogenized and super-pastuerized "whole" milk nonsense). The milk can sit for couple days on the counter without souring (though it's much sweeter if refrigerated). Eggs can sit out on the counter "indefinitely" - call it a week or two (nobody put eggs in their fridge before fridge makers started having the egg trays, and industrial egg production started washing the protective membranes off the egg shells). Likewise, packaged meat at the supermarket has been sitting out for quite, whether at the packing plant after the slaughter, pre-freezing, or post-freezing at the store. And there's also the (not slim, during the summer) chance that the freezer truck thawed out during transit, and that meat spent a while heating in the back of a truck.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Take a look at Japan, but before MacDonalds, et. al., became popular over here.
Sure, longevity is still on the rise, but it was high well before the incidence of "western diseases" ballooned.
If there is no reason to specialize in corn and soy, then why do so many developing countries do so?
Are you sure that lectures from the "big ag" groups will not also be full of biased information?
When your favorite tool is a hammer, you tend to see all problems as nails, whether you are a programmer, a doctor, a musician, a farmer, an employee of an artists association, an engineer for Monsanto, etc.
"Big" is a hammer. "Big" looks efficient until the first disaster.
("Big", as in Bureaucracy, would you believe?)
Eventually, we get turned back around to recognizing that work, like control, works best on a local basis. That includes farming.
The siren song of big industry, I think, is the sharing of information, but we really don't need to make big corporations to share information.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Pesticides are used in organic farming too. It's time to look at yourself and realise you've bought into a scam.
The pesticides used in organic farming are worse for the environment then alternatives. For more information see other comments in this article.
"Big Ag" is big because they need to be big if they want to turn a reliable profit. You want to back up any of your "Big is Dangerous" rant with specific examples or am I supposed to provide those. I think the fact that "Big Ag" has managed to feed a world while allowing >90% of the western world to have no contact with the food production industry is a pretty strong example of "Big can be Good".
If people were willing and able to pay for corn that is twice the price, we could afford to keep a lot more smaller operations in business. However, grain and animal futures markets are prone to massive and prolonged slumps that push smaller operators out of business due to their inability to spread the fixed overhead costs over a larger production base.
No one is actively trying to kill small farms, they just aren't competitive in an industry that calculates profit on chicken in 100ths of a penny for example. This has almost nothing to do with big corporate farms vs. small family farms and everything to do with basic Economics
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Well...
....Because they're cheaper than day rates, silly!
.
- aqk
F U
selective breeding is not even close to being the same as genetic engineering you fucking idiot.
Hold on - according to the other report when it references the FSA's ...
According to the study's Executive Summary:
"This review does not address contaminant content (such as herbicide, pesticide and fungicide residues) of organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs or the environmental impacts of organic and conventional agricultural practices."
Why such a pejorative stance? All it's saying is that is hasn't taken into account - for either types of food - the effect of eating them unwashed - isn't it?
And, also that it hasn't looked at environmental impacts etc., but that it's *just* looked at the nutritional value - which is the focus of the main report.
@peetm
I choose to buy organic (when given the choice) to encourage smarter, more sustainable farming practices. Avoiding the negative health effects of the chemicals in non-organic food is my other reason (and it appears this research didn't consider that aspect, just nutrition). Taste benefits are subtle, but there. But that, and increased nutrition, are just bonuses for me. I wish the BBC didn't use such sensationalist and mis-leading headlines though. I notice them most in the science section, but I don't know if that is just that I (like most people here I guess!) have more background knowledge, or if it is just that the science editor really wishes he was working for the tabloids.
You want a "Big is Dangerous" rant?
Well, big served for a while. It did provide the social stimulus for researching a lot of important things. There should have been a better way, but even the "free" society of the USA wasn't really quite up to accepting the realities involved in what "free" really means.
Big ag did serve for a while.
We live in a society heavily biased by the systemization that brought us too much big. It makes it hard to see what the alternatives are. It also makes it hard for the individual, non-standard people to get what they need, since big can only provide the standard.
Non-standard will always look too expensive in a society like this.
But the big institutions have all well outgrown their usefulness. That's what the business with the big banks was/is. It's time to kill the big institutions off, or, rather, cut them back to a manageable size, split them into competing entities. Or kill them if they won't be cut down to size.
The institutions, not the people, of course. Let the institutions die, if necessary, to save the people.
(And if you think you are standard enough not to believe in non-standard individuals, just wait a while. Standard is an illusion.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
None of what you said is an actual EXAMPLE that big is bad. Only a belief and a bunch of nonsense about how Big isn't for everyone. I never said it was, only that it was good enough for most people.
There will always be niche providers for services in any industry, including agriculture. That doesn't mean that Big Ag has some how failed, only that what ever that niche is looking for is too dissimilar from what everyone else is looking for, or at least content with to become the new Big Ag Standard.
The problems with the banks was one of deregulation so as to get the poor into houses so that they will in turn vote for the Democrats. All of the banks are 'guilty', not just the big ones, and i'm being incredibly liberal with my use of the term guilt. I know of several small local banks that ended up needing to be bailed out or closed, so your one example isn't actually applicable.
Big Ag is more important now than it has ever been before and I'll give you actual, relevant reasons why.
1. We have more people on this planet then we've ever had in the past, many of those people are living on subsistence diets handed out by Aid groups in 3rd world countries. These countries lack the infrastructure to feed themselves and without aide many more would be starving to death.
2. In the last 3 years we have gone from 13% of total US corn crop going toward fuel ethanol production to 23%. What's more is that in those 3 years, we've increased total corn Production, so that 23% if of a much larger number than the 13%.
3. We've had record breaking years as far as total corn production here in the US most years in the last decade. All we need is one bad year because of floods, tornadoes, or disease and food prices are going to go through the roof, and many in 3rd world countries will starve to death.
4. There are several independent organizations, including the UN, that have estimated that we are going to need to DOUBLE global food production over the next 50 years. Unless we can get these developing countries carrying most of that load, we are going to need to get that extra production out of countries already running at full steam. That we've been trying to get these countries on their feet unsuccessfully for more than 50 years, makes me doubt we'll be successful with more than a handful of them in the next 50 years.
I'm even a fan of small Ag. However, because of basic economics, they need to be doing something unique and innovative in order to stay competitive in the globalized economy. That does NOT mean that they are some how Better than Big Ag, only different.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
It might have something to do with us humans eating them afterwards. If you had a choice, would you really want to eat livestock that has been infused with all sorts hormones/pharmaseudicals/etc from birth. All that shit doesn't just pass through their systems, it stays in the meat, and we end up eating it, and then it stays in our bodies.
You know how Tuna and lots of other fish (mmm, dolphin) are full of Mercury (or whatever metal it is - I'm rambling here so don't come to me with facts :) ) so our intake should be limited, it's the same deal except it's growth hormones and all sorts of other stuff.
I'm not going to pretend that freerange or organic is some magical solution where the animals are massaged twice a day, but there has to be a better way. Food is one place where we really shouldn't be going only for the fastest and cheapest.
in the US, that is. in the EU : there's regulation.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
interesting read. glyphosate could be permitted then, just on the basis of biodegradabibilty. now. for the GMO-part though ...
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Actually it really depends on how heavily altered the 'normal' food one gets at the supermarket is. generally speaking, an onion is an onion (and i lived in walla walla eating sweets for 4 years) a bell pepper is a bell pepper and white rice is white rice. however, milk, eggs, and a lot of veggies and fruit that have been bred for size and shelf-ripening by agribusines (tomatoes and cucumbers spring to mind) are noticeably different. that said, since you can't tell the difference, continue shopping where you shop. unlike many of my fellow coop shoppers, i could give a less of a flying fuck what everyone else eats.
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
As someone who has worked in the dairy industry I can assure you that there is no routine adulteration of "Regular" milk that isn't also done routinely to "Organic" milk. I could walk you through the entire QA process if you would like, but suffice to say Milk doesn't belong on your list of things that are "Noticeably Different" unless you've actually done a blind taste test.
I worked on a small dairy in Hadley, MA (less than 30 cows milking at any one time) that milked only Jersey cows and bottled their own milk. It wasn't organic, although it may be now, but it tasted different because Jersey cows are purported to have higher milk protein or milk fat (can't remember which) that Holsteins. If they've gone "Organic" that difference will be attributed to management practices, not the breed of cow producing the milk.
Most "Organic" or "Non-BST" milk is just as heavily processed Homogenized, Pasteurized, tested for antibiotics, controlled for milk fat content, and supplemented with Vitamin D, etc. as "Regular" milk.
For the rest, I still believe that any differences are either psychosomatic or the result of different genetics, which usually grow slower or are more prone to disease. In either case "Happy Shopping."
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Fact of the matter is that INDUSTRIAL ORGANIC farming is in some ways better than conventional farming, and in some ways just as bad or even worse. What we really need is ideas like permaculture, which would also have the tremendous advantage of preventing terrorists from killing large number of people by stopping or poisoning a centralized food supply (how about the contaminated peanut scare recently). Even in New York city, people are growing veggies on their roofs, and there is talk about growing food in high-rise buildings so it doesn't have to come from 1500 miles away through a warehouse (and by the time it gets to you, its all wilted). If you grow some of your own food, you can laugh when a crop failure raises prices at the supermarket. It doesn't really matter if you use some select pesticides or fertilizer, as long as you are healthy and can tolerate it, and of course at your own risk in case someone finds out in a few decades that it actually DID cause cancer or something else.
A normal healthy human body can stand a lot of punishment. I know people who smoke who made it into their 70's or 80's, and there are numerous other examples of what people can get away with. The same thing that over time kills one person may not kill another. If your body's pesticide and foreign chemical cleanup systems are working properly, you can actually get away with eating most conventional foods. Also, a lot of pesticides lodge in the skin of fruits and veggies, which most people remove before eating them.
Unfortunately, small children have more of a problem with this, and many people are NOT healthy. What if you have sick body organs and/or have allergies (caused by incomplete digestion and bad intestinal health allowing undigested food proteins directly into the bloodstream), chemical sensitivities, and accumulate the junk in your body over time?
Why do you think fish accumulate mercury in their bodies and become a major problem? And the cow meat you eat has antibiotics and hormones as well as other chemicals in trace amounts, because cows have to be fattened up on junk food for 14 months (instead of the 5 years that it used to take) so that somebody can make a profit.
Also, the same pesticide that kills the bad bugs also kills good bugs, as well as creating mutant frogs, killing birds, etc.. It would be nice if technology advanced to the point where we could be selective. Some of the good bugs (like bees) are essential to the reproduction of plants (of course you can argue that you don't care and would eat the junk that they ate in the Matrix (algae, anyone?), but I would like to have the choice.
So pesticides are a double-edged sword. And fertilizers are overused because the farmer wants to maximize his yield so that he can barely make enough money to keep going. All that fertilizer has to wash somewhere and it ends up in our water, causing algae blooms and unbalancing whole ecosystems.
What we should do should be to carefully weigh the pros and cons and make intelligent decisions, not leave this up to greedy corporations. You should know what you are eating and where it came from, or otherwise you could be eating something that you would find rather disgusting and you wouldn't KNOW! Check out the book I am reading currently: The Omnivore's Dilemna by Michael Pollan (http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals/dp/1594200823). He actually went and LOOKED.
Pesticides and Fertilizers by the way came from in a large part from the military industry of World War II. The plants that made ammonium nitrate for bombs were rededicated to making it for fertilizer. Chlorine and other poisons were researched and used for chemical weapons, and then diverted to wage chemical warfare on BUGS. When the war was over, they had to do something with all that production.
Is there intelligent life on Earth, or are we all a seething mass of grubs competing with each other until we destroy ourselves with nukes, a new virus, or by damaging our only food and our only home in 50 or 100 years?