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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."
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?
The point behind organic food is that it's better for the environment, not healthier to eat. But thanks for the useless study, UK!
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.
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.
"That is technological improvement, so there's no really any reason why technologically made or improved food would be more riskier."
Utter Horsepuckey.
So because technological improvement has helped us get where we are now, it can do no wrong at all?
What nonsense. Look at the whole trans-fat thing for an example. Carcinogens added technologically as a preservative.
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.
The problem with your point is - in my opinion - that in the area of food, technological advancements are either scams or used to sell us processed cheap shit.
Our national consumer protection organisation recently published a list of what some "food" items really are made of. Technology is used to get away with as little of the original ingredients as possible and add as much cheap filler (corn, soy, cheap oils) as possible. How can technologically engineered food with 20% real ingredients for taste and 80% cheap filler be good?
As someone who consumed organic food for several years I can attest that none of the organic food I ate tasted better than its conventional counterpart.
I suspect that most people who espouse this view have been convinced it tastes better because of the price.
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.
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.
Couldn't agree more.
That and all the chemically dependant "fast-grow, high-yield" fruits and vegetables taste like arse compared to the more traditional ones.
Going for higher, cheaper yield is not always good.
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.
But organic food processing is a technology and not always and necessarily an old one.
There is an attitude among many people that if it is distributed, divers, and non-destructive it's not technology and if it involves large companies, big industries and has fatal side effects it's technology. I think that this attitude is utterly wrong.
In the end technology just means instruments and procedure that assist you getting things done, and their instrumental character defines a good technology, not whether or not a consortium can make big bucks with it.
I have a hard time seeing what improvement Monsanto (for example) brought to anyone than themselves, I'm not sure organic agriculture technology does badly in comparison with the "agribusiness" technology, at all.
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
in my opinion - that in the area of food, technological advancements are either scams or used to sell us processed cheap shit.
Around the turn of the last century, we needed about 80% of the US population working on farms to feed us all. Today, it's more like 4%, and we're the world's biggest food exporter. What do you think made that possible?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The QuackWatch report merely confirms that the Certification process (in some countries) is flawed and open to political games. It does not however have anything to do with actual weight of scientific evidence confirming the harmful effects using pesticides on us and the environment. It could even be argued that the Certification political games (in some countries) are just the Pesticide Industries way of damage control against the tide of consumer sentiment turning against their chemically soaked and grown products.
These organic pesticides are pretty widely used.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Umm "cow shit" is just mushed up grass and water. If you saw what goes on on a farm and what's put in and on your food you'd sing a vastly different tune technophile.
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
Unless your food is made out of solid iron, all food is organic
Machinery.
I really hope that was a joke of a question by the way or the fact that you're currently at +4 means ignorance abounds on this site regarding agriculture.
Another problem is the unusual mixes of things. You can eat a lot more fat (without gagging) if you mix in a heap of salt. Fatty salty foods are not too common in the wild, but modern food mixes them together, which messes up our instincts about how much to eat.
Also, Coke has far too much sugar to taste good, but the added food acid makes it palatable.
You see, twostix, there is this literary device known as a "rhetorical question". This literary device is used when the writer/speaker knows that the answer is obvious, and will be automatically arrived at by the audience just in the asking of the question. See also: Socratic method.
I find it even more amusing that your answer, while partially correct, is actually not even accurate. Certainly, machinery has been a huge factor, but the answer was "technology" in general, rather than specifically JUST machinery. We have better fertilizers and irrigation technologies. From our knowledge in genetics and biology, we have been able to figure out better crop rotations, breeding methods, and in some cases, how to directly manipulate the genes of plants to bring about a better yield. Technology has given us better ways to preserve the food, so that we don't need everything directly from the market within a few days of being harvested, allowing farmers to greatly increase yield. We have MUCH better transportation systems as well, so that farming needs to be less localized. There are many, many other factors involved in this equation, but I think my point is clear.
F-, twosticks.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
"That is technological improvement, so there's no really any reason why technologically made or improved food would be more riskier."
Of course, the welfare and quality of life of the animals that make up our food is of no concern to you? Or the effect on the environment? Just that the food is not "risky" to your health?
I'm not a vegetarian, but frankly, the shit that we're doing to our animals to mass produce meat cheaply is disgusting.
And define "risky", because from here I'm sitting, there are a large number of direct and indirect risks we suffer thanks to mechanisation and industrialisation of our food supply. Environmental destruction, such as poisoning our water supply, the earth, and the air. Increased risks of diseases, too. IMO, things like swine flu are direct results of the mechanisation and industrialisation of our food process.
It is no coincidence that La Gloria (which is suspected of being ground zero for Swine Flu) just happened to have a huge hog farm operated by Granjas Carroll (50% owned by Smithfield Foods). Their hog operations generate lagoons of waste stuffed with antibiotics, ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorous, nitrates, heavy metals - all sorts of shit that isn't shit.
Slashdot won't let me C&P the URL properly, so combine it together: http://www.rollingstone.com/ /politics/story/12840743 /porks_dirty_secret_
the_nations_top_
hog_producer_is_
also_one_of_
americas_worst_polluters
It's not just our meat, either. Chlorine being used to wash "ready to eat" foods? Growth hormones, antibiotics and all sorts of shit in milk? What about pesticides? Just recently saw a report that suggests the cocktail of pesticides could be behind Colony Collapse Disorder. Carcinogenic ingredients being added to food?
Again, IMO, the incidents of cancer that we're seeing these days are directly linked with what we're doing to our food supply.
Technology's a great thing, except when it gets in the hands of greedy, unethical bastards who couldn't give a shit except to their bottom line.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Really? If we actually ate fruits and veggies, and not fed corn to cows which we then ate, we'd probably still be able to feed the world,(and fix health care while we're at it)
Machinery is not a form of technological advancement now?
Technology in food production isn't just for processed food, it's having a tractor to work your ground instead of a digging stick. Even organic farming uses technology, the question is which technologies to accept and which to reject. Personally I'm not a big fan of poisons sprayed on my food regardless of what this study says.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Yes, because "biological, organic matter" is actually not made of chemicals. Everyone knows that only bad stuff is made of chemicals! No, "biological, organic matter" is made of pixie tears and fairy dust, fertilized with unicorn farts.
Good old appeal for the children and class warfare.
This study indicates that your blanket statement isn't quite true. The link indicates that in the first few years organic output does tend to be markedly lower. With proper organic techniques, however, the yields increased in those areas, and in some cases exceeded the conventional farming technique.
Organic farming, IMHO, has its place. In fact, your statement that "You cannot be against world hunger and for organic foods" is just plain wrong. In the third world countries, where fertilizer isn't really in the budget, organic methods greatly increased yields. It might be worth re-evaluating your stance.
That and all the chemically dependant "fast-grow, high-yield" fruits and vegetables taste like arse compared to the more traditional ones.
Going for higher, cheaper yield is not always good.
If it's cheaper and has the same nutritional value, that's a good thing for everyone who can't afford (or isn't pretentious enough to want) organic foods. It is always good to drive costs down, if it means feeding those who are going hungry.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
I think you're missing the point. I'm not arguing against the killing of animals (although I do respect those who take a stand against it). I said quite clearly, I'm not a vegetarian. I don't mind people eating meat.
The point is that we torture them for their entire, short, miserable lives. Lions don't imprison 823 million impala in huge concentrations, artificially increasing their weight to grow abnormally fast in shorter time spans and thereby crippling some 27% them, keeping them in their own shit for so long that they suffer burns on their legs.
And unless you consider humans to be just dumb beasts that simply cannot make ethical choices, saying it's "nature" is a cop out. We can change things. Compassion in World Farming is a good place to start.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Soo..
- Plants that are more disease resistant, resulting in less failed crops.
- Plants that are more resistant to insects, resulting in less use of pesticides and a lower cost of production.
- Plants that produce more "fruit" (IE: more apples, oranges, ears of corn, wheat kernels, etc.) per plant.
- Plants that grow to maturity faster, making it possible to have multiple harvests per growing season.
- Plants that can yield a full crop in poor soil.
- Plants that are modified to be easier to harvest with machinery, resulting in (again) less cost to grow and quicker time from ripe to market.
NONE of these, all thanks to either traditional genetic engineering (IE: husbandry) or modern genetic engineering (IE: Labs) NONE OF THEM COUNT as far as you are concerned?
Seriously?
Wow. Stupid.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Again, IMO, the incidents of cancer that we're seeing these days are directly linked with what we're doing to our food supply.
You're absolutely right.
-We have access to plentiful and cheap food today.
-We don't die of starvation.
-We live long enough to get cancer.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
...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.
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.
My Babylon
It's not good, it's impossible.
You might notice there are no sources cited for the assertion you found in the article you are quoting. Where did they get that information from? Never believe the media when no sources are cited... And go check scientific literature about pesticides, herbicides and chemicals.
"Food preservation techniques came about in about 1850 btw, but don't worry about it."
Umm... pardon me but WTF are you talking about? Sure, food preservation was in existence in 1850, as it was thousands of years before. Are you really going to suggest that food preservation hasn't improved drastically since 1850? I mean, how about that little thing called refrigeration?
"My uncles are limited in the amount of land that they can work on their farms by the size of the tractors and machinery they have."
As opposed to 100 years ago, where they would have been limited by the amount of crops that would not be infected/eaten by pests. Or by how much produce they could reasonably get to market due to lack of preservation/transportation infrastructure. These things are equally as important to the modern agricultural system as tractors and combines, they are just not as visible.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
What they did not look at was the effect of using herbicides and pesticides on health.
Or how about the impact of herbicides and pesticides on the land on and around the farm where the food is grown? It isn't just about the food itself; personally I think that food that isn't making the surrounding environment toxic is healthy for me and my kids too.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Organic foods has become a marketing term, the benefits of locally grown organic foods are economic in nature, not health-wise. If they lack pesticides and potentially harmful hormones then that is an added benefit. I think if you compare organic milk to diet pepsi, you will find that there are benefits; or twinkies vs organic corn. However, the molecular structure of peppers, whether they are grown in a farm, or in an indoor "artificial" environment, should not change-at least not to the point that one is healthy and the other is not. However, if you get peppers from kentucky, and you live in maine, there is a lot of added cost (which can be subsidized by the government) that creates added cost that is transparent to the consumer. Also, there are other more dubious problems of having a completely centralized food source. I still would like to know what "organic frosted mini wheats" are, and why are they 2 dollars more than the normal ones...
You take it, I don't want it...
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.
Spot on. I've never been under any impression that (properly-prepared) organic food is healthier than non-organic, but by buying organic, you're supporting a sustainable practice that doesn't contribute to water table pollution, among other things.
If organics aren't in someone's budget, fine, but if you can spring for them, it's a good way to promote sustainable practices, and is a lot more direct than nebulous "carbon offsets."
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
"For more than a century now, scientists have known that whenever a people take up Western habits of eating, the so-called Western diseases follow. The best-known examples include obesity, diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, stroke, and cancer, but the list also includes appendicitis, diverticulitis, tooth decay, varicose veins, ulcers, and hemorrhoids. All of these diseases are extremely rare in populations that still eat as their ancestors did for centuries."
Probably because they are dying too early of other things like malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, measles, tetanus, and respiratory infections to live long enough to get the above mentioned "decadence diseases". In some countries, being obese would be the ultimate status symbol. I would say that is more a reflection of medical standards and technology than eating habits in some cases.
"But this one goes to 11!"
they had all these heirloom varieties raised by people (not corporations)
Right, because there are no people that incorporate their farm business, or work for farmers who have incorporated their business. Incorporated businesses are Teh Evil!
So, when a husband and wife farming couple raise tomatoes you like, that's good. And when the same husband and wife hire a local teenager to help them pull weeds and water the plants, that's probably still OK with you, right? How about when the same husband and wife buy some insurance, just in case some kid wanders onto their property and lobotomizes himself on a wooden stake in their tomatoe patch? Is it evil to have insurance? No? How about when the husband and wife are told that unless they incorporate, they stand the real risk of that kid's parents suing them personally into oblivion, taking their house, and leaving them destitute, even if the kid who hurt himself on their property was trespassing?
So, they incorporate, to separate the farming activities from their personal household finances. Now they're paying corporate taxes, having to pay for separate bank accounts, legal and accounting services, etc. They (the same two people) are now Corporate Farmers. Man, that is really evil, isn't it? Those bastards. I'm sure their produce sucks, now.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Your short response is so pregnant with errors of thought, that I wonder if it were not meant merely to goad.
Let us suppose that your monoculture becomes the opportune host for a parasite, and eliminates 80% of all strawberries on earth - as there are no other lines to introduce for survival. This has already happened once, to the Banana. The chalky item eaten today, a "Cavendish" is very different from the fruit of my early childhood. That's because those "Big Mike" variety went extinct in the '60's from Panama disease. The replacement was discovered in Asia after many years - and was transplanted in Central America. Trust me, youngster: it's a poor replacement.
Your proposition says the particular choices that we are making at this point in economic, climatic and political history are near-perfect, and without genetic diversity, will serve nearly all circumstances into perpetuity. Not bloody likely.
You also assume that lines are chosen for their "tastiness". This is almost NEVER the case! They are chosen for pest/pesticide hardiness, storage and shipping convenience - and... their suitability to industrial-scale monoculture methods!
For my point, try eating an heirloom apple sometime. Do so, while also sampling that tasteless Fuji from you favorite grocers.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
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
"There's still a romantisised notion in peoples minds that farming is generally still done like it used to be"
you mean 50+ years ago when people got sick and died very often from bad food?
Not to mention the huge amount of resource it takes up for no gain and more risk.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Biologists most often define "biological diversity" or "biodiversity" as the "totality of genes, species, and ecosystems of a region".
When you artificially kill off organisms you reduce the diversity of a region. The problem is, when an event occurs in the region the region isn't as tolerant to the change anymore. Example, if there is 10 organisms in a region and one of the organisms kills off the other 9, a single disease can wipe out the last one. Diversity, is the spice of life, diversity is what allows the human race and all living things to survive. Without diversity, we will die as a species, not may, WILL.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
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
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
Never mind that using "Organic" agricultural practices exclusively would lead to massive starvation all around the glob. The only reason that we have enough to feed the global population now is the use of "Modern" agricultural practices that grew out of the "Green Revolution".
Listening to the biased lectures of people with a political axe to grind (Never mind a Book to sell), and have never had to actually produce the food they eat is fucking stupid. Try taking an agriculture class, or reading one of the numerous independent reports about how the current rate of population growth will require us to Double Global food production in the next 50 years. Since "Organic" production actually decreases yeilds, requires more fertilizers, and more diesel fuel, there is no way for us to reach that level through Organic means. The only alternative is to let people starve so that the rich can wrongfully feel good about how they spend their money on food.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Never mind that using "Organic" agricultural practices exclusively would lead to massive starvation all around the glob. The only reason that we have enough to feed the global population now is the use of "Modern" agricultural practices that grew out of the "Green Revolution".
Mass-producing cheap food is good. Mass-producing cheap food that isn't healthy is...?
Mass-production tends to specialize since specialization is very efficient. In the US, we mass produce food by specialized on corn, soy, and something else that I can't remember. However, our bodies may not be able to handle an over-specialized diet. For example, we get certain nutrients more efficiently when eating certain food combinations. There's also evidence that things like high fructose corn is really unhealthy since we never evolved to eat it. Go read the omnivore's diet and in defense of food books for more details. Diet and food production is a very non-trivial subject.
So, the real question is: can we mass produce cheap, healthy food? The really nasty question is, what do we do if we can't mass-produce enough cheap healthy food to support future (or even current) population growth? Do we trust evolution to select humans that can live on cheap unhealthy food? Do we start producing healthier but more expensive food and let the have-nots die or eat unhealthy food? Do we find a way to create cheap healthy mass-produced food without going bankrupt?
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