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."

Comments

from TFA

[polar red]

The review did not look at pesticides or the environmental impact of different farming practices.

says it all really.

Re:from TFA

[CaptainOfSpray]

You are dead right. I for one would call "not being poisoned by organophosphorus residues" a health benefit. I wonder who paid for this study and then chose the report's title.

Re:from TFA

[Digestromath]

"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."

I think thats more of an apt summary which doesn't imply a bias based on data which lies outside the scope of thier research.

They were comparing values of vitamins in one to the other, let those facts stand on thier own. There is no nutritional value in sustainability, pesticide use or ecologically sound farming practices nor should any imply as such.

Re:from TFA

[Daemonax]

What? Says what? Their research was only looking at the nutritional differences.

As for environmental impact of organic farming, from what I know, in order to get the same amounts of produce we'd need to expand existing farms much more because organic farms give lower yields. If people ate less, that might help the situation and others, but that's unfortunately unrealistic. Instead given our track record, if we all switched to organic, we'd just destroy some forests. The other alternative is shrinking the human population quite a lot, but I do not like that idea at all.

I think that many people who champion organic have some crazy superstitious assumption beneath many of their claims, and that this assumption is that nature is benevolent, some kind of caring mother, probably called Gaia. Unfortunately nature is not benevolent, and our lives are so much better now because we've managed to subdue much of nature. During all the time we've been evolving we've had to adapt to fit in with nature. We've finally, in the last hundred years or so, been able to change things and make nature fit in with us instead. Though there are still many natural events that we can't control.

Re:from TFA

[managementboy]

tells me you didn't like the outcome of the study, had no better arguments, then had to fall back to insinuating without proof that the scientist are just crooks who will bend the truth to earn a few bucks. Ahh, I love a good conspiracy.

Re:from TFA

[HighFlyer]

No need to expand anything. People just need to eat less meat. There's a conversion factor of around 8 to 15 converting plant-based food into any kind of meat. You loose around 90% of your nutrional energy by that conversion. We could easily feed the world if the industrial nations wouldn't insist on their daily hamburgers and steaks.

Re:from TFA

[cberger]

Yes, benefit to environment, and so to ourselves...
but also they do not say whether the review looked at pesticides in the food itself. They may have the same nutritional value, but organic food will probably always carry less harmful substances. (ex. a recent study on grape fruits showed they were highly contaminated with pesticides. Not the organic ones...)
Kind of a huge health benefit I think !
I usually eat organic food, I think it is better for environment. But I also give it to my baby, and for her the lack of pesticides (and other such products) is very important !

Re:from TFA

[polar red]

it shows that the article is tendentious at best. It is written *specifically* to undermine organic food, by misleading the public through ignoring the targets of organic food.

Re:from TFA

[digitig]

You are dead right. I for one would call "not being poisoned by organophosphorus residues" a health benefit. I wonder who paid for this study and then chose the report's title.

If you follow the links (yes, I know, this is /.) you will find that it covered overall health effects, not just nutrition. You will also find that it was paid for by the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA). I don't know who chose the report's title ("Organic Health Effects Review"). Presumably the FSA chose the title of the press release ("Organic Review Published"). Why? Do you find those titles biased or controversial?

However, the FSA press release doesn't seem to match the content of the report. The report was on a study of studies, looking at existing work rather than doing any new research. It found that the "because of the limited and highly variable data available, and concerns over the reliability of some reported findings, there is currently no evidence of a health benefit from consuming organic compared to conventionally produced foodstuffs". That is not the same as the FSA's claim that "there are no important differences in the nutrition content, or any additional health benefits, of organic food when compared with conventionally produced food" as the FSA say on the press release. The study showed that we don't know whether there are any health benefits, not that there are no health benefits. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This suggests at least incompetence on the part of whoever did the press release, and possibly malice.

Re:from TFA

[sp3d2orbit]

I've heard this so many times and it is just plain wrong. Here's why:

The digestive track of a cow has evolved to extract caloric value from plant cellulose, ours is not. It is not as simple as saying a cow gets 10% of the energy from the sun via grass and we get 10% of that energy therefore we should just eat grass. No matter how much grass we eat our digestive tracks will not be able to cope -- wasting resources in the process.

Do what nature intended you to do and eat meat.

Re:from TFA

[xaxa]

There were claims publicised in the UK that while organic and non-organic food had the same levels of major nutrients, organic food had higher amounts of trace nutrients -- the things you only need micrograms of (selenium was one, I think).

I haven't read the report, but my assumption from the summary is that these claims have been found to be false.

(I don't often buy organic food. I do try and buy properly produced food, e.g. the cheap and normal tomatoes in UK supermarkets have been artificially ripened, and don't taste of much. The more expensive ones have been ripened properly, and are far sweeter and tastier. That's useful in a salad, but if I'm going to cook the tomatoes I'm not so bothered.)

Re:from TFA

[Daemonax]

http://www.skepdic.com/organic.html

Re:from TFA

[dzfoo]

Nice going troll!

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. I don't know about you, but when I hear people talking about organic food, I've never heard it mentioned that one of their discriminating criteria is because it has a higher content of nutrients. Even advertisments and propaganda literature that promote organic products typically mention the fact that they contain no chemical enhancers or additional growth hormones, which can affect our metabolisms. It seems to me rather strange that these are precisely the factors that the study did not address.

If you have a large population of people clamoring for organic products on the basis of their lack of pesticides and growth hormones, and you want to fund a study to put an end to the debate once and for all and see whether the benefits are real or not; why would you engineer the study to avoid accounting for the very factors that make the products attractive to them?

Moreover, if you read the article, it has a slight cynical slant towards organic products and their consumers, starting from the headline "Organic 'has no health benefits'". I don't claim there was a conspiracy involved, but obviously the article (and the study) were composed to generate a negative impact against organically grown products.

To be sure, I don't think the study is wrong--I do not disagree with its outcome nor its methods. I only have a problem with its narrow focus (and the consequences of it taken at a simplistic face value); it should be taken in context with other studies which consider other potential health benefits apart from nutritional value alone.

        -dZ.

Re:from TFA

[secondhand_Buddah]

Nature doesn't have any intentions for me or any one. What I do is nature, and that includes me eating or not eating meat.

Re:from TFA

[mux2000]

We could easily feed the world if the industrial nations wouldn't insist on their daily hamburgers and steaks.

Though I agree that food production would be much more efficient and plentiful if the world turned vegetarian, it's important to note that the reason for world hunger is not shortage of food, but rather political reasons and general apathy. We could feed the world right now if we as a world put our mind to it without growing a single grain more than we do today.

Disclaimer - I'm a vegetarian, and I do believe that the more of us there are the better the food situation will be on our planet, I just don't kid myself that that's The Solution, or that everybody should eat like me.

Re:from TFA

[Potor]

Look at the hypoxic zone in the Gulf Mexico, and tell me organic food is not more healthy.

Look at the meat-packing plants that moved away from large urban centres like Chicago and to small towns (and thus away from large city media and scrutiny), where illegal aliens are used as slave labour (and even recruited by company brass) mass slaughtering cattle sickened by corn on CAFOs), and tell me organic food is not more healthy.

The arguments against organic food are legion; it's a shame that this study lacks a larger view of the health benefits beyond nutrition of organic food.

Re:from TFA

[dzfoo]

How convenient, to quote my words out of their context. Why the four paragraphs preceding it? for precisely the reason I mentioned on the sentence following the very statement you quoted:

"To be sure, I don't think the study is wrong--I do not disagree with its outcome nor its methods. I only have a problem with its narrow focus (and the consequences of it taken at a simplistic face value); it should be taken in context with other studies which consider other potential health benefits apart from nutritional value alone."

-dZ.

Re:from TFA

[dzfoo]

The problem is not with the article or the study but from morons like yourself who extrapolate meaning outside the scope of the study and determine that because the study found there was the same nutritional value from organic and conventional foods that they were stating that conventionally produced food was just as healthy as organic.

Actually, that's what the article claimed. The title of the BBC article was "Organic 'has no health benefits'", not "Organic 'has no better nutritional value'". Furthermore, the article states:

There is little difference in nutritional value and no evidence of any extra health benefits from eating organic produce, UK researchers found.

(my emphasis)

I did read the article, but I wonder if you did.

        -dZ.

Re:from TFA

[Just Some Guy]

We could easily feed the world if sociopathic dictators didn't use starvation to control their populace.

Fixed that for you. We easily grow enough food to feed everyone in the world. The problem is getting it to people who live in Zimbabwe and North Korea around their genocidal leaders.

Re:from TFA

[ajlisows]

That isn't an option for everyone. 90% of fruits and vegetables cause me to develop huge nasty hives all over my body. I'm talking emergency room level hives. That is unless I boil them/they are processed to the point where they are robbed of nearly all nutritional value.

I'd say another 5% of them cause minor allergic reactions...causing only my mouth to swell up. It doesn't appear to be life threatening but it sure as hell is not pleasant.

So...I eat as many Watermelons, Tomatos, Bananas, and Green Beans as I can stomach. It is really hard to subsist on those four items alone, so I end up eating tons and tons of meet and trying to supplement my diet with vitamins.

Re:from TFA

[DerekLyons]

I've heard your response many times as well - and it's wrong too.
 
Cows in feedlots (which is where they gain over 60% of the final weight) don't eat grass, they eat grain. They don't gain weight from plant cellulose, they gain weight from starches and sugars.
 
The grain they eat is grown on farming land that could be used to raise food directly for people, and consumes water that could be used to raise food directly for people. Which means rather than getting full value from that land and water - we get less than 10%.

Re:from TFA

[amateur6]

"Plain wrong"? Nice try. Let's look at the inefficiencies of eating meat, shall we?

One acre of land could produce 25 tons of tomatoes, 20 tons of potatoes, 15 tons of carrots... or 250 pounds of beef. (Dworkin, Norine, "22 Reasons to Go Vegetarian Right Now," Vegetarian Times, April 1999, p. 91.)

It takes 100 times the amount of water to produce one pound of beef as to produce one pound of wheat. (Jeffrey Hollender. How to Make the World a Better Place, NY: William Morrow & Co., 1990: p. 122.)

To produce a year's supply of beef for a family requires over 260 gallons of fossil fuel, or approximately one gallon of gasoline per pound of grain-fed beef. (Ibid)

Two out of every three people in the world lead healthy lives eating primarily meatless diets. (2 Jeremy Rifkin. Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture. Dutton: New York, 1992.)

As for the "what nature intended" aspect, a) what secondhand_Buddah said, or b) humanity is that which defies what "nature intends" otherwise we'd still be hunter-gatherers.

Re:from TFA

[Grishnakh]

The problem, as I see it, is a lack of guns. Instead of shipping food aid to these starving people, we should be shipping crates full of small arms and ammunition. Then, they can control their own destiny, instead of being slaves to their dictators.

so?

[Anonymous Coward]

The point behind organic food is that it's better for the environment, not healthier to eat. But thanks for the useless study, UK!

Re:so?

[AuMatar]

But its not always sold as such. I know plenty of people who think that organic is healthier. Organic food advertising and stores actively push that myth.

Re:so?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that isn't the only point about organic food.

Another point is that you, the consumer, don't get to eat the various fertilisers and pest control chemicals, and in the case of meat, you don't get to eat the various growth promoters and you don't get to eat the various anti-bacterial and other medicinal treatments given to the animals. The FSA (Food Standards Agency) say these are all safe and so completely discounted them from the study - talk about rigging the results.

And then of course, there is the upon study from the European Union that will be released in the next month or so (that was completely ignored by the study this story is about), that also examines the same topic and looks at anti-oxidants, of which there are apparently a lot more in organic food than in the typical petrochemically fertilised foods most people eat.

Re:so?

[wall0159]

There is a difference between "no nutritional difference" and "no health benefits": sometimes the lack of a thing (ie. antibiotics in milk) can be healthier than the alternative.

Re:so?

[daem0n1x]

Tastes better, too.

I get lots of vegetables, olive oil and pork from my folks. They are retired, live in the country and farm for fun. After eating a tomato from them, you'll never want to buy tomatoes at the supermarket again. And olive oil is so expensive, I get the best, 100% pure olive oil in the world for free.

Re:so?

[daem0n1x]

Which "facts" are you talking about?

Re:so?

[Daemonax]

I've not read the first two articles here, but I imagine they'll have referenced much of the information I've seen in the past.

http://www.skepdic.com/organic.html
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4019
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1190/news_detail.asp
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4162

Re:so?

[thisnamestoolong]

"The point behind organic food is that it's better for the environment, not healthier to eat."

No. No it's not. Organic Food ExposedContrary to popular belief, organic farming, due to it's inherent inefficiencies, is not even close to being sustainable. They need far more land than the Earth can provide, and far more organic material for fertilizer.

And you are absolutely delusion if you believe that organic food is not being billed as being healthier to eat -- they are most certainly doing this, despite the fact that study after study shows that the pesticide levels in non-organic food are nowhere near high enough to cause us harm. It is simply technophobia -- people are afraid of things that they don't understand and therefore want to turn the clock back 150 years on farming.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I want to dispel the myths about natural vs. unnatural. First of all, the definition of the terms are absolutely meaningless, everything that we could ever possibly refer to as unnatural STILL comes from nature. The space shuttle is 100% natural by this definition -- every single piece of that machine came from the Earth and was processed by human beings (who also, consequently, rose from a soup of organic molecules on Earth). If we are going to define "natural" as being unmolested by humans, where do we draw the line? If the plant is cultivated by humans can we still call it natural? How about if we pluck it from the ground, or off of the branch? What if we squeeze the juice out of the fruit to drink it? If we can still call all of these things natural, there is no basis to call any other food product unnatural. This is not even to mention the fact that most of the plants and animals that we eat have been extensively genetically engineered over the centuries through artificial selection. Even if there were a reasonable definition, why would we assume that natural is better anyway? There are plenty of bad things in nature, box jellyfish venom for instance. Are we to assume that box jellyfish venom is less harmful than potassium benzoate, on the grounds that the one was produced through natural selection and the other through human intervention? The whole thing is absurd on its face.

Re:so?

[TobascoKid]

But "nutritionally better for you" is one of the ways organics have been sold. Less so in recent years as more and more studies have shown it actually wasn't though.

Re:World improves

[overbaud]

Last time I checked food is not 'made' in cow shit. Unless of course there are small pixie like creatures in cow pat factories making food that the rest of the world is yet to discover. Kinda like cow shit oompa loopmas.

I don't buy organic food for health reasons

[jpstanle]

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.

Not surprised, however...

[Angostura]

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.

Re:Not surprised, however...

[ryants]

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

Do human beings ever come into play while considering these "animal husbandry" factors?

Organic Alchemy

As the Cambridge chemist John Emsley recently concluded, "The greatest catastrophe that the human race could face this century is not global warming but a global conversion to 'organic farming'--an estimated 2 billion people would perish."

Re:Not surprised, however...

[Angostura]

Yes. As I pointed out in my original message, antibiotic resistance is a real problem when they are used to promote growth rather than to fight disease. The use in agriculture is implicated in resistance in human pathogens too.

As for John Emsley's analysis. The man takes things to extremes. Am I suggesting that organic methods be foisted on sub-Saharan Africa to retain biodiversity? No (although they do get higher export prices for export crops) I'm explaining why there are ratioanal reasons in the UK to favour UK organic farmers. I hope that helps your comprehension.

Re:Not surprised, however...

[Pigeon451]

FYI, Organic foods can be grown using pesticides, but they must be organic pesticides only. Organic pesticides can be just as deadly as synthetics. FWIW organic farmers tend to use less pesticides than non-organic farmers and take care of the environment around them, which is definitely a plus.

Re:World improves

[sopssa]

Organic food is. That's the point of it -- Making it as naturally as possible, without using extra ingredients and such to better it. Cow shit is one of the most used things the fields are filled with (so they dont use technogically improved soil etc)

Re:World improves

[Nursie]

"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.

Main benefits are to the environment

[medoc]

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.

Re:Main benefits are to the environment

[screamphilling]

taken from wikipedia's entry on organic farming: Excess nutrients in lakes, rivers, and groundwater can cause algal blooms, eutrophication, and subsequent dead zones. In addition, nitrates are harmful to aquatic organisms by themselves. The main contributor to this pollution is nitrate fertilizers whose use is expected to "double or almost triple by 2050". Researchers at the United States National Academy of Sciences found that organically fertilizing fields "significantly [reduces] harmful nitrate leaching" over conventionally fertilized fields: "annual nitrate leaching was 4.4-5.6 times higher in conventional plots than organic plots".

Switch from Smarties to M&Ms

[haruchai]

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

Re:Switch from Smarties to M&Ms

[frenchbedroom]

I'm sure you've already eaten some. Like Lindt (swiss) or Toblerone (also swiss) chocolate. And of course Nestlé (still swiss) ! Belgium is also well-known for its chocolate : Côte d'Or, Leonidas, Jeff de Bruges... one of my favorite belgian chocolate brands is Dolfin. Their rosepepper chocolate is awesome. I recommend finnish chocolate too, Fazer does some really good stuff (but I was raised on it, so I'm biased :) )

Benefits of organic growing, or lower risks

[Andrew Ford]

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.

Re:World improves

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Taste!

[all_the_names_are_ta]

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.

Damn!

[CaptainOfSpray]

Just checked the new import rules on Food Agency website.

Sad to say, Australians are still permitted to import V*g*m*te.

Re:World improves

[Kokuyo]

The problem with McDonald's food is not primarily the fat. It's the flavour enhancer.

Our body is pretty well able to regulate how much of our intake it actually processes, unless, of course, it is swamped with it. And therein lies the problem: Flavour enhancers override our senses and let us eat beyond what we need as sustenance.

From personal experience I know that I eat less the more unprocessed ingredients are used in food preparation. I'm less in a hurry to shovel it into my mouth, thus giving my stomach the time to process the stuff and tell me when it's enough.

The biggest problem we have nowadays is stress. Not only at work or in personal matters, but also when eating. We eat faster and thus more. So in my opinion, the less additives food has, the better you're off all around.

We do not live longer all that much, by the way. The problem is that in those statistics all the children and mothers that died at birth were included. Since these problems have lessened due to higher levels of hygiene during child birthing, our statistics have, of course, vastly improved.

They ignored the "weight of evidence"

[Smegly]

The world is not black and white. The FSA scientists (and/or their political masters) obviously did not apply (or ignored) Scientific Principles when Applying the Weight of Evidence. From "The Principles of Weight of Evidence Validation of Test Methods and Testing Strategies":

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?

Re:They ignored the "weight of evidence"

[Smegly]

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.

Re:They ignored the "weight of evidence"

[ryants]

IF CHEMICAL PESTICIDES ARE hazardous to health, then farm workers should be most affected. The results of a 13-year study of nearly 90,000 farmers and their families in Iowa and North Carolina -- the Agricultural Health Study - suggests we really don't have much to worry about. These people were exposed to higher doses of agricultural chemicals because of their proximity to spraying, and 65 per cent of them had personally spent more than 10 years applying pesticides. If any group of people were going to show a link between pesticide use and cancer, it would be them. They didn't.

A preliminary report published in 2004 showed that, compared to the normal population, their rates of cancer were actually lower. And they did not show any increased rate of brain-damaging diseases like Parkinson's. There was one exception: prostate cancer. This seemed to be linked to farmers using a particular fungicide called methyl bromide, which is now in the process of being phased out. According to James Felton, of the Biosciences Directorate of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, who also chairs the study, "The bottom line is the results are coming out surprisingly negative. It's telling us that most of the chemicals we use today are not causing cancer or other disease."

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/print/1567/organic-food-exposed?page=0%2C2

Re:They ignored the "weight of evidence"

[twostix]

The average high production farm looks more like a highly toxic chemical factory than anything else these days. Huge piles of super phosphate, sheds full of 44 gallon drums of insecticides, vaccines and drenches all marked with skull and cross bones due to their toxicity to humans.

I come from a long line of farmers and have spent a lot of time on farms big and small, I really don't think city people are aware of what's happening to their food at every stage of the process. There's still a romantisised notion in peoples minds that farming is generally still done like it used to be. This is still true in small pockets but if you buy your food in a supermarket, you aren't buying small farm produce.

My biggest concern right now is feedlot beef, I have a cousin who works in an abattoir and he's gone right off eating beef that's been raised in feedlots due to what he sees when he cuts them (mongoloid internal organs for a starters and quite a bit of disease). Not to mention I have a natural aversion to eating "meat product" grown in a factory part owned by the Mitsubishi Corporation.

It's only the last 15 years that the factory farm has really taken off, so we're the first generation to really bear the brunt of it. Who knows what the sort of problems we're going to be dealing with in 20 or 30 years.

It's a worry but there are ways around it if you care. For example my family all combined and bought a whole grass fed cow off a small old school farm outside of the city here and had it butchered by the local butcher. It ended up costing $6 a kilo and we each got 6 months worth of meat. And good god it tastes good, I can never go back to supermarket (or most butchered meat) again.

We're all growing our own veges again as well.

Re:They ignored the "weight of evidence"

[geekoid]

"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.

Re:They ignored the "weight of evidence"

[gobbo]

People ask if I eat meat, because I don't eat a lot. I generally say "yes, but I prefer to know its name first". Just bought a lamb off a friend, and waiting on some meat birds from another friend, and am collecting a couple of dozen eggs later today.

We bought into a shared cow so we can get legal unpasteurized milk, and I'm watering a friend's garden in exchange for fresh goat's milk.

If you think beef is bad, just take a peek (or a whiff) at industrial meat chickens or even salmon farms.

Eggs, too. Chickens were meant to eat fresh greens and bugs.

Breaking news !

[ivan_w]

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

Title misleading

[HighFlyer]

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.

Re:Title misleading

[dkleinsc]

The other thing authors like Michael Pollan have been busy pointing out is that we don't know all the micro-nutrients in whole foods, so we actually can't know whether the contents of, say, organic lettuce, actually matches the contents of a conventionally grown lettuce because we simply don't know what all to look for. And those micro-nutrients make a big difference, as well as making the food taste much better.

Re:World improves

[Nursie]

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.

Re:from TFA - it tastes better too.

[Manic Miner]

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!

Re:World improves

[zeromorph]

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.

Re:World improves

[jcr]

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

Re:Which organic pesticides?

[jcr]

These organic pesticides are pretty widely used.

-jcr

Re:Personal experience with milk says article's BS

[will_die]

The reason is very simple you are Lactose intolerance.
Check the milk you are drinking and you will probably find that it is lactose free. Alot of organic milks are this way because it is cheaper to throw everything into the same container than have multiple version. Organic milks are also ultrapasturized because they need the longer shelf life.

Re:World improves

[twostix]

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.

Human/cow shit or oil and war. Your choice.

[Colin Smith]

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*.

 

Re:from TFA - it tastes better too.

[solafide]

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.

Re:World improves

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless your food is made out of solid iron, all food is organic

Re:from TFA - it tastes better too.

[ryants]

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)

You are deluding yourself if you think organic == no pesticides, or if you think pesticides == cancer:

Scientists are unable to test these chemicals directly on humans, so they use rats instead. To establish the maximum dose considered to be safe for humans, they find a dose that's completely safe for rats. Then they divide it by 100. Testing by Australia's national regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand, shows that pesticide levels measured in food are either well below the recommended maximum dose or are completely undetectable.

People live about 80 years longer than rats: that's 80 years longer for pesticide cocktails to accumulate and wreak havoc. Even so, it turns out that a lifetime's consumption of synthetic pesticides is a drop in the ocean compared to the natural pesticides we consume from the plants we eat. Plants have evolved a vast pharmacopeia of chemical weapons, and we consume many of these 'weapons' daily: caffeine in coffee, solanine in potatoes and psoralens in celery, to name just three.

From a very lengthy article that probably won't be read or dismissed as casually as this current study.

Re:World improves

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Illegal immigrants?

Bad summary

[mykdavies]

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

Re:World improves

[wisty]

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.

Re:World improves

[thisnamestoolong]

"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?"

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.

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.

Re:the organic lobby got one thing right.

[twostix]

Organic farming is clearly defined if you (in your infinite knowledge of all thing agriculture) cared to look it up.

When I was about 12 I was helping my uncle drench sheep - basically giving them a chemical shower. The chemical we were using caused me and my cousin to both have explosive diarrhea, stomach cramps and nausea the instant we caught a decent whiff of the overspray. "You'll get used to it" was my uncles advice to us.

There's areas on farms where sheep dips stood that are now officially poisoned ground that food can never be grown in due to the arsenic levels in the soil, these old dip sites are tracked by the government where known.

But yeah, all the chemicals being sprayed all over your food are completely harmless, so to are the growth hormones and antibiotics your eating every day.

I bet you would have said the same thing about lead pipes 40 years ago.

It's you who wallow in ignorance I'm sorry. Have you even ever stepped foot out of the city?

Re:World improves

[krou]

"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

"In North Carolina alone [Smithfield's lagoons of waste] have spilled, in a span of four years, 2 million gallons of shit into the Cape Fear River, 1.5 million gallons into its Persimmon Branch, one million gallons into the Trent River and 200,000 gallons into Turkey Creek. In Virginia, Smithfield was fined $12.6 million in 1997 for 6,900 violations of the Clean Water Act - the third-largest civil penalty ever levied under the act by the EPA. It amounted to .035 percent of Smithfield's annual sales."

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.

Re:World improves

[james.nogler]

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)

Re:World improves

[MoonBuggy]

Machinery is not a form of technological advancement now?

Re:World improves

[rohan972]

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.

Re:World improves

[c6gunner]

into processing chemically enhanced and artificially produced food-stuff, as opposed to the biological, organic matter it was designed to handle.

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.

Article not shocking, uneducated believes are

[wappie]

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...

Re:World improves

[twostix]

No I think you'll find that machinery (specifically the tractor, combine, header and truck) is the reason that it doesn't take 80% of the population to work the land anymore. Everything else you list gives insignificant increases in output by comparison.

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.

Food preservation techniques came about in about 1850 btw, but don't worry about it.

I should remember I dun know nuthing about that that there food production like you edumacated city slickers do.

Re:World improves

[zippthorne]

Don't eat mushrooms then. They're not only made in cow dung, they're basically made entirely from cow dung.

Re:Organic food is selfish/elitist

[Mindcontrolled]

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, [wikipedia.org] die each year from malaria.

Trolling much lately? DDT is still in use as malaria control. Quoting from the wikipedia link you so kindly provided:

The evolution of resistance to DDT in mosquitos has greatly reduced its effectiveness in many parts of the world, and current WHO guidelines require that before the chemical is used in an area, susceptibility of local mosquitos to DDT must be confirmed.[83] The appearance of DDT-resistance is largely due to its use in agriculture, where it was used in much greater amounts than the relatively small quantities used for disease prevention. According to one study that attempted to quantify the lives saved by banning agricultural uses of DDT and thereby slowing the spread of resistance, "it can be estimated that at current rates each kilo of insecticide added to the environment will generate 105 new cases of malaria."

So, today's lesson: If you link something to further your bullshit agenda, you better read the linked content completely beforehand. Might save you from looking like an idiot.

organic effect or homogenization effect?

[AliasMarlowe]

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.

Re:World improves

[Nevynxxx]

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. What the GP was getting at is that food isn't "made" in manure (which is rotted down excrement anyway, so it's got a different chemical make up than excrement...) but that it's "grown" in it, that it breaks it down, taking only what it needs and leaving the rest. It's an awfully complex process that when combined with crop rotation, technology isn't a patch on as far as sustainability goes. As for the study, I think what a lot of people miss is that organic foods still are sold as being healthier, if that isn't true, it should be stopped, and studies like this are the start of that. Organic food is a good idea, but there are a lot of unscrupulous companies making a huge profit from people who don't really understand this fad.

Re:World improves

[c6gunner]

but we also have diseases wich were almost unheard of 100 years ago.

True. And we have diseases which were completely unheard of 30,000 years ago. Is there a point?

GM food has been shown to have negative impact on the environment where it's grown and it's effect on our health would best be described as "disputable", since the GM companies are actively lobbying the government for exclusive access to our kids food supply.

Sheer nonsense. First off, most of the food you eat has been genetically modified. It's just that silly buggers who don't know anything tend to get more upset about those eeeevil scientists in their crazy white coats than they do about farmer bob and his descendants selectively breeding plants for their own purposes. Anyone who eats seedless fruit while complaining about "GM food" is a fucking idiot.

And, second, the idea that all food which has been scientifically modified - regardless of what changes were made - is "bad for the environment" is so silly that it shouldn't really warrant a response.

Re:World improves

[sortius_nod]

Species variation is completely different to "organic" foods.

Using land that's already been raped by chemical fertilizers and pesticides doesn't tend to have the same value as virgin land when you want to go "organic". Thinking you can fix the salinity levels, lack of nutrients, etc by shoveling cow shit on it is just a joke. Sustainable practices like crop rotation are still not used by these "organic" farmers, they think they can still treat the land with the same contempt that chemical farmers do. It doesn't give any benefit to the consumer at all, merely ups the price and ignores the problems to start with.

I don't buy into "organic farming" so long as they push for high yields and don't use crop rotation. Unfortunately this is a HUGE business, so crop rotation won't happen in the near future.

Either way, your point is moot as "organic farmers" still use the same varieties as non-"organic".

Re:World improves

[lorenlal]

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.

Re:World improves

[Bakkster]

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.

Re:World improves

[krou]

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.

Re:World improves

[d3ac0n]

I accept that one could argue that some genetically modified plants have some benefits overall, but I personally have a hard time to see them, after removing the whole PR-bullshit that surrounds them.

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.

Re:World improves

[maxume]

Manure enjoys widespread use regardless of whether the farmer has 'organic' in mind or not.

Re:World improves

[johnsonav]

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.

Re:World improves

[ericrost]

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.

Why I buy "organic" foods....

[Churla]

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.

Organic foods have no poisons like insecticides.

[Futurepower(R)]

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."

Re:World improves

[cayenne8]

"Agreed... May I also add... I find a lot of supermarket fruit and veg is odourless.... you buy by weight. So, like our meats, it is grown to produce weighty produce. They taste watery. Go to Asia, fruit and vegtables just smell better.. Some premium packaged fruit and veg do smell what I call "green", full of flavour."

That, I think, is really the true damage that tech has done to food. They left it flavorless.

Hell, no wonder people get obese these days, junk food has more flavor than natural foods. Tomatoes are my pet peeve. I no longer can stand to buy tomatoes at a grocery store, especially for something like home made salsa. They are bred for transport only I think...and picked so early, they don't mature enough on the vine. I remember back when I was a kid, and tomatoes had GREAT flavor, they really let you know summer was here.

Not long back, I went to a tomato type 'festival' where they had all these heirloom varieties raised by people (not corporations), and it took me back to the old days. FLAVOR!! They were good...and I'd forgotten, real tomatoes aren't perfectly round, they are often knarled up, blemished, and sometimes weird colors other than bland dull red colored.

About the only way to get a good one is to grow them yourself. I learned to can so that I can grow some, and have that fresh flavor also during the winter months.

I won't even go into how the fscking jalapeno has had the heat bred out of it, and you can't tell in the store what the heat level of a jalapeno is....I now still 100% to serrano chiles...at least they haven't fucked with those yet.

Produce...we've killed the flavor of it. Then, there's meat. I remember what a good steak tasted like. Even today, if I lay out cash to get a prime grade cut...it barely has the flavor of the old days. They've bred out the marbling, the little flecks of fat within the meat fibers that is where the flavor comes from. I saw the other day, a picture they used to use like in the late 50's early 60's to grade prime beef...compared to one today. What a difference, the old ones had meat that was downright almost pink in color due to the fat content in it. That was flavor.

I'd rather have that every once in awhile, that 100% lean and flavorless every day.

I still love to cook, and I buy when I can at farmer's mkts to support the local economy and get quality produce...but, when I have to used grocery store bought stuff, I really have to season things higher to bring out what hidden flavors remain in today's corporate farmed produce and meats.

Re:World improves

[commodore64_love]

>>>but for the last 3 or so months that you were in the womb, you were floating in your own excrement.

No your not. A baby's bottom is "plugged" with a semi-solid material that doesn't come-out until the first bowel movement (after birth). So no solid poop floating around. And all liquid waste material aka urea is removed directly from the baby's bloodstream by the umbilical cord.

Is there an alternative

[rossdee]

I don't think there is a lot of nutrition in inorganic food...

Another mis-leading Slashdot summary

[Futurepower(R)]

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."

Re:World improves

[blueskies]

This study just showed that Organic food doesn't have significant more nutrients than non-organic.

The review did not look at pesticides or the environmental impact of different farming practices.

I'll modify their quote so it makes sense:

"What it shows is that there is little, if any, nutritional difference between paintball bullets and conventionally bullets and that there is no evidence of additional health benefits from eating paintball bullets."

The review did not look at the impact of being shot with conventional bullets, just the nutritional value.

Really? I can give you two apples that have the same nutritional value but one has cyanide in it. Are you going to trust the study that doesn't look into the affects of poison in the food?

Re:World improves

[aicrules]

Furthermore, it is considered a complication of pregnancy/birth when the unborn child does poop before birth. They have to make sure none went in the lungs etc...can make the child very sick. Also, manure left on produce whether because it was from fertilizer or from roaming animals is a HUGE health risk. Cleaning food, whether organic or not is extremely important to preventing e-coli and other nastiness. Organic food has a higher incidence of "natural" food borne bacteria. But on the same token, the pesticides/etc... used on crops that aren't organically grown must also be cleaned off lest they cause other equally nasty illness.

Re:from TFA - it tastes better too.

[Rob the Bold]

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.

Misleading

[codeButcher]

OK, after reading comments I actually went back to read the fine article. Some points that struck me:

• This study seems to have been only a review of 55 studies on the subject from the past 50 years. 107 studies have been rejected (and thus not included in the review).

  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.

• The methodology is not really clear, but the study seems to only have looked at the amount of certain nutrients contained in foods. It has not looked at the overall chemical makeup, which would also take into account harmful substances.
• It's only my guess, but to really know whether certain foods have certain health benefits, is to feed said foods to a group of people over a period of time and compare their health before&after or to that of a control group. Assuming that certain nutrient quantities amount to good health, is basically saying you can be healthy by stocking up in the supplements aisle of your supermarket - and that has been disproven for some instances already.

  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.

Re:World improves

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not good, it's impossible.

Like the guy says...

[hesaigo999ca]

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!

Re:World improves

[thisnamestoolong]

"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.

Re:World improves

[nizo]

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.

Re:World improves

[walnutmon]

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...

Re:World improves

[Hijacked Public]

You may already know this, but you wrote "I think" so I get an opening. Most tomatoes you buy in supermarkets are picked green and reddened with Ethlyene gas. That turns them bright red but doesn't change them structurally so they are still somewhat hard and transport well. They also don't develop as much fructose and taste like crap.

With beef the Angus craze gives me a laugh. Advertising has led people to think that as long as you buy Black Angus beef you are getting the best steak around. But the benefits of Angus cattle accrue mostly to the people selling the beef, since their main difference is that they put on weight faster than other breeds. The pork industry is actually worse off in this regard. Chickens and Turkeys less so on the flavor side but more so on the pump-them-full-of-chemicals-so-they-grow-fast side.

Let me help you out.

[copponex]

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.

Re:World improves

[Philip K Dickhead]

Yeah.

And the fact that industrial farming destroys land and consumes hydrocarbons at an alarming rate. It is destructive to biodiversity - defining itself in producing exclusive monocultures.

Michael Pollan's work is considered, even toned, and alarming. on these points, and others. I'd go after both The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food.

"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."

Utter Ignorance

[crmarvin42]

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.

Re:Utter Ignorance

[DrLang21]

I would say that buying organic food is financial masterbation, except that's not fair to masterbation.

It would be more accurate to say that buying organic food in a grocery store is financial masturbation. I buy much of my produce at the farmers market every weekend. It's guaranteed to be locally grown, it's almost always cheaper (even with the organic growers), and my variety is better. I buy bulk organic grain when I can for a fraction of what it costs at the standard grocer.

Buying pre-packaged organic food is financial masturbation. Pre-packaged organic food completely defeats the point on so many levels.

"Organic" is an over-hyped trend however. A far better option is to buy your food from local producers.

Re:Utter Ignorance

[DrLang21]

In order to actually be organic, they have to spend a lot of time and money getting approval from the USDA.

This is inaccurate. To be certified organic, they would need to spend this effort. I find the whole "certified organic" thing to be dubious at best. I know some of the farmers I buy from. Many of them grow using the best practices of organic farming. They do not go through any effort to be "certified organic" because they don't market their produce through main stream grocery store chains. Word of mouth on the quality of their produce is good enough.

Re:World improves

[StreetStealth]

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."

Re:World improves

[Mister Whirly]

"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.

Re:World improves

[10Neon]

You might want to use a different fruit in your example, as apples contain cyanide naturally.

Re:World improves

[ScentCone]

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.

Re:World improves

[Philip K Dickhead]

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.

Re:Organic foods have no poisons like insecticides

[Pigeon451]

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 ...

Re:World improves

[cayenne8]

"Then either you're being robbed, or your taste buds have died. What has happened is that a lot of supermarkets have started carrying crap beef (USDA Select grade or equivalent), and some of them give it names with "prime" in it. The USDA grades are still judged by the amount of marbling, and USDA Prime has plenty of it. It also costs $15-$20+/lb for cuts used for steaks and most places don't carry it."

I go by the USDA grading system...not that market talk of "angus" this or that.

I recently bought a whole USDA Prime grade boneless rib roast and cut my own steaks from it. Yes, it was good...yes it was better than the choice or (ugh) select stuff.

But todays Prime grade beef, does not have NEAR the same marbling that Prime grade beef had say in the 60's and 70's.

Re:World improves

[COMON$]

Good lord, where did you learn basic biology? Your statement is shockingly ignorant.

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.

Yeah but I really like hamburgers..

[tjstork]

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.

Re:Organic foods have no poisons like insecticides

[Ornedan]

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.

Actually you're both wrong

[Colin Smith]

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.

 

Being a farmer myself

[caseih]

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.

Listen to peole who know their job.

[Fantastic Lad]

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

Re:World improves

[crmarvin42]

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.

YES THEY DO!

[crmarvin42]

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.

Only in theory

[crmarvin42]

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.

Re:Organic foods have no poisons like insecticides

[crmarvin42]

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.

Re:World improves

[stoicfaux]

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?

Sustainable industrial agriculture?

[scot4875]

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