Organic food has no health benefits, study finds; (hybrid, effects, contract)
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Careful, you're walking on thin-ice with that observation. Now back to the subject at hand.
I think the safest organic food is grown right in your own backyard. Trusting outside companies who say they are organic is a risk in of itself. My family is from Iowa and everybody has some type of huge garden back there. No one ever used cheicals that I'm aware and fertilizer was usually the barnyard manure from pigs, chickens, cattle , etc.
I remember picking up boxes of produce in Imperial Valley California at several packing houses. At this one Carrot shed they had the assembly line going and the boss shut it down. Then he yelled out to someone, "Okay bring out the organics bags" and they switched the packaging for the same product, just different market. I told that story to several friends who insisted that such and such organic produce market had the biggest Carrots and that was proof they were "organically grown". What she did'nt realize is that there is an assortment of any crop that comes down a packing shed conveyer line. Everything is assorted to size and sold under a unique package and market. Those Carrots she was talking about where what we called Horse Carrots and they came in a bulk plastic package rap. This produce market bought the same produce from the same big Los Angeles Produce market as all the other buyers across the west. But you could'nt convince her.
Okay - whatever
You're exactly right, on several levels.
Growing your own garden is an excellent idea. It is "rewarding for the soul" as well as a way of growing healthy food.
Regarding mis-labeled products...
About a month ago I was visiting our sons in Minneapolis. Down in the gut of NorthEast, we pulled into a Farmers Market, where one of my sons wanted to buy some produce. They had all the signs like, "Locally Grown" and "Organic". Most (all?) the vendors were Asian.
All the produce on the tables looked really good. Great presentation. But I also happened to look, and EVERY minivan & pickup was full of boxed produce. These people were going to the exact same wholesale vendors that deliver produce to the grocery stores.
There was NOTHING home grown or organic about the produce. They were simply retailing on a street corner what grocery stores were selling from coolers.
Organic foods actually pose a great risk. Many fruits and vegetables and other produce contain naturally occurring carcinogens, fungi and mycotoxins that would otherwise be wiped out by commercial farmers. Peanuts and potatoes for example, contain the most deadly aflatoxin known to man.
Organic foods actually pose a great risk. Many fruits and vegetables and other produce contain naturally occurring carcinogens, fungi and mycotoxins that would otherwise be wiped out by commercial farmers. Peanuts and potatoes for example, contain the most deadly aflatoxin known to man.
I'm curious how conventional farming ... as opposed to "organic" standards, such as Swiss certification or OCIA ... has or does eliminate this aflatoxin threat in the food chain?
For my money, I'll take the risks of true "organic" standard compliant foods, such as vegetables. Even though there's a federal standard for many of the pesticides, herbicides, fungicides in their application and in their "level" of residues ... these are typically very powerful neurotoxins and I don't want any of them at all in my food.
I'm curious how conventional farming ... as opposed to "organic" standards, such as Swiss certification or OCIA ... has or does eliminate this aflatoxin threat in the food chain?
For my money, I'll take the risks of true "organic" standard compliant foods, such as vegetables. Even though there's a federal standard for many of the pesticides, herbicides, fungicides in their application and in their "level" of residues ... these are typically very powerful neurotoxins and I don't want any of them at all in my food.
I'll leave the answer to your question about aflatoxin to somebody else, but I do want to address the issue of sprayed pesticides.
Anymore, virtually all herbicides operate on post-emergence contact. Very rarely are pre-emergence herbicides incorporated into the soil, where there will be residual effects. What this means is that a post-emergent herbicide - RoudUp, for instance - will be sprayed on fields LONG before any blooms are set. It kills what it kills, and dissipates. There simply are NOT droplets of spray all of the corn or beans. It is long-since gone.
The same is true for insecticides.
Do you remember the "Alar Scare"? Alar is/was a chemical sprayed on apples to aid in ripening and make color more uniform. Somebody decided that Alar was a carcinogen that caused cancer. There was a mass hysteria. Lab rats exposed to Alar grew cancerous tumors. The nation was in an uproar, and apple farmers lost tens of millions of dollars.
Turns out, a person would have to drink 5,000 gallons of Alar-tainted apple juice PER DAY to come close to the amount given to the rats.
Careful, you're walking on thin-ice with that observation. Now back to the subject at hand.
I think the safest organic food is grown right in your own backyard. Trusting outside companies who say they are organic is a risk in of itself. My family is from Iowa and everybody has some type of huge garden back there. No one ever used cheicals that I'm aware and fertilizer was usually the barnyard manure from pigs, chickens, cattle , etc.
I remember picking up boxes of produce in Imperial Valley California at several packing houses. At this one Carrot shed they had the assembly line going and the boss shut it down. Then he yelled out to someone, "Okay bring out the organics bags" and they switched the packaging for the same product, just different market. I told that story to several friends who insisted that such and such organic produce market had the biggest Carrots and that was proof they were "organically grown". What she did'nt realize is that there is an assortment of any crop that comes down a packing shed conveyer line. Everything is assorted to size and sold under a unique package and market. Those Carrots she was talking about where what we called Horse Carrots and they came in a bulk plastic package rap. This produce market bought the same produce from the same big Los Angeles Produce market as all the other buyers across the west. But you could'nt convince her.
Okay - whatever
Well if that is considered "thin ice" then there have been plenty breaking right through. Inferring someone is a pedophile is okay, but wondering why it is being allowed is not? And, pray tell me, how is that considered on topic?
from the UK Times Online. "Organic Food Has no Health Benefits, Study Finds." Zip, zero, nada. But it costs a whole lot more. "Organic food gives no health benefits to consumers according to research for the Food Standards Agency." This is in Great Britain published today. "Shoppers pay more for organic fruit, vegetables, beef, chicken, and milk but the food gives no nutritional enhancement to people's diet."
It's not about "enhancing" to diet, Duh!!! It's about avoiding putting crap in your body that commercial non-organic food has to offer. Like hormones!! Like pesticides!!!
It's not about "enhancing" to diet, Duh!!! It's about avoiding putting crap in your body that commercial non-organic food has to offer. Like hormones!! Like pesticides!!!
...like NO independent laboratory reports that verify ANY of that.
I pick and choose my battle with organic vs. non-organic. For me, I don't care what I ingest, I know you breath in more toxic things in air and drink more pharmaceuticals in water than you want to know. At least when I'm in my golden years I know I won't have to pay for Viagra, it'll all be in my water supply ready to go! For my kids, I tend to buy from local growers I know. Certain higher-residual produce like peaches, apples, and strawberries, I buy organic to minimize pesticides on the surface. Even then I still wash all fruit with a mild detergent/warm water mixture. Sometimes you just can't get certain local produce and end up with imported stuff, and those you really have to scrub well. I still think conventional farms in the US have good foodstuff especially since they keep tightening pesticide use after the DDT era.
I don't know which beef tastes better, but I prefer my cows massaged and fed sake nightly. So get to work!
You are so right ! Never in the entire history of "regular" farmer farming has a solitary farmer ever sprayed poisons. Rachel Carson was a liar ? Any so called poison sprays were just hallucinations perpetuated by the "organic tin foil hat crowd." (my god they are so dangerous!)
Dupont, Monsanto. We all know that they would never create one chemical to kill a bug, let alone a migrant crop worker. I stand SO corrected.
You know that movie "Children of Men"? Right after I watched that movie, I read Jane Goodall's book "Harvest for Hope", and right after that I read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan.
That pretty much did it for me. What's so scary about Monsanto and companies that are following Monsanto's lead is that it's allowing humans to unknowingly consume food that has been grown with seed that can no longer reseed itself. (They do this so that the farmer's must buy seed everytime rather than save money by reseeding. It's more profitable for the seed companies this way.) It seems only logical to me, that if humans keep eating food that is sterile, humans will eventually become sterile as well. This concerns me.
Maybe we are already seeing the effects of eating GMO foods - how many women now struggle to become pregnant or sustain pregnancies, and are having to seek out IVF treatments? Why are there so many more children being born with birth defects? (The CDC has been monitoring birth defects since 1997 and you can find reports published for the past 5 years of their findings at the CDC website if you have the time and patience to click around and read them...) There are so many issues mounting... some are more obvious like the environmental concerns for plants and wildlife... but some are still a bit hidden - within our own bodies and our future generations of humans. Only time will tell...
Last edited by haggardhouseelf; 08-05-2009 at 12:14 PM..
Reason: I meant 1997, not 2007 - sorry!
That pretty much did it for me. What's so scary about Monsanto and companies that are following Monsanto's lead is that it's allowing humans to unknowingly consume food that has been grown with seed that can no longer reseed itself. (They do this so that the farmer's must buy seed everytime rather than save money by reseeding. It's more profitable for the seed companies this way.)
This statement is SO wrong on SO many levels!
Just wrong. Period.
You REALLY need to research the facts about RoudUp Ready Seed before you post such completely and totally incorrect statements.
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