Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables • Hacker News Board

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#171

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK » Wed, May 25, 2022, 12:14 AM UTC

bcrosby95 wrote: post #47

lm28469 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trend of "we fucked up big time and need to create additional waste to take negate our fuck ups" is really worrying. Installing ultra sonic cleaners, reverse osmosis machines, AC units, &c. in every single of our houses/flats won't be sustainable

What are people's problems with AC units? An AC unit is more sustainable than a furnace burning fossil fuels and electric heaters. They are just as sustainable as heat pumps.

Heat pump and AC unit are two names for the same thing.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#172

Post by HKH2 » Wed, May 25, 2022, 1:44 AM UTC

asdff wrote: post #126

maerF0x0 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the issue is ideologies vs actuaries/statisticians ... It's shocking how both the "left"/"right" agree on many values, but also so disagree on how to achieve them. Eg: Both sides care about children, productive economy, value of education

But the values themselves are different. Caring about the children looks entirely different for one side vs the other given one side believes in a social safetynet and the other believes the opposite. The definition of a productive economy is different; for some it might mean everyone has a good paying job but for others it means their select investments return a lot of money in a year and they don't much care about…

> ... where they want only one groupthink and no deviation from that, and their leaders would prefer their base didn't critically think about the issues they support.

Yeah, that's why they're adamant about the dangers of freedom of speech.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#173

Post by gs17 » Wed, May 25, 2022, 2:05 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #136

xyst wrote: post #58

I can't wait until vertical farming becomes cheap enough to overtake traditional farming methods. Pesticide use will be a thing of the past while all of our food is grown locally in controlled environments. Optimizing for food taste instead of pesticide or weather resistance. Not to mention the reduced carbon footprint (due to transportation), significant decrease in water usage, and increased efficiency.

>I can't wait until vertical farming becomes cheap enough to overtake traditional farming methods There was a recent post about "World’s largest vertical strawberry farm" that recently opened[1], and the price quoted for the product was "$20 for 8 strawberries". That still seems terribly expensive, at least compared to conventional produce. What technological breakthroughs are on the horizon that would reduce that pr…

Those strawberries were apparently originally sold for $50, so it's still much more cost effective.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#174

Post by isitmadeofglass » Wed, May 25, 2022, 2:10 AM UTC

andai wrote: post #116

maerF0x0 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the issue is ideologies vs actuaries/statisticians ... It's shocking how both the "left"/"right" agree on many values, but also so disagree on how to achieve them. Eg: Both sides care about children, productive economy, value of education

Using education as an example, I think great harm has come as a result of making it a government monopoly. Not sure how it is in the US but in Europe there's not really a free market with regards to how children are taught. So there's no room for a competitor to come in and say "we can do it better", because when this happens (and it does happen occasionally) they are just shut down by police. The school I went to wa…

I live in Denmark, which is in Europe. I’m extremely courious as to where in Europe you are actually from, because if there’s is one thing that is the same across the entirety of Europe from my experience, it is that no-one from a European country would ever talk about “Europe” like it was a uniform thing when talking about laws or public institutions. School in France is extremely different from school in Finland etc. Also I am puzzled to think about which country in Europe doesn’t have private schooling available next to public schools.

So I’m curious because taken on it’s own your comment sounds a lot like a fiction a conservative American would author about what they think ‘Europe’ is like. But this might just be a result of your alternative schooling.

Also your schooling is described as being not available where you are yet still what you went through which seems a bit of a conundrum as well. Was it actually illegal, or do you think you might have been exposed to biased propaganda by the institution coloring your view on what the educational system in your country is actually like?

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#175

Post by ch4s3 » Wed, May 25, 2022, 2:15 AM UTC

biorach wrote: post #166

ch4s3 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard to envisage a world where we feed 8, 10, 12 billion people without some chemical input, but it's certainly a good idea to try at least move in that direction It seems like with current projections global population might peak around 9.4 billion in the 2600s and then fall back down to around ~8.8 by the end of the century. If we can manage river water carefully, I think it's going to be fine in the medium…

you mean 2060, right? Looks like I misremembered the projected peak population. And yes, long to medium run it's going to be fine if we can carefully manage river water carefully. And if we don't exhaust soils in key agriculture heartlands, and if we don't cause too much icecap collapse, and if we don't trigger desertification of vulnerable areas (southwest USA, various parts of sub-Saharan Africa etc) and...

I do, I didn't notice the typo until the edit window expired.

> And if we don't exhaust soils in key agriculture heartlands

I think that's probably solvable if it doesn't happen at exactly the wrong time.

> and if we don't cause too much icecap collapse

This seems like a thing we could adapt to, even if it's highly undesirable. Building out a bunch of artificial reefs, locks, dykes, and flood plains seems very doable. We might end up with some 22nd century Venices, and a few less islands but not the end of civilization.

> if we don't trigger desertification of vulnerable areas

This seems harder to adapt to without moving a lot of people.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#176

Post by andai » Wed, May 25, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

isitmadeofglass wrote: post #174

andai wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using education as an example, I think great harm has come as a result of making it a government monopoly. Not sure how it is in the US but in Europe there's not really a free market with regards to how children are taught. So there's no room for a competitor to come in and say "we can do it better", because when this happens (and it does happen occasionally) they are just shut down by police. The school I went to wa…

I live in Denmark, which is in Europe. I’m extremely courious as to where in Europe you are actually from, because if there’s is one thing that is the same across the entirety of Europe from my experience, it is that no-one from a European country would ever talk about “Europe” like it was a uniform thing when talking about laws or public institutions. School in France is extremely different from school in Finland et…

Not American, but your comment amused me because I just spent the last hour reading about how to migrate there :)

I'm half Croatian, half Australian, and speak with an American accent due to my childhood friends. I went to an international school (IB) followed by a Dutch high school (VWO). (Basically I'm an alien everywhere I go.)

My school called itself a Dalton school, but upon reading the book by the creator of the original Dalton school (Education on the Dalton Plan, Helen Parkhurst, 1905) I was absolutely blown away by how radical and futuristic this school sounded, and how short my own school (which supposedly was the same kind) fell of that mark. I investigated why my school did hardly any of the things Dalton schools are supposed to do, and found out that they were against Dutch law.

As you say, Europe is not (yet) a monolithic entity, and perhaps there is even a country here where letting kids do what they want isn't considered a crime. Hopefully I was wrong to generalize in this regard, I would certainly be happy to hear about it.

As for my bias, I admit freely that I absolutely hated school, consider it an abomination and a crime against the human spirit, and almost certainly would have left if it weren't illegal (they send the police after your parents). I say "almost" because I did rather enjoy the part where you get to see your friends every day—although at the time it wasn't clear to me that this would go away with graduation, or how much I would miss it.

To be clear I have no problem with people willingly submitting themselves to such a thing, it's the coercion part that I can't stand for.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#177

Post by fomine3 » Wed, May 25, 2022, 2:59 AM UTC

MrYellowP wrote: post #76

As an Austrian I would never touch the food that comes out of the US. Never. The title alone makes me raise an eyebrow, because from my perspective this isn't just obvious , but well known.

US citizens may eat much foods made in US everyday, but outside US citizens may not. I'll care this if I live US, but I don't much care as a non-US resident, because consumption is low. Amount is important factor.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#178

Post by andai » Wed, May 25, 2022, 3:07 AM UTC

TFYS wrote: post #159

andai wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using education as an example, I think great harm has come as a result of making it a government monopoly. Not sure how it is in the US but in Europe there's not really a free market with regards to how children are taught. So there's no room for a competitor to come in and say "we can do it better", because when this happens (and it does happen occasionally) they are just shut down by police. The school I went to wa…

Don't you think leaving education to the free market would make it harder for kids from poor backgrounds to go up in life? When everyone uses the same system, it's in everyone's best interest to fund it and make it as good as possible. You won't get the best results, but at least everyone gets a decent education.

My expectation is that a free market of ideas would allow superior modes of education to rapidly emerge, which would then be slowly and poorly copied by the mainstream. If I'm understanding you right, you're saying that by allowing a parallel education system with freedom of choice, all the smart and rich people would abandon the old one to die. (It would be kept alive, of course by taxes, in body, if not in spirit!)

My personal belief is that the death of the old education system is over a century overdue.

We don't need to kill it, just stop making alternatives illegal and the problem will solve it itself.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#179

Post by ldiracdelta » Wed, May 25, 2022, 4:40 AM UTC

lathyrus_long wrote: post #167

pgodzin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lot of comments here mention pesticide use in organic FV as well, just not synthetic pesticides. Are there any distinctions within organic and conventional of fruits and vegetables that have low pesticide use regardless of organic or not?

I've seen fruit marked as "IPM" in my local grocery store. That refers to integrated pest management, a general philosophy of controlling pests through understanding of their physiology, behavior, and interaction with the artificially-managed ecosystem, sometimes using synthetic chemical pesticides but in the smallest quantities that achieve the desired effect. http://ipm.ucanr.edu/ I don't believe use of the term is…

Unless the farmer is a moron, IPM is how most farmers try to use pesticides. Pesticides and chemical applications can be very expensive. Farmers try to use the least possible amount they can for purely economic reasons. My wife's grandfather was using IPM back in the 70s. Farming is competitive. If your costs are too high, you eventually go bankrupt during bad years. For the most part IPM is the rule, not the exception. Purely limited by the farmer's ability to understand pest cycles.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#180

Post by lathyrus_long » Wed, May 25, 2022, 6:31 AM UTC

ldiracdelta wrote: post #179

lathyrus_long wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen fruit marked as "IPM" in my local grocery store. That refers to integrated pest management, a general philosophy of controlling pests through understanding of their physiology, behavior, and interaction with the artificially-managed ecosystem, sometimes using synthetic chemical pesticides but in the smallest quantities that achieve the desired effect. http://ipm.ucanr.edu/ I don't believe use of the term is…

Unless the farmer is a moron, IPM is how most farmers try to use pesticides. Pesticides and chemical applications can be very expensive. Farmers try to use the least possible amount they can for purely economic reasons. My wife's grandfather was using IPM back in the 70s. Farming is competitive. If your costs are too high, you eventually go bankrupt during bad years. For the most part IPM is the rule, not the excepti…

A matter of degree, maybe. Certainly there's a degree of understanding that's cheaper than just blind heavy spraying, and that any grower would thus be foolish not to obtain. I've often seen "IPM" used to refer to systems that went beyond that though, incurring higher cost for lower ecological impact. For example, the guidelines linked below note explicitly that

> Practices contained in this protocol are considerably more expensive than conventional programs that rely on highly toxic pesticides.

https://ipminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Red-Toma...

I think my supermarket apples were just plain "IPM" though, not a specific set of guidelines like that. Those guidelines seem like a tough sell overall, hard to succinctly explain the benefits to the average consumer.