161–170 of 255 posts
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I must confess to not washing all fruit before I eat it. Especially berries. I sometimes wonder if there's any home testing kit to figure out how much chemical residue is on fruit and vege. Easy testing for pesticides/sprays could prompt changes in both consumer behaviour (e.g. preparation/washing), but also buying behaviour (if one farm's berries had less spray than another's, presumably the former's would be prefer…
Rinse them with vinegar.
The most dangerous surface in a farm is the farmer’s hat I was told. So they wear the hat in the sun, tilling the fields, but the reason the hat is dangerous is from spraying the fields. Pesticides and herbicides are downright scary chemicals, and we genetically modify crops to improve tolerance of these chemicals. And that is when I went all GMO free, not because I am worried about eating grain that has modified gen…
People tell me "GMO food is perfectly safe" and they do not seem to understand that in practice they genetically modify the food so they can dump glyphosate on it and that's what I want to avoid eating!
The food on the shelves contains trace amounts of it (parts per billion).
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People tell me "GMO food is perfectly safe" and they do not seem to understand that in practice they genetically modify the food so they can dump glyphosate on it and that's what I want to avoid eating!
According to the FDA they genetically modify plants to dump less pesticides on them and to be cheaper: https://www.fda.gov/food/agricultural-biotechnology/why-do-f...
From a paper:
"On whether RR soybean systems reduce pesticide use and increase grower profits, our analysis shows that –
• RR soybean systems are largely dependent on herbicides and hence are not likely to reduce herbicide use or reliance. Claims otherwise are based on incomplete information or analytically flawed comparisons that do not tell the whole story.
• Farmers growing RR soybeans used 2 to 5 times more herbicide measured in pounds applied per acre, compared to the other popular weed management systems used on most soybean fields not planted to RR varieties in 1998. RR herbicide use exceeds the level on many farms using multitactic Integrated Weed Management systems by a factor of 10 or more."
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.41...
The most dangerous surface in a farm is the farmer’s hat I was told. So they wear the hat in the sun, tilling the fields, but the reason the hat is dangerous is from spraying the fields. Pesticides and herbicides are downright scary chemicals, and we genetically modify crops to improve tolerance of these chemicals. And that is when I went all GMO free, not because I am worried about eating grain that has modified gen…
> I hope the settlement hits trillions. Burn the fuckers down. Hoping on the sidelines gets you nowhere. Laws need to be changed to end the presumption in many jurisdictions that a lack of safety data equates to a benign substance.
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Here's the MSDS for Vitamin D: https://www.fishersci.com/store/msds?partNumber=AAB2252406&p... It also recommends wearing all the standard protective equipment. Guess it's not safe to eat any Vitamin D, then, right? Or maybe it's the dose that makes the poison. (Fun fact: Vitamin D is more acutely toxic than glyphosate.)
Is there a way of telling from the MSDS or other sources that you actually need protective equipment when dealing with a particular chemical? I'm sure some of the stuff my partner deals with requires it, but suspect some of the other stuff she would be safer without the protective gear making her clumsier.
Not generally from official sources. The risk of liability is basically always going to make institutions recommend a bunch of precautions if the effect isn't perfectly known.
Which, y'know, probably better safe than sorry when dealing with novel chemicals. But it's hard to distinguish between dangerous, unknown, and small risk in that kind of environment.
The most dangerous surface in a farm is the farmer’s hat I was told. So they wear the hat in the sun, tilling the fields, but the reason the hat is dangerous is from spraying the fields. Pesticides and herbicides are downright scary chemicals, and we genetically modify crops to improve tolerance of these chemicals. And that is when I went all GMO free, not because I am worried about eating grain that has modified gen…
"Chemicals killing the crop" aren't inherently dangerous to your body, that's just chemophobia. Best quality artisanal chocolate can easily kill your cat. Nicotine kills bugs and is benign in humans. Belladonna would kill you, but a goat can munch on it without much trouble. Lots of stuff is lethal to some species and harmless to others, "this chemical is so bad it kills plants" is as rational as "chocolate is so bad…
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Given that as of 2023: 1. Glyphosate is one of the more heavily studied chemicals known to man. 2. The evidence for it causing cancer is poor. Studies routinely fail to find evidence for it. 3. The subset of studies that do find evidence for such a link, find it in occupational exposure , by people who have been working knee-deep in it for decades. [1] Yes, people probably should look at you like you're crazy, becaus…
> people probably should look at you like you're crazy, because you're extrapolating People who claimed that UK government gave them AIDS, on purpose, were called crazy. 50 years later, it turns out they were right. "The blood was imported from the US after a UK shortage, where people such as prisoners could donate in return for cash. The minutes ..shows that officials knew that haemophiliacs were being given dangero…
The fact that governments did shady stuff in the past isn't proof for every conspiracy theory under the sun.
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People tell me "GMO food is perfectly safe" and they do not seem to understand that in practice they genetically modify the food so they can dump glyphosate on it and that's what I want to avoid eating!
How does glyphosate compare to the usual alternatives?
Long term, my hope is that small scale farming robot swarms can manage crops the way a more traditional regenerative organic farmer would tend to their crops. In those systems there is more attention paid to each plant, and little to no artificial inputs. This is excellent for the soil and the local environment, as well as the people who live and work at or near the farms.
But then, I am the project lead and maintainer on a solar powered open source farming robot[1], so not only have I drank the Kool-Aid but I'm the one mixing it up to share.
[1] https://community.twistedfields.com/t/join-the-solar-farming...
People look at you like you're crazy if you tell them you avoid oats, grains, nuts that are particularly heavy in glyphosate.
Most people lack subject matter expertise on topics they espouse opinions impertinently, don't look at the evidence, and don't take sensible precautions against unknowns, so their opinions don't matter. In the absence of compelling precautionary evidence and systematic safety processes, it's clear that the faithful adherents of organic production are more likely to be safer than industrial megafarming done with the s…
But the "organic" label doesn't check whether the farmers were "faithful adherents of organic production", only that they fulfilled the organic checklist. They can use as much chemical fertilizer and pesticides as they want, so long they're on the approved list. In the same vain farming and "industrial megafarming" isn't mutually exclusive.