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EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

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Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#151

Post by CalRobert »

Tade0 wrote: post #147
CalRobert wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised after moving to Ireland to discover that you can break the law and nothing will happen. I went through hell with planners (idiots who don’t believe in climate change and hate eaves) while people around me put three mobile homes on their land as well as building two permanent homes with no permission (and ripping out ancient hedgerows) and successfully got retention. Why even bother?

I jokingly refer to this as the Catholic principle: "sin first - confess and repent later" as it's a common theme in countries that are/were traditionally Catholic, including my own. It's really just places culturally untouched by Calvinism, Puritanism and the like, all of which put emphasis on order. The last thing to attempt bringing order to them were various forms of authoritarianism and they didn't last. I think…

Maybe I'm a Calvinist. I'm definitely happier in the Netherlands. My general experience was that Irish laws existed mostly for show and if you followed them you were a chump. Unless you wanted to smoke a joint now and then, of course.

Ireland supposedly cares about nature too, but you can still buy truckloads of turf off the side of the road in Offaly. Good luck getting those rules enforced.

When we still lived in Dublin I got pretty tired of having to push my baby in her pram in the street because the pavements (sidewalks) were completely covered in cars, even in the city centre trying to get to the YMCA creche.

Our experience wasn't limited to "victimless" crimes though. I think when you're threatening your neighbours and letting dangerous dogs loose on other people's land where there's kids or sheep then authoritarianism is called for.

It really is a place where crime is legal.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#152

Post by dmos62 »

CalRobert wrote: post #148
rendall wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to hear more about this if you have the time. What specific things happened?

Family next door had 17 kids (yes, from one mother), 5 dangerous dogs, and absolutely despised us (somehow we thought having a few acres of land would make worrying about neighbours less necessary). There was an ongoing decades-old land feud with the farmer behind both of our homes. The aforementioned dangerous dogs killed several of the farmer's sheep, so the farmer finally shot and killed one of the dogs during an…

What an absolute nightmare! Did this teach you anything valuable? Apart from staying away from rural Ireland.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#153

Post by __alexs »

CalRobert wrote: post #122
franciscop wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know someone close who grows oranges in Spain. He has to go through hell, had to rework multiple times the fields so that they pass the strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. They get evaluated not only on the final product being pesticide free, but also on the full process being compliant, with heavy fines for non compliance. This is fine-ish, except that the imported oranges get checked only seldomly (if…

I was surprised after moving to Ireland to discover that you can break the law and nothing will happen. I went through hell with planners (idiots who don’t believe in climate change and hate eaves) while people around me put three mobile homes on their land as well as building two permanent homes with no permission (and ripping out ancient hedgerows) and successfully got retention. Why even bother?

It's always worth understanding the consequences of non compliance before you'd decide to comply (and vice versa.)

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#154

Post by xandrius »

fsflover wrote: post #150
simongray wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can conclude much from a sample size of 1. My country at least (and probably yours too) is producing more organic products than ever before. People are also consuming organic products more than before.

Don't organic foods use natural pesticides?

Yep but that's just always been the case: it's a world of difference between spraying the latest Monsanto v7 KillEmAll upgraded formula or supporting biodiversity such that for every major pest there is also something which eats it and gets rid of it.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#155

Post by rsynnott »

daedrdev wrote: post #32
bijowo1676 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU generally leads the developed world in regulation, that has become a meme and a joke. but for Food related stuff, EU standards and regulation are truly superior for consumers, relative to US and other countries

The United States has far stricter labeling standards than the EU. That's why US products appear to have more ingredients, they are required to say what their ingredients are mad from, even on identical products. Many things that are well known memes are completely false. Not everything in the EU is better regulated. Everyone always complains about chlorinated chicken, not realizing that <5% of US chicken is washed t…

> Everyone always complains about chlorinated chicken, not realizing that So, the issue with chlorinated chicken washing is not that the chlorine is unsafe, as such. There are two concerns. The first is cross-contamination. The second is that there is some evidence that it is essentially a cheat; it defeats common tests for salmonella but does not actually reliably destroy the salmonella. So, if you allow chlorine washing, then you can pass the tests while not fixing supply chain problems.

Reference on most American chicken now being washed with _vinegar_? As far as I know that’s fairly uncontroversial ineffective.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#156

Post by xandrius »

maurotdo wrote: post #143

This boomerang is the effect of another boomerang: nothing grows anymore without pesticides. I can see that in my crops and fruits: when I was young I could benefit from the produce my dad grew naturally. 30 years later nothing grows naturally anymore, blight, insects and diseases kill everything in a few days. We gave up, as it makes no sense to actively poison our produce when the poison comes with no hassle from b…

Personally working at a bio farm and while it is more work than just spraying some chemical wholesale, I think it's not necessarily much harder than the past (not sure though). What I do know is that not being bio is much easier, that's all.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#157

Post by CalRobert »

dmos62 wrote: post #152
CalRobert wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Family next door had 17 kids (yes, from one mother), 5 dangerous dogs, and absolutely despised us (somehow we thought having a few acres of land would make worrying about neighbours less necessary). There was an ongoing decades-old land feud with the farmer behind both of our homes. The aforementioned dangerous dogs killed several of the farmer's sheep, so the farmer finally shot and killed one of the dogs during an…

What an absolute nightmare! Did this teach you anything valuable? Apart from staying away from rural Ireland.

Mostly to be careful. The house was an absolute dream on paper. It was even something you could commute to Dublin from on the train in a pinch.

I eventually gained some biases that the former-me who lived in the lefty "Dublin 2 and https://irishtechcommunity.com/" bubble wouldn't have been particularly quick to espouse. Now that it's been a few years I think I'm a little better at seeing different sides of things politically, at least.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#158

Post by Jensson »

thesmtsolver2 wrote: post #106
NopIdoN wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not stricter, it's just different names.

It is stricter. https://www.daymarksafety.com/news/some-fundamental-differen... EU labels are not required to list as much information about nutrients in a product as compared to US food labels. Plus, they often omit such items as saturated fat, fiber, and sugar.

> EU labels are not required to list as much information about nutrients in a product as compared to US food labels. Plus, they often omit such items as saturated fat, fiber, and sugar.

Those aren't additives, it just means you don't need to breakdown the nutrients label it doesn't change the additives.

So the things you have brought up doesn't seem to be the reason USA has so many more additives listed on their products. If you give a single example of an identical product listing more things in USA than in the EU and how these regulations influenced that I could trust you, but as is what you say seems to just be a meme.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#159

Post by beAbU »

CalRobert wrote: post #122
franciscop wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know someone close who grows oranges in Spain. He has to go through hell, had to rework multiple times the fields so that they pass the strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. They get evaluated not only on the final product being pesticide free, but also on the full process being compliant, with heavy fines for non compliance. This is fine-ish, except that the imported oranges get checked only seldomly (if…

I was surprised after moving to Ireland to discover that you can break the law and nothing will happen. I went through hell with planners (idiots who don’t believe in climate change and hate eaves) while people around me put three mobile homes on their land as well as building two permanent homes with no permission (and ripping out ancient hedgerows) and successfully got retention. Why even bother?

2 months ago there was a story about a huge family mansion in Meath being demolished after a court found they did not have the proper planning permissions, and the council was unwilling to grant the permissions after the fact. Also just last week a judge ordered the demolition/removal of 26 mobile homes from a site in Dublin set up without permissions.

Friends of mine recently got planning permission for a house they've been living in for about 3 years already.

So you can def roll the dice on such things, maybe you get away with it for decades, maybe your house gets flattened.

My (also an immigrant like you) take on Ireland is that many of these systems are run and controlled by humans, and you can get pretty far by trying to make that human connection with the people controlling your fate. My wife was initially refused maternity benefit, because she did not have enough social security contributions. She works part-time, and she was missing 1 contribution (about €120) out of something like 38 for the year. After friends (the same from above) suggested we phone them and talk to the people, the maternity benefit application was approved. I find that there is a lot less "sorry can't help you, computer says no" here.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#160

Post by fsflover »

lukan wrote: post #128
jenadine wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. Organic labels are a different thing than official regulation though. IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things.

"IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things." What do you mean? I only know of "Demeter", that also has some very esoteric requirements (homeopathy, cosmic energy flow rituals) - but otherwise organic label optimize for: - no or little pesticides and herbicides - more space and better condition for the animals My only other grievance is that they also all ban GMO

> no or little pesticides and herbicides

From Wikipedia:

> Pesticides are allowed as long as they are not synthetic.[28]

See also:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48451194

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