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EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

foodwatch.org

181–190 of 315 posts

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

#181
post #173
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In common parlance, that's called corruption.

Definitely is an embodiment of class/accent/skin colour privilege.

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

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cumin always shows up on these lists, whether it's with heavy metals or something else. It's to the point where I've more or less just stopped cooking with it because I don't trust it to be safe.

How much heavy meals can be hiding in a pinch of cumin realistically? Maybe you should invest in a metal detector.

The problem with lead (and presumably other heavy metals) is that exposure is cumulative as it gets accumulated in your body so there really isn't a safe amount.

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Du…

You may have a point but you're discrediting yourself by using extreme hyperbole. Authoritarianism would be you and your family getting picked up and interrogated sometime at night for this critical comment you just made. And saying "crime is legal" when referring to cars parked on the sidewalk or you having had a bad experience with a neighbours dog? I think if you reflect a little you'd realise that these are the k…

Thats some mighty hyperbole, not everybody is breaking some minor (or not so minor) laws 50x a day. Or a year.

Societies where there is high amount of respect towards each other and rules tend to perform much better over long time, ie Switzerland. Its a pleasure to live in such society especially when coming from more messy ones, triple that with small kids.

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

#185

The obvious question is: if these pesticides are considered too unsafe to use in the EU, why are EU companies still allowed to export them?

Probably the law says "they cannot be used in the EU" and that's it. If the law would ban the production of said pesticides it would be a completely different story.

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

#186
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People still use tea bags even though they're a top source of microplastics.

People still use tea bags even though what they contain is a byproduct of tea production and barely counts as tea.

Most tea bags aren't trying to be tea as in camellia sinensis but rather herbal infusions. Nothing wrong with that.

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

#187
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Du…

Last year I was in a Samsung shop when one couple remarked to me that it was the second time they came to buy the same phone for the wife in a month. Then naturally I asked for the reason why, I thought they like it so much to buy a second one.

Apparently the couple just recently come back from a trip in Ireland and lost the new Samsung phone there. Someone has stolen the wife's baggage from the bus when it's doing the routine transit stop by the bus stop while opening the bus baggage conpartment. By the time they realised the thief already going away from the bus with the baggage with the new Samsung phone inside it. They reported to the police but nothing happened. In UAE, Singapore or Japan this type of crime is just not worth it since the petty thief will be punished severely. A lady can incidently left her Louis Vuitton bag inside a restaurant in Dubai, left it at her seat, then after a few hours come back to fetch the bag without losing anything inside.

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

#188
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are both correct. Organic means something specific. However what it means is not what most people think it means. People want healthy and good for the earth - that is not what organic gives you. Sometimes it does, but sometimes conventional ag (with all those scary chemicals) is better.

Yes, I get this argument. But everybody intuitively understands the basic proposition of organic. Namely: "We have not added anything to your food for which you don't have many thousands of years of evolutionary preparation." That is not pseudoscience, it's rational circumspection. Or, as the European Commission calls it, the "precautionary principle". Speaking for myself, I find it convincing.

Are you sure the basic proposition of organic isn't "we can get people to pay more if we put on this label".

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

#189
post #10
post #6

For spices and tea it really makes sense to buy organic (not that there are no fraudsters but still).

Just buy from places where these laws are in effect instead of imports from other countries where they legally use these pesticides.

You can but that makes grocery shopping more cumbersome so it's valid to ask why you have to put in that effort.

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

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People still use tea bags even though what they contain is a byproduct of tea production and barely counts as tea.

Then where does the real stuff go? The arabs, indians?? Tea bags are the mass market in Europe for example. Hardly anyone uses tea leaves (are they different?). I know an Iranian in the Netherlands who says the tea there is mostly coloring.

My knowledge of this from a long time ago and narrow, but I can give you a rough picture.

Different countries do buy different types and qualities of tea. The US is big market for low quality (dust, stalks) tea for tea bags.

Countries that like strong sweet tea with lots of milk buy tea that is low grown (i.e. lower elevations) and processed using the "cut, torn curled" process rather than the older "orthodox" process. High grown (on mountains) tea is better for those who drink it without milk.

Leaves do tend to be higher quality and they have grades reflecting the size of the pieces. There is a standard system which is marked on some types of tea.

It is usual to pluck two leaves and a bud. Plucking more would add a lot of stalk which lower quality. Plucking or using just a bud produces a very delicate flavour (sivlertips). High grown silvertips is good with

Most tea is blended so will contain a mix of different things.

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