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Organic has no health benefits

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Re: Organic has no health benefits

#51

Post by oz »

omouse wrote: post #34
jff wrote: post #31

If you want bruised, overpriced fruit and vegetables, head on down to the local organic market! Spend 10 minutes to sort through a basket of tomatoes at the hippie organic market on Maui (the only store in the village) to find the four or five that aren't bruised to hell and back, then pay double price for the privilege. And then there's the sustainability and economic problems. Can the farms near NYC produce enough…

You're absolutely right. It's amazing how many people have jumped on the organic bandwagon when they have reaped the benefits of GMO crops and efficient farming. It's like climbing up a ladder and then kicking it away once you're at the top.

Yes, but efficient farming is having a negative impact on the biosphere. Like with most issues, the question is "Where do we draw the line?"

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming#Productivity_an...

http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/modern_agriculture.htm...

Re: Organic has no health benefits

#52

Post by jrockway »

mattmaroon wrote: post #26
erikwiffin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't eat organic vegetables due to a lack of preservatives. I cook only for myself, and I often find my irradiated, preservative laced, genetically engineered food going bad. If I bought organic, I'd never get to eat anything. :/

Preservatives are found in processed foods, not vegetables. Organic vegetables generally don't last any less long than normal ones. They make lots of organic frozen prepared foods. You can get organic macaroni and cheese in a box that's just like the regular (but tastes better). There are organic canned soups, pasta sauce, frozen burritos, etc. You name it you can buy it.

Be careful with this. You can get the "USDA Organic" logo with less than 100% organic ingredients. So it's possible that your frozen dinner has preservatives and other crap in it that you are trying to avoid by "going organic". Read the ingredients to be sure. If it's something you can't buy and add to your food yourself, it's probably in there for the seller's benefit; not for yours. (Less spoilage == higher profit margin.)

Re: Organic has no health benefits

#53

Post by teilo »

The assertion of the study, "Organic foods are not more nutritious" is a function of the metrics used to measure "nutritious".

Did they check trace mineral content? Did they check phyto-nutrient levels?

No, in fact, they checked nothing at all. This was not a study. It was a meta-study. Meta-analysis is a very poor tool. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis#Weaknesses

Note in particular the File Drawer Problem.

As other posters note: Organic food tastes better. Now, why is that? Is the only difference between the two really a matter of trace-pesticide use?

Re: Organic has no health benefits

#54

Post by jrockway »

jff wrote: post #31

If you want bruised, overpriced fruit and vegetables, head on down to the local organic market! Spend 10 minutes to sort through a basket of tomatoes at the hippie organic market on Maui (the only store in the village) to find the four or five that aren't bruised to hell and back, then pay double price for the privilege. And then there's the sustainability and economic problems. Can the farms near NYC produce enough…

The problem is that our current farming practices are not sustainable. They are dangerous for the farmers. Farms produce an incredible amount of toxic waste (poisoning anything in the rivers their fields drain to), and consume an amazing amount of petroleum. (Fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides don't grow on trees. They require a large amount of energy to produce.)

So, if you are willing to poison our planet to make high-fructose corn syrup slightly more profitable, conventional farming is great. If you want your kids' kids to have strawberries, though... maybe not so good.

(Remember, commercial farms in the US don't grow fruits and vegetables; they grow corn. The government pays them extra for that.)

But anyway, if people not having enough healthy food is a problem, the government should subsidize healthy food instead of corn. I would rather my tax money help a poor family eat well (balanced, nutrient-rich, sustainable whole foods) than to pay someone to dump toxins in our rivers so that we can have soda that's one cent cheaper per liter. Unfortunately, I am not a congressperson, and there's a lot of money to be made selling sugar (erm, corn) water to kids.

The deeper problem is that businesses and industries tend to only analyze their direct costs. They would be fined if they, as a single entity, killed off all the fish in a river. So they don't do that. They let just enough toxic waste run off their fields to not be doing anything illegal. The problem is that when all their neighbors do that, they end up killing off all the fish. But it's not anyone's fault, so they keep doing the same thing. Externalities are either going to be the death of capitalism, or the death of human life on earth. I am betting on the second one.

Re: Organic has no health benefits

#55

Post by jrockway »

butterfi wrote: post #45
jff wrote: post #31

If you want bruised, overpriced fruit and vegetables, head on down to the local organic market! Spend 10 minutes to sort through a basket of tomatoes at the hippie organic market on Maui (the only store in the village) to find the four or five that aren't bruised to hell and back, then pay double price for the privilege. And then there's the sustainability and economic problems. Can the farms near NYC produce enough…

"Given the lower efficiency of organic farming, how much more land do we need to convert to farmland?" Maybe a better question is why have we let so much farmland get repurposed for other, arguably trivial uses? I remember a time when large parts of Los Angeles were fruit trees, and are now strip malls and parking lots.

Maybe a better question is why have we let so much farmland get repurposed for other, arguably trivial uses?

Easy, money and risk. Building a high-rise building with 200 units takes about as much land as two or three single-family homes. But it is much riskier to build the high-rise; it costs more, and all 200 units might not sell. So it's easier to just build the single-family homes; now you only have two things to sell instead of 200. Very inefficient use of space, but efficient use of space is not rewarded in any way. The fact that there is no longer any place to grow crops is Someone Else's Problem. You have money to make!

Re: Organic has no health benefits

#56

Post by callmeed »

biohacker42 wrote: post #28
igrekel wrote: post #4

Strange how the study doesn't address the main reasons why I would tend to favor organic foods: less pesticides, its the only way (at least in Canada) to control GMOs in what you eat. Of course there would be other environmental reasons as well, but it still remain based on monocultures.

Avoiding pesticides is half of why I go organic the other is just plain taste. I don't know if that's because the plant varieties are different, or the method or whatever, but I've blind tested myself (no, it's not scientific, more like Mythbusters's level science) and I can easily tell the produce apart. That it tastes better may just be in my head, but I can definitely tell them apart just by taste.

That it tastes better may just be in my head, but I can definitely tell them apart just by taste.

It would be interesting to do a blind taste-test between organic and non-organic produce ... Pepsi Challenge style.

Re: Organic has no health benefits

#57

Post by rjurney »

igrekel wrote: post #4

Strange how the study doesn't address the main reasons why I would tend to favor organic foods: less pesticides, its the only way (at least in Canada) to control GMOs in what you eat. Of course there would be other environmental reasons as well, but it still remain based on monocultures.

Before 'monocultures' - agricultural output was terrible. Is that not important at all?

Re: Organic has no health benefits

#58

Post by rjurney »

easp wrote: post #38
biohacker42 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoiding pesticides is half of why I go organic the other is just plain taste. I don't know if that's because the plant varieties are different, or the method or whatever, but I've blind tested myself (no, it's not scientific, more like Mythbusters's level science) and I can easily tell the produce apart. That it tastes better may just be in my head, but I can definitely tell them apart just by taste.

There are a motif reasons for the better taste. Often organic produce doesn't get shipped as far, which means growers can pick varieties bread for something other than shelf-life and durability. Also, organic farmers manage the soil differently. Intensive industrial farming depletes soils and relies on extensive use of refined fertilizers to make up forthe deficit. The soil at organic farms is often richer and plants…

Actually, some organic products get shipped further - when there is no local production. Milk is a good example of this. Organic milk is literally inferior to plain milk - it is pasteurized at higher temperatures, has lower levels of Vitamin D as a result, because it has to last longer during shipping in a larger distribution network.

Re: Organic has no health benefits

#59

Post by rjurney »

raintrees wrote: post #46
omouse wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the problem with GMOs?

Quick version: Monsanto is one of the companies creating GMO products and there methods are highly questionable to me. I would think that lack of thorough testing before releasing is a good start, in addition to cooking some of the test results to see what was desired and ignore what was detrimental to the test subjects. Isn't it currently illegal in the US to label a food as containing GMO's? Some of the same politi…

Thats all fine, Monstanto is not nice.

Again: whats wrong with GMO food?

Re: Organic has no health benefits

#60

Post by rjurney »

teilo wrote: post #53

The assertion of the study, "Organic foods are not more nutritious" is a function of the metrics used to measure "nutritious". Did they check trace mineral content? Did they check phyto-nutrient levels? No, in fact, they checked nothing at all. This was not a study. It was a meta-study. Meta-analysis is a very poor tool. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis#Weaknesses Note in particular the File Drawer Problem.…

Organic food doesn't taste better. In fact, it can taste worse. There is an enormous amount of variation in taste of any given food each season, each harvest, each field, etc. You're just telling yourself what you want to believe.
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