The study was done in the UK. Conventional produce there may be very close to organic. However in the US this study would likely have very different results.
Organic has no health benefits
61–70 of 137 posts
Re: Organic has no health benefits
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are toxins more or less present in the food produced by different methods? This is a good question to ask, because most plants contain phytotoxins adapted to keep microbes or animals from eating them. Human selective breeding of plants already has made plants less toxic as human foods, and human bioengineering of plants could help some kinds of plants become still less toxic to human eaters. http://www3.interscience.…
Out of curiosity, what would be the point of making a fruit toxic to animals? I thought that animals eating a ripe fruit was the entire reason for the fruit (to distribute seeds).
Capsaicin in peppers is one example of a fruit with a powerful toxin (irritant) for one class of animals. Mammals in general can't eat chili peppers without severe irritation of the digestive tract. Birds can eat chili peppers without harm--capsaicin is specific to biochemical properties of mammals. Birds don't have teeth, and don't grind up seeds as they eat fruit. Mammals as a class have very effective grinding teeth, and thus would destroy the seeds as they eat the fruit. The plant's adaptation allows it to have seeds spread by one class of animals while it is avoided by another.
Re: Organic has no health benefits
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
To assume that the food's nutrition is the only health-affecting factor between organic and petrochemical farming is silly. What do you suggest would be a verifiable health-affecting factor that would differ between the two forms of farming? http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html
The article only seemed to be talking about the levels of nutrients found in organic vs non-organic foods. I would certainly suspect that the levels of pesticides and other such chemicals could also have a huge impact on health.
Got any proof? If not, enjoy your placebos.
Re: Organic has no health benefits
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. Who actually thought organic foods had more vitamins?
To be fair, I've met more than one pro-organic person who thinks organic foods are more nutritious. These are often the same people who worry about vague things like "toxins" from eating meat.
Vague? So high cholesterol, hormones, high saturated fat, and heterocyclic amines are essential nutrients and not toxic to our bodies?
Re: Organic has no health benefits
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article only seemed to be talking about the levels of nutrients found in organic vs non-organic foods. I would certainly suspect that the levels of pesticides and other such chemicals could also have a huge impact on health.
Got any proof? If not, enjoy your placebos.
I'd suppose I could drink a bottle of pesticide and tell you how I feel, but I would feel rather stupid proving the obvious.
Re: Organic has no health benefits
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Organic milk has other ancillary benefits you won't find in "plain" milk: The land and animals are treated much better. If you have ever seen a "normal" dairy farm, and watch the amount of antibiotics used to prevent the cow's udders from become infected, it becomes clear that life (for a cow at least) on a organic dairy farm is much a much nicer existence (and thus one I personally want to encourage). Also - the grains that are fed to organic dairy cows must be organic, which means more acres of organic grain production. Many organic dairy farms also do not milk cows that are in the later stages of pregnancy, which reduces the amount of estrogen in the milk fat (high levels of estrogen in the diet are linked to cancer).
Re: Organic has no health benefits
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the problem with GMOs?
It's a risk/benefit problem. If things go wrong, we're talking about serious and permanent damage. What if roundup-ready plants end up messing with the bee population (or whatever)? What will happen to species down the food chain? What affects will arise after a while from bio-magnification? Point is, nobody yet knows. GMOs are fine, but you had better be 100% sure of what the consequences are.
GMOs significantly increase crop yields and are helping feed a growing world population. I think most of the world is willing to take the risk of a few genes getting loose for the benefit of keeping the world fed.
Re: Organic has no health benefits
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I am sorry I rambled without answering that...
I guess I have yet to learn of a GMO product that I want to consume. Breeding for traits, as I understand has been done for many, many years would seem to offer natural selection a way of killing of the inappropriate strains, in addition to giving humans time to consume, then observe any possible negative reactions (Don't eat the mushrooms with the red tops - bad!)
Having a food factory produce vast quantities of recent experiments that overwhelm other sources of non-experiment strains gives me pause for concern. I understand from general consensus that we were told DDT was perfectly safe, and I vaguely remember seeing a promotional video showing children being sprayed with it, to show how "safe it was." I now understand that it is not safe at all.
I guess it again circles around to whom do I trust? And is the information I am receiving accurate?
I guess I am being a bit of a food Luddite...
Re: Organic has no health benefits
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Organic milk is literally inferior to plain milk
I'm not sure about that when you factor in that in the US (and Canada?) antibiotics and recombinant bovine growth hormone are commonly given to cattle. The side effects of rGBH include puss in the milk.
Re: Organic has no health benefits
#70If 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…
Norman Borlaug is an agronomist whose work has been credited for saving a billion lives from starvation. His work transformed formerly-starving nations like India into net exporters of food. His take on organic farming:
That's ridiculous. This shouldn't even be a debate. Even if you could use all the organic material that you have--the animal manures, the human waste, the plant residues--and get them back on the soil, you couldn't feed more than 4 billion people. In addition, if all agriculture were organic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading out into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests.
At the present time, approximately 80 million tons of nitrogen nutrients are utilized each year. If you tried to produce this nitrogen organically, you would require an additional 5 or 6 billion head of cattle to supply the manure. How much wild land would you have to sacrifice just to produce the forage for these cows? There's a lot of nonsense going on here.
If people want to believe that the organic food has better nutritive value, it's up to them to make that foolish decision. But there's absolutely no research that shows that organic foods provide better nutrition. As far as plants are concerned, they can't tell whether that nitrate ion comes from artificial chemicals or from decomposed organic matter. If some consumers believe that it's better from the point of view of their health to have organic food, God bless them. Let them buy it. Let them pay a bit more. It's a free society. But don't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That's when this misinformation becomes destructive.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/27665.html
I now say that the world has the technology – either available or well advanced in the research pipeline – to feed on a sustainable basis a population of 10 billion people. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology? While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called “organic” methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot.
--30th Anniversary Lecture, The Norwegian Nobel Institute, Oslo, September 8, 2000