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Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

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Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#161

Post by kaitai »

judk wrote: post #114
kaitai wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Stanford study also found significant differences between organic and non-organic in pesticide residue and antibiotic-resistant bacteria (in chicken & pork). I don't understand why these are considered to be unrelated to health in press releases like the one you linked. As they say, "the clinical significance of this is unclear", but I think that's because we haven't studied it. If you buy only the tastiest plant…

Sugar is a very tasty plant.

Ever try eating a sugar beet? Naaaaaaasty. Sugar cane, on the other hand, I'll agree with you about. But you can only really chew it, not eat it.

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#162

Post by saraid216 »

judk wrote: post #125
saraid216 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science: clearly doesn't matter unless it informs consumer decision-making in a valuable way.

Data without context is low information content. Your snark is misplaced.

Then go read the context. You're not required to make life-altering decisions when comprehending data. That's for people who cite single studies as justification for their latest hare-brained scheme to do.

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#163

Post by kaitai »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #84
kaitai wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies re: antioxidants show that large doses of isolated compounds are not so good for you. The famous vitamin E study is an example of this. Scientists decided to study vitamin E, though, because people whose diets were high in naturally-occurring vitamin E had improved mortality -- in particular, these diets were cardioprotective. A similar paradox is being seen, to a lesser degree, in comparing diets high in fis…

You're going a little bit strawman by the end there. There are many types of diets that qualify as 'balanced real food', and the questions are in why they have different health benefits and trying to find the bottleneck compounds so that you can have more benefits at once. So you would still eat real food, but for chemicals whose ideal quantities require extremely biased diets you would put some in a pill and focus y…

I don't think there are many chemicals that work that way, though. Is there any one chemical that is so great for us that only a very biased diet would give it?

Different soil conditions could lead to deficiencies -- if you only "eat local" you might have to pay attention to selenium or magnesium (http://tin.er.usgs.gov/geochem/doc/averages/se/usa.html) due to geography or geology. But setting aside deficiency, what chemical would we want to load up on in isolation?

(ok, caffeine comes to mind. but that's not really for health, and I get it pretty well from ground plant products.)

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#164

Post by stephen_g »

offtopic wrote: post #160
e2e8 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic but just in case you didn't know, the expression is "I could NOT care less."

You might not be aware that the idom "I could care less" is in common usage, espechally in American english, and has the same meaning as "I could not care less".

Interesting. Certainly not in my country at least (and possibly most places English is spoken outside the US), it's a mistake that you will be pulled up for and possibly will harm your argument by making you look uneducated, since it's such a simple statement to parse.

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#165

Post by unclebucknasty »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #153
unclebucknasty wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. That's an interesting response. However, the statement in question was explicitly regarding pesticides, not herbicides. And, implicitly, the context is those pesticides which are in use at scale on non-organic crops.

Keep in mind that even if a compound is suitable for use at scale it might cost slightly more than current methods and therefore see almost no use.

Yes. But going back to my original question, it was in response to the statement that there are "almost unbelievably benign" pesticides with regard to human and environmental impact.

So, while there was also an implication that we're talking about pesticides that might see practical use, I'm really not even holding out that requirement. I'm just inquiring into the names of those pesticides that are benign to both humans and the environment.

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#166

Post by unclebucknasty »

ambler0 wrote: post #159
keenerd wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who comes from a family of small farmers, this is not really true. Organic pesticides are on-average more harmful to the people who use them than modern pesticides. Simply put, organic pesticides attack animal/fungal life indiscriminately. Including human life. Most organic pesticides will kill you at fairly low quantities. Most man-made ones won't, they are tailored to a task. And organic farmers need to…

I've never heard of this. Do you have an actual source?

I'm interested in a source as well.

I have heard the argument that organic pesticides must be used in higher quantities, but never that they are more toxic than synthetics.

The latter statement seems nonsensical on its face. It's very difficult to believe that, given years of testing and research into both synthetic and organic pesticides, so many people are getting it so wrong as to conclude that organics are safer when they are exactly they opposite.

In fact, non-organic farming proponents aren't even making this claim to my knowledge. At most, they seem to advocate that non-organics aren't less healthy than organics.

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#167

Post by samtalks »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #98
Blahah wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in this thread seem to be under the misapprehension that organic farming doesn't use pesticides or 'chemicals'. Everything is a chemical, and organic farming in particular uses some nasty ones (rotenone, copper sulfate, pyrethrins). Pesticides are not automatically bad - in fact some of them are almost unbelievably benign to humans and/or to the environment.

> Pesticides are not automatically bad - in fact some of them are almost unbelievably benign to humans and/or to the environment. I'm curious to know which pesticides fit this description.

used coffee grinds, for one, make excellent pesticides for certain pests and are completely harmless for humans to handle.

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#168

Post by ScottBurson »

Blahah wrote: post #152
unclebucknasty wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pesticides are not automatically bad - in fact some of them are almost unbelievably benign to humans and/or to the environment. I'm curious to know which pesticides fit this description.

herbicides: pelargonic acid (Scythe) and acetic acid are famous examples, but glyphosate (Roundup) and imazaquin (Image) have higher LD50s than table salt. insecticides: Bacillus thuringiensis Cry proteins (used both in organic agriculture and in Monsanto's Bt lines), RNAi

Having a higher LD50 than table salt does not establish that a substance does not have serious long-term effects even at low doses.

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#169

Post by ambago »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #166
ambler0 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of this. Do you have an actual source?

I'm interested in a source as well. I have heard the argument that organic pesticides must be used in higher quantities, but never that they are more toxic than synthetics. The latter statement seems nonsensical on its face. It's very difficult to believe that, given years of testing and research into both synthetic and organic pesticides, so many people are getting it so wrong as to conclude that organics are safer…

I think they are referring to the loophole that allows farms to use organic chemicals on produce that is labeled "Organic".

In chemistry, an organic chemical is a compound that contains lots of carbon, or carbon chains. The loophole allows the use of these organic compounds as pesticides. The downside is that these are typically much more of a broad spectrum than the cutting edge pesticides. This means that unlike the new narrow-spectrum pesticides (which are often designed so they only affect the physiology of a specific order of invertebrate) the old-school organic chemical pesticides are harmful to pretty much everything it comes in contact with.

Here is some more info on the issue: http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~lhom/organictext.html

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/07/18...

And one last one that explains a bit more on organic chemicals: http://www.chemheritage.org/percy-julian/activities/2b.html

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#170

Post by keenerd »

ambler0 wrote: post #159
keenerd wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who comes from a family of small farmers, this is not really true. Organic pesticides are on-average more harmful to the people who use them than modern pesticides. Simply put, organic pesticides attack animal/fungal life indiscriminately. Including human life. Most organic pesticides will kill you at fairly low quantities. Most man-made ones won't, they are tailored to a task. And organic farmers need to…

I've never heard of this. Do you have an actual source?

Only primary sources. Pick a few chemicals, find their LD50 from a MSDS, find their application rate. Run the numbers.

An organic fungicide: copper sulfate pentahydrate (aka CuSO4)

A non-organic fungicide: iprodione (aka Rovral)

LD50 of CuSO4: 472 mg/kg (rat) [1]

LD50 of Rovral: 2g/kg (rat) [2]

So straight up, the organic is four times more lethal to mammals. But that is just the beginning, because you have to use a lot more of the organics! How much would Farmer Joe have to use on his small, 10 acre plot? Assuming the worst, lets look at the maximum seasonal application.

rate of CuSO4: 16 pounds/acre per season [3]

rate of Rovral: 12 pints/acre per season [4]

Skipping the basic algebra, in one year Joe could apply enough organic fungicide (72.5kg) to kill 1700 people. One year of non-organic (1.3kg) would be enough to kill 7 people. (Assuming a spherical man of 90 kg.)

[1] http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/coppersu.htm

[2] http://www.cdms.net/ldat/mpAKR005.pdf

[3] http://growabundant.com/copper/

[4] http://www.cdms.net/ldat/ldAKR006.pdf

edit: ambago, you are full of bunk. The USDA has very strict guidelines for labeling. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification

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