Earlier quoted context omitted.
DDT is mostly non-toxic to humans too. One of the DOW salesman used to drink a cup of it to prove how safe it was.
Is he still alive?
No, but he died at 85 years old.
Why I Don't Buy Organic, and Why You Might Not Want to Either
51–60 of 62 posts
Re: Why I Don't Buy Organic, and Why You Might Not Want to Either
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great find. No bias at all... Plenty of articles say that organic is not worth it due to no nutritional value. That is not the reason I've ever heard anybody say they purchase organic fruits and veggies. It's the chemicals. I don't want to eat food that has been sprayed with chemicals over and over again to kill the various predators to that plant. I also don't want those chemicals to be in the water supply or ground…
FWIW: "Organic" != "Pesticide Free". Rather it means that the compounds sprayed on the crops are "organic" in origin. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogs...
An interesting EU study about organic farming clarifies this further. I find this image to be a nice way to summarize the use of pesticides in organic farming. https://imgur.com/a/WjRHpk9
The EU article is called "Human health implications of organic food and organic agriculture", I recommend peeking it. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/58192...
Re: Why I Don't Buy Organic, and Why You Might Not Want to Either
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great find. No bias at all... Plenty of articles say that organic is not worth it due to no nutritional value. That is not the reason I've ever heard anybody say they purchase organic fruits and veggies. It's the chemicals. I don't want to eat food that has been sprayed with chemicals over and over again to kill the various predators to that plant. I also don't want those chemicals to be in the water supply or ground…
But organic farms still spray 'chemicals' on their fruits and veggies, they just use 'natural' chemicals. Whether a 'chemical' is harmful to humans or not has nothing to do with how it is manufactured, so there is no reason to believe a 'natural chemical' is safer than a synthetic one.
Nassim Taleb makes an interesting argument in Antifragile that the natural stuff is still better assuming it’s been in use longer, since new stuff could have disastrous effect we don’t know about yet, and won’t know about for 50+ years. In the same way that some option investments look safe until they blow up.
Re: Why I Don't Buy Organic, and Why You Might Not Want to Either
#54Wish the article also mentioned: - food supply: Generically Engineered crops are the only way we're going to feed the estimated 11 billion people at our estimated peak population. Heck, it's providing a significant part of the boost that allows us to have 8 billion. If the planet went "all organic" today, billions of people would starve to death. Another billion or so would be sentenced to deadly food supply uncertai…
>If the planet went "all organic" today, billions of people would starve to death.
I heard someone say the other day that if you want to spot a trend look for what rich people are doing.
People that are starving will eat out of garbage cans, doesn’t make it right
Re: Why I Don't Buy Organic, and Why You Might Not Want to Either
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
"However, many consumers believe that the Organic label means ... This is not true." He is correctly stating that consumers erroneously believe the label means. But the sentence is brilliantly constructed that the final words left me with the sense that it is a statement about organic food, not consumer's misunderstanding of the label: "... the food has superior nutrition and is safer, especially in regard to pestici…
If the label is wrong, how do you know something is actually organic? His point is that it's just a label you can practically slap on anything.
There are certification processes. My family farm did periodic inspections, interviews, and lab tests on soil samples.
Re: Why I Don't Buy Organic, and Why You Might Not Want to Either
#56Wish the article also mentioned: - food supply: Generically Engineered crops are the only way we're going to feed the estimated 11 billion people at our estimated peak population. Heck, it's providing a significant part of the boost that allows us to have 8 billion. If the planet went "all organic" today, billions of people would starve to death. Another billion or so would be sentenced to deadly food supply uncertai…
Everyone's welcome to eat whatever they like. It's about choice.
It's way off base to accuse people that want to eat food without antibiotics or pesticides of supporting "mass starvation, illness, and food insecurity".
This isn't about us vs them, or finding the one true way to produce food. Natural and engineered approaches will continue to exist, and that's great, because food is too important to only have one option.
I don't understand your accusation about radiation in organic foods. Are you suggesting that organic foods are radioactive because the seeds have been engineered with x-ray bombardment and selection? Organic farming is not about engineered seeds, nor would that process result in radiation in the eventual fruit.
Re: Why I Don't Buy Organic, and Why You Might Not Want to Either
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW: "Organic" != "Pesticide Free". Rather it means that the compounds sprayed on the crops are "organic" in origin. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogs...
An interesting EU study about organic farming clarifies this further. I find this image to be a nice way to summarize the use of pesticides in organic farming. https://imgur.com/a/WjRHpk9 The EU article is called "Human health implications of organic food and organic agriculture", I recommend peeking it. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/58192...
I wonder how the EU regulations for organic farming compare to the US regulations.
Re: Why I Don't Buy Organic, and Why You Might Not Want to Either
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great find. No bias at all... Plenty of articles say that organic is not worth it due to no nutritional value. That is not the reason I've ever heard anybody say they purchase organic fruits and veggies. It's the chemicals. I don't want to eat food that has been sprayed with chemicals over and over again to kill the various predators to that plant. I also don't want those chemicals to be in the water supply or ground…
But organic farms still spray 'chemicals' on their fruits and veggies, they just use 'natural' chemicals. Whether a 'chemical' is harmful to humans or not has nothing to do with how it is manufactured, so there is no reason to believe a 'natural chemical' is safer than a synthetic one.
Given that all "chemicals" used before, say, 50 years ago were natural, I would go further and say there is no shortage of utterly horrible ones.
Re: Why I Don't Buy Organic, and Why You Might Not Want to Either
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great find. No bias at all... Plenty of articles say that organic is not worth it due to no nutritional value. That is not the reason I've ever heard anybody say they purchase organic fruits and veggies. It's the chemicals. I don't want to eat food that has been sprayed with chemicals over and over again to kill the various predators to that plant. I also don't want those chemicals to be in the water supply or ground…
> I don't want to eat food that has been sprayed with chemicals over and over again to kill the various predators to that plant. That would be a good reason to consider conventional. Both organic and conventional farms use pesticides. But, by restricting themselves to only pesticides that a program within the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service has deemed are sufficiently "natural" (not safe, not effective, not env…
Does anybody really think the organic marketing makes sense in the first place ? I hope not, but I guess you're mostly right and people don't see this for some reason.
Re: Why I Don't Buy Organic, and Why You Might Not Want to Either
#60The author says .... "and the actual pesticides used today are mostly relatively non-toxic to humans." Nothing can be further from the truth. Most (in fact all) pesticides used are designed to kill biological cells. So pesticides do not distinguish between a caterpillars cell or a humans. All pesticides are harmful to humans, some in tiny doses, some in large doses. FYI - Landmark lawsuit claims Monsanto hid dangers…
I can't state how wrong you are. Believe it or not, different classes of life have different cells with different DNA. They use different pathways for almost everything.
As such, they are not equal. Specifically, insect cells are generally "more advanced" than ours (have more recent "basic" genes, more accurately adapted to their environment, tougher, ...), a lot smaller, ...
Bacteria are far more different from us than that, as are spores, other plants, ...
So yes, there are a LOT of compounds that throw a wrench into, say, insect procreation but have no known effect on humans.