All Or Nothing Paradoxes.

[MTpockets]

After seeing the dog food and baby food scandals, I don't trust any food that comes from China.

You missed the 2008 Melamine Milk Scandal... it was a "big one" when I was terrorizing that Country.

Loading…

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

(...may have been included under your mention of baby food)

I was going to read All of this thread... But I decide that I was having Nothing of it. Much Paradox.



I need to find a new hobby.

 

[OldBroad44]

Arent the chemical pesticides and herbicides much higher in non organics?

Usually yes. Sometimes horrifically so. Sometimes no, depending on the crop. For some crops something else is a more important health issue than organic. Such as with greens mixes. Or meats. Note: my own bias is towards organic. I breed and grow organic adapted vegetable varieties. And all the seed I grow and wholesale to retail seed companies are Oregon Tilth certified organic.

Conventionally grown potatoes are heavily treated with various stuff to protect them from pests and diseases and the agents are in the whole potatoes, not just on the skins. But organic potatoes tend to be scabby and many have rotten spots. And they are likely to cost twice as much or more. And are available only at limited times and usually only in farmers markets.

Kale and lettuce and many other greens can be grown in Willamette Valley without 'cides, and conventional local crops are likely to be just as pristine as organic crops. I think the bigger issue is that crops sold as plastic bags of greens, especially cut greens, are much more likely to be contaminated with toxic strains of E. coli from field hands or processors who don't wash their hands and washing spreading the bacteria around. And if those cut greens come from California instead of a local farm the bacteria have plenty of time to multiply. So I'd put buying whole heads and cutting it yourself and not commercial cut mixes as a more important issue than organic or not.

A friend of mine, a specialist in integrated pest management of fruit crops in Oregon, was horrified when he learned I ate the skins on commercial apples. He said if I knew what got sprayed on those apples, I'd never eat the skins. There are apple varieties that can be grown organically. But Fuji, my favorite variety, isnt one of them. And organic apples tend to cost seriously more than conventional. I'm not gonna do the labor of peeling apples. Too much labor and it wastes the valuable skin roughage. The organic fanatics put the question as whether the organic apple is better nutritionally than the conventional. But fruit is expensive and I ain't rich. A more relevant question for me is which is better for me, none to one organic apples a day or a glorious abundance of 2 to 5 big apples a day during the season? With my choice of cheeses. Yum. I go for the abundant affordable apples. I kinda doubt that I'm likely to die of pesticides on apple skins. What the hay. I don't smoke or use drugs or even drink more than a glass or two of wine with dinner occasionally. My liver oughta be capable of detoxifying a few 'cides on apple skins. When you brown any meat the delicious browned layer on the meat is full of cancer causing compounds we're told. However, its not like the world just invented toxins and carcinogens yesterday, so we are going to keel over if we eat a single carcinogenic molecule. Naw. Our small intestines absorb our food and send it straight to our livers, which can detoxify a great many sins as long as they aren't too many or the wrong kinds.

Wheat is a special problem. I don't eat it, being celiac. And allergic. Something about my throat closing and the immediate anaphylactic shock reactions is unappealing. as is the blood oozing from my entire digestive track from throat to rectum. And being bedridden for two weeks with my digestive system swollen so bad its hard for my heart to find room to pump, so I have a pulse of a hundred or more and its painful to drink even water. However wheat is great food if you can tolerate it. Unfortunately these days many conventional farmers spray herbicides on the mature wheat crop to kill it so it dries down uniformly. This means massive amounts of herbicide sprayed directly on the mature grain. Herbicides such as Roundup are considered unsafe and are illegal in Europe. Runoff from the small amounts used in corn fields at the beginning of the season cause death or sexual abnormalities in about 98% of every frog species studied in ditches and creeks that receive the runoff. Any academic who does such research in USA in ag schools tends to have their careers destroyed and their work either not published or retracted against their will. Whatever work theur is that gets published is usually by ecologists in arts and sciences departments, not ag scientists in ag schools. Monsanto gives huge amounts of money as gifts to U ag departments and colleges. If I could eat wheat I would stick to organic. Organics don't allow the use of these herbicides to kill wheat or any other way.

With meat, I think what matters is ruminant meat be grass fed and grass finished. That gives you much higher amounts of omega 3 fatty acids and lower amounts of omega 6 fatty acids. This balance shifts the immune system away from hyperactivity, and the associated inflamation, diarhea, gut distress, allergies, hayfever, asthma, hives, and autoimmune diseases. Conventional beef or lamb is finished in feed lots on commercial feeds made largely of corn and soybean meal. The omega3 fatty acids plummet. So conventional meats strongly promote overactivity of the immune system and inflammation and allergies. There are some plant source s if omega3 and 6 fatty acids. But they are short chain forms. Most people can do the chemical reaction that converts short chain forms to the long chain forms animals use but not all people. Grass fed grass finished means grass, not hay. In addition the toxic kinds if E. coli thrive in the stomachs of ruminants fed grain. And because animals are usually standing ankle deep in their own crap during the finishing. The feed contains antibiotics because the crowded animals would die otherwise and because the antibiotics actually promote fattening. These feed lots are big breeders of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Organic meat mostly just has to be raised using organic feed. That is organic corn and soybean meal. The animals have to have access to the outdoors, but the access doesn't even have to include any pasture. And a mix of grain and pasture doesn't give you the healthy omega3 to omega6 fatty acid balance. So for meat, forget organic and go for locally grown
grass fed grass finished. Note that since the nutritional virtue is in the fat, lean meat is a waste of time and money. And lean meat has little flavor and succulence. You can buy directly from NW farmers. Cows or lambs by the quarter or half, cut and packaged and frozen. The same farmers selling the meat in the farmers market will usually sell you a quarter or more in spring with a deposit and specified delivery date. And/or fill as much of your meat needs as you can by hunting.

Note added in edit: vegetable oils often contain significant amounts of omega 3s but even more omega 6s, and it is the balance between the two that matters. So vegetable seed oils swing the immune system in the direction of hyperactivity, thus alleries, inflamation, etc. Likewise for peanut butter or oil. Olive oil is an exception, containing little polyunsaturated fatty acids, omega3s or otherwise. But olive oil has too low a smoke point to use for frying. I like animal fats for frying. But olive oil is fine for braising and great in salads. When polyunsaturated vegetable oil is hydrogenated to make margarine (or Crisco) a lot of the double bonds between the carbons are randomly hydrogenated resulting in huge amounts of trans fatty acids. These get incorporated into cell membranes in the body but are unnatural and don't function properly. Avoid margarine. Butter is good stuff, especially Kerrygold or other butter from grass fed dairy animals. Many omega3 supplements don't have good omega3s in them. They degrades easily in processing. Wild caught salmon is a great source of omega3s, but not farmed salmon. A good source of canned omega3s is Brunswick kippered herring snacks.

 

[Xaevian]

Usually yes...

I think is is so amazing that we have you as a member. What a perfectly suited question.

 

[Koda]

Usually yes. Sometimes horrifically so. Sometimes no, depending on the crop.

I like your whole post. Only quoting a snippit to save space.

My comment was more in a general sense of 'cides in foods. I like and agree with your comparison to apples, its better for you health wise to eat 2 or 3 non organic apples than eat only 1 organic apple due to cost. As an analogy only, replace the apple with anything. Cost is a major factor in organic farming that many organic fundamentalists intentionally leave out or twist. Ive had too many food snobs argue to me that everyone should be eating only organics, and I ask them, how do we feed 350million 3 squares a day on organics... it ends the debate (and classifies as the organic food paradox, to be on topic). Note: I do wish everything was organic myself. I will buy it as often as I can afford it but my main focus is providing fresh whole foods regardless of organics. I have a family to feed fwiw.

My overly generalized question still stands.. In general doesn't organic foods have less chemicals than non organic foods?

 

[OldBroad44]

I think is is so amazing that we have you as a member. What a perfectly suited question.

Thanks, @Xaevian . That's one of the things I love about NWFA. There are usually people here who have worked in just about anything relevant. And will share.

 

[OldBroad44]

I like your whole post. Only quoting a snippit to save space.

My comment was more in a general sense of 'cides in foods. I like and agree with your comparison to apples, its better for you health wise to eat 2 or 3 non organic apples than eat only 1 organic apple due to cost. As an analogy only, replace the apply with anything. Cost is a major factor in organic farming that many organic fundamentalists intentionally leave out or twist. Ive had too many food snobs argue to me that everyone should be eating only organics, and I ask them, how do we feed 350million 3 squares a day on organics... it ends the debate (and classifies as the organic food paradox, to be on topic). Note: I do wish everything was organic myself. I will buy it as often as I can afford it but my main focus is providing fresh whole foods regardless of organics. I have a family to feed fwiw.

My overly generalized question still stands.. In general doesn't organic foods have less chemicals than non organic foods?

The 3rd-party-certified organic food griwn in the USA will usually have low amounts of toxic chemicals. But sometimes the conventional crop does too. It depends on the crop. In addition, where the outside of the melon is not eaten the edible portion may not carry the nasty chemicals even if they were used. Where there is a big difference the difference is normally going to be in the direction of the organic having fewer nasty chemicals.

However some crops are grown organically but are not allowed to be market as organic because the USDA now controls use of the word "organic". And that requires 3rd party certification. With Oregon Tilth that is liable to cost a minimum of about a grand a year for even the smallest farm. If a farmer who is growing organic doesnt have a market that will give a premium price for the word " organic" he skips doing the certification and saves a lot of money. So his produce is marketed as conventional and is in fact organic. This is another reason why conventional produce may have no more nasty chemicals than organic. because its actually organic.

If you sell below I think it was maybe $2,000 of produce you can call yourself organic using state programs that dont require 3rd party certification. And fact is, if there is a price premium with no certification there will be lying. So some of the crops being sold as organic are actually not. This applies mostly to very small operations such as gardeners selling excess in a roadside stand or some farmers markets.

Then there is food from china. I view all claims of organic on food from China as unlikely to be meaningful. I buy no food from China because the standard ethics is so bad even towards each other that you have to worry about them adding known poisons directly to food to make the protein content look higher. Basically I don't consider any imported organic food as reliably organic.

 

[Flopsweat]

The 3rd-party-certified organic food griwn in the USA will usually have low amounts of toxic chemicals. But sometimes the conventional crop does too. It depends on the crop. In addition, where the outside of the melon is not eaten the edible portion may not carry the nasty chemicals even if they were used. Where there is a big difference the difference is normally going to be in the direction of the organic having fewer nasty chemicals.

However some crops are grown organically but are not allowed to be market as organic because the USDA now controls use of the word "organic". And that requires 3rd party certification. With Oregon Tilth that is liable to cost a minimum of about a grand a year for even the smallest farm. If a farmer who is growing organic doesnt have a market that will give a premium price for the word " organic" he skips doing the certification and saves a lot of money. So his produce is marketed as conventional and is in fact organic. This is another reason why conventional produce may have no more nasty chemicals than organic. because its actually organic.

If you sell below I think it was maybe $2,000 of produce you can call yourself organic using state programs that dont require 3rd party certification. And fact is, if there is a price premium with no certification there will be lying. So some of the crops being sold as organic are actually not. This applies mostly to very small operations such as gardeners selling excess in a roadside stand or some farmers markets.

Then there is food from china. I view all claims of organic on food from China as unlikely to be meaningful. I buy no food from China because the standard ethics is so bad even towards each other that you have to worry about them adding known poisons directly to food to make the protein content look higher. Basically I don't consider any imported organic food as reliably organic.

I won't even buy batteries from China.

 

[Koda]

I won't even buy batteries from China.

That sounds like an all or nothing paradox...

Energizer products made in China - country of origin, manufacturing locations | ProductFrom.com

Information about Energizer products made in China - country of origin, manufacturing locations, manufacturer, brand, category, part number.

www.productfrom.com

 

[Koda]

The 3rd-party-certified organic food griwn in the USA will usually have low amounts of toxic chemicals. But sometimes the conventional crop does too. It depends on the crop. In addition, where the outside of the melon is not eaten the edible portion may not carry the nasty chemicals even if they were used. Where there is a big difference the difference is normally going to be in the direction of the organic having fewer nasty chemicals.

However some crops are grown organically but are not allowed to be market as organic because the USDA now controls use of the word "organic". And that requires 3rd party certification. With Oregon Tilth that is liable to cost a minimum of about a grand a year for even the smallest farm. If a farmer who is growing organic doesnt have a market that will give a premium price for the word " organic" he skips doing the certification and saves a lot of money. So his produce is marketed as conventional and is in fact organic. This is another reason why conventional produce may have no more nasty chemicals than organic. because its actually organic.

If you sell below I think it was maybe $2,000 of produce you can call yourself organic using state programs that dont require 3rd party certification. And fact is, if there is a price premium with no certification there will be lying. So some of the crops being sold as organic are actually not. This applies mostly to very small operations such as gardeners selling excess in a roadside stand or some farmers markets.

Then there is food from china. I view all claims of organic on food from China as unlikely to be meaningful. I buy no food from China because the standard ethics is so bad even towards each other that you have to worry about them adding known poisons directly to food to make the protein content look higher. Basically I don't consider any imported organic food as reliably organic.

Got it. It sounds like its "mostly" true but in practice a lot is mixed up. I see now why there is so much criticism of whats truly organic foods.

 

[OldBroad44]

I won't even buy batteries from China.

Batteries are a good thing not to buy from China since they can leak and lithium batteries can burst into flames.

 

[Flopsweat]

That sounds like an all or nothing paradox...

Energizer products made in China - country of origin, manufacturing locations | ProductFrom.com

Information about Energizer products made in China - country of origin, manufacturing locations, manufacturer, brand, category, part number.

www.productfrom.com

Everything isn't the word of the day paradox.

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[OldBroad44]

Got it. It sounds like its "mostly" true but in practice a lot is mixed up. I see now why there is so much criticism of whats truly organic foods.

Yeah. And organic labeled food always costs more than conventional not because it always costs more to produce, which it may not. But because unless you are going to charge more for it there is no reason to get the costly certification that you need to use the word "organic."

One can make a better case for organic food being able to support the worlds population than you might think. Right now, the organic farms are mostly smaller than the conventional farms. And the government has made all the laws to favor mega farms. For example, big farms are charged less for water. They can use crop insurance programs that are not practical for small farms. There are programs that pay many of them for not growing corn, wheat, etc. They are allowed to grow cows on public land leased at minimal price, then finish them in confinement lots dependent on using antibiotics in the feed, the same antibiotics we use in human medicine. So they are destroying our ability to cure disease with antibiotics. The government puts huge amounts of money into ag research at the land grant colleges, nearly all aimed at supporting the megafarm model that bigger tasteless veggies are better, and the environment doesn't matter. And the huge dead zone in the Gulf where the pollutants from mega farms along the Mississippi run off to doesn't matter. And the model of mega farms specializing in single crops that require all the labor in just a couple of months greatly exceeding the local labor supply so dependent on imported or illegal immigrant labor and sticking the taxpayer with the cost of their health care and education and the general disruption so many transients cause is just dandy, and better than smaller more diversified farms with crops chosen so as to spread labor demands through the year, farms
that support their laborers year round and long term. Not! Its actually smaller farms with mixed plant and animal production that are in a better position to grow food in a more ecologically and socially more sound sustainable way.

Rant over.

 

[Koda]

Its actually smaller farms with mixed plant and animal production that are in a better position to grow food in a more ecologically sound sustainable way.

The problem is distribution. No question small farms are more ecologically sound, but were talking about getting that food out to 350million people, 2 squares a day. I realize things are often clouded in politics, but there's a logical reason the govt favors mega farms.

 

[Provincial]

Big government loves big business, and vice versa. For both, small businesses/producers are a nuisance and a distraction. They want them gone.

The famous quote by the General Motors' then current President at a hearing (January, 1953) about his proposed appointment as Secretary of Defense. In response to a question about conflict of interest, he denied that there would be one because:

"......what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country. Our contribution to the Nation is quite considerable."

 

[CamoDeafie]

Big government loves big business, and vice versa. For both, small businesses/producers are a nuisance and a distraction. They want them gone.

https://www.pieinsurance.com/blog/small-business-resources/how-many-small-businesses-are-there-in-the-us

99.9% of businesses in the US are "small businesses".

47.5% (58.9 million) of all Americans are employed by small businesses .

Edit. For some reason, 58.9 million doesn't come that close to 1/2 of 300+ million?

Edit 2. It would make more sense if it said all taxpayer/working Americans

 

[CLT65]

I've never cared for the "all or nothing" mindset, personally. I remember my sister telling me once how I really needed to change my diet to sugar-free, or gluten-free, I forget which. Anyhow, I told her I didn't see the point in a strict absolute diet; couldn't I cut out half the sugar (or gluten) and get some improvement, if it was a problem? No, absolutely not, it has to be all or nothing, she said. OK then, count me out.

Same sort of thing in politics, so much all or nothing:
"My vote doesn't matter, so I'm not going to bother", and just as bad - "The candidate on our side isn't pure enough on MY issue, so I can't compromise my principles to vote for them". Yeah, so the other guy gets elected instead, who's a hundred times worse. That makes a lot of sense - a lot of NONSENSE! I don't see a little pragmatism in politics as being such a terrible thing.

As to vegans and veganism, it's not a diet, per se, or even a lifestyle. It's a religion, and an extreme, fundamentalist religion at that.
One of the hypocrisies that I've thought was mildly humorous with vegans in general, is they say humans need to "evolve" past their animal nature, past the basic biological need for our bodies to consume animal protein as we always have, and ascend to a higher level or some such.

Then on the other hand, most of these same people believe that when it comes to other natural biological processes (sex), you need to let it all hang out, follow your basest drives, desires, and animal instincts with whoever, whatever, whenever the urge strikes, because after all, we're just animals, and that's the natural thing to do...

 

[CLT65]

As to diet and vegetarianism, I do think that everyone is a little different, and some do better on one type of food than others.

Personally I love vegetables. I like broccoli. I love a good salad with everything. I could easily be 75% vegetarian, but never 100% because I also love a good steak, burger, salmon, etc. once in a while. I do eat less meat than I used to. The average American diet probably includes more meat than is necessary for most people.

 

[OldBroad44]

The problem is distribution. No question small farms are more ecologically sound, but were talking about getting that food out to 350million people, 2 squares a day. I realize things are often clouded in politics, but there's a logical reason the govt favors mega farms.

That the government should deliberately destroy small farms was a policy decision made by an ag secretary back in the 40s dont remember his name. Before that the USA government deliberately supported small farms. Once the number of farmers was reduced enough they lost most of their voting power. And what followed was more and more laws making it harder to survive as a small farmer. Most governments support small farms. Lobbying money from huge cereal manufacturers and meat processors undoubtedly played a major role in our government turning on small farmers, with the big meat processors aiming to be a complete monopoly. Politics and lobbying, not logic, are behind the big farm preference.

Small farmers have long formed cooperatives to get their crops sold. The internet and crop marketing groups make it easier than ever for small farmer to sell their crops. And large farmers waste a lot of the crop. Most small diversified farms waste very little. And make much better use of labor.

 

[Koda]

That the government should deliberately destroy small farms was a policy decision made by an ag secretary back in the 40s dont remember his name. Before that the USA government deliberately supported small farms. Once the number of farmers was reduced enough they lost most of their voting power. And what followed was more and more laws making it harder to survive as a small farmer. Most governments support small farms. Lobbying money from huge cereal manufacturers and meat processors undoubtedly played a major role in our government turning on small farmers, with the big meat processors aiming to be a complete monopoly. Politics and lobbying, not logic, are behind the big farm preference.

Small farmers have long formed cooperatives to get their crops sold. The internet and crop marketing groups make it easier than ever for small farmer to sell their crops. And large farmers waste a lot of the crop. Most small diversified farms waste very little. And make much better use of labor.

If the govt deliberately destroyed small farms then there could have been a way to distribute small farm products to 350m people. I see a parallel here to gun control, but I digress.

 

[Provincial]

The Netherlands is in the process of eliminating farmers, probably mostly small farmers. Individualism is an anathema to governments.