Nice. I like these during the week. In the past, I've enjoyed downtown Perrysburg's farmers' market that's held every Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. This new one at Westgate is nice and close. Even if it's not organic, we'll buy local produce when it's available, and now is the time.
Article from the August/September 2006 issue of Mother Earth News:
"Would you like to reduce air pollution, recycle your money into your community, support family farmers and enjoy food that tastes better and is more nutritious than what you can buy at the supermarket? Easy! Eat more locally produced food."
"Buying fresh local food also is the easiest way to avoid eating processed food with added sugar, fat and preservatives. Locally grown food tastes better because it’s fresher, and growers can plant better-tasting varieties if their fruits and vegetables won’t need to stand up to long-distance shipping."
The article then list 20 ways "to make eating locally work for you."
posted by jr at 02:13 P.M. EST on Tue Aug 15, 2006 #
JR: Great information!
I don't know which local growers are "organic," but from my first job in Napoleon, I recall that non-pesticide farming (rotating crops, I believe was part of it) was growing in popularity. Wonder if that's a growing trend, or kind of going by the wayside?
Mike
posted by miked918 at 02:36 P.M. EST on Tue Aug 15, 2006 #
good to hear this; thanks for posting. we generally spend some time (and money) at rhodes market, but i'm sure we'll visit this market as well.
posted by wholesaler1972 at 02:44 P.M. EST on Tue Aug 15, 2006 #
I shop at the Farmer's Market every Saturday at the Erie Street Market and it's always busy with great, fresh produce and prices. I'm glad they are expanding to Westgate which gives the local growers more exposure to their products as we all should be promoting healthy eating.
posted by HolyHolyToledo at 03:28 P.M. EST on Tue Aug 15, 2006 #
Rotating crops isn't new, or exclusive to organic farming. The concept's been around quite some time - allows the soil to replenish itself. Not to be pissy about organic all the time - as soon as I can find organic that looks and tastes as good as non-organic, and doesn't cost so much, I'm sure I'll be more positive about it. Personally, I think people have gotten overly paranoid about non-organic - especially when studies have shown bacteria levels (bad) are higher in organic food items, frozen, fresh, etc.
posted by starling02 at 09:55 P.M. EST on Tue Aug 15, 2006 #
studies have shown bacteria levels (bad) are higher in organic food items, frozen, fresh, etc.
On the other hand, there was something I saw about how all the kids nowadays have allergies to everything you can think of because they were kept in such an antiseptic environment that their immune systems are overactive and go crazy at the first whiff of peanuts or soy or wheat or things like that. So maybe being exposed to some dirt and bacteria are actually good for you.
posted by anonymouscoward at 11:52 P.M. EST on Tue Aug 15, 2006 #
"Not to be pissy about organic all the time ..."
But you are. Yesterday, I ate tomatoes and peppers grown organically in our backyard, and no way could your cheap crap from Kroger come close to comparing in taste.
As to organic produce costing a little more, that's simply paying for better quality.
At the very least, buy non-organic produce from local farmers and not Kroger.
posted by jr at 07:23 A.M. EST on Wed Aug 16, 2006 #
So maybe being exposed to some dirt and bacteria are actually good for you.
I think that sounds plausable, kind of like vaccine's, you have to be exposed to it before your body knows how to fight it off.
posted by tm at 07:58 A.M. EST on Wed Aug 16, 2006 #
Although I buy organic (pesticide free) vegetables when I'm able, I don't believe it's the organic growing method that contributes to the flavor. It's the variety of the plant. Commercially grown tomatoes have been developed to ship well and have a long shelf life at the cost of flavor. The strawberries sold at Kroger bear as much resemblance to wild strawberries as I do to Starling.
Just being able to get rid of the pesticide, fertilizer and growth hormones is enough to make me switch to organic foods.
posted by madjack at 08:47 A.M. EST on Wed Aug 16, 2006 #
I recently bought some organic brocilli and when I went to boil it, about fifty white worms came to the top of the pot.For me that was enough of a turnoff to throw out all of the brocilli.I don't know about anybody else, but I wasn't ready for that type of protein with my dinner.Yuk!
posted by buckeye277 at 01:02 P.M. EST on Wed Aug 16, 2006 #
I do buy my produce at farmers markets, rarely at the grocery stores. I agree that home grown is usually better - but I don't know that it's because it's organic, as much as it's fresh, ripe on the vine fresh - that makes a huge difference. Grocery stores ship stuff in unripe, picked too soon. You're right jr - homegrown is near best - but not due to organic I dont think. A lot of produce in some farm markets is also picked too soon - that's why I try to stick with the handful I mentioned. I'm sorry if I came off pissy about organic - I kind of had it shoved down my throat by my son, ad nauseum - I guess I kind of built up a knee jerk reaction to organic. The organic I see in stores, pales by comparison to the non-organic next to it. The prices are crazy high, for small, hard, flavorless food. Not all - I should have not generalized. Grocery store organic tends to be. But jr is right on - it's hard to beat homegrown.
Actually, they did do a study some time ago - dont recall where - that did prove that kids do better getting dirty, get sick less. Overly clean kids, kids who's parents are so phobic about germs, etc. tend to get sick easier because their immune systems aren't as hardy. Dentists are also noticing a huge increase in cavities in kids as well - due to so many moms being so paranoid about drinking tap water, they buy bottled water by the case. Bottled water has no floride.
posted by starling02 at 09:07 P.M. EST on Wed Aug 16, 2006 #
I searched for this in the NPR archive. I heard this a few years ago, the Hygiene Hypothesis. From'All Things Considered'
Description:
John Ydstie talks with Dr. Scott T. Weiss of Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston about a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that indicates children's exposure to dirt, dust and bacteria actually helps their immune systems develop more effectively. The idea is called the "hygiene hypothesis."
I think some of the main food suppliers are catching on. I have yogurt in my fridge from Dannon that has 'Bifidus Regularis' in it.
This is a 'probiotic' - which are the good bacteria found in your system that regulate a host of things, including digestion. These bacteria are quite lacking in alot of commercially farmed food. But you can buy them now, like in this yogurt or in pill form.
Here's a short sheet from the Mayo Clinic on them.
But it's one of many reasons we went to an organic diet.
The food is smaller - not genetically engineered to have the 'curb' appeal. But it is more nutritious and gives our bodies the nutrition there were designed to have. And need to be healthy for a long time.
posted by katie82640 at 11:14 P.M. EST on Wed Aug 16, 2006 #
Not to be 'pissy' - I'm not informed enough to take sides either way. But I've been doing lots of research, and just wanted to share some of what I've found on the subject of organic.
http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articles/2002/jun_25_02.htm
The Hidden Dangers In Organic Food
Dennis T. Avery
Products most people think are purer than other foods are making people seriously ill.
According to recent data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control CDC), people who eat organic and “natural” foods are eight times as likely as the rest of the population to be attacked by a deadly new strain of E. coli bacteria (0157: H7). This new E. coli is attacking tens of thousands of people per year, all over the world. It is causing permanent liver and kidney damage in many of its victims. The CDC recorded 2,471 confirmed cases of E. coli 0157: H7 in 1996 and estimated that it is causing at least 250 deaths per year in the United States alone.
Consumers of organic food are also more likely to be attacked by a relatively new, more virulent strain of the infamous salmonella bacteria. Salmonella was America’s biggest food-borne death risk until the new E. coli O157 came along.
Organic food is more dangerous than conventionally grown produce because organic farmers use animal manure as the major source of fertilizer for their food crops. Animal manure is the biggest reservoir of these nasty bacteria that are afflicting and killing so many people.
Organic farmers compound the contamination problem through their reluctance to use antimicrobial preservatives, chemical washes, pasteurization, or even chlorinated water to rid their products of dangerous bacteria. One organic grower summed up the community’s attitude as follows: “Pasteurization has only been around a hundred years or so; what do they think people did before that?”
The answer is simple. They died young.
In truth, until the last few years the threat of food-borne bacteria was relatively mild in the U.S. It was prudent to refrigerate one’s food and wash one’s hands before preparing food or eating, and those simple procedures kept food-borne illnesses to a minimum. On occasion, neglect of these rules would cause a family to suffer severe stomach aches. And every year a few weak individuals—the very young, the very old, or those who were already quite ill—would die from exposure to food-borne bacteria.
But the new E. coli attacks even the strong. It inflicts permanent damage on internal organs. It even kills healthy adults. The new salmonella is nearly as dangerous.
Harsh Organic Reality
As these lethal new bacteria spread, organic foods have clearly become the deadliest food choice. Put simply, animal manure is too dangerous to use on food crops if there is any alternative whatever. To eat produce grown with animal fertilizer is like playing Russian roulette with your family’s dinner table. It only takes one contaminated food product to bring on a tragedy.
“I was really horrified that something I felt was so wholesome and so healthy and so safe for my children could really almost kill them,” said Rita Bernstein, a Connecticut housewife. In 1996, two of Bernstein’s three daughters suffered E. coli 0157 attacks that were traced to organic lettuce. Halee, the younger daughter, is still suffering from reduced kidney function and vision problems. Bernstein is grateful that her daughters are still alive. “There are a lot of families out there that don’t have their Halees,” she says.
The new reality is quite sobering. Organic and “natural” food producers supply only about 1 percent of the nation’s food, but the Centers for Disease Control have traced approximately 8 percent of the confirmed E. coli 0157 cases to such foods. Consumer Reports recently found much higher levels of salmonella on free-range chickens than on conventionally raised ones. Many other organic foods also pose higher salmonella risks than “supermarket” foods. To be sure, most strains of salmonella are mild and are easily killed by cooking one’s food adequately. But the new salmonella, S. typhimurium, is far stronger than other varieties. Infection often proves fatal. The CDC estimates that there are up to four million cases of salmonella poisoning per year in the U.S., and it has identified one-fourth of the culture-confirmed cases as the more virulent S. typhimurium.
As if that were not frightening enough, organic and “natural” food consumers also face increased risk of illness from toxins produced by fungi—and some of these toxins are carcinogenic. Refusing to use artificial pesticides, organic farmers allow their crop fields to suffer more damage from insects and rodents, which creates openings through which fungi can enter the fruits and seeds. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regularly tests samples of various foods for such dangers, and it routinely finds high levels of these natural toxins in organically grown produce. It found, for instance, that organic crops have higher rates of infestation by aflatoxin, one of the most virulent carcinogens know to man. Unfortunately, the FDA has issued no public warnings about these risks so far.
The organic-food sector stresses the “natural” production of foods and beverages—even to the point of refusing to pasteurize milk and fruit juices. As a result, many people become seriously ill after consuming products they mistakenly believe are purer than other foods. For instance, in 1996 E. coli 0157 sickened more than seventy people who contracted it from unpasteurized apple juice produced by the Odwalla Juice Company. One young girl in Colorado died because of this. Odwalla was recently fined more than $1 million in the case and now pasteurizes its juice. But more than 1,500 other companies still cater to the “natural means raw” idea by selling unpasteurized beverages that can prove deadly.
Even without pesticides and pasteurization, producers could render their organic and natural foods safe through a well-known process called irradiation. Irradiation uses low levels of gamma radiation to kill bacteria, and the process also preserves the freshness of foods such as strawberries and chicken. But when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently proposed an organic-food standard that would have allowed irradiation, the plan drew more than 200,000 angry protests from organic farmers and caterers. In response, the USDA will reportedly eliminate irradiation from the final organic food standard.
Fresh from the Manure Pile
To be sure, it is an overstatement to say, as one physician recently did, that organic food is “grown in animal manure.” Few organic farmers actually put fresh manure on their crops. Most of them compost the manure for several weeks before using it on their crops. But the composting guidelines have been fuzzy and are probably inadequate. A common rule of thumb is to compost for two months at 130 degrees F. or better. The bad news is that a study by Dr. Dean Cliver of the University of California at Davis found that the deadly new E. coli 0157 bacteria can live at least seventy days in a compost pile—and it probably takes an extended period at 160-degree heat to kill it.
Few organic farmers use thermometers to check the safety of their compost piles, or even keep accurate records on how long a given mass of compost has been sitting. For most organic farmers, management of their natural fertilizer is a casual matter of shifting compost piles around with a tractor-mounted front-end loader.
The real surprise is that nobody is telling the public about the new dangers from organic food, or trying to persuade organic farmers to reduce these risks. Activist groups, government, and the press—all of which have shown no reluctance to organize crusades about matters such as global warming, tobacco addiction, and the use of pesticides—are allowing organic farmers to endanger their customers without any publicity whatever. A press corps eager to find headline-worthy dangers would long ago have exposed any other farmers guilty of so blatantly and unnecessarily endangering the public. And other farmers would certainly have been condemned, or even closed down, by government regulators.
Organic foods, however, are politically favored. The Green lobby self-righteously protects them because it urgently wants the public to perceive organic farming as an environmentally benign alternative to the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. I recently criticized organic farming on a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program, and the network was peppered with protest calls before the program even went on the air!
Even newspaper food editors still tell their readers that organic food is chic, healthy, and “earth-friendly.” In general, the U.S. press has been blithely abetting the scare tactics of the environmental movement for decades, and the food writers pride themselves on being at least as “green” as their colleagues on the news pages.
With truly mind-numbing aggressiveness, the organic farming advocates have even gone so far as to claim that “industrial farming” created E. coli 0157. They argue that consumers should protect themselves by buying organic products from local farmers, a “recommendation” that blatantly serves their own self-interest. The truth is, no one knows where the new E. coli strain came from, but we do know that bacteria are constantly mutating as a natural consequence of their rapid reproduction. Allowing bacteria to proliferate, as organic farmers do, is not the way to minimize mutations.
Strangely Silent Regulators
Federal regulators have largely been cowed into silence. The intensity with which organic-farming believers and eco-activists defend their old-fashioned type of agriculture rivals the intensity of the religious fanatic. For instance, one consumer recently said, “I think trying to eliminate the poisons and pesticides from our food is a great way to eliminate the chemical industry’s destruction of the earth.” As a consequence of such attitudes, the CDC has neglected its responsibility to warn the public about the newly increased dangers of organic foods. One CDC doctor—Dr. Robert Tauxe, Chief of the CDC’s Food-Borne Diseases Branch—wrote an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (May 8, 1997) highlighting the dangers of “organically grown, unprocessed foods produced without pesticides or preservatives.” The CDC was promptly flooded with angry phone calls from passionate believers in organic farming. The doctor now says that he “doesn’t know” whether organic food is more dangerous than conventionally produced food. The CDC has refused to grant interviews on the subject.
With similar obtuseness, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recently issued a draft of a new consumer brochure highlighting the unproven “dangers” from pesticide residues—and recommending organic foods. But after forty years and billions of dollars in research, scientists are still looking for the first victim of pesticide residues, whereas the new E. coli strain attacked thousands of Americans last year. Many of these victims suffered permanent internal organ damage, and hundreds of them died. The EPA’s draft brochure on pesticide residues simply appears to reflect the antipesticide biases of the agency’s administrator, Carol Browner, and her political patron, Vice President Gore.
Other federal agencies have displayed the same bias. The Food and Drug Administration, for instance, has failed to issue any warnings to consumers about the higher levels of natural toxins their researchers regularly find in organic foods. And the Department of Agriculture, which employs some of the world’s best food scientists, goes out of its way to court the organic-farming supporters and allied eco-activists, and makes a strenuous effort to find good things to say about “alternative agriculture.”
“Natural food” proponents claim that organic farming is “earth-friendly,” but it’s not. The ugly secret of organic farming is that its yields are only about half as high as those of mainstream farmers. Approximately one-third of the average organic farm is not planted to marketable crops at all; it is planted to green manure crops (such as clover) to build up the nitrogen fertility of the soil. If the organic farmers gave up animal manure as a nitrogen source, the percentage of land they keep in green manure crops would have to become even higher. Mainstream farmers take their nitrogen from the air, through an industrial process that requires no land to be taken from nature.
Also, the organic farmers suffer higher losses from destruction by pests. They expect it. Books on organic farming tell their readers to live with it. “I’m lucky to get half as much yield from my organic acres as from my regular fields,” said the manager of a 50,000-acre cooperative farm in England. His experience is confirmed by numerous studies from a dozen different countries.
Need for Higher Yields
For all these reasons, widespread organic farming is simply not a viable option at this time. The first consequence of a global shift to organic farming would be the plowdown of at least six-million square miles of wildlife habitat to make up for the lower yields of organic production. That is more than the total land area of the United States.
Agriculture already takes up 36 percent of the world’s land surface. (All the world’s cities cover only 1.5 percent.) A world with a peak population of 8.5 billion affluent people in 2050 will need at least 2.5 times as much farm output as we have today.
Absent a worldwide catastrophe involving billions of human deaths, this demand is inevitable. We will not be able to count on people to change their diets and accept less protein. There is no global trend toward vegetarianism today, nor any sign of one. In America, for example, less than 4 percent of the population is vegetarian, and 95 percent of U.S. vegetarians consume milk, cheese, eggs, and other expensive calories. Less than 0.05 percent of the affluent people in the world give up livestock products completely.
In fact, the worldwide trend is in the opposite direction. Countries such as China, India, and South Korea are leading the biggest surge in demand for meat and milk the world has ever seen. It is now probably too late to save wildlands by preventing people from acquiring a taste for meat and milk, and there is certainly no sign of mass conversions to vegetarianism around the globe.
If the world does not triple the yields on the high-quality land currently in farming, we will pay the price not in human famine but in forests and wild meadows cleared to produce more meat, milk, and produce.
Modern farm chemicals are not entirely without risk, but the hazards they pose to people and wildlife are near zero and declining. For instance, Captan, one of the pesticides on the Greenpeace hit list, is one ten-millionth as carcinogenic as ordinary drinking water. EPA Administrator Browner is trying to decertify an herbicide called atrazine because a few parts per billion turn up in some of our drinking water. But Browner’s own staff concedes that to get above the “no-effect” level in the rat tests that ascertain cancer risk, you would have to drink 150,000 gallons of water per day for seventy years. And for nine months of the year you would have to add your own atrazine! The health risks of modern pesticides are minimal.
Nonetheless, advocates of organic farming like to ask, “What’s more dangerous, pesticides or horse manure?” The answer may surprise them. Researchers are still looking for the first human death from pesticide residues, fifty years after DDT was introduced and thirty years after its use was banned in the United States, but manure is apparently claiming lives almost daily through bacterial contamination of organic food.
Nor do modern pesticides pose a significant risk to wildlife. They are more narrowly targeted, degrade more rapidly, and are better designed to avoid wildlife impact than the early, more persistent pesticides. Also, they are often used in integrated pest management systems to minimize the amount and frequency of treatments, and are applied with computer-calculated precision. The new glyphosate and sulfanylurea weed killers are no more toxic to birds and fish than table salt, and one tiny tablet treats an entire acre. Quite simply, when used properly these substances are not dangerous to anything but the pests they are designed to regulate.
Giving up pesticides would mean the certain destruction of millions of square miles of wildlands, much of it in the species-rich tropics. Because much of the world’s biodiversity is in those lands, a move toward widespread organic farming would cost nature far more than the careful use of today’s safe, narrowly targeted pesticides, high-powered seeds, and factory-produced fertilizers.
Organic food buyers are, unfortunately, twice losers: They and their families accept deadly risks from truly dangerous new food-borne microorganisms, and, at the same time, their choices increase the likelihood that the people of the next century will plow down massive tracts of wildlife habitat to make way for low-yield crops.
Unless the press and government agencies fulfill their obligation to warn people of the dangers of these foods, the number of such incidents will continue to rise. These risks are easy to overcome, but farmers and consumers must know the dangers and act accordingly.
Dennis T. Avery is Director of Global Food Issues for Hudson Institute and the author of Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Hudson Institute, 1995; to order call 1-800-HUDSON-Ø or visit www.hudson.org for more information). This article also drew on reporting done by Scott Wheeler and Marc Maroni for the “American Investigator” on the American Voice cable channel.
posted by starling02 at 10:40 P.M. EST on Thu Aug 17, 2006 #
And last, but not least -
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/babyboom68.htm
As every bodybuilder knows, it is very expensive to gain solid muscle weight, and I was spending a lot of money overeating to be a bodybuilder when millions of people around the world are starving!
On the other hand, we in the West have worked hard and smart to develop the most materially prosperous civilization to ever appear on the planet and the rest of the world is straining to achieve the same level. So I continue to enjoy the fruits of my own hard work even now as I am attempting to gain another 10-15 pounds of guilt-free, rock hard muscle.
If regular nutritious food wasn't expensive enough, now we are told by many that we should eat only "organic" foods. To do so would really increase the cost of a healthy diet. In spite of this, the organic food movement is growing rapidly.
In fact, retail sales of the organic industry rose from $1 billion in 1990 to $7.8 in 2000 to $10.4 billion last year, though total percentage of agricultural production still remains well below the 1% level [Greene CR. U.S. organic farming emerges in the 1990s: Adoption of certified systems. USDA Agricultural Research Service, Resource Economics Division, Information bulletin No. 770, June 2001].
The Reasons For This Growth Include:
Supermarkets promote organic foods because they charge premium prices which increase their profits.
People are bombarded with claims from lifestyle magazines, TV chefs, health food store employees, etc., that organic food increases health. Supposedly, organic foods are not only safer (less pesticides) but also more nutritious.
Organic foods taste better.
Organic farming is better for the environment.
But Are These Claims True?
Well, obviously the first one certainly is. Supermarkets make higher profits from "organic" produce and will promote them when they can. But are organic foods healthier? Organic foods are certainly not more nutritious [Newsome R. Organically grown foods: A scientific status summary by the Institute of Food Technologists' expert panel on food safety and nutrition. Food Technology 44(12):123-130, 1990.].
The nutrient content of plants is determined primarily by heredity. Mineral content may be affected by the mineral content of the soil, but this has no significance in the overall diet. If essential nutrients are missing from the soil, the plant will not grow. If plants grow, that means the essential nutrients are present. Experiments conducted for many years have found no difference in the nutrient content of organically grown crops and those grown under standard agricultural conditions.
But are they safer? Two recent symposia (the American Chemical Society and the First World Congress on Organic Food) have concluded that evidence is lacking to support the claimed superior benefits of organic foods. Furthermore, a report by the Texas Department of Agriculture indicates that conventional produce was eight times more likely to have pesticide residue than organic, but of the few samples in which a residue was found, the amount was negligible (between 1 and 5 percent of government standards).
In addition, because organic farmers rely on cow and pig manure for fertilizer, organic foods are vulnerable to bacterial contamination - two recent outbreaks of e-coli involved organic strawberries and lettuce. Organic poultry present an additional problem. Free-range birds have higher rates of bacterial contamination than conventional poultry due to their higher exposure to wild bird droppings!
The fact is that a study by the American Council on Science and Health revealed that organic produce does not have significantly higher vitamin contents than conventional produce.
An exception may be in the vitamin C in organic vegetables, but the difference is minimal. The Food Standards Agency, an impartial body set up by government to safeguard our welfare, declared, "on the basis of current evidence... organic food is not significantly different in terms of food safety and nutrition from food produced conventionally". {By the way, you coffee drinkers, did you know that a cup of coffee contains natural carcinogens equal to at least a year's worth of carcinogenic synthetic residues in the diet?]
Vegetarian Sources Of Protein & Alternative Foods To Spice Up Your Meals.
Even if you are not a vegetarian your diet could probably benefit from the addition of some plant based protein so think twice before wiping it from your plate completely. Learn what they are and how they can help you...
[ Learn More ]
Well, then, what about the "fact" that organic farming is better for the environment? Because organic foods are supposed to be grown without artificial fertilizers in soil whose humus content is increased by the additions of organic matter, it is better for the environment, right?
The weed and pest-control methods to which this refers include crop rotation, hand cultivation, mulching, soil enrichment, and encouraging beneficial predators and microorganisms. If these methods are not sufficient, various listed chemicals can be used. (The list does not include cytotoxic chemicals that are carbon-based.) The proposal did not call for monitoring specific indicators of soil and water quality, but left the selection of monitoring activities to the producer in consultation with the certifying agent.
For raising animals, antibiotics would not be permitted as growth stimulants but would be permitted to counter infections.
The rules permit up to 20% of animal feed to be obtained from non-organic sources. This was done because some nutrients (such as trace minerals) are not always available organically.
Irradiation, which can reduce or eliminate certain pests, kill disease-causing bacteria, and prolong food shelf-life, would be permitted during processing. Genetic engineering would also be permissible.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that "organic" does not mean what many people think it means. It does not mean absolutely no pesticides or no antibiotics or no irradiation or no genetic engineering!
Manfred Kroger, Ph.D., Quackwatch consultant and Professor of Food Science at The Pennsylvania State University, has put the matter more bluntly:
Scientific agriculture has provided Americans with the safest and most abundant food supply in the world. Agricultural chemicals are needed to maintain this supply. The risk from pesticide residue, if any, is minuscule, is not worth worrying about, and does not warrant paying higher prices.
What is most telling is what is left out of the report. A research paper by Dr William Lockeretz of the Tufts University School of Nutrition Science published in 1980 is one of the so-called 'valid 29'. But Dr Lockeretz had this to say in 1997, at an international organic conference: 'I wish I could tell you that there is a clear, consistent nutritional difference between organic and conventional foods. Even better, I wish I could tell you that the difference is in favour of organic. Unfortunately, though, from my reading of the scientific literature, I do not believe such a claim can be responsibly made.' Dr Lockeretz is no organic critic, but a long-time organic proponent and a co-founder of the pro-organic American Journal of Alternative Agriculture.
posted by starling02 at 10:47 P.M. EST on Thu Aug 17, 2006 #
starling02 referenced an article titled "The Hidden Dangers In Organic Food" by Dennis T. Avery who is Director of the Center for Global Food Issues. As soon as I read the outrageous claims by Avery, I immediately did a search, and it only took me a few seconds to find that Avery is most likely full of his own organic crapola.
From Sourcewatch:
"Dennis Avery is the director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, where he edits Global Food Quarterly. Avery crusades against organic agriculture claiming that modern industrial agriculture and biotechnology will save the world from starvation and disaster. Avery also disputes the scientific consensus on global warming. He is the originator of a misleading claim that organic foods are more dangerous than foods sprayed with chemical pesticides."
"Avery served as a senior agricultural analyst for the US Department of State for between 1980 and 1988 under the Reagan administration, "where he was responsible for assessing the foreign-policy implications of food and farming developments worldwide" "
"He enjoys a high level of influence among some sectors, and his big-business-friendly articles are disseminated to thousands of newspapers as well as subscribers in governments, banks and businesses. Avery writes a weekly column for The BridgeNews Forum. According to his biographical note "Avery travels the world as a speaker, has testified before Congress, and has appeared on most of the nation's major television networks, including a program discussing the bacterial dangers of organic foods on ABC's 20/20". "
About Avery's misleading article on organic food ...
First, from the article starling02 posted, Avery claims:
"According to recent data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control CDC), people who eat organic and “natural” foods are eight times as likely as the rest of the population to be attacked by a deadly new strain of E. coli bacteria (0157: H7)."
But from Sourcewatch:
"After fielding numerous media queries on the subject, CDC took the unusual step on January 14, 1999 of issuing a press release stating, "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not conducted any study that compares or quantitates the specific risk for infection with E. coli 0157:H7 and eating either conventionally grown or organic/natural foods." In addition, Tauxe says he called Avery to tell him to stop claiming that the CDC was the source of this allegation. Avery responded by telling Tauxe, "That's your interpretation, and I have mine." "
"Avery claims his information came from Dr. Paul Mead, an epidemiologist who works in Tauxe's division. Absolute bunk, says Mead. "What happened is that he called me up and announced that eight percent of the outbreaks of foodborne illness were from organic food. I took some exception to that and said I didn't know him and what his purpose was, but our data don't support that." Mead was chagrined to hear that a year after this conversation took place, Avery is still sourcing this phantom data back to him."
"Contrary to Avery's claim, E. coli 0157:H7 contamination from manure is less likely to occur on organic farms than in the intensive farming system that Avery supports."
"Fred Kirschenmann is an organic farmer and board chairman of the private organic certification company Farm Verified Organic. Kirschenmann serves on the National Organic Standards Board which was charged by Congress to advise the USDA in formulating its legal standards defining organic food. "In organic systems, most animals have to have access to pasture, so they can't be concentrated in huge feedlots," he says, adding that Avery's charge that organic food is grown in manure is misleading, at best. "Organic farmers use manure, but virtually every certification organization I know of doesn't allow raw manure. Raw manure must either be composted or applied long enough in advance that the bacteria is no longer active," he said, adding that this requirement is being written into USDA's proposed rules."
"Despite a public debunking of Avery's statements in the New York Times in February 1999, his bogus claims continue to spread and appear to be gaining momentum."
Another article:
"The terms "organic" and "natural" are not the same. Certified organic producers and processors must adhere to rigorous standards verified by a third party, either an independent or a state certification organization. In contrast, the term "natural" may have little or nothing to do with agricultural practices, nor does it indicate the use of independent inspectors. There are currently no agricultural practice standards in place for the term "natural." Organic farmers must adhere to strict growing and processing regulations to help ensure that the resulting food is safe for human consumption."
"Avery also claims that "the ugly secret of organic farming is that its yields are only about half as high as those of mainstream farmers." However, The Rodale Institute of Kutztown, Penn., recently completed a 15-year study comparing organic farming methods to conventional methods. Its findings were published in the November 11, 1998, issue of the journal Nature. The study concluded that yields from organic farming equal conventional yields after four years. Experts have shown that using pesticides does not guarantee increased yields."
More about Avery from a 1999 PR Watch article:
"Avery sees no problem with agricultural pollution, be it groundwater contamination, pesticide and fertilizer runoff, or even the mountains of stinking manure produced by the huge cattle, chicken and hog operations that plague increasing numbers of rural communities. He denies that there is any link between pesticides and cancer or other illnesses. In fact, he says, organic food is what will kill you."
"Avery says he can pretty much say what he likes, because he works for himself as an economic forecaster to farming organizations and doesn't have to worry about anybody firing him. Referring to his past employment with the US State Department and USDA, he adds: "I have full federal retirement, and I already own the prettiest small farm in America." He considers the $35,000 a year he gets from the Hudson Institute to be very little, and says he only needs money "to carry on the mission." "
"Avery acknowledges that Hudson is corporate-funded. Looking over the roster of companies that have supported its work--agrichemical heavyweights like Monsanto, Du Pont, DowElanco, Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy and agribusiness giants ConAgra, Cargill, Procter & Gamble, among many others--Avery likely has no reason to fear the axe. His mission is their mission."
Monsanto and the others don't want people collecting seeds from heirloom plants. They want you to buy their altered seeds from them.
posted by jr at 11:41 P.M. EST on Thu Aug 17, 2006 #
There is a wealth of information (not even counting Avery) to substantiate what was posted. I don't claim to have the answers - and have not read all the research; for either organic or non-organic. But I have found a lot that does substantiate the dangers of bacteria; and the small risk of pesticide useage. I can also find contradictions for all of it - each 'side' is adamant that they are right. I'm just suggesting that people do their research into ALL of it, and not accept blindly, as many people do - that if it's organic, it must be best, safer, healthier. There is a wealth of evidence out there that shows little or no increase in nutrients in organic foods. An organic carrot has as many nutrients as a non-organic carrot. It is the soil that provides that
posted by starling02 at 01:17 A.M. EST on Fri Aug 18, 2006 #
"... each 'side' is adamant that they are right."
But starling02, the CDC isn't on the Monsanto side nor the organic farming side. Avery made bogus claims about the CDC. Avery is making things up. Avery is the leader in spreading lies about certified organic farming. Avery is a crackpot, working for companies that have no desire to see organic farming continue to increase in popularity.
From a November 2003 Toledo Talk posting:
"Organic is the largest growing sector of the food industry, with national growth rates of 20 to 25 percent per year for the last 12 years."
Monsanto and its friends do not want to see that.
"I'm just suggesting that people do their research into ALL of it, and not accept blindly, as many people do - that if it's organic, it must be best, safer, healthier."
While we're on the subject of safer and healthier, I'm curious, starling02. You're doing this research to show how bad organically grown produce supposedly is. And based upon your research and your own experience with allegedly tasteless organic produce, you choose not to buy organic produce.
Okay, that's fine. But why do you smoke? Haven't you done similar research into the big nasties that you ingest into your body from smoking? Haven't you seen the research that says smoking increases your chances for getting sick, whether it be a simple cold or a terminal disease? I didn't say smoking causes. I said smoking increase's one's chances of getting sick. Doesn't your smoking concern you as much as consuming organic produce?
starling02 said back in February:
"Yes, I smoke, but have no medical problems to show for it. Yes, I could go a couple of hours without a cigarette."
You smoke cigarettes? I could see a fine cigar or a pipe once in a while because for some reason those things smell good to me. But cigarette smoke and the leftover smell attached to someone who smokes or attached to a car or a room that allows cigarette smoking is revolting. What's tasty and healthy and safe about cigarette smoking? You do aknowledge that cigarette smoking increases a person's chances of getting sick, right?
Back to organic farming and presenting the "other side" of the debate. From a June/July 2004 article from the fine magazine Mother Earth News:
"American agribusiness is producing more food than ever before, but the evidence is building that the vitamins and minerals in that food are declining. Eggs from free-range hens contain up to 30 percent more vitamin E, 50 percent more folic acid and 30 percent more vitamin B-12 than factory eggs. And the bright orange color of the yolk [from free-range hens] shows higher levels of antioxidant carotenes. (Many factory-farm eggs are so pale that producers feed the hens expensive marigold flowers to make the yolks brighter in color.)"
"Once upon a time, most of us ate eggs from free-range chickens kept by small, local producers. But today, agri-culture has become dominated by agri-business. Most of our food now comes from large-scale producers who rely on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and animal drugs, and inhumane confinement animal production. In agribusiness, the main emphasis is on getting the highest possible yields and profits; nutrient content (and flavor) are, at best, second thoughts."
"This shift in production methods is clearly giving us less nutritious eggs and meat. Similar nutrient declines can be documented in milk, butter and cheese."
"How much, and why, the nutrients in vegetables and fruits may be declining is less clear. Comparisons of 2004 data from the USDA’s National Nutrient Database, with numbers from 1975, show declines in nutrients in a number of foods as well as some increases."
"Many things can impact the nutrient content of a vegetable or fruit. Variety type, soil quality, fertilizers, crop rotations, maturity at harvest time and the distance from farm to table all play a role in determining the vitamins and minerals in our food."
"Non-organic farmers use highly soluble nitrogen fertilizers, and keeping this nutrient in their soils is difficult. To be sure they get high yields, they often apply more nitrogen than the crops actually need. This dependence upon chemical nitrogen fertilizers means we’re getting less for our money, says Benbrook. Numerous studies have demonstrated that high levels of nitrogen stimulate quick growth and increase crop yields because the fruits and vegetables take up more water. In effect, this means consumers pay more for produce diluted with water."
A supposed expert in sustainable agriculture said:
"High nitrogen levels make plants grow fast and bulk up with carbohydrates and water. While the fruits these plants produce may be big, they suffer in nutritional quality, whereas organic production systems [which use slow-release forms of nitrogen] produce foods that usually yield denser concentrations of nutrients and deliver consumers a better nutritional bargain per calorie consumed."
More from the article:
"Certified organic growers are not allowed to use chemical nitrogen fertilizers, ever. Instead they build soil fertility using cover crops, compost and slow-release natural fertilizers. Because they aren’t grown with chemical nitrogen, organic fruits and vegetables tend to be smaller, and yields seem lower compared to non-organic crops. But as mentioned above, studies have shown that organic crops often contain less water, so in terms of actual nutrient value (and flavor) per bite of food, organic often is a better buy than non-organic produce."
posted by jr at 08:13 A.M. EST on Fri Aug 18, 2006 #
I'm not telling anybody what they should eat, or not. I agree - famers market produce is superior to any other outlets, Anderson's included (anderson's has gone downhill this year). That doesnt mean it's organic - just local farmers who do it well. I did make an observation at Krogers and Andersons yesterday on price. Two heads of non organic cauliflower were $4.00. Organic - $4.99 a head. Non-organic green peppers were $1.49. Organic - $4.99. Who can afford that? Organic is often double or more in price on everything - and it's not always better tasting, most of what I've eaten organic, is anemic. (my son would bring home a lot of it). Buying from local farmers/markets - non-organic - it usually always great, and cheap.
I guess it's personal opinion - each to his own. E Coli & Salmonilla & bugs & worms vs. scant traces of pesticides that nobody gets sick from (wash your fruit and veggies)- prove that people do, studies show they do not. Studies DO show huge increases of E Coli and Salmonilla due to organic farming. My daughter's friends brother had E coli couple of years ago, got deathly sick. I guess it's whatever turns your stomach the least. Manure, or pesticides - for me, pesticides dont worry me at all. Technology has advanced so much - and it's kind of like camping - we evolved, but to go on vacation, lets go pee in a bush and sleep on the ground with bugs. Lets go back in time in farming; never mind people died younger then. Walk by an organic farmer fertilizing his crops -ewwwwwwww. THAT is what your food is grown in. As for taste - either way, if it's picked too soon it will taste like crap, organic or non. And if the soil ain't good, the crop won't be good.
Organic does NOT have more nutrients, vitamins than non - at best, scant increases in some, that barely register (citrus is one that does). If it makes you feel better eating organic - then go to it. I for one, will continue to buy my produce at a local farm market - will buy what looks and tastes the best- that I can afford, and it is always non organic that wins. That choise is rarely made by price. I've learned my way around a couple of farm markets near me - I know what's good and when, and while they do offer some organic, most is not. NOT like buying at Krogers where its trucked in weeks too early.
posted by starling02 at 11:13 P.M. EST on Sat Aug 19, 2006 #
My late-morning visit today at the Farmer's Market downtown:
I arrived a little too late, however, as local string band "Ten Mile Creek" finished their last song as I walked up to listen to them.
In the parking lots along Erie Street opposite the Erie Street Market was a Gus Macker 3-on-3 basketball tournament. Kids and adults were playing on 10 courts. Good, hard action. That was fun to watch.
posted by jr at 08:33 P.M. EST on Sat Aug 26, 2006 #
great photos, jr. My neice and I were there and, while we enjoyed the b-ball tourney, we had to question the logic of putting a tournament in the main parking area for one of the remaining successful ventures at the ESM...
posted by MaggieThurber at 06:32 A.M. EST on Sun Aug 27, 2006 #
Also, Ten Mile Creek was really enjoyable...and I loved the baking apples from Witt Orchards - made an apple pie yesterday - yum!
posted by MaggieThurber at 06:48 A.M. EST on Sun Aug 27, 2006 #
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