NLBS 3.02 - "Organic Food" Is Mostly, No, Completely BS

From one of the OP's links:
annals.org...

finding no significant differences between populations by food type for allergic outcomes (eczema, wheeze, atopic sensitization) or symptomatic Campylobacter infection. Two studies reported significantly lower urinary pesticide levels among children consuming organic versus conventional diets

It seems the primary focus of the study was to determine differences in allergic reactions between organic and conventionally farmed food. There was none, but they admitted that organic food has significantly lower levels of pesticides.

You don't have to have an allergic reaction to something for it to be bad for you.

15 Health problems linked to Monsanto's Roundup

Why don't we all just cherry pick articles that support our own predetermined conclusions?

NLBS is itself BS.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan

Both lead to the same thing: ego. Neither is based in logic. The only logic is, "So pesticides are good for you?", which actully isn't logic. Its a strawman, a fallacy.

So, we can toast on a frosty glass of Roundup®©TM?
To better explain the problem imagine I said soy bacon is better than regular bacon

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I don't care what or how anyone else chooses to eat but I do know what's healthy and what's not, what's tasty and what's not, for myself and my family.

The fact that anyone would take the time to disabuse me of my personal opinion on what I eat, toward a more unhealthy end, is bizarre to me. Much more so to do it in such a judgey, pseudo-scientific way, especially considering that common sense has been thrown out the window in a silly attempt to make such a non-argument.

I hear crickets chirping.

Am I on ATS or reddit?

a reply to: kosmicjack

I think common sense is not all that common, and often isn't even sensible.

Not to say common sense isn't "correct" 95% of the time...just that confirmation bias ("natural is good", although arsenic is quite natural) and false equivocation (chemical treatment = "Roundup" and non organic = "GMO") can tend to make fallacious thought appear as common sense.

I have grown my own fruits/veggies over the years in varying degrees. I have used chemicals to treat various issues with them, such as preparing the soil by ridding it of grubworms. I have used bloom boosting agents to solidify root growth in my rocky, arid soil. The food that comes from my garden is hardly organic. But its wonderfully flavorful, healthy looking, not covered in various fungal infections....a far, far cry better than anything I have ever picked up at an organic farmers market. Last month the purple potatoes I got in New Braunfels...

I am 100% behind things that I can identify on personal level. Free range chicken....meh. Im more interested in antibiotic free, locally sourced. I don't care of Mrs. Smith keeps 300 chickens in her coop....as long as she is feeding them real food and not antibiotics, and keeps the coop clean. Eggs...i buy Egglands Best. You can taste the difference in how rich the yolks are. They are actually better than "Mrs. Smith's" (the local stuff)

Beef...its actually cheaper to raise cows "organic". Many local ranchers do "organic" because it is much cheaper and they can turn greater profit. Beef is something I can get very high quality from locally sourced. Pork...ill buy in a store. But I hunt hogs frequently, and let me tell you wild hog is so much better than store bought pork. Less fatty, much less ammonia smell from the bones.

ETA: you can find small time folks who will sell various wild game. If anyone is interested in tasting the difference in a "pig" and "hog" (genetically, identical animals), order some wild boar. I buy from this lady who lives in Georgia. LOL, she'll even "french" your elk rack for you.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I think in my head, because I am an old duck, I associate organic with homegrown by myself or a local farmer. I think I now understand people in thread are associating organic with the "organic" labelled produce in supermarkets.

Meah, I'll always just pick my own or grab it from the local farmers offering. I only go to a supermarket for veggies when its late at night and I don't have that item locally from a known rural source.

I don't cry over having to buy an eggplant from Safeways.

dp

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
Ritual only equates to ego when it is used as a weapon to tell others how their own rituals are wrong. The religion of food.

Wait, just like you use the modern ritual of spraying everything that grows under the sun, to tell us how our rituals are wrong?

The religion of ignorance and bigotry more like it, on your behalf.

You enjoy your tasty cardboard, I'll enjoy my (actual) organic vegetables. I couldn't care less about your eating habits, but when you (and OP) have this constant need to drive home a moot point, something tells me YOU are just as much at war with our "rituals", as we supposedly are with yours. (actually, we're just fighting for our rights to consume what we believe to be good for us, you know, free market and all?)

Thanks for your opinion though, but it's... hypocritical at best

a reply to: MarioOnTheFly

Home grown vs. comemrcially grown are always going to taste different. That's a no brainer and due to being small batch and the attention given to them -- not their "organic nature".

Anything done yourself is also going to taste better whether or not it is anyway -- that's part of the placebo effect.

originally posted by: soulpowertothendegree
Let me get this wrapped around my brain....Help me understand something....Long before man invented "organic" growing, wasn't everything already "organic"?

Isn't it a bit ironic? Now, we have screwed up the crop system that wasn't broken to begin with and have decided that we have to fix it?

This is how messed up this world is.

Everything WAS already Organic...Before we came along and screwed it up!

a reply to: HalfLeaf

I don't think he was hypocritical?
He thinks one way, different doesn't mean hypocritical.


It breaks down to people being divided between:
Taste preference.
Emotional/anti GMO preference.
Price difference

Its not rocket science, people can just eat what they prefer.

I'll say Im hyprocritacal, for all of us banging on about our homegrown food, we all stuff our faces on Doritios or a snickers bar when the whim takes us
We eat what we think is good for us, and go by taste preference, but very few of us are strict in our healthy food intake.

I know I could do with not eating any of that stuff

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
Organic food is about 2 things (depending on who you are):

- status.
- ritual.

Both lead to the same thing: ego. Neither is based in logic. The only logic is, "So pesticides are good for you?", which actully isn't logic. Its a strawman, a fallacy.

Status. Ritual. Ego.

Unbelievble. And utter bull#. Just like this broad-brushed sideswipe farce topic. This place is not for me anymore.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

The point is not to stop using fungicides, pesticides, and fertilizers, he said, it's to use them responsibly... which the large corporate farms do not.

That is just one point
There are many natural ways to fight the problems

Depending on the mass producers to be responsible creates a need to push in the opposite direction of chemicals.

You are some what correct but the "organic movement" has its place until common sense reaches to the board rooms

These non-organic, locally grown, fresh apples I bought today for $5.99 are amazingly delicious.

This is amazing. We can take two apples, one organic and the other non-organic. We can submit them to all kinds of chemical analyses. We can use a gas chromatography machine to determine their molecular make up. We can look at their DNA.

We can do all of this and at the end of the day notice no measurable differences between organic and non-organic.

Yet people still claim there is one.

What?

That is like telling someone telling me the grass is blue. I have equipment to measure the spectrum showing me that no, the grass is green. Just because you think something doesn't make it fact. Just because you want something to be true doesn't make it true.

Those "organic" stickers on your produce do one thing for you: empty your wallets faster.

Depending on the quality of the non-organic produce, there may be little to no difference in taste. The only reason a piece of organic produce would taste better is because it was grown in a smaller environment where more care could be given to it.

The placebo effect is strong here with this one. Confirmation bias abounds.

If paying more makes you somehow feel better about your food, go ahead and waste it. I'll just keep eating whatever I know helps my body and save my money.

a reply to: MystikMushroom
Do that with a vegetable instead of fruit.

a reply to: deadeyedick

Same thing. We can compare the chemical make up, the levels of vitamins -- everything. We can see no statistically significant difference, and yet people claim they can.

Is your tongue as sensitive as a gas chromatography machine? Can you differentiate dozens of specific molecular compounds and show their ratios within the fruit or vegetable?

Look, there's nothing wrong with buying and eating it -- its your money. Just don't sit there and tell me its better when it's clearly not.

Obviously oranges grown commercially in Mexico are going to be crappy compared to ones on a small family grove. The smaller family grove takes better care of the trees.

If all our commercial produce was grown with more care, it would taste as good or possibly better than the organic produce that's on the shelves at the grocery store now.

We have additives in foods here that aren't allowed in Europe, same thing with ag chemicals. Why should we take any corporation's word on their safe use when profit and shareholders are what drives them?

Typically corporations tell us over and over again that everything is safe - until it isn't. Car manufacturers, Big Pharma - Why should the food industry be any different?

Better safe than sorry in my book. That's not ego or ritual. It's caution and common sense.

a reply to: MystikMushroom
no it is not the same thingbut iknew you would claim it is.

you are set in your false belief and do not mind if nature disagrees with you

it is pointless on my part to try and provide any real world knowledge to someone that likes to be contrary more than I.

carry on I leave you in peice

a reply to: deadeyedick

Can you prove organic produce is "better" than non-organic produce? Do you have any chemical assays comparing the two vegetables proving that one is superior to the other?

I think that right there is the real kicker.

I can prove through rational methodology (aka science) that there is virtually no discernible difference between non-organic and organic produce. If I can prove this, then the burden falls onto the people claiming the difference exists.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

It's actually quite simple. Organic fruit and vegetables uses no pesticides, so the crop is smaller because any produce which has been ruined by insects never goes to market. Non-organic fruits and vegetables yield larger crops because insecticide is sprayed on it.

The taste is the same, but what are we eating besides the fruit or vegetable?