Carbonfiberboy 

I hope everything is all right! May your pictures be beautiful.

It could be a US thing where the organic movement is largely a response to corporate agriculture, which is not as developed in most countries. Organic food is one of the things that the US has done well, though of course it could be better. Also, I'm in the PNW where a network of well-run food co-ops has been in existence for 40 years or so. 40 years ago, the organic produce was horrid and organic dairy was fabulously expensive. But over the years a very good network of farmers, distributors, stores, and consumers has developed. Today, a fair bit of grocery store produce here is organic, much of it unlabeled because they don't want to fool with that. It's the network that's made the difference. We are also lucky to be close to BC and California. Besides bud, BC has developed some innovative cultivation and distribution methods for conventional fresh produce. We get organic tomatoes from BC, of all places. We buy organic flour from a small mill in Bellingham, some of it directly from the mill because it's too specialized for local stores to carry and only goes to manufacturers and restaurants.

Whole Foods, also known as Whole Paycheck, has been trying to get this going nation-wide with some success. A market for perishables has to get to a certain size before it functions properly.

Organic here isn't quite as good as garden, but it's close and sometimes better, depending on the gardener and the item. Pro should be better than amateur. We just had some amateur organic pumpkins that were way off from the organic store pumpkin level. A popular local song has a refrain, "There's only two things that money can't buy and that's true love and home-grown tomatoes."

lenA

The organic movement is a business model with the ultimate goal of consolidation and take overs.

If you are so small not to be noticed, then you will never grow. If you do grow you will be assimilated.

Just my humble opinion

Myosmith

Not knocking organic, but I'm not terribly worried about eating commercially raised produce. Honestly, some of the home grown garden stuff sold at farmer's markets scares me more because it is totally unregulated and the guy doubling his price for "organic" produce could well have been using any fertilizer, pesticide, etc. from the Walmart garden center without even reading the label.

Some have made the point that you should understand the actual risk when taking about what is permitted in the food chain. A few years ago there was a panic about hydrocarbons (left behind by the solvent used to increase extraction) in cooking oils. The price of expeller pressed organic oils doubled and there were ominous warnings comparing the residual hydrocarbons to gasoline in your food and claiming that hydrocarbon poisoning can wipe out your liver, kidneys, and cause severe nerve problems (all of which are true). When the panic settled down and calmer heads examined the "problem" it was discovered that the hydrocarbons left in most American commercial cooking oils were extremely low, way below the levels considered hazardous to humans. It was shown that traveling just 10 miles in city traffic, a person would absorb more hydrocarbons through their lungs, from exhaust fumes, that they would get in a lifetime of using commercial cooking oils. If you know what gasoline smells like from standing by your car fueling up, you already have absorbed way more hydrocarbons than you will ever have to worry about from cooking oil. Rancid and burnt/overheated cooking oils, organic or not, are a far greater health risk than the minute amounts of hydrocarbons in non-organic oils. Are the tiny amounts of hydrocarbons in cooking oil good for you, heck no, but in the big scheme of things they are WAAAAY down the list of things to worry about.

The USDA also admits that the regulation of "organic" foods is poorly enforced as they are underfunded and understaffed and they have bigger fish to fry, like tracking down salmonella and e. coli outbreaks. The USDA estimated that over half of the produce sold as "organic" did not meet the standards, and the US standards are significantly lower than UK standards.

If you raise your own produce organically, or buy from reputable local organic producers, there is probably some benefit to eating organic. Buying "organic" in the mega mart . . . well, IMHO, not so much.

GeorgeBMac

What about the feeling of virtuous superiority it gives you?

Carbonfiberboy 

While it is true that the USDA is understaffed and can't test everything, it is not true that "over half" did not meet the standard. People make altogether too many blank assertions like that, but have no data to back them up.

OTOH, the USDA did an extensive random testing program and found pretty much the reverse of your statement:
The link, which I've already put up in a previous post on this thread:
https://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getf...TELPRDC5101234

Myosmith

Look at the study you quoted: Just 571 samples nationwide of foods that already bore the USDA Organic seal isn't very extensive. Even then 23 samples (4%) were out of compliance and 39% showed some pesticide residue but were under the USDA limit. The study tested only for pesticides, not fertilizers, hormones (used to improve fruit set), preservatives, or residues from other products such as cleaners and disinfectants used on processing, handling and storage equipment. I never said that half of the foods labeled USDA Organic weren't compliant. Perhaps I could have stated it more clearly, but the warning from the USDA was that there are huge quantities of food is being sold as "organic" that has not been certified by the USDA and does not bear the USDA Organic seal. If 4% of the USDA Organic certified foods are out of compliance, imagine the percentage of the non-certified "organic" foods that are out of compliance.

The USDA in 2011 issued a warning to consumers that the individual products themselves, not just store signage, should bear the USDA Organic seal, and anything sold as organic that did not have the USDA seal was not certified. While there are organic producers, mainly small local producers, who raise produce under the organic guidelines but which do not bear the USDA Organic seal, the USDA also pointed out that there is widespread misuse of the regulated term "organic". In the nearest city to where I live, there are a dozen farmers markets, several health food stores and co-ops, and numerous seasonal road side stands, as well as guys selling everything from seafood to citrus out of refrigerator and freezer trucks in parking lots. Many of them make verbal claims of having "organic" product and fairly often you even see printed signage on bulk product in cardboard boxes, baskets, and plastic bins.

Restaurants are frequently cited for misusing the term "organic" often slipping under the radar by using claims along the lines of "made with organic produce" when only one or two ingredients on the plate are actually USDA certified organic.

WalMart a few years ago was accused of the widespread practice of placing "natural", "pesticide free" and other less regulated, non-organic certified products in its "organic" section with large green signs overhead and smaller "organic" signs on the shelves next to products which were not USDA certified. Co-mingling and mishandling of organic produce is also a very common violation among retailers. Numerous food wholesalers and retailers have been cited for using unapproved cleaners, pesticides, and chemicals to preserve freshness and appearance on or around produce that left the processing plant USDA organic certified.

Foods from overseas, particularly shellfish and other seafood, as well as produce and packaged food items, have been flooding into ethnic markets with "organic" labeling from other countries which do not meet USDA standards.

Buying USDA Organic certified foods with labels and original packaging is a reasonable assurance, but still doesn't protect you from mishandling at the transit or retail level. Buying bulk produce that is not individually labeled, prepared foods that list "organic" on the menu, or from private sellers with hand-lettered "organic" signs on bushel baskets is a crap shoot at best.



The real deal



Who Knows ???

sprince

I don't see much value in "organic" produce. The inorganic stuff, being mostly pesticides and technically organic anyway, should definitely be washed off before eating. Milk products may have trace amounts of growth hormones and antibiotics, but I figure at my age, a bit of growth hormone can't hurt Not eating red meat or poultry I have no opinion on the organic version of those products, except don't implicitly trust a label. But if I ever did want to eat that sort of stuff, I'd probably go out and kill my own.

ftwelder

I have been trying to eat high quality foods for several years and don't buy much of anything from the grocery store any more. We buy bulk dried organic beans/seeds, support two CSA farms, have our own patch, and wood lot and cattle/pig/chickens that live next door to me and roam free on a very big plot.

Production food is pretty disgusting to me at this point. I find packaged food, organic or not to be loaded with sugar or oils that I don't want. I do feel good but I know my current habits won't protect me from past behavior or other dangers. The organic "craze" has lowered the overall quality of organic food because big producers are in the game now and putting the hurt on small producers and refining deceptive descriptions. Also, we had to give up television to make more time to work in the kitchen/yard.

GeorgeBMac

That sounds ideal -- sort of one-step beyond organic...
... I suspect most Americans would not believe it possible to eat like that (at least the ones that I know...)

bmontgomery87

It takes a lot of work. I got into (the idea of) homesteading last year and started growing my own food and composting a lot of my garbage.

Right now, it's not practical for me to do it fully, but having a small garden can save anyone some serious money and help them improve their health. I found out that I liked a lot of different vegetables when I grew them myself. Big difference between home grown and conventional foods you find at the grocery store.

lenA

gardens can save money if you eat everything fresh...if you process food for future use, there are a lot of cost to consider

bmontgomery87

very true.
a lot of that is capital investment though, buying jars, canners, dehydrators, etc.
After the initial investment, for the most part, it's fairly inexpensive.

I mainly just eat the fresh veggies during the growing months, then buy from farmer's markets, and lastly the grocery store during winter months.

Carbonfiberboy 

Yes! I've been television-free since ~1966. I grew up on a homestead in Alaska, so that was easy for me.

ftwelder

Here is something worth adding to the conversation.
https://www.cornucopia.org/wp-content...rganic2013.jpg

BikeOnly

Some random thoughts on the subject.

Fruits and vegetables produce, in small quantities, their own natural pesticides - fungicides, insecticides, insect repellents. Many of these natural pesticides are carcinogenic, some highly carcinogenic. Yet there is evidence that people who eat more fruits and vegetables have fewer cancers. Why?

One hypothesis that partially explains this is that small amounts of carcinogens consumed regularly tune the immune system in such a way that it is less likely to develop cancer.

Another thought, consuming man-made pesticides through eating vegetable products creates an insignificantly small(if at all) risk statistically of developing cancer.

Here is a good, brief discussion of risk factors for cancer, https://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/wyntk/cancer/page3, and you see included -

• Growing older
• Tobacco
• Sunlight
• Ionizing radiation
• Certain chemicals and other substances
• Some viruses and bacteria
• Certain hormones
• Family history of cancer
• Alcohol
• Poor diet, lack of physical activity, or being overweight
  
  
  I don't worry about pesticides.
  
  One thing that does concern me is the amount of calories we eat that ultimately come from the corn field. This is corn grain in food products, HFCS and meats from animals fed a corn diet. I heard it said that the corn field ultimately accounts for 40% of U.S. calories consume. But I would think everyone reading this section of this forum is an outlier.

sprince

That's a weak hypothesis. Most pesticides, fungicides, insecticides used for modern farming become inert after a period of time, and any residue is on the surface. Maybe fruits and veggies are generally good for you, and most of the carcinogens wash away with water anyway. There are many foods containing potentially toxic compounds, but potentially toxic does not necessarily mean that ingestion of non-toxic levels will cause death or cancer.

BikeOnly

Read carefully sprince. The sentence you quoted is referring to the carcinogens produced naturally by plants, not man-made carcinogens.

sprince

Yes, maybe I should have quoted multiple paragraphs, I intended to lump them all together.

Just because something can be carcinogenic at a certain level or frequency of exposure doesn't mean that a trace amount does anything at all. And all these substances are different, be it carcinogen or toxin, man made or naturally occurring. Some toxins do nothing at low levels, some accumulate over time, some the body can quickly eliminate up to a certain level, and some only become dangerous at a high frequency of exposure over time. Maybe exposure to one specific substance might "tune" the body in some way to be resistant to that particular substance, but I think the more general statement is an over simplification and assumes that there is some kind of linear relationship at work. That hypothesis also contradicts evidence that regular exposure to carcinogens suppresses the immune system. And why would that hypothesis apply only to those carcinogens that occur naturally in fruits and vegetables, why not asbestos exposure?

I agree with the post in general, but totally reject the "one hypothesis".

Heathpack 

Interesting thread. It's intriguing to see people's perspective on food and how people wind up doing the same thing for different reasons. I do buy a fair bit of organic food, but my primary motivators are: 1. Opting out of factory-farming of animals for humane reasons, 2. Improving fat profile of the meat I eat, 3. Avoiding pesticide residue, 4. Avoiding out of season food for the impact it has on the environment (ie greater transportation cost, more interventionary farming practices).

The avoidance of factory farming stems from being a veterinarian, I have first hand seen some pretty bleak living situations for factory-farmed animals- feedlots (terrible), dairy farms (semi-okay), pig farms (terrible), poultry farms (terrible), layer-hen farms (horror show). Beef cow-calf operations are totally fine and this is how pretty much all cows in the US start their lives. Then they are "finished" in a feedlot, so pretty much all conventially raised beef in the US winds up in a bad situation at some point. I don't criticize anyone who needs/prefers to consume conventially-raised meat because pastured meat is fabulously expensive. Personally that's the choice I make, though, but for my own peace of mind. I buy my beef and pork from a local producer (organic, pastured, and the beef is 100% grass fed) and my eggs from a local cage-free producer (might also be organic, but cage-free is what I'm looking for).

Finishing cows with corn results in unhealthy beef because of the specific types of fat that are produced. Grass-fed beef actually has a a healthy fat profile and is no longer a food to be eaten in limited quantities. I like beef and also the iron that it contains. Grass-fed lamb also rocks and all New Zealand lamb is grass-fed, so I try to only buy NZ lamb.

I eat a lot of fruit. Raspberries almost every day year-round, strawberries most of the year (we get local Feb/Mar- Nov), some blackberries and blueberries. Raspberries especially I want no pesticide residue because I won't wash them (they get soggy). I buy these berries 100% from a local farmers market because they don't rot in a few days, are actually picked ripe, are varieties grown for taste rather than shipability, and they are organic. I also eat apples most of the year, when I can get them, Sept until late Spring for then type I like. Conventially raised apples are heavily sprayed with pesticides as I understand it, so I go with organic. Plus I really like a variety called Pink Lady and my best access to that it at my local farmers market. Citrus is So Cal is so well-adapted that it is not sprayed, so I can buy it wherever. But it's actually pretty cheap at my farmers market, so I just get it there. I also love a grapefruit variety called the OroBlanco, it's sometimes seen in supermarkets but mostly it's a farmers market thing. This is possibly my favorite food actually. I spend a lot of money on fruit, some of that is to try to eat "healthier" organic fruit, but some of it is also honestly because I am a bit of a fruit connoisseur. Do not give me a Chandler strawberry, I will not eat it, lol, it must be a Gaviota berry. Marsh grapefruit?! No way! Oro Blanco or nothing. I realize these sort of things don't matter to most people.

I also feel guilty buying any fruit or vegetable that came to me on an airplane or ship. Bananas are the exception her because I have no choice. This is mostly because I live in SoCal where I can get good things grown very close to me year-round. So I feel obligated to chose those when possible over cheaper stuff that maybe was trucked in from Mexico or flown from Chile. I totally get that not everyone lives somewhere where fresh local produce is available year-round, so I don't begrudge anyone else's purchase of imported produce.

"Food for thought" was what I thought when I read this thread.



H

BikeOnly

Sprince, Your rejection of (whatever it is you are rejecting) is about as unscientific as my slight affection for (whatever).

sprince

I think that the statement "small amounts of carcinogens consumed regularly tune the immune system in such a way that it is less likely to develop cancer" is simply flawed logic and doesn't require lengthy scientific examination, and I have to wonder where that statement came from in the first place.

Much discussion on the subject of man made vs. naturally occurring carcinogens seems to have started in response to the views of Bruce Ames.

https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cpdb/pdfs/Paustenbach.pdf

BikeOnly

Oh really? Why then not simply explain where the flaw is?

Quoting from the paper you linked,

So the body produces enzymes which repair damage done by carcinogens. It is well established that these enzymes are inducible (i.e., whenever a defense enzyme is in use, more of it is made). Eating vegetables and fruits which contain naturally occuring carcinogens induces the human body to produce more repair enzymes. Eating these vegetables and fruits regularly causes these repair enzymes to be more toward omnipresent in the body.

Now back to the paper you cited, we see three (excluding failure to eat fruits and vegetables in sufficient quantities) major causes of cancer. But we are eating fruits and vegetables and now our body is "swimming" in DNA repair enzymes. So the logic is simple: Eating plants regularly and in sufficient quantities introduces naturally occurring carcinogens which induce the body to produce more DNA repair enzymes which are then available in the body to counter not only the naturally occurring carcinogens in plants but also the damage done by the three major causes of cancer.

BikeOnly

Consider also this,

Hypothesis: Small, regular exposure to radiation "tunes" the immune system to "fight" cancer. There was a Sixty Minutes episode on this rebar incident where some doctors spoke of this hypothesis. I believe the episode is still on their website. There was also a panel discussion on CSPAN but I can't find it.

sprince

It imparts magical qualities into naturally occurring carcinogens, with no explanation as to what makes them any different from man made carcinogens. The naturally occurring ones in sufficient quantities cause cancer in rats just like the man made ones. I don't see the distinction.

BikeOnly

Neither do I and there was no distinction implied in my OP.