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"For the most part there is no real extra benefit for Organic food - assuming you are not opposed to the idea of pesticides and other treatments (which are most
by bpyne 16y ago
"For the most part there is no real extra benefit for Organic food - assuming you are not opposed to the idea of pesticides and other treatments (which are mostly benign anyway)."
From a nutritional viewpoint, what you said agrees with what I've read. I think there's real worth, though, in experimenting with different farming techniques that don't rely on mass produced chemicals. Reliance on these chemicals makes me think of the "putting all your eggs in one basket" adage.
Recently I heard an NPR piece about nutrition studies done across decades. One line that struck me is an apple grown in the early 20th century in the US had the nutritional value of 3 apples grown today. I'm not sure how the researchers came to that conclusion. But, if it's true and if a similar ratio applies to other produce, we have the potential for a serious health issue coming up.
EDIT: Enclosed the quoted text in actual quotes for readability.
- ErrantX 16y agoYes, you're right there. As I said in my main post I think the real important thing to work on is ethical farming - regardless of organic or not. The other thing is that from a sustainability point of view (in terms of the farming infrastructure) Organic is very cost/labour intensive compared to other techniques. There is probably a good balance; as you say we can reach it by experimenting.
- imajes 16y agoThe problem with saying organic has no benefit is that i can always say, "DDX", and refute your argument.
- ErrantX 16y agoWell you could :) but I would have no idea what you meant (a quick google didn't turn anything up). I assume your talking about some sort of chemical? Which is why I made a point of mentioning the idea of ethical farming. It's not that Organic farming has no benefit - but there isn't much extra benefit compared to properly farmed non-organic food (my extended family runs an organic farm so this is based on experience/observation). The major problem with Organic food is it is uneconomical due to more labour intensive methods, higher product failure rates, too small scale etc. As I mentioned; there is sure to be a compromise somewhere in the middle that has economical but safe farming :)
- imajes 16y agoHeh- I was thinking about math and wrote DDX. What i meant to write was DDT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT caused some quite awful effects.
- MichaelGG 16y agoDDT has done a ton of good, too, saving millions of lives. From the wiki article: "For example, in Sri Lanka, the program reduced cases from about 3 million per year before spraying to just 29 in 1964. Thereafter the program was halted to save money, and malaria rebounded to 600,000 cases in 1968 and the first quarter of 1969"
- imajes 16y agoTrue. it's pretty awesome at retarding growth of some of the most virulent disease vectors - but at the same time, it's also a fairly awful carcinogen and I wouldn't want it sprayed on my lettuce to keep away some pesky caterpillars. :)
- bpyne 16y agoErrantX and I weren't claiming organic farming has no benefit. We were only making the point that side-by-side comparison of nutrients for a (e.g.) zucchini grown using organic methods vs. one grown using pesticides yields little difference. Another important point is that the term organic has been distorted so that you can't buy a product claiming it is organic and actually be sure it was grown using completely organic farming methods using seeds derived from an organic growth.