Talk:Tips for Eating Green

"Organically" produced food is not sustainable or good for the environment or more "healthy" in any way. Do your research.

Organic: The most selfish way to destroy our planet yet.
Seriously, it's about time we as a people banded together to put an end to the organic fad. The point has already been made that organic food is comparably not better for you, and essentially not sustainable. Even with crop rotation in place, a 'green' or organic field consumes 4 times the amount of land to produce the same amount of crops. Many people will argue that the point of removing the chemicals from our food, but remember folks: those chemicals were all created for a reason. We can grow a stalk of corn bigger, better, bug free. The same follows for milk products, and otherwise. If you are afraid of birth defects, or other debilitations to our future, I want you to think long and hard about what your sustainable future leads to...

Let's say everything goes the way you guys want it. Food is organic. Everything is grown locally. Animals are off our dinner plates... but then... wait... what's this... OVERPOPULATION (we are growing as a people at an exponential rate, and I honestly don't know why people can't respect the idea of culling our herd) and FAMINE (because as our population grows, and because our organic food takes up so much land space [and further because the amount of crop rotation we are doing is leaving our soil dead and unusable for longer periods of time than normal], we are both going to eventually run out of food [having to turn to our cuddly animal friends to survive, and who at that point won't be enough to sustain us], and run out of planet space. )

Basically, my point is this, Organic farming is going to kill us. We need to start diluting our food sources now if we want to have any sort of future. We also need to embrace the risk of low birth rates as a way to slim out our human production rate. It's difficult to get a planet wide embargo on sex and the reproducing therein. We need to consider some alternatives (like introducing more food methods that lower sperm count).

It's our planet, and a lot of your hearts are in the right places, but the scene isn't always the best place get your world conscious views, and the hippies weren't the kind of people to view the long run when they did theory crafting.

Help me save this world by passing on this info.

-Scott Cantu

and if you'd like to email me with discussion on this, hit up my myspace at myspace\YourFirstFalseGod. I am welcome to all opinions. The more we debate, the closer we come to understanding each other and ourselves.

Response
Hi Scott -

Thanks for joining the discussion! You've covered a lot of ground with your comments and it sounds like you've put some thought into your arguments. Agriculture, organics, and the food supply are all hot button issues and the repercussions are huge, touching health, industry, the environment, domestic and foreign policy, and poverty. Here is a link to an outstanding article that ties a lot of these issues together. The more I research these issues, the more tangles there seem to be to unravel, tracing studies back to their sources and understanding the reasons behind policies such as the US Farm Bill. I'm FAR from claiming to have all the answers, and I don't think you claim to either, so I'd just like to add some of my findings to the mix in response to your points:

Organic farming is a fad.

On the contrary, organic farming has been around since the dawn of agriculture. Perhaps it only seems like a fad in this country where post-war, modern industrialized agriculture has become the norm!

Organic foods is not comparably better for you.

A ten-year study by the University of California at Davis compared organic tomatoes with standard produce.This study found significantly higher levels of flavonoids in the organic tomatoes (flavonoids reduce high blood pressure, lower the risk of heart disease and have been linked to reduced rates of some types of cancer and dementia). The organic tomatoes had 79% more quercetin and 97% more kaempferol than the non-organics. The New Scientist magazine reported that the higher levels of flavonoids are probably due to the absence of fertilizers in organic farming. Flavonoids are produced as a response to lower soil nutrients, such as nitrogen. Because inorganic nitrogen is imparted to plants so easily with conventional fertilizer, the lower flavonoids in the non-organic tomatoes are likely caused by over-fertilization. Many other studies in the E.U. have found similar patterns of more nutrients being found in organic fruits and vegetables.

Other independent studies show that organic crops contain higher levels of vitamin C, magnesium, iron, and other minerals.

Organic milk has been shown to contain higher levels of vitamin E (one study showed up to 50% more), omega 3 essential fatty acids, and anti-oxidants. Organic milk is also 75% higher in beta carotene, and has higher levels of omega 3 essential fatty acids.

To be fair, you can also find other studies saying there is no difference in health benefits. To me the suggests two things: (1) that the jury is still out, and (2) it is worth it to see who is directly or indirectly funding such studies. I personally am suspicious of studies by groups funded by Big Ag or a huge chemical company like Dow or DuPont.

Another point to also consider the health of the workers growing and harvesting your food. Workers are perhaps the most affected by the use of pesticides, herbicides, and other toxics. Asthma, cancer, and birth defects are all related to heavy exposure to toxic sprays, and workers suffer these afflictions more than the rest of us. A lot of the food (especially out-of-season produce) in the average US grocery store is imported from Latin America, where pesticide use has increased fivefold since the 1980s. According to an article in the New York Times, "Rice farmers in the region use monocrotophos, methamidophos and carbofuran, all agricultural chemicals that are rated Class I toxins by the World Health Organization, are highly toxic to birds, and are either restricted or banned in the United States." Note that this does not mean that foods sprayed with the stuff can't be imported; it simply means that farmers can't use these chemicals here. The same article goes on to say that fruits and vegetables imported from Latin America are three times more likely to violate EPA standards for pesticide residues, and the CDC reports that most Americans have traces of pesticides in their blood. Migratory birds are also affected. These birds spend the winter months in Latin America, and are exposed to high levels of toxins, and are dying by the thousands as well as suffering from neurological disorders. I bring up the songbirds not out of a bleeding heart for dying animals, but to point out the wider environmental impact of pesticide usage. It's called "food chain" and "web of life" for a reason.

''You seem to imply that chemicals in food and milk are OK because birth defects and sickness such as cancer are desirable as a means to control overpopulation. You also seem to advocate introducing food methods that lower sperm count.''

I'm not sure if you meant these comments as tongue in cheek, but there are certainly more desirable ways to to encourage lower population growth that by forced manipulation - or sterilization - by the chemical industry.

3. Organic food is not sustainable and uses more land than conventional farming. Dr. Christos Vasilikiotis from the University of California at Berkeley cites study after study that show the opposite is true. Another interesting read.

4. Even if organic food were hunky dory, it's not enough in view of overpopulation and famine. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says this of population growth and food production: "over the last 20 years, food production has risen steadily at over 2.0% a year, while the rate of population growth has dropped to 1.14% a year." However it is true that there has been a marked rise in hunger worldwide. Food First has an excellent and interesting write-up about the role of agri-business in politics behind world hunger, which are much larger factors in famine than organic farming in my view.

Just some food for thought, no pun intended.