Organic or Non Organic?

[charliecharlie]

however, the report does not say that there are not negative implications to eating foods that contain high residues of chemicals and hormones

if you are lucky enough to be able to afford organic... then seems to makes sense to me...

[charliecharlie]

SM[quote name=Quote:

Ethical considerations aside' date=' Bristol University did a 'Pepsi Challenge' on organic/battery farmed chickens and the latter won on taste grounds.

I'd be interested in reading that if you can link to it - I find it VERY hard to believe that the watery meat found on the latter would win anything

]

our taste buds have become accustomed to that bland, overly soft (cos' that poor damed chicken never ran anywhere), overly 'moist' bird... offer people a tasty, firmer, darker and less watery meat and the tounge panics... "give me battery" it yells.. "then at least I don't have to chew"... sadly we have been programmed to like the mass-produced... rebel, hold on to your taste buds, I say...

ps saw a packet of tomatoes in a supermarket recently that had a huge sticker on it saying "grown for flavour" as if it was some rare and marvelous selling point... what the hell is going on here!!????

[DaveR]

food sprayed with POISONS, and chemicals, or food without?

- the hysteria

pesticide regulation

- the boring (but somewhat reassuring) truth

In a parallel thread, someone made the observation that everything is made of 'chemicals', including organic fertiliser, and indeed food itself. In the context of this debate, shouting "ooh, what about the chemicals???" is about as useful as calling a paediatrician a paedophile.

[Jeremy]

GM, pesticides, fertilisers... I don't have a problem with any of it in theory.

With the pesticides and fertilisers, there is of course an issue of environmental impact. But as far as putting it in my gob, I couldn't care less.

[Sue Gillie]

Just discovered this thread. No-one has mentioned the use of antibiotics in intensive farming which I understand may pose a serious long term problem as we get immune to them with repeatdd exposure. Organic farmers of course use them too, but only when necessary, not as a matter of routine. Then there are the growth hormones fed to factory chickens....

[LegalEagle-ish]

and fed to American cattle.

[Ladymuck]

Another reason why people might prefer to buy organically produced food is that this is (other than growing the stuff yourself), by far, the best way of avoiding GM food. Whilst standards vary enormously between the various organic certification bodies (The Soil Association having the highest in this country), one area of common ground between ALL of them (in THIS country at least) is that GMOs should be forbidden in foodstuffs certified organic.

[iaineasy]

I think what we really need are more allotments - growing your own = cheap, no food miles, organic (if you choose), delicious, and nutritious. The excercise in digging your spud bed is enough to fulfil anyone's weekly quota, and I've never met a child yet who won't eat a fruit or veg its grown itself. Surely it would save the NHS gazillions?

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I agree with this view, although I buy organic when I can, I feel that growing your own organically is the way forward, if you have the space why not? It's the ultimate way of controlling what goes into your system, I am not sure about the science of farming but can it really be that muchmore expensive to not add fertilisers and pesticides? Its a shame that organic food costs so much more because after my child is born I may not be able to afford organic shopping which is a shame, I would like my child to grow up on organic food, but realistically I dont think she will be damaged eating non organic, at least I have to hope not.

[HAL9000]

iaineasy Wrote:

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> I am not sure about the science of farming but can it

> really be that much more expensive to not add

> fertilisers and pesticides?

Soil is quickly exhausted without fertiliser - organic farmers use animal manure and compost made from plant residues rather than so-called 'chemical fertilisers': which are mainly soluble nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous salts along with essential trace elements. Manufacturing and handling organic fertiliser is quite an expensive undertaking.

Traditional organic farming relies on crop rotation to maintain soil quality and crop yields. That requires farmers to grow a variety of crops rather than concentrate on monoculture - again: more expensive and less productive.

As for pesticides, without them, farmers risk losing some or all of their crops at nature's whim. Entire harvests would be destroyed in any given year depending on which pathogens got a foothold.

The fact is, without chemical fertilisers and pesticides, man would have already faced decades of famine and starvation: we cannot now survive without them.

[LegalEagle-ish]

Monoculture encourages crops to be attacked by pests. Mixed planting, companion planting and permaculture reduce the need for pesticides and actually the reverse is true with regards artificial fertilisers and crop yields. The chemical fertilisers produce higher yields initially, but quickly kill off much of the micro-culture leaving the soil sterile and unable to maintain the same levels of crops without increasing levels of chemical fertiliser.

I don't understand how you can say that organic fertilser is more expensive when you can compost all the left-over plant material, animal manure and even human manure if you have a compost toilet.

Land that has been left to regenerate organically after having been stripped of it's micro-culture by chemical, intensive farming, regains it's yields eventually and with the decline in oil which is a fundamental ingredient in intensive, chemical farming, we will need to get back to more natural ways of farming, which can only be good for our health and the health of the planet.

Some books to read on this subject are:

The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka

How to make a Forest Garden by Patrick Whitefield

How to grow more vegetables by John Jeavons

Alcohol can be a gas by Davis Blume

and

From Naked Ape to Superspecies by David Suzuki and Holly Dressel

That should keep you busy for a while!

[HAL9000]

LegalEagle-ish Wrote:

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> I don't understand how you can say that organic

> fertilser is more expensive ...

On an industrial scale: "Because of their dilute concentration of nutrients, transport and application costs are typically much greater for organic than inorganic fertilizers." See Fertiliser.

I agree with the other points you make, most of which are raised in the cited Crop Rotation article.

[Huguenot]

I can't believe that people are conflating Organic and GM.

Every crop is genetically modified, organic or not. We've been modifying crops genetically since 4,000 BC. If we didn't modify them then billions of people would have died needlessly.

Not only is it uninformed to the point of witlessness, it's about as inspired as being scared of doctors and lightbulbs. The camera steals your soul you know.

There are plenty of arguments against modern GM foods, but mostly they revolve around sterility and pricing.

[Brendan]

I've never got the issue with GM stuff either.

Selective breeding is just genetic modification.

[DaveR]

The only helpful comparison between GM and organic is that the distinction that is made is an artificial one - the only way to draw lines between GM and non GM foods, or organic and non-organic goods, is by using essentially arbitrary criteria. The Soil Association boast that they have higher, more rigorous standards than are required by UK and EU legislation, and other certifying bodies - so what standard defines 'organic'?

[HAL9000]

Brendan Wrote:

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> Selective breeding is just genetic modification.

Selective breeding is a non-invasive process that mimics natural selection. Changes are achieved through natural processes.

Genetic Modification (aka G. Engineering) involves manipulation of genetic sequences by unnatural means such as interspecies gene insertion (often via viral vectors) gene deletion or multiplication, mutation via mutagens or radiation, etc. Most of the resulting changes cannot have arisen naturally.

The risks from artificial genetic manipulation are very real. The complexity of cell chemistry and our poor understanding of it mean that we cannot always predict the consequences of our actions.

At the extreme, the risk is that a rogue gene sequence could destroy a species, an entire ecosystem or all life on the planet.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Isn't the problem with GM foods the fact that at the moment, any fool can grab some seeds (modified since 4000BC or not) and plant their own crops. But with GM companies such as Monsanto they OWN the rights totally - they can prevent the use of food derived from their products

Or have I got that wrong?

[Huguenot]

I'm not sure that linking GM foods and the end of the planet is particularly helpful. You might as well start slaughtering butterflys in China to prevent tornados in the US.

It all seems to hinge on this mystical definition of 'natural' and its weird and inappropriate elevation to 'good'.

HIV, Ebola, Malaria are all 'natural', and there are no natural cures nor any reasonable expectation of negating their impact through natural selection.

Vaccines are by definition genetically modified, and I'd hazard that nobody in a sane state of mind is going to disappear once again down trhe MMR bullshit route?

I suspect that there is going to be no sensible outcome to this debate.

[Huguenot]

Sorry Sean, cross-posting.

That is indeed a major problem wth GM foods, and the main reason I'm against them!

[SeanMacGabhann]

That's pretty much my only issue as well - I'm certainly not bothered by any spurious "health" problems I've seen bandied around. But cross-pollination with non-GM crops which then means, even if I go out of my way to avoid GM food, we will all be in hock to Megacorp for the most basic requirement for living. That's more than a worry

[HAL9000]

In the context of my above post; "natural" refers to genetic sequences that have evolved over 3.5 billion years into a stable bio-diversity.

While "unnatural" means artificially manufactured genetic sequences whose long-term interaction with natural systems is unknown.

We cannot predict whether or not a particular artificial sequence can transform something benign like the common cold into an Ebola-like killer virus.

Such are the risks of Genetic Engineering.

[Huguenot]

Sure, and I respect the concern.

I'd hazard that the majority of agricultural crops aren't 3.5 billion years old, and there's nothing natural about grafting. Gene insertion is simply grafting at a smaller level. Use of phrases like 'viral insertion' is just another one of those triggers: virus - 'bad'.

However I don't think the response to GM is proportionate. Although the argument itself is not new, it's neo-Amish, it has the technical merit of refusing to leave the house because you might get run over.

The real motivation is a visceral aversion to change. The same applies to Organics - a rose-tinted throwback to an imaginary older more comfortable age. All old ladies cycling to church. A William Morris rural idyll.

The population boom requires new agricultural thinking. GM is a global requirement where the alternative is a Pol-pot-esque reversion to Year Zero. The real challenge is to manage the introduction from an altruistic perspective.

It's all very well for pampered Europeans to debate GM/Organic as an intellectual indulgence, elsewhere people are dying.

[HAL9000]

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> Isn't the problem with GM foods ...

> But with GM companies such as Monsanto they OWN

> the rights totally - they can prevent the use of

> food derived from their products

Just to clarify this point: This particular technique exploits a natural phenomenon known as the F1 Hybrid, which is very common throughout the industry and includes many, if not most, of the non-GM commercially produced cultivars.

It has nothing to do with any genetic modifications applied to the parent plants from which F1 Hybrid seeds are regenerated annually. GM companies merely own the parent plants so are the sole source of their seeds.

Farmers who attempt to circumvent the process by collecting seeds from F1 Hybrids end up with weak, low yielding F2 plants that do not express the desirable features of their F1 parents.

[HAL9000]

All living organisms on Earth share a common set of fundamental gene sequences that have taken 3.5 billion years to evolve into today's extant ecosystem. During that time, food plants and herbivorous animals have co-evolved in mutual equilibrium.

Gene insertion is not simply grafting at a smaller level. Grafting does not create new gene sequences. Grafted plants cannot reproduce themselves as new stock/scion combinations. And no attribute of grafting can spread through cross-pollination.

As for gene insertion via carrier virus - I can't think of any other activity with more potential for precipitating unintended consequences on a cataclysmic scale.

Having said that - I acknowledge that GM is an essential element in feeding today's and tomorrow?s human population, but my preferred long term solution is not more GM - we are now close to the limit of productivity imposed by the amount of sunlight falling onto existing agricultural land (all else being equal) - but rather reducing population levels to the planet's natural carrying capacity, i.e. restoring a natural equilibrium.

While I'm at it: the Green Revolution was mainly achieved by breeding dwarf cultivars that could be planted closer together thereby increasing yields by a factor of two, three or even four using the same land area. That was a one off - genetic engineering cannot hope to achieve anything like that increase in yield from here onwards.

[DaveR]

"stable bio-diversity" "mutual equilibrium"

These phrases sound persuasive, but I'm a cynic - any evidence for your theory of 'mutual equilibrium"?

[HAL9000]

DaveR Wrote:

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> ... any evidence for your theory of 'mutual equilibrium"?

The general theory underlying terminology such as "stable bio-diversity" and "mutual equilibrium/co-evolution? is James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, which itself underlies more recent work, such as Fritjof Capra's Web of Life, amongst many others. For example, Staley (2002) has proposed:

"...an alternative form of Gaia theory based on more traditional Darwinian principles... In [this] new approach, environmental regulation is a consequence of population dynamics, not Darwinian selection. The role of selection is to favor organisms that are best adapted to prevailing environmental conditions. However, the environment is not a static backdrop for evolution, but is heavily influenced by the presence of living organisms. The resulting co-evolving dynamical process eventually leads to the convergence of equilibrium and optimal conditions."