Organically Grown Foods Are Healthier-Fact Or Fiction

[Steve Williams]

Hi Myles

Four years ago when I signed up with a nutritionist she felt that we all should eat organically grown foods because they are healthier, by virtue of being free of pesticides etc.

I must admit that I have switched to mostly organically grown foods. One thing that she proved to me is to eat brown shell organic eggs as not only are they helthier but they are much larger

So what's the skinny on organic foods. What qualifies a grower or farmer to state his foodstuffs are organically grown and are they indeed better

 

[cjfrbw]

I think organically grown means "covered in bug snot, ****, castings and eggs, with snail trails and browning insect bite marks" rather than pesticides. Since there are no real standards or verifications, I think it aslo means "whatever the market will bear", or yield, as the case may be.

Kind of like Vegan meaning a "shrill and self important imposition of an appetite disorder."

In Santa Cruz, it is all part of the artisan, back to the earth life style, which tends to require a trust fund for its ultimate fulfillments, and is therefore a symptom of hypochondriasis among people who have time and money. That also tends to make it an elite status symbol.

My sister believes that she is the reincarnation of nobility and deserves an estate in Tuscany. There, she will do modest gardening. She will arise in the morning to shop for only fresh foods, eggs, cheeses, spices and newly baked bread. Returning to her villa, she will spend the day preparing meals from these items. She will end the day washing them down with expensive wines and passing out in front of an open fire with a book. Anything from a can is verboten for the sensitive digestion.

Nutrition is still rather poorly understood, and varies from person to person with genetics. Subtleties are not terribly well delineated, and most of what is actually known surround gross deficiency states. Woody Allen's "Sleeper" pretty much nailed the trends, when he goes into the future and scorned foods like bacon and eggs have suddenly become the epitome of "good nutrition."

As far as popular culture is concerned, that means just about anybody can say anything they want to assert. Most diet and nutritions are simply "faith based" fads based on a desire to not age and avoid the inevitability of deterioration, disease and death. It also means nutrition has many false centers of authority. If any science exists to back up a fad based claim, it tends to be sketchy and "inductive", in which isolated factoids are used to draw sweeping generalizations.

I would say paying attention to health and nutrition are good in broad strokes, but obsessing about particulars pretty easily become fad, fashion and fetish, they will change with the whims of the believers and gurus.

Since most people need and require religion, I would say do whatever addresses one's security operations, as long as it doesn't declare jihad on the sensibilities and practices of others and make one become a manifest pest worse than the ones crawling on the lettuce.

 

[audioguy]

I think organically grown means "coveren in bug snot, ****, castings and eggs, with snail trails and browning insect bite marks" rather than pesticides. Since there are no real standards or verifications, I think it aslo means "whatever the market will bear", or yield, as the case may be.

Kind of like Vegan meaning a "shrill and self important imposition of an appetite disorder."

In Santa Cruz, it is all part of the artisan, back to the earth life style, which tends to require a trust fund for its ultimate fulfillments, and is therefore a symptom of hypochondriasis among people who have time and money. That also tends to make it an elite status symbol.

My sister believes that she is the reincarnation of nobility and deserves an estate in Tuscany. There, she will do modest gardening. She will arise in the morning to shop for only fresh foods, eggs, cheeses, spices and newly baked bread. Returning to her villa, she will spend the day preparing meals for these items. She will end the day washing them down with expensive wines and passing out in front of an open fire with a book. Anything from a can is verboten for the sensitive digestion.

Nutrition is still rather poorly understood, and varies from person to person with genetics. Subtleties are not terribly well delineated, and most of what is actually known surround gross deficiency states. Woody Allen's "Sleeper" pretty much nailed the trends, when he goes into the future and scorned foods like bacon and eggs have suddenly become the epitome of "good nutrition."

As far as popular culture is concerned, that means just about anybody can say anything they want to assert. Most diet and nutritions are simply "faith based" fads based on a desire to not age and avoid the inevitability of deterioration, disease and death. It also means nutrition has many false centers of authority. If any science exists to back up a fad based claim, it tends to be sketchy and "inductive", in which isolated factoids are used to draw sweeping generalizations.

I would say paying attention to health and nutrition are good in broad strokes, but obsessing about particulars pretty easily become fad, fashion and fetish, they will change with the whims of the believers and gurus.

Since most people need and require religion, I would say do whatever addresses one's security operations, as long as it doesn't declare jihad on the sensibilities and practices of others and make one become a manifest pest worse than the ones crawling on the lettuce.

Interesting, but my view is a bit different.

I do eat organic whenever possible but also recognize, for example, that the rain than allows my organic tomatoes to grow may contain water that was polluted from the nuclear waste being dumped into the air in some other country.

Given that, my wife and I do many things to assist our body in detoxing (including eating organically) and I have no doubt it is a smart and healthy thing to do. And while it can not be proved in a single or double blind test in my life, I get to be a subjectivist in this case and say it makes a difference

 

[Steve Williams]

I get to be a subjectivist in this case and say it makes a difference

I think so too Chuck

 

[cjfrbw]

Great article in New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/30/120430fa_fact_goodyear

The full article becomes extremely elaborate concerning issues surrounding pasteurization and forms of nouveau food fetishism. Apparently, some of the believers have decided that unpasteurized milk complete with cow feces e coli and pathogens in it is the road to nutritional integrity and well being.

 

[amirm]

I think organically grown means "coveren in bug snot, ****, castings and eggs, with snail trails and browning insect bite marks" rather than pesticides. Since there are no real standards or verifications, I think it aslo means "whatever the market will bear", or yield, as the case may be.

Kind of like Vegan meaning a "shrill and self important imposition of an appetite disorder."

In Santa Cruz, it is all part of the artisan, back to the earth life style, which tends to require a trust fund for its ultimate fulfillments, and is therefore a symptom of hypochondriasis among people who have time and money. That also tends to make it an elite status symbol.

My sister believes that she is the reincarnation of nobility and deserves an estate in Tuscany. There, she will do modest gardening. She will arise in the morning to shop for only fresh foods, eggs, cheeses, spices and newly baked bread. Returning to her villa, she will spend the day preparing meals for these items. She will end the day washing them down with expensive wines and passing out in front of an open fire with a book. Anything from a can is verboten for the sensitive digestion.

Nutrition is still rather poorly understood, and varies from person to person with genetics. Subtleties are not terribly well delineated, and most of what is actually known surround gross deficiency states. Woody Allen's "Sleeper" pretty much nailed the trends, when he goes into the future and scorned foods like bacon and eggs have suddenly become the epitome of "good nutrition."

As far as popular culture is concerned, that means just about anybody can say anything they want to assert. Most diet and nutritions are simply "faith based" fads based on a desire to not age and avoid the inevitability of deterioration, disease and death. It also means nutrition has many false centers of authority. If any science exists to back up a fad based claim, it tends to be sketchy and "inductive", in which isolated factoids are used to draw sweeping generalizations.

I would say paying attention to health and nutrition are good in broad strokes, but obsessing about particulars pretty easily become fad, fashion and fetish, they will change with the whims of the believers and gurus.

Since most people need and require religion, I would say do whatever addresses one's security operations, as long as it doesn't declare jihad on the sensibilities and practices of others and make one become a manifest pest worse than the ones crawling on the lettuce.

Just wanted to comment on the witty style with which you wrote this . Reminds me of the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun." I am sure countless women wanted to move there after watching that movie.

I think it *is* a nice dream to be able to have a simpler and self-sufficient life to some extent. At least I think so .

 

[mep]

I thought I had read previous studies that indicated that organic food was no more nutritious than regular food. I'm more concerned with the genetic modification of our food supply and what *presents* that might bring us down the road. I'm also sick and tired of something be labeled as "dangerous/must be avoided" only to have it labeled "nutritious and must be in your diet" six months later. It all seems to come full circle and coffee and butter both come to mind.

 

[cjfrbw]

Just wanted to comment on the witty style with which you wrote this . Reminds me of the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun." I am sure countless women wanted to move there after watching that movie.

I think it *is* a nice dream to be able to have a simpler and self-sufficient life to some extent. At least I think so .

There was a whole rash of bodice ripper, chick flick stuff a few years ago about women escaping to Tuscany. I guess the butt pinching Italian Fabios are in there somewhere, too.

I also like the idea of self sufficiency in which you have lots of money to afford scads of people to do all of your work and heavy lifting while presiding over them.

 

[beaur]

if you want some fun, read this for what "organic" means.

http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-id...2&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title07/7cfr205_main_02.tpl


Also, with the GM food products. Anything we eat today is basically a genetically modified product. People have been doing genetic modifications to plants and animals for centuries. What you are concerned about is artificial gene splicing as opposed to the selective of people like Luther Burbank et al.

Will be interesting to see how it plays out. We basically trust large for profit entities to build our cars and buildings. Will we trust similar to modify our food for quicker growing specimens that can be sold more cheaply.

 

[cjfrbw]

if you want some fun, read this for what "organic" means.

http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-id...2&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title07/7cfr205_main_02.tpl


Also, with the GM food products. Anything we eat today is basically a genetically modified product. People have been doing genetic modifications to plants and animals for centuries. What you are concerned about is artificial gene splicing as opposed to the selective of people like Luther Burbank et al.

Will be interesting to see how it plays out. We basically trust large for profit entities to build our cars and buildings. Will we trust similar to modify our food for quicker growing specimens that can be sold more cheaply.

Hah, Hah! Count on the Gov to create an outlandish guantlet! Is this economic protectionism for standard agriculture?

Poor organic farmers, half an hour spacing out amongst plant patches, then ten hours of compliance paperwork and avoiding inspectors. Bureaucratic Hell.

 

[MylesBAstor]

OK, this reply will pertain to all the so far nutritional questions. It seems to me that people are putting the horse before the cart and one needs to get their diet in order before worrying about organic vs. free range vs. rubber chicken. It's like when I go into a health food store and see an overweight person agonizing over which food to buy when it's clear that they should be getting themself into a gym instead (Goes back to that book Decisive!).

The one thing that most people can do to improve their diet is to eat nutrient dense food. Or think of it as food with brakes! Take steak for instance. You can only eat so much of a steak before you're full; You can on the other hand, each bag after bag of oreos because they have zip, nada, zero, nutritional value.

I read an interesting ebook a while back written by an RD entitled "Fcuk Calories" where she makes the same point about counting calories. It's not necessary to count calories if one is eating the right foods and people know what those are Bottom line: many nutritionists don't encourage counting calories as a regimen. It's ok to count calories in the beginning if you want to get used to portion sizes but eventually one needs to wean oneself off calories and eat properl

Let me add a few comments about organic food and some things that I tell my clients when coaching them.

1. Organic food is usually fresher since it's grown closer to home;
2. Organic food generally tastes better;
3. It's more expensive but when one really eats properly (instead of overeating), the monetary switch is a wash;
4. Organic food is generally left in the ground to grow to maturation instead of being pulled out will nilly to get it to the market for sale. This also ties into an a ongoing governement funded longitudinal study called NHANES looking at nutrition and disease. What they found is that the food on our shelve no longer has the amounts of macro and micronutrients we assumed. In other words, when I look at a clients diet, I will go to a nutrition book/app and see that they are getting the right amount of minerals, vitamins, protein, carb, fats, etc. Well it turns out that some of these accepted numbers are 5-10X lower than they should be. So our diets are not as well balanced as we thought and organically grown foodstuffs are "assumed" to have higher amounts of these nutrients.

 

[GaryProtein]

Thanks to Obama protecting Monsanto, the world will be stuck with ONLY GMO seeds after not too many growing seasons where organic and non-organic seeds are hybridized and cross pollenated with GMO plants by the wind.

Even "heirloom" seeds grown into plants will have succeeding generations contaminated by hybridization by GMO pollen and cross pollenation by the wind.

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=monsanto+gmo+seeds&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/04/30/monsanto-gmo-corn.aspx

 

[RBFC]

OK, this reply will pertain to all the so far nutritional questions. It seems to me that people are putting the horse before the cart and one needs to get their diet in order before worrying about organic vs. free range vs. rubber chicken. It's like when I go into a health food store and see an overweight person agonizing over which food to buy when it's clear that they should be getting themself into a gym instead (Goes back to that book Decisive!).

The one thing that most people can do to improve their diet is to eat nutrient dense food. Or think of it as food with brakes! Take steak for instance. You can only eat so much of a steak before you're full; You can on the other hand, each bag after bag of oreos because they have zip, nada, zero, nutritional value.

I read an interesting ebook a while back written by an RD entitled "Fcuk Calories" where she makes the same point about counting calories. It's not necessary to count calories if one is eating the right foods and people know what those are Bottom line: many nutritionists don't encourage counting calories as a regimen. It's ok to count calories in the beginning if you want to get used to portion sizes but eventually one needs to wean oneself off calories and eat properl

Let me add a few comments about organic food and some things that I tell my clients when coaching them.

1. Organic food is usually fresher since it's grown closer to home;
2. Organic food generally tastes better;
3. It's more expensive but when one really eats properly (instead of overeating), the monetary switch is a wash;
4. Organic food is generally left in the ground to grow to maturation instead of being pulled out will nilly to get it to the market for sale. This also ties into an a ongoing governement funded longitudinal study called NHANES looking at nutrition and disease. What they found is that the food on our shelve no longer has the amounts of macro and micronutrients we assumed. In other words, when I look at a clients diet, I will go to a nutrition book/app and see that they are getting the right amount of minerals, vitamins, protein, carb, fats, etc. Well it turns out that some of these accepted numbers are 5-10X lower than they should be. So our diets are not as well balanced as we thought and organically grown foodstuffs are "assumed" to have higher amounts of these nutrients.

The freeze-dried foods I'm involved with are grown to maturity since they are preserved within hours of picking. The preservation method eliminates the need for additional chemicals, etc as preservatives. Also, we still offer "heirloom seeds" which can provide multiple generations of produce that is non-GMO.

Lee

 

[gamve]

It seems that in the US there is very little or no choice when it comes to food. Organic growers are
swallowed up quickly by the multinationals as soon as they achieve any sort of market share.
For a real eye opener search the net and see If you can find the program "Food Inc". This documentary
will really make you think about what you are actually eating and where it comes from.

 

[Steve Williams]

It seems that in the US there is very little or no choice when it comes to food. Organic growers are
swallowed up quickly by the multinationals as soon as they achieve any sort of market share.
For a real eye opener search the net and see If you can find the program "Food Inc". This documentary
will really make you think about what you are actually eating and where it comes from.

I've seen the documentary. Makes one shudder at what was shown

 

[Glory]

Age 60

BF 9/8%

Raw Organic foods and organic cooked. 50/50

Will not eat bitterness/unforgiveness or resentment and let it settle into my life to grow a field of weeds.

Clean air so no fags

Pure distilled water.

Full body herbal cleansing 2x's a year.

Run every other day and bike every other day.

Weight train 6 days a week.

Wild fish so no farmed raised stuff.

Sins forgiven.

Coming back to live forever in a glorified body at age 21. Perfect teeth/hair etc... Never to get sick/diseased or age/decaying. Oh yes perfect hearing to get the tunes right.

Growing old/dying sucks. Death is our greatest enemy. A terreoist. We are born with a fatal disease at birth. Born to die!! Born to grow old. Being born with a corrupted seed that has been passed down through the ages by one man. No matter what food you eat being organic or the stool American diet it will not defeat the terreoist that is within all of us.

I do know of a Living Bread and a Living Water that will defeat this terrorist seed. I have eaten and drank of such food since 1972.

 

[audioguy]

Will not eat bitterness/forgiveness or resentment and let it settle into my life to grow a field of weeds.

Unforgiveness is the root of much disease

Sins forgiven

I know HIM well. We met in 1970.

Coming back to live forever in a glorified body at age 21. Perfect teeth/hair etc... Never to get sick/diseased or age/decaying. Oh yes perfect hearing to get the tunes right.

Growing old/dying sucks. Death is our greatest enemy. A terreoist. We are born with a fatal disease at birth. Born to die!! Born to grow old. Being born with a corrupted seed that has been passed down through the ages by one man. No matter what food you eat being organic or the stool American diet it will not defeat the terreoist that is within all of us.

I do know of a Living Bread and a Living Water that will defeat this terrorist seed. I have eaten and drank of such food since 1972.

I am totally with you except the "age 21" and the "perfect teeth/hair/hearing" part as I've never seen a translation that got that granular.

 

[Steve Williams]

Clean air so no fags

You lost me on that one. Care to elaborate.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I'm headed for McDonald's. Anybody want anything?

Tim

 

[Glory]

No smoking cigs. UK = fags