Organic...
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kshama2001 wrote: »FunkyTobias wrote: »Not this nonsense again.
Much like these two Alliance reports, Dr. Winter concludes after reviewing the methodology used to develop the “Dirty Dozen” list that the EWG “does not appear to follow any established scientific procedures.” Dr. Winter further concludes that the EWG does not adequately consider “the amount of pesticide residue detected on the various commodities” and that “the consumer exposure to the ten most common pesticides found on the Dirty Dozen commodities are several orders of magnitude below levels required to cause any biological effect.”
http://safefruitsandveggies.com/blog/more-evidence-“dirty-dozen”-list-based-bad-science
http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php
...Methodology
The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce ranks pesticide contamination on 48 popular fruits and vegetables based on an analysis of more than 34,000 samples taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and federal Food and Drug Administration. The USDA doesn't test every food every year. EWG uses the most recent sampling period for each food. Nearly all the tests that serve as the basis for the guide were conducted by the USDA, whose personnel washed or peeled produce to mimic consumer practices. It is a reasonable assumption that unwashed produce would likely have higher concentrations of pesticide residues.
In order to compare foods, EWG looked at six measures of pesticide contamination:- Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides
- Percent of samples with two or more detectable pesticides
- Average number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Average amount of pesticides found, measured in parts per million,
- Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Total number of pesticides found on the commodity
For each metric, we ranked each food based on its individual USDA test results, then normalized the scores on a 1-100 scale, with 100 being the highest. A food's final score is the total of the six normalized scores from each metric. The Shopper's Guide™ Full List shows fruits and vegetables in order of these final scores.
Our goal is to show a range of different measures of pesticide contamination to account for uncertainties in the science. All categories were treated equally. The likelihood that a person would eat multiple pesticides on a single food was given the same weight as amounts of the pesticide detected and the percent of the crop on which any pesticides were found.
The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables. This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure. Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless.
Translation: we'll post hoc try to justify our scaremongered methodology despite the fact that it is scientifically meaningless. We'll also throw in a black swan argument while we're at it.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
When the consumer demands "no antibiotics" certification, they put the farmer in a dilemma. It has the potential to cause unneeded suffering, which the consumer never sees. And I was annoyed that you judged the farmer stupid.While the options are raised on antibiotics vs. no antibiotics ever. I'm going for zero antibiotics.
Customers demand no antibiotics because of the choices available.
and those choices lead to animals pointless suffering because they cannot be treated for very curable diseases.
I don't see why farmers that mistreat animals should be reason to dislike organic farming in general. It's not as if non-organic commercial animals are living in the lap of luxury.
because it's needless suffering that other animals don't have to go thru. not sure why that's hard to understand
It's hard to understand why anyone would think that organically raised animals are routinely treated more poorly than other commercially raised animals.
because they do not receive antibiotics. other animals do because part of their sale doesn't depend on them being antibiotic free
So that's your one and only criterion for an animal being treated humanely. They get antibiotics?
no and I never said that, but wouldn't want to an animal to die needlessly. which is why the antibiotic free is wrong to do to an animal imho. and if you've seen animals dying and you know all they need is a pill or pin prick, you would understand why
Much of the antibiotic use in the US is prophylactic, not for actual illness. It leads to faster weight gain. And prevents infection in concentrated feeding lots. I don't use organic, I am not anti GMO, and I am not vegetarian. What most people are against is the prophylactic use of antibiotics in food animals.
Yep, this 1000+0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »FunkyTobias wrote: »Not this nonsense again.
Much like these two Alliance reports, Dr. Winter concludes after reviewing the methodology used to develop the “Dirty Dozen” list that the EWG “does not appear to follow any established scientific procedures.” Dr. Winter further concludes that the EWG does not adequately consider “the amount of pesticide residue detected on the various commodities” and that “the consumer exposure to the ten most common pesticides found on the Dirty Dozen commodities are several orders of magnitude below levels required to cause any biological effect.”
http://safefruitsandveggies.com/blog/more-evidence-“dirty-dozen”-list-based-bad-science
http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php
...Methodology
The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce ranks pesticide contamination on 48 popular fruits and vegetables based on an analysis of more than 34,000 samples taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and federal Food and Drug Administration. The USDA doesn't test every food every year. EWG uses the most recent sampling period for each food. Nearly all the tests that serve as the basis for the guide were conducted by the USDA, whose personnel washed or peeled produce to mimic consumer practices. It is a reasonable assumption that unwashed produce would likely have higher concentrations of pesticide residues.
In order to compare foods, EWG looked at six measures of pesticide contamination:- Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides
- Percent of samples with two or more detectable pesticides
- Average number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Average amount of pesticides found, measured in parts per million,
- Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Total number of pesticides found on the commodity
For each metric, we ranked each food based on its individual USDA test results, then normalized the scores on a 1-100 scale, with 100 being the highest. A food's final score is the total of the six normalized scores from each metric. The Shopper's Guide™ Full List shows fruits and vegetables in order of these final scores.
Our goal is to show a range of different measures of pesticide contamination to account for uncertainties in the science. All categories were treated equally. The likelihood that a person would eat multiple pesticides on a single food was given the same weight as amounts of the pesticide detected and the percent of the crop on which any pesticides were found.
The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables. This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure. Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless.
Translation: we'll post hoc try to justify our scaremongered methodology despite the fact that it is scientifically meaningless. We'll also throw in a black swan argument while we're at it.
That wasn't a translation. That was you spinning your own thoughts and projecting it as theirs.0 -
99 percent of apple samples, 98 percent of peaches, and 97 percent of nectarines tested positive for at least one pesticide residue
without the actual levels (and correlations with effects) I give no funks about this line. It is absolutely worthless and indicative of scare mongering.
But my p-value farming!
hey don't let meaningful data get in the way of those p-values amirite0 -
No, that is me putting their statement down to bare bones meaning.Need2Exerc1se wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »FunkyTobias wrote: »Not this nonsense again.
Much like these two Alliance reports, Dr. Winter concludes after reviewing the methodology used to develop the “Dirty Dozen” list that the EWG “does not appear to follow any established scientific procedures.” Dr. Winter further concludes that the EWG does not adequately consider “the amount of pesticide residue detected on the various commodities” and that “the consumer exposure to the ten most common pesticides found on the Dirty Dozen commodities are several orders of magnitude below levels required to cause any biological effect.”
http://safefruitsandveggies.com/blog/more-evidence-“dirty-dozen”-list-based-bad-science
http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php
...Methodology
The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce ranks pesticide contamination on 48 popular fruits and vegetables based on an analysis of more than 34,000 samples taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and federal Food and Drug Administration. The USDA doesn't test every food every year. EWG uses the most recent sampling period for each food. Nearly all the tests that serve as the basis for the guide were conducted by the USDA, whose personnel washed or peeled produce to mimic consumer practices. It is a reasonable assumption that unwashed produce would likely have higher concentrations of pesticide residues.
In order to compare foods, EWG looked at six measures of pesticide contamination:- Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides
- Percent of samples with two or more detectable pesticides
- Average number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Average amount of pesticides found, measured in parts per million,
- Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Total number of pesticides found on the commodity
For each metric, we ranked each food based on its individual USDA test results, then normalized the scores on a 1-100 scale, with 100 being the highest. A food's final score is the total of the six normalized scores from each metric. The Shopper's Guide™ Full List shows fruits and vegetables in order of these final scores.
Our goal is to show a range of different measures of pesticide contamination to account for uncertainties in the science. All categories were treated equally. The likelihood that a person would eat multiple pesticides on a single food was given the same weight as amounts of the pesticide detected and the percent of the crop on which any pesticides were found.
The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables. This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure. Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless.
Translation: we'll post hoc try to justify our scaremongered methodology despite the fact that it is scientifically meaningless. We'll also throw in a black swan argument while we're at it.
That wasn't a translation. That was you spinning your own thoughts and projecting it as theirs.
^That right there, is literally a never seen a black swan reasoning.Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless
^That right there, confession that their values don't have anything to do with the actual risks being exposed to a pesticide has on a person, hence, "scientifically meaningless".The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables.
^That right there, the fearmongering. Let's assume that because science can only show that we haven't found harm yet, that means we should assume we should be just as afraid even though there has been testing that gives us a good idea of what it takes to generate harm.This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure.0 -
Because if pesticide residues are 1/1000 (and that was high of any actual measurement averages) of a "reference dose" (which is 1/100th of a NOAEL), and thus 1000000th of a level likely to cause harm in chronic exposure, then I really have more important things to worry about considering the health benefits of fresh fruits and veggies.0
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No, that is me putting their statement down to bare bones meaning.Need2Exerc1se wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »FunkyTobias wrote: »Not this nonsense again.
Much like these two Alliance reports, Dr. Winter concludes after reviewing the methodology used to develop the “Dirty Dozen” list that the EWG “does not appear to follow any established scientific procedures.” Dr. Winter further concludes that the EWG does not adequately consider “the amount of pesticide residue detected on the various commodities” and that “the consumer exposure to the ten most common pesticides found on the Dirty Dozen commodities are several orders of magnitude below levels required to cause any biological effect.”
http://safefruitsandveggies.com/blog/more-evidence-“dirty-dozen”-list-based-bad-science
http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php
...Methodology
The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce ranks pesticide contamination on 48 popular fruits and vegetables based on an analysis of more than 34,000 samples taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and federal Food and Drug Administration. The USDA doesn't test every food every year. EWG uses the most recent sampling period for each food. Nearly all the tests that serve as the basis for the guide were conducted by the USDA, whose personnel washed or peeled produce to mimic consumer practices. It is a reasonable assumption that unwashed produce would likely have higher concentrations of pesticide residues.
In order to compare foods, EWG looked at six measures of pesticide contamination:- Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides
- Percent of samples with two or more detectable pesticides
- Average number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Average amount of pesticides found, measured in parts per million,
- Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Total number of pesticides found on the commodity
For each metric, we ranked each food based on its individual USDA test results, then normalized the scores on a 1-100 scale, with 100 being the highest. A food's final score is the total of the six normalized scores from each metric. The Shopper's Guide™ Full List shows fruits and vegetables in order of these final scores.
Our goal is to show a range of different measures of pesticide contamination to account for uncertainties in the science. All categories were treated equally. The likelihood that a person would eat multiple pesticides on a single food was given the same weight as amounts of the pesticide detected and the percent of the crop on which any pesticides were found.
The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables. This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure. Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless.
Translation: we'll post hoc try to justify our scaremongered methodology despite the fact that it is scientifically meaningless. We'll also throw in a black swan argument while we're at it.
That wasn't a translation. That was you spinning your own thoughts and projecting it as theirs.
^That right there, is literally a never seen a black swan reasoning.Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless
^That right there, confession that their values don't have anything to do with the actual risks being exposed to a pesticide has on a person, hence, "scientifically meaningless".The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables.
^That right there, the fearmongering. Let's assume that because science can only show that we haven't found harm yet, that means we should assume we should be just as afraid even though there has been testing that gives us a good idea of what it takes to generate harm.This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure.
Fearmongering? What in all of that is untrue? Their part of it, I mean.0 -
Because if pesticide residues are 1/1000 (and that was high of any actual measurement averages) of a "reference dose" (which is 1/100th of a NOAEL), and thus 1000000th of a level likely to cause harm in chronic exposure, then I really have more important things to worry about considering the health benefits of fresh fruits and veggies.
^ This.
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lol this thread has 450 replies so far
I'm guessing @senecarr and @Need2Exerc1se each got about 150-175 posts from it
well done gaiz
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Here's how your "safe" potatoes are grown:
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/25/magazine/playing-god-in-the-garden.html
...Danny Forsyth laid out the dismal economics of potato farming for me one sweltering morning at the coffee shop in downtown Jerome, Idaho. Forsyth, 60, is a slight blue-eyed man with a small gray ponytail; he farms 3,000 acres of potatoes, corn and wheat, and he spoke about agricultural chemicals like a man desperate to kick a bad habit. ”None of us would use them if we had any choice,” he said glumly.
I asked him to walk me through a season’s regimen. It typically begins early in the spring with a soil fumigant; to control nematodes, many potato farmers douse their fields with a chemical toxic enough to kill every trace of microbial life in the soil. Then, at planting, a systemic insecticide (like Thimet) is applied to the soil; this will be absorbed by the young seedlings and, for several weeks, will kill any insect that eats their leaves. After planting, Forsyth puts down an herbicide — Sencor or Eptam — to ”clean” his field of all weeds. When the potato seedlings are six inches tall, an herbicide may be sprayed a second time to control weeds.
Idaho farmers like Forsyth farm in vast circles defined by the rotation of a pivot irrigation system, typically 135 acres to a circle; I’d seen them from 30,000 feet flying in, a grid of verdant green coins pressed into a desert of scrubby brown. Pesticides and fertilizers are simply added to the irrigation system, which on Forsyth’s farm draws most of its water from the nearby Snake River. Along with their water, Forsyth’s potatoes may receive 10 applications of chemical fertilizer during the growing season. Just before the rows close — when the leaves of one row of plants meet those of the next — he begins spraying Bravo, a fungicide, to control late blight, one of the biggest threats to the potato crop. (Late blight, which caused the Irish potato famine, is an airborne fungus that turns stored potatoes into rotting mush.) Blight is such a serious problem that the E.P.A. currently allows farmers to spray powerful fungicides that haven’t passed the usual approval process. Forsyth’s potatoes will receive eight applications of fungicide.
Twice each summer, Forsyth hires a crop duster to spray for aphids. Aphids are harmless in themselves, but they transmit the leafroll virus, which in Russet Burbank potatoes causes net necrosis, a brown spotting that will cause a processor to reject a whole crop. It happened to Forsyth last year. ”I lost 80,000 bags” — they’re a hundred pounds each — ”to net necrosis,” he said. ”Instead of getting $4.95 a bag, I had to take $2 a bag from the dehydrator, and I was lucky to get that.” Net necrosis is a purely cosmetic defect; yet because big buyers like McDonald’s believe (with good reason) that we don’t like to see brown spots in our fries, farmers like Danny Forsyth must spray their fields with some of the most toxic chemicals in use, including an organophosphate called Monitor.
”Monitor is a deadly chemical,” Forsyth said. ”I won’t go into a field for four or five days after it’s been sprayed — even to fix a broken pivot.” That is, he would sooner lose a whole circle to drought than expose himself or an employee to Monitor, which has been found to cause neurological damage.0 -
While we would have to build up a DoE, there's a strong correlation to the rise of organic, anti-vax, anti-GMO, etc. and the decline in the average consumer's understanding of science.
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Who says fear mongering has to be untrue?Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
No, that is me putting their statement down to bare bones meaning.Need2Exerc1se wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »FunkyTobias wrote: »Not this nonsense again.
Much like these two Alliance reports, Dr. Winter concludes after reviewing the methodology used to develop the “Dirty Dozen” list that the EWG “does not appear to follow any established scientific procedures.” Dr. Winter further concludes that the EWG does not adequately consider “the amount of pesticide residue detected on the various commodities” and that “the consumer exposure to the ten most common pesticides found on the Dirty Dozen commodities are several orders of magnitude below levels required to cause any biological effect.”
http://safefruitsandveggies.com/blog/more-evidence-“dirty-dozen”-list-based-bad-science
http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php
...Methodology
The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce ranks pesticide contamination on 48 popular fruits and vegetables based on an analysis of more than 34,000 samples taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and federal Food and Drug Administration. The USDA doesn't test every food every year. EWG uses the most recent sampling period for each food. Nearly all the tests that serve as the basis for the guide were conducted by the USDA, whose personnel washed or peeled produce to mimic consumer practices. It is a reasonable assumption that unwashed produce would likely have higher concentrations of pesticide residues.
In order to compare foods, EWG looked at six measures of pesticide contamination:- Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides
- Percent of samples with two or more detectable pesticides
- Average number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Average amount of pesticides found, measured in parts per million,
- Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Total number of pesticides found on the commodity
For each metric, we ranked each food based on its individual USDA test results, then normalized the scores on a 1-100 scale, with 100 being the highest. A food's final score is the total of the six normalized scores from each metric. The Shopper's Guide™ Full List shows fruits and vegetables in order of these final scores.
Our goal is to show a range of different measures of pesticide contamination to account for uncertainties in the science. All categories were treated equally. The likelihood that a person would eat multiple pesticides on a single food was given the same weight as amounts of the pesticide detected and the percent of the crop on which any pesticides were found.
The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables. This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure. Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless.
Translation: we'll post hoc try to justify our scaremongered methodology despite the fact that it is scientifically meaningless. We'll also throw in a black swan argument while we're at it.
That wasn't a translation. That was you spinning your own thoughts and projecting it as theirs.
^That right there, is literally a never seen a black swan reasoning.Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless
^That right there, confession that their values don't have anything to do with the actual risks being exposed to a pesticide has on a person, hence, "scientifically meaningless".The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables.
^That right there, the fearmongering. Let's assume that because science can only show that we haven't found harm yet, that means we should assume we should be just as afraid even though there has been testing that gives us a good idea of what it takes to generate harm.This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure.
Fearmongering? What in all of that is untrue? Their part of it, I mean.
I can make things sound scary by saying 100% of people exposed to dihydrogen monoxide have died, which is true, but sounds scary to someone not examining what it all means.
The fearmongering comes from the fact that there are actual, scientifically established way of assessing risk. They basically said, "screw dat noise, here's a way we can present numbers that look really bad. You should be afraid because this number is high, because even though the best science says that's low in terms of effect, tomorrow science could change and the number means your grandchildren have horns."0 -
I'm not sure average consumer's understanding of science has gone down, other than as a percentage of the volume of science there is out there. I think we're just increasingly depending on science but not increasing the lay person's understanding of it fast enough to keep up.While we would have to build up a DoE, there's a strong correlation to the rise of organic, anti-vax, anti-GMO, etc. and the decline in the average consumer's understanding of science.
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Who says fear mongering has to be untrue?Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
No, that is me putting their statement down to bare bones meaning.Need2Exerc1se wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »FunkyTobias wrote: »Not this nonsense again.
Much like these two Alliance reports, Dr. Winter concludes after reviewing the methodology used to develop the “Dirty Dozen” list that the EWG “does not appear to follow any established scientific procedures.” Dr. Winter further concludes that the EWG does not adequately consider “the amount of pesticide residue detected on the various commodities” and that “the consumer exposure to the ten most common pesticides found on the Dirty Dozen commodities are several orders of magnitude below levels required to cause any biological effect.”
http://safefruitsandveggies.com/blog/more-evidence-“dirty-dozen”-list-based-bad-science
http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php
...Methodology
The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce ranks pesticide contamination on 48 popular fruits and vegetables based on an analysis of more than 34,000 samples taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and federal Food and Drug Administration. The USDA doesn't test every food every year. EWG uses the most recent sampling period for each food. Nearly all the tests that serve as the basis for the guide were conducted by the USDA, whose personnel washed or peeled produce to mimic consumer practices. It is a reasonable assumption that unwashed produce would likely have higher concentrations of pesticide residues.
In order to compare foods, EWG looked at six measures of pesticide contamination:- Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides
- Percent of samples with two or more detectable pesticides
- Average number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Average amount of pesticides found, measured in parts per million,
- Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Total number of pesticides found on the commodity
For each metric, we ranked each food based on its individual USDA test results, then normalized the scores on a 1-100 scale, with 100 being the highest. A food's final score is the total of the six normalized scores from each metric. The Shopper's Guide™ Full List shows fruits and vegetables in order of these final scores.
Our goal is to show a range of different measures of pesticide contamination to account for uncertainties in the science. All categories were treated equally. The likelihood that a person would eat multiple pesticides on a single food was given the same weight as amounts of the pesticide detected and the percent of the crop on which any pesticides were found.
The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables. This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure. Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless.
Translation: we'll post hoc try to justify our scaremongered methodology despite the fact that it is scientifically meaningless. We'll also throw in a black swan argument while we're at it.
That wasn't a translation. That was you spinning your own thoughts and projecting it as theirs.
^That right there, is literally a never seen a black swan reasoning.Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless
^That right there, confession that their values don't have anything to do with the actual risks being exposed to a pesticide has on a person, hence, "scientifically meaningless".The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables.
^That right there, the fearmongering. Let's assume that because science can only show that we haven't found harm yet, that means we should assume we should be just as afraid even though there has been testing that gives us a good idea of what it takes to generate harm.This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure.
Fearmongering? What in all of that is untrue? Their part of it, I mean.
I can make things sound scary by saying 100% of people exposed to dihydrogen monoxide have died, which is true, but sounds scary to someone not examining what it all means.
The fearmongering comes from the fact that there are actual, scientifically established way of assessing risk. They basically said, "screw dat noise, here's a way we can present numbers that look really bad. You should be afraid because this number is high, because even though the best science says that's low in terms of effect, tomorrow science could change and the number means your grandchildren have horns."
But not all chemicals that get used in the production of food have been through scientifically established ways of assessing risk. Most have had some amount of testing for effects of short term use. Some of that testing is very limited. The testing for long term affects is usually left to the consumer.
If there were really "proof" that everything on our food supply was safe, additives would never be recalled or taken from the safe list. And people arguing that everything is completely safe wouldn't need to over dramatize their answers.0 -
Actually, most have been tested very well, but if you're looking for the possibility of a black swan, there will never be a proof that they're safe.Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
Who says fear mongering has to be untrue?Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
No, that is me putting their statement down to bare bones meaning.Need2Exerc1se wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »FunkyTobias wrote: »Not this nonsense again.
Much like these two Alliance reports, Dr. Winter concludes after reviewing the methodology used to develop the “Dirty Dozen” list that the EWG “does not appear to follow any established scientific procedures.” Dr. Winter further concludes that the EWG does not adequately consider “the amount of pesticide residue detected on the various commodities” and that “the consumer exposure to the ten most common pesticides found on the Dirty Dozen commodities are several orders of magnitude below levels required to cause any biological effect.”
http://safefruitsandveggies.com/blog/more-evidence-“dirty-dozen”-list-based-bad-science
http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php
...Methodology
The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce ranks pesticide contamination on 48 popular fruits and vegetables based on an analysis of more than 34,000 samples taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and federal Food and Drug Administration. The USDA doesn't test every food every year. EWG uses the most recent sampling period for each food. Nearly all the tests that serve as the basis for the guide were conducted by the USDA, whose personnel washed or peeled produce to mimic consumer practices. It is a reasonable assumption that unwashed produce would likely have higher concentrations of pesticide residues.
In order to compare foods, EWG looked at six measures of pesticide contamination:- Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides
- Percent of samples with two or more detectable pesticides
- Average number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Average amount of pesticides found, measured in parts per million,
- Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
- Total number of pesticides found on the commodity
For each metric, we ranked each food based on its individual USDA test results, then normalized the scores on a 1-100 scale, with 100 being the highest. A food's final score is the total of the six normalized scores from each metric. The Shopper's Guide™ Full List shows fruits and vegetables in order of these final scores.
Our goal is to show a range of different measures of pesticide contamination to account for uncertainties in the science. All categories were treated equally. The likelihood that a person would eat multiple pesticides on a single food was given the same weight as amounts of the pesticide detected and the percent of the crop on which any pesticides were found.
The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables. This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure. Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless.
Translation: we'll post hoc try to justify our scaremongered methodology despite the fact that it is scientifically meaningless. We'll also throw in a black swan argument while we're at it.
That wasn't a translation. That was you spinning your own thoughts and projecting it as theirs.
^That right there, is literally a never seen a black swan reasoning.Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless
^That right there, confession that their values don't have anything to do with the actual risks being exposed to a pesticide has on a person, hence, "scientifically meaningless".The EWG's Shopper's Guide™ is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables.
^That right there, the fearmongering. Let's assume that because science can only show that we haven't found harm yet, that means we should assume we should be just as afraid even though there has been testing that gives us a good idea of what it takes to generate harm.This approach best captures the uncertainties about the risks and consequences of pesticide exposure.
Fearmongering? What in all of that is untrue? Their part of it, I mean.
I can make things sound scary by saying 100% of people exposed to dihydrogen monoxide have died, which is true, but sounds scary to someone not examining what it all means.
The fearmongering comes from the fact that there are actual, scientifically established way of assessing risk. They basically said, "screw dat noise, here's a way we can present numbers that look really bad. You should be afraid because this number is high, because even though the best science says that's low in terms of effect, tomorrow science could change and the number means your grandchildren have horns."
But not all chemicals that get used in the production of food have been through scientifically established ways of assessing risk. Most have had some amount of testing for effects of short term use. Some of that testing is very limited. The testing for long term affects is usually left to the consumer.
If there were really "proof" that everything on our food supply was safe, additives would never be recalled or taken from the safe list. And people arguing that everything is completely safe wouldn't need to over dramatize their answers.
I see the argument all the time from anti-GMO people moving the goal posts.
"There isn't enough testing to know long term effects!"
"How long should testing be?"
"5 years!"
"Most GMOs go through 10 years of development before approval."
"I mean 20 years"
"Well, GMOs have been on the market that long..."
"Whatever number you give + 10 or 20 more years!"0 -
And that still ignores the idea of calculating risk. As I've said, plants make natural pesticides all the time, and have mutations in them all the time. Yet no one is worried that we should continuously test conventionally bred foods for the random possibility of a harmful mutation.0
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kshama2001 wrote: »Here's how your "safe" potatoes are grown:
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/25/magazine/playing-god-in-the-garden.html
...Danny Forsyth laid out the dismal economics of potato farming for me one sweltering morning at the coffee shop in downtown Jerome, Idaho. Forsyth, 60, is a slight blue-eyed man with a small gray ponytail; he farms 3,000 acres of potatoes, corn and wheat, and he spoke about agricultural chemicals like a man desperate to kick a bad habit. ”None of us would use them if we had any choice,” he said glumly.
I asked him to walk me through a season’s regimen. It typically begins early in the spring with a soil fumigant; to control nematodes, many potato farmers douse their fields with a chemical toxic enough to kill every trace of microbial life in the soil. Then, at planting, a systemic insecticide (like Thimet) is applied to the soil; this will be absorbed by the young seedlings and, for several weeks, will kill any insect that eats their leaves. After planting, Forsyth puts down an herbicide — Sencor or Eptam — to ”clean” his field of all weeds. When the potato seedlings are six inches tall, an herbicide may be sprayed a second time to control weeds.
Idaho farmers like Forsyth farm in vast circles defined by the rotation of a pivot irrigation system, typically 135 acres to a circle; I’d seen them from 30,000 feet flying in, a grid of verdant green coins pressed into a desert of scrubby brown. Pesticides and fertilizers are simply added to the irrigation system, which on Forsyth’s farm draws most of its water from the nearby Snake River. Along with their water, Forsyth’s potatoes may receive 10 applications of chemical fertilizer during the growing season. Just before the rows close — when the leaves of one row of plants meet those of the next — he begins spraying Bravo, a fungicide, to control late blight, one of the biggest threats to the potato crop. (Late blight, which caused the Irish potato famine, is an airborne fungus that turns stored potatoes into rotting mush.) Blight is such a serious problem that the E.P.A. currently allows farmers to spray powerful fungicides that haven’t passed the usual approval process. Forsyth’s potatoes will receive eight applications of fungicide.
Twice each summer, Forsyth hires a crop duster to spray for aphids. Aphids are harmless in themselves, but they transmit the leafroll virus, which in Russet Burbank potatoes causes net necrosis, a brown spotting that will cause a processor to reject a whole crop. It happened to Forsyth last year. ”I lost 80,000 bags” — they’re a hundred pounds each — ”to net necrosis,” he said. ”Instead of getting $4.95 a bag, I had to take $2 a bag from the dehydrator, and I was lucky to get that.” Net necrosis is a purely cosmetic defect; yet because big buyers like McDonald’s believe (with good reason) that we don’t like to see brown spots in our fries, farmers like Danny Forsyth must spray their fields with some of the most toxic chemicals in use, including an organophosphate called Monitor.
”Monitor is a deadly chemical,” Forsyth said. ”I won’t go into a field for four or five days after it’s been sprayed — even to fix a broken pivot.” That is, he would sooner lose a whole circle to drought than expose himself or an employee to Monitor, which has been found to cause neurological damage.Published: October 25, 1998
for one, Monitor is no longer used. For another, it is broken down in the environment quickly (esp. in sunlight) even if it were still use.0 -
The potato is interesting. Its genome was finally sequenced in 2011.
"Despite its importance, sequencing has been delayed by the genetic complexity of the common commercial potato. Its genome comprises more than 39,000 protein-coding genes, and it is a highly heterozygous autotetraploid — this means that it has four copies of every chromosome, and often considerable variation among the corresponding four copies of each gene. This is in contrast to the two copies in most human cells." - Nature 2011
Propagating by seed is rarely done, as you won't get the same plant twice. Also, one might end up with a naturally toxic potato (solanine). All our commercial potatoes come from tubers from the previous year's crop; genetically identical.
These are all potatoes from their origin in the Andes:
0 -
I'd suggest knowledge of food production (and related industry) is as important as understanding of science in general, and the former is the one lacking.0
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kshama2001 wrote: »Here's how your "safe" potatoes are grown:
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/25/magazine/playing-god-in-the-garden.html
...Danny Forsyth laid out the dismal economics of potato farming for me one sweltering morning at the coffee shop in downtown Jerome, Idaho. Forsyth, 60, is a slight blue-eyed man with a small gray ponytail; he farms 3,000 acres of potatoes, corn and wheat, and he spoke about agricultural chemicals like a man desperate to kick a bad habit. ”None of us would use them if we had any choice,” he said glumly.
I asked him to walk me through a season’s regimen. It typically begins early in the spring with a soil fumigant; to control nematodes, many potato farmers douse their fields with a chemical toxic enough to kill every trace of microbial life in the soil. Then, at planting, a systemic insecticide (like Thimet) is applied to the soil; this will be absorbed by the young seedlings and, for several weeks, will kill any insect that eats their leaves. After planting, Forsyth puts down an herbicide — Sencor or Eptam — to ”clean” his field of all weeds. When the potato seedlings are six inches tall, an herbicide may be sprayed a second time to control weeds.
Idaho farmers like Forsyth farm in vast circles defined by the rotation of a pivot irrigation system, typically 135 acres to a circle; I’d seen them from 30,000 feet flying in, a grid of verdant green coins pressed into a desert of scrubby brown. Pesticides and fertilizers are simply added to the irrigation system, which on Forsyth’s farm draws most of its water from the nearby Snake River. Along with their water, Forsyth’s potatoes may receive 10 applications of chemical fertilizer during the growing season. Just before the rows close — when the leaves of one row of plants meet those of the next — he begins spraying Bravo, a fungicide, to control late blight, one of the biggest threats to the potato crop. (Late blight, which caused the Irish potato famine, is an airborne fungus that turns stored potatoes into rotting mush.) Blight is such a serious problem that the E.P.A. currently allows farmers to spray powerful fungicides that haven’t passed the usual approval process. Forsyth’s potatoes will receive eight applications of fungicide.
Twice each summer, Forsyth hires a crop duster to spray for aphids. Aphids are harmless in themselves, but they transmit the leafroll virus, which in Russet Burbank potatoes causes net necrosis, a brown spotting that will cause a processor to reject a whole crop. It happened to Forsyth last year. ”I lost 80,000 bags” — they’re a hundred pounds each — ”to net necrosis,” he said. ”Instead of getting $4.95 a bag, I had to take $2 a bag from the dehydrator, and I was lucky to get that.” Net necrosis is a purely cosmetic defect; yet because big buyers like McDonald’s believe (with good reason) that we don’t like to see brown spots in our fries, farmers like Danny Forsyth must spray their fields with some of the most toxic chemicals in use, including an organophosphate called Monitor.
”Monitor is a deadly chemical,” Forsyth said. ”I won’t go into a field for four or five days after it’s been sprayed — even to fix a broken pivot.” That is, he would sooner lose a whole circle to drought than expose himself or an employee to Monitor, which has been found to cause neurological damage.Published: October 25, 1998
for one, Monitor is no longer used. For another, it is broken down in the environment quickly (esp. in sunlight) even if it were still use.
Thanks, next time I use that article I will mention that:- In 2002 EPA started phasing out Methamidophos, trade name "Monitor," and mandating additional safety procedures
- In 2006 the California "Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) scientists completed the risk characterization document (RCD) for methamidophos" and found "the use of methamidophos results in unacceptable acute, seasonal and chronic exposures to persons in the occupational setting"
- In 2009, all uses of methamidophos in the United States were voluntarily canceled
http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/emon/pubs/methamidophos/mitigation_methamidophos.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamidophos
Toxicity
LD50 rates of 21 and 16 mg/kg for male and female rats, respectively. 10–30 mg/kg in rabbits, and dermal LD50 of 50 mg/kg in rats. It is rapidly absorbed through the stomach, lungs, and skin in humans, and eliminated primarily through urine.[4] It is a cholinesterase inhibitor.
Breakdown in soil is 6.1 days in sand, 309 days in water at pH 5.0, 27 days at pH 7.0, and 3 days at pH 9.0. Sunlight accelerates breakdown. It is uptaken through roots and leaves of plants.[4]
It is classified as a WHO Toxicity Class "Class 1b, Highly Hazardous", and its parent chemical, acephate, is "class III, Slightly Hazardous".0
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