Organic...

_John_ wrote: »

I'm eating a pound of organic strawberries right now in honor of this thread.

And they are every bit as tasteless as the non organic ones in this variety...

Hahaha! Thanks for taking one for the team. My sister gave me an organic chocolate easter egg. I'm already smug enough, and couldn't face the though of eating it, so I gave it away.

Last I checked, Alaska is still part of the US and they surely have Polar Bears in the wild. According to this image, we should be checking how many insect species have disappeared in Brazil and India.

Organic is important to me, as I'm following the Wahl Paleo Plus Protocol (veg, veg & more veg...) and quite a lot of it raw in smoothie form. So yes, junk on food is an issue. However, one of the major advantages of living in the UK with its Big Nanny culture, is that food regulation is not too corrupt and our food is generally OK. The EU, which supplies a lot of food as well, is even stricter. And there is a very active movement (from 2nd WW legislations) that makes it fairly easy to grow veg in neighbourhood allotments -- in most EU countries as well. However my main priority is the pureness of the fat that I cook with, so what animls are fed is very important. And I like my meat to be grass fed as well, but when poor, settle for mince rather than steak. Also nothing factory-farmed, like fish, so I splurge on wild produce when in season, and settle for tinned wild salmon off-season. Its about what the animals are fed, rather than what I'm fed, because there, 'organic' does make a difference to the end product. But I am a very genial darwinian, and have no desire to persuade those who think organic is just an economical ploy of some sort: I am quite happy to see if 'the proof of the pudding will be in the eating' thereof -- or perhaps in the non-eating!

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

What I can't wrap my head around is why anyone would be against organic gardening or think that organic food "sucks". I mean I totally get thinking it's not necessary, doesn't taste better, not more nutritious, but why the hate?

I think its all the arrogant talk and condescending schooling by those that use organics. The folks I live with praise it, swear by it, and half the food rots because I watch them eat organic macaroni and cheese, organic kettle corn, dry gin and Hennessy because its "cleaner", reeses must be organic too! Those small farms are so unregulated and it will never feed the masses, and a lot of animals suffer mot getting treated with antibiotics that could help or save their lives until their condition is cleared up. * It's the hypocrisy when you miss the right isles in the first place!

jgnatca wrote: »

Last I checked, Alaska is still part of the US and they surely have Polar Bears in the wild. According to this image, we should be checking how many insect species have disappeared in Brazil and India.

That map is very interesting, especially since it shows Use of Lousing Agents in Cold Storage at International Airports During the Month of April 2009. Ok, I totally made that up, but who knows what the map is reporting since there is no reference information provided to discern what pesticide, what time frame, and what use. Looking at it a little further, it looks like a team of students posted it to the internet as part of a school assignment back in 2006. The other maps in the students' report have slightly more reference information than the pesticide map shown above.

When I recreated the same map from the FAOSTAT website for both 2005 and 2006, they were entirely different. My theory is the students pulled the wrong data set or it was incomplete (for example, the students pulled only a partial year of data instead of the entire year or perhaps pulled only a single pesticide instead of all pesticides used in agriculture). See below for the correct map and source information. There's a link where you can recreate it (for whatever year).

It's quite interesting that there's an assumed linked between that map and mosquito control since the FAOSTAT website is a food and agricultural website. Has nothing to do with mosquitoes really. But, that's neither here nor there. The argument that mosquito control is beneficial therefore all pesticide use is beneficial is sort of like saying, since chlorine is harmless in the water supply, we should add little bits of chlorine to everything. Or: since iron supplements are good for me, I should take lots! the more the merrier!




Here's the map from the current FAOSTAT website "faostat3" (notice the updated format) showing pesticide use on agricultural land from 1992 through 2010. You can also use the link below to recreate the map for 2006 and compare it to the above map (very very different picture I'd say).



source: http://faostat3.fao.org/browse/E/EP/E

Here's a second showing emissions from use of synthetic fertilizer (1992 through 2010):



source: http://faostat3.fao.org/browse/G1/GY/E


After seeing the map I couldn't resist coming back to say thanks for posting it! The FAOSTAT website is such a great find. All kinds of useful information--although, I'd recommend using the updated site since there seems to be some confusion from their old website--the old site is awfully clunky and hard to use.

half_moon wrote: »

miriamtob wrote: »

I used to work on an organic farm. They were held to very high standards and NEVER used pesticides. You know how we got rid of these guys? Hand picked them off the plants and squished them!

... Squish them? :,(

Lol, waste of good fishing bait, right?! Yes, squish or introduce this parasitic wasp that kills them by laying its eggs.