81 replies to this topic

[EatNopales]

andiesenji said:
In recent days there is the news that Autism had increased exponentially during the past three decades and while many people blame it on vaccines, this time period also coincides with the increase in adding GMO products to an enormous number of food products.

We've been genetically modifying food for as long as there has been agriculture. GMO has the potential to save poor people from untold suffering and death. Should we deny them that because we've created a bogeyman out of "frankenfood" with no real evidence to back it up?

Currently GMO is a big time racket that transfers wealth from U.S. & Western European taxpayers to Monsanto & a few other big companies while making the most food insecure 3rd world societies dependent on patented foreign seeds, fertilzers & pesticides... and hooking them on higher physical yields of lower nutrient mono crops.. people in those countries may have fuller bellies but malnutrition isn't getting better.. its gotten worst.. particularly in Africa where farmers have dramatically reduced the amount of farmland devoted to native legumes (black eye peas)

[annabelle]

Africa has a whole heap of problems of which GMO foods is probably far, far down the list.

I share Chris Taylor's cynicism about organic foods. Again, from a business perspective, if organic foods could be proven to be better for us, and taste better they would sell themselves. Demand would drive supply and supply would thus increase and prices would become reasonable for the Common Man and not the priviledged few. Organic foods are as big business as any other food product business and just as manipulative in their marketing.

[gfweb]

I agree. Philosophically, organic is nice but based on the facts I've seen its hard to say the benefits of organic foods have come close to being proven. I understand the arguments and some make sense, but lots of things that make sense turn out to be untrue ( see: leeches for infections...flat earth...searing seals in juices).

On the other hand, you only have one life and you need to do what you think is best (in the absence of data to the contrary).

[gfweb]

This figure illustrates the danger of assuming correlation implies causality.

http://boingboing.ne...pares-rock.html

[EatNopales]

Africa has a whole heap of problems of which GMO foods is probably far, far down the list.

I share Chris Taylor's cynicism about organic foods. Again, from a business perspective, if organic foods could be proven to be better for us, and taste better they would sell themselves. Demand would drive supply and supply would thus increase and prices would become reasonable for the Common Man and not the priviledged few. Organic foods are as big business as any other food product business and just as manipulative in their marketing.

No actually GMO / Industrial foods are intimately tied to problems stemming from the Neo-colonialist relationship between the West & African societies.

GMO crops have lots of hidden costs that are currently subsidized by taxpayers... poorer African communities generally cannot afford GMO without U.S. "Foreign Aid" packages... Foreign Aid is generally a racket to benefit Western companies who spend a lot of dough lobbying / buying off government... Monsanto's relationship to Africa is kind of like the early days of Coca-Cola went it still contained addictive Coca extracts... Africa gets artificially cheap GMO seed, fertilizers etc., subsidized / purchased by U.S. taxpayers... they change their whole way of food production.. and when they are hooked or when U.S. taxpayers can no longer afford it... those subsidies / gifts will be taken away & Africans will have to face a food security crisis.

[annabelle]

I dare say you have never been to Africa in a business capacity. Graft, it is Africa's middle name. It's first name is corruption. Anyway, Africa is not the topic of the thread and organic farming or foods are not going to save them from famine.

Many people are proponants of raw dairy products on eG, as an example of organic farming and dairy farming in particular. I would submit that pasteurization has saved many, many lives by killing E. coli, tuberculosis, listeria and a number of other food-borne diseases. Remember that dairy cattle are not fussy and will lie in their or their fellows manure and an unwashed or not well-washed udder can yield contaminated milk. As well as cows who are not milked on schedule will develop disease and pass it on through their milk. Sanitary measures are often iffy at home dairies.

Edited by annabelle, 03 April 2012 - 01:42 PM.

[Snadra]

Regarding farmed fish, surely farming--kind of like paper companies planting their own little forests--fish is better for the environment than overfishing wild salmon, tuna, etc.

My concern--and understand that I'm not shitting on the concept of 'organic' food here, it's just a concern--is that oftimes, organic food is marketed, by both companies and the people who swear by it ('it tastes better', 'it's better for you', 'it's all natural') in a way that makes it sound very much like alternative medicines. The fact that already we've had the 'links' between autism, GM food and vaccines brought up drives that point home. As someone actually on the big scary spectrum, I'm always, always, always amused by the 'vaccines/bad food did it' line. I'd love to see some double-blind trials showing that people really, truly prefer the flavour of organic beef, eggs, wheat, etc. It doesn't shock me that people often say nice things about the flavour organic meat--altho' I wonder if it's less to do with the fact that this steak is organic than the probability that someone who is determined to jump through all the hoops to get an 'organic certified' sticker is probably also prepared to put a bit of extra effort into what he/she feeds the animals, how much 'free roaming' space he/she gives the animals, etc. I'd also want to see actual scientific evidence--not just some quack from a news website--that says organic oranges are better for me than nonorganic oranges (or apples or tomatoes or potatoes or chicken thighs or eggs or rice) before buying into the idea that organic equals healthier. I'm far too cynical to just play along with the idea that oh, man, chemicals are bad and big food companies are evil, therefore the small producer that charges thrice the going rate for Roma tomatoes is a saint.

There have been reports that some organic produce is higher in certain elements (I think arsenic was one of the culprits), and I believe it has something to do with how the produce takes up nutrients from the soil. I have not read any reliable reports that organic produce is higher in nutrients, but personally that is not why I buy organic produce (not that I buy everything organic) - my reasoning has more to do with a concern over environmental degradation caused by excessive pesticide/herbicide use.

Regarding fish farming, it can actually be very damaging to the environment and to wild fish stocks. 'feeder fish' are being over fished in order to feed fish on farms, intensive farms can create disease pits which have the ability to infect wild populations and the farms themselves create infertile wastelands (prawn farming practices can extremely destructive to habitats). What's a seafood lover to do?

We try to buy organic meat as much as possible for two reasons: firstly certified producers have a higher standard of animal welfare (at least in Australia); secondly, we have done side by side tests of organic vs conventional chicken, and there is a taste difference. The last surprised me, because I wasn't expecting to notice a difference. I certainly can't say I noticed much of a difference in the taste of organic produce (a few farm stands notwithstanding).

[Fat Guy]

I can't even keep track of all the twists and turns in the organic farmed fish debate.

[Alcuin]

I dare say you have never been to Africa in a business capacity. Graft, it is Africa's middle name. It's first name is corruption. Anyway, Africa is not the topic of the thread and organic farming or foods are not going to save them from famine.

Many people are proponants of raw dairy products on eG, as an example of organic farming and dairy farming in particular. I would submit that pasteurization has saved many, many lives by killing E. coli, tuberculosis, listeria and a number of other food-borne diseases. Remember that dairy cattle are not fussy and will lie in their or their fellows manure and an unwashed or not well-washed udder can yield contaminated milk. As well as cows who are not milked on schedule will develop disease and pass it on through their milk. Sanitary measures are often iffy at home dairies.

What does raw milk have to do with organic products? I don't see the connection, and I think I see some straw peeking out of the sides of this argument...

There are a lot of reasons why organic farming is important. I'm not sure of the health claims myself, but neither can anyone else here be so sure that it doesn't have benefits. It's an open question, to say the least. Skepticism is very important, but its not a substitute for deep consideration. I see a lot of skepticism in arguments against organic food, but not a lot of deep consideration of what we know and don't know, and what may be possible or not. To say that organic food is practically worthless because its benefits are not proven is unfortunate. There are a lot of things still "unproven" by science, like the theory of evolution. We can't "prove" it because no one's been around long enough to see it, but if you look into the theory it makes too much sense not to be true. Similarly, its hard to prove that organic farming has health benefits because there are so many variables involved.

On the other hand, there's not a lot to be skeptical about when it comes to organic fertilizers. Petrochemical fertilizers are non-renewable. Artificial fertilizers based on fossil fuels, to my mind, represent a backwards looking way of thinking about agriculture. The benefits of organic farming practices, environmentally speaking, seem to me to be pretty good.

Talking about feeding Africa, as I said above, is meaningless. Nobody's mobilizing the grand technology of modern farming to stamp out famine in the world. Could it be done? Sure. But for how long? So maybe its a good idea to pursue alternatives. Organic farming practices are something we should be thinking about making more efficient, rather than denigrating them in favor of conventional methods. Why? Humans produced food for thousands of years using non-industrial methods. There's probably something we can learn from that, rather than presuming that modern technology is the only answer. Are the practices of the past as efficient as they can be? Of course not: that's why we need to think about how to make them better. Ultimately, we're going to have to pay the piper when it comes to our treatment of the environment. We should probably start thinking about that now. Organic farming provides one way to do that.

[EatNopales]

I dare say you have never been to Africa in a business capacity. Graft, it is Africa's middle name. It's first name is corruption. Anyway, Africa is not the topic of the thread and organic farming or foods are not going to save them from famine.

Many people are proponants of raw dairy products on eG, as an example of organic farming and dairy farming in particular. I would submit that pasteurization has saved many, many lives by killing E. coli, tuberculosis, listeria and a number of other food-borne diseases. Remember that dairy cattle are not fussy and will lie in their or their fellows manure and an unwashed or not well-washed udder can yield contaminated milk. As well as cows who are not milked on schedule will develop disease and pass it on through their milk. Sanitary measures are often iffy at home dairies.

Yes so it makes soooo much sense to support something that is inherently Big Business like GMO in a place like Africa over the traditional inter cropping that has been displaced


Further, I have not made the argument that organic / traditional farming will save Africa... the argument I have made is that the idea that GMO will save Africa is a myth, an illusion, a naive dream, unsubstantiated by reality lazily made by those grabbing at straws to find something positive about GMO in light of the real world, shady present of GMO Agribusiness

[annabelle]

No strawman, alcuin. We were talking about organic foods, not evolution* or Africa. Raw milk was at one time sold in organic food markets when I was in college, back in ancient times. I picked it out as an example of what some think is a healthier product, when if not handled properly, can be quite deadly. Sort of like giving honey to a baby can be deadly since honey can contain botulism spores.

* Proven, but this is not the place for that discussion.

[EatNopales]

There is a myth that intense factory farming is more efficient or effective than traditional inter cropping particularly for lesser industrialized countries where labor is relatively cheap & imported synthetic fertilizers, pesticides & equipment are relatively expensive.

You take massive subsidies away from factory farming (including the hidden costs born by taxpayers instead of consumers), factor in the nutritional superiority of small scale inter cropping and intense factory farming doesn't look all that great.

[ChrisTaylor]

Regarding farmed fish, surely farming--kind of like paper companies planting their own little forests--fish is better for the environment than overfishing wild salmon, tuna, etc.

My concern--and understand that I'm not shitting on the concept of 'organic' food here, it's just a concern--is that oftimes, organic food is marketed, by both companies and the people who swear by it ('it tastes better', 'it's better for you', 'it's all natural') in a way that makes it sound very much like alternative medicines. The fact that already we've had the 'links' between autism, GM food and vaccines brought up drives that point home. As someone actually on the big scary spectrum, I'm always, always, always amused by the 'vaccines/bad food did it' line. I'd love to see some double-blind trials showing that people really, truly prefer the flavour of organic beef, eggs, wheat, etc. It doesn't shock me that people often say nice things about the flavour organic meat--altho' I wonder if it's less to do with the fact that this steak is organic than the probability that someone who is determined to jump through all the hoops to get an 'organic certified' sticker is probably also prepared to put a bit of extra effort into what he/she feeds the animals, how much 'free roaming' space he/she gives the animals, etc. I'd also want to see actual scientific evidence--not just some quack from a news website--that says organic oranges are better for me than nonorganic oranges (or apples or tomatoes or potatoes or chicken thighs or eggs or rice) before buying into the idea that organic equals healthier. I'm far too cynical to just play along with the idea that oh, man, chemicals are bad and big food companies are evil, therefore the small producer that charges thrice the going rate for Roma tomatoes is a saint.

There have been reports that some organic produce is higher in certain elements (I think arsenic was one of the culprits), and I believe it has something to do with how the produce takes up nutrients from the soil. I have not read any reliable reports that organic produce is higher in nutrients, but personally that is not why I buy organic produce (not that I buy everything organic) - my reasoning has more to do with a concern over environmental degradation caused by excessive pesticide/herbicide use.

Regarding fish farming, it can actually be very damaging to the environment and to wild fish stocks. 'feeder fish' are being over fished in order to feed fish on farms, intensive farms can create disease pits which have the ability to infect wild populations and the farms themselves create infertile wastelands (prawn farming practices can extremely destructive to habitats). What's a seafood lover to do?

We try to buy organic meat as much as possible for two reasons: firstly certified producers have a higher standard of animal welfare (at least in Australia); secondly, we have done side by side tests of organic vs conventional chicken, and there is a taste difference. The last surprised me, because I wasn't expecting to notice a difference. I certainly can't say I noticed much of a difference in the taste of organic produce (a few farm stands notwithstanding).

I can't even keep track of all the twists and turns in the organic farmed fish debate.

If concern for the environment is driving all this, then probably we shouldn't be eating beef or seafood at all. It's a conclusion we--as in people who really enjoy meat and seafood--probably don't want to hear, but it's a surer bet than fish gathered in even the most sustainable manner (and who knows what that is?) or beef from even the smallest and most expensive of organic producers.

Funny you mention the organic chickens. The Age recently reviewed a number of readily avaliable brands of chicken. It wasn't the most scientific of studies, altho' they did a reasonable job of keeping things fair, but the conclusion was that there wasn't much in it. Even the best chicken--which was merely free range, not organic--still received a score that was, I think, indicative of mediocrity. If you ranged a variety of pork producers and gave the best one a score out of 67/100, you'd be right in wondering if Australian pork was shit and that choosing 'the best' really meant 'choosing the best from a bad bunch.'

I've paid good money for Saskia Beer chickens and many other kinds of chickens, from the corn fed ones you can buy at the supermarkets to free range ones from the markets. And, honestly, most of them have been okay, but there's no real reason Saskia Beer's chickens should cost me three times as much as the Lilydale or Macro free rangers that serve as my go-to chickens. I know that if I go to Queen Vic market and throw down good money on some grass fed beef then I'll get my money's worth. It costs more than some cheap and nasty rump but it's much better than that cheap and nasty rump. There's a very pronounced difference. The difference with chicken, if it's there (and I reckon I've noticed it more with corn-fed birds), is nowhere near as pronounced and raises questions about whether, from a customer's standpoint, this bird is really worth damn near three twices as much as that one. Even if you can tell the difference between the two, I'd argue that anyone who says it's really three times as good is just trying to justify to themselves that they just threw down the best part of $30 on a chicken.

[EatNopales]

Bottom line in this thread we are to discuss whether paying a premium for organic is worth the price or a hoax. One argument advanced is that synthetic pesticides haven't really been "proven" to be bad for people.

Two elements to be analyzed... are sythentic pesticides generally bad for humans... and at what concentration?


Farm workers in high pesticide crops (such as Grapes, Bananas) are known to have tragically high rates of various cancers.. and causal relationships have been established.. here are some studies you can peruse:


Mills, P, "Cancer Incidence in the United Farmworkers of America 1987-1997," American Journal of Industrial Medicine 40 (2001): 596-603;

Vincent F. Garry et. al., "Pesticide Appliers, Biocides and Birth Defects in Rural Minnesota," Environmental Health Perspectives 104 (April 1996): 394-399.



As of now there is now comprehensive body of evidence to establish that synthetic pesticides are either bad or neutral for you at the concentrations typically found in produce. You will see some studies supporting either position but the # of substances studied for carcinogenicity (synthetic or naturally occurring in food / generated in the cooking process) is miniscule compared to the total number (for example roasted coffee has about 1,000 substances of which only a few dozen have been studied some are determine to be carcinogenic, others are determined to be protective against cancers such as anti oxidants etc.,) further some compounds that are generally believed to be healthful for humans are carcinogens for rodents (studies on humans are a minute.. most are conducted on rats)


In the case of grapes... it is well established that synthetic pesticides cause cancer among the farm workers...

1) We should have a way to allocate the hidden costs of the cancer treatments, human loss etc., back to the price of conventional grapes... we are currently paying for those costs in other means... taxpayer dollars, higher health insurance rates etc... then we can have a $ of $ comparison

2) There is no benefit to buying conventional grapes... these are a relative luxury not about feeding the world... they provide few calories etc., Organic grapes are not much more expensive than Conventional when grown on similar scale...

3) There is a hidden risk to eating conventional grapes... even if there isn't research studies clearly demonstrating that conventional grapes cause cancer in their current pesticide concentrations there is also NO research clearly demonstrating that they don't... who are you going to trust 2 Million years worth of human evolution or a chemical created 20 years ago?

[Alcuin]

No strawman, alcuin. We were talking about organic foods, not evolution* or Africa. Raw milk was at one time sold in organic food markets when I was in college, back in ancient times. I picked it out as an example of what some think is a healthier product, when if not handled properly, can be quite deadly. Sort of like giving honey to a baby can be deadly since honey can contain botulism spores.

* Proven, but this is not the place for that discussion.

Sorry, but that was definitely a straw man argument. Nobody was talking raw milk, and I don't think raw milk and organic farming practices are really analogous at all. Connecting the two really begs the question, and attacks a viewpoint nobody said they held. That's the definition of the straw man fallacy.

Also, what's an "organic market"? I shop at a co-op that's probably one of the crunchiest in the country, the Willy Street Co-op, but it's not an organic market. Perhaps we're talking Whole Foods then? Count me as somebody who thinks that Whole Foods is a boutique "shopping experience" that I do think promotes the misapprehension that organic equals healthy. It's all about marketing. Whole Foods is not the ideal market: if organic food is going to work, it can't be boutique.

Then again, many people know this about Whole Foods (even though many do not), and I don't think raw milk has such a healthy image. Most people understand the benefits of pasteurization. Or maybe this just seems the case because I live in the dairy state and the milk industry is pretty strong around here (e.g., non-dairy creamers were banned from restaurants because the dairy industry wanted to maintain milk consumption...).

[annabelle]

Organic beef, chicken, fruits, nuts and vegetables and canned foods are okay to discuss but not organic milk? I don't understand. Food is food and milk is a large portion of the dairy that most people consume. I guess I should wait for someone else to bring it up next time.

The organic market I referenced was in Santa Barbara circa 1978, Sunshine something. Mitch mentioned it once and we were apparently living in SB at the same time. Small world and all.

[Alcuin]

Organic beef, chicken, fruits, nuts and vegetables and canned foods are okay to discuss but not organic milk? I don't understand. Food is food and milk is a large portion of the dairy that most people consume. I guess I should wait for someone else to bring it up next time.

The organic market I referenced was in Santa Barbara circa 1978, Sunshine something. Mitch mentioned it once and we were apparently living in SB at the same time. Small world and all.

It's not the topic, it's the way you use it that makes a straw man fallacy what it is.

Anyway, the idea of an organic market brings up an interesting point which is that things have changed a lot since 1978. The rise of Whole Foods has taken advantage of the cache and murkiness of what organic food is and what it's benefits are, which I think is unfortunate. I think many people associate organic food with this kind of boutique experience and that really pigeon-holes organic food. It shouldn't be that way; as EatNopales says, agricultural subsidies obscure the real cost of food.

There are a lot of things that get in the way of a clear view of what organic food is and isn't, or what it can and can't be. Whole Foods and subsidies actually obscure what things are important to eat organic or aren't. I'm not surprised this conversation turned into a battle over what organic food is and isn't, but that's really just a consequence of the complexity of the issue and the infancy of our knowledge and thinking about it. We're not ready to talk about what organic foods are important to eat over conventionally farmed food.

[Fat Guy]

Saw a big mountain of organic brown rice at Costco today.

[weinoo]

Organic beef, chicken, fruits, nuts and vegetables and canned foods are okay to discuss but not organic milk? I don't understand. Food is food and milk is a large portion of the dairy that most people consume. I guess I should wait for someone else to bring it up next time.

The organic market I referenced was in Santa Barbara circa 1978, Sunshine something. Mitch mentioned it once and we were apparently living in SB at the same time. Small world and all.

Yes, Santa Barbara was where I lived from '76 - '78, before moving to the Bay area. Sunshine Market was the first place this boy from New York ever laid his eyes on organic produce. As well as alfalfa sprouts and mashed yeast.

[Darcie B]

For me the question is not "is this organic piece of fruit better for me than this conventional piece of fruit?", it is whether the consequences of conventional (and really, it's only been conventional for less than 100 years) farming are better or worse than alternatives including organic and IPM (integrated pest management). I think solid science indicates that there are sometimes negative consequences of our use of petrochemicals. We have dead areas in the Gulf of Mexico likely due to agricultural runoff. Soil fertility has declined, and with it the ability of many soils to hold water. Et cetera.

I grew up in small grain farming country (North Dakota), and back in the day, great yield improvements occurred due to several factors. Hybridization introduced more productive plants and herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers were inexpensive to produce and use. Larger equipment allowed crops to be planted and harvested more economically. Many, if not most, farmers were of the 'more is better' mentality and dumped shitpiles of petrochemicals onto the crops because they worked and the cost was relatively low. My grandparents had a 2,000-acre farm and I know they didn't think twice about the use of any of the above-referenced products. They needed to increase yield because prices were flat or declining. And that is how the system worked for a long time - scientific and equipment enhancements greatly increased yields, which kept prices down, which meant you needed more yield to make a profit. It is a vicious cycle.

However, the curve for yield enhancements is purt' near flat now, and without significant use of petrochemcials you cannot get enough yield to make a profit. I know this because my brothers purchased the farm and are now running it. They actually got the land certified organic a few years ago and liked not having to apply the chemicals, but alas they could not make it work. The yields were much lower due to substantial weed and pest infestation (intensive monoculture cropping doesn't really work organically). Also, the local grain elevators would not pay the premium for organic crops because they did not have separate storage facilities. Therefore any profit was eaten up by transportation costs.

I think I had a point in here somewhere. Oh, we've reached the point of diminishing returns on our petrochemical investments. Throw in anticipated climate change consequences (water resources issues, changing frost dates to which some pests and weeds adapt better, more frequent severe weather phenomena), and you have an unpredictable future for industrial farming. Which is why I choose to buy as many products raised in what I believe to be a more sustainable manner. Sometimes that includes organic products, sometimes local, and eating less meat. My family grows some of its own food (my mom and brother have a kick ass garden). Is my consumption going to make much difference? Probably not, but I would rather not contribute to the problem.

The issue of feeding a growing population is related, but is even more complex.

Finally, I believe it is likely that many heirloom varieties are better for us than hybrids which are bred for things other than nutrition. But I also think we have better nutrition than our forebears because we have an abundance and greater variety of available foodstuffs.

[EatNopales]

For me the question is not "is this organic piece of fruit better for me than this conventional piece of fruit?", it is whether the consequences of conventional (and really, it's only been conventional for less than 100 years) farming are better or worse than alternatives including organic and IPM (integrated pest management). I think solid science indicates that there are sometimes negative consequences of our use of petrochemicals. We have dead areas in the Gulf of Mexico likely due to agricultural runoff. Soil fertility has declined, and with it the ability of many soils to hold water. Et cetera.

I grew up in small grain farming country (North Dakota), and back in the day, great yield improvements occurred due to several factors. Hybridization introduced more productive plants and herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers were inexpensive to produce and use. Larger equipment allowed crops to be planted and harvested more economically. Many, if not most, farmers were of the 'more is better' mentality and dumped shitpiles of petrochemicals onto the crops because they worked and the cost was relatively low. My grandparents had a 2,000-acre farm and I know they didn't think twice about the use of any of the above-referenced products. They needed to increase yield because prices were flat or declining. And that is how the system worked for a long time - scientific and equipment enhancements greatly increased yields, which kept prices down, which meant you needed more yield to make a profit. It is a vicious cycle.

However, the curve for yield enhancements is purt' near flat now, and without significant use of petrochemcials you cannot get enough yield to make a profit. I know this because my brothers purchased the farm and are now running it. They actually got the land certified organic a few years ago and liked not having to apply the chemicals, but alas they could not make it work. The yields were much lower due to substantial weed and pest infestation (intensive monoculture cropping doesn't really work organically). Also, the local grain elevators would not pay the premium for organic crops because they did not have separate storage facilities. Therefore any profit was eaten up by transportation costs.

I think I had a point in here somewhere. Oh, we've reached the point of diminishing returns on our petrochemical investments. Throw in anticipated climate change consequences (water resources issues, changing frost dates to which some pests and weeds adapt better, more frequent severe weather phenomena), and you have an unpredictable future for industrial farming. Which is why I choose to buy as many products raised in what I believe to be a more sustainable manner. Sometimes that includes organic products, sometimes local, and eating less meat. My family grows some of its own food (my mom and brother have a kick ass garden). Is my consumption going to make much difference? Probably not, but I would rather not contribute to the problem.

The issue of feeding a growing population is related, but is even more complex.

Finally, I believe it is likely that many heirloom varieties are better for us than hybrids which are bred for things other than nutrition. But I also think we have better nutrition than our forebears because we have an abundance and greater variety of available foodstuffs.

Great post

[StanSherman]

Because of the children I had always assumed organic milk prices would hold their own, but they got hammered over the past few years. It makes it hard to convince farmers to go organic when they end up taking a higher risk for a lower profit.

The discussion is difficult because most regions have different problems and both organic and non-organic regulators try and make a one size fits all solution.