Don't waste your money on organic food

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the value and implications of purchasing organic food versus conventionally produced food. Participants explore various perspectives on the environmental impact, health considerations, and economic factors associated with organic farming and food production.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Exploratory
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants argue that the term "organic" lacks meaningful definition and that organic food can be overpriced, suggesting that conventional methods may not be inherently worse for the environment.
  • Others express skepticism about both organic and conventional practices, noting that not all agricultural methods are equally beneficial or harmful to the environment.
  • One participant shares personal experiences of growing their own organic produce without pesticides, highlighting alternative pest control methods.
  • Concerns are raised about the use of industrial fertilizers and their environmental consequences, with suggestions that better legislation could mitigate these issues without needing to switch to organic methods.
  • Some participants express strong opinions about the extremes of both organic advocates and detractors, suggesting that both sides can hold irrational beliefs.
  • There is a discussion about the use of glyphosate, with differing views on its role as a herbicide and its use in food production practices.
  • Participants debate the implications of food appearance and taste, questioning the value of producing aesthetically pleasing but tasteless food.
  • Some express a belief that nature requires correction through agricultural practices, while others argue that historical methods of food production were sufficient for survival.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally do not reach consensus, with multiple competing views on the merits and drawbacks of organic versus conventional food production remaining unresolved.

Contextual Notes

Participants acknowledge that the discussion involves complex issues related to environmental impact, health, and economic factors, with many claims dependent on specific definitions and assumptions about agricultural practices.

Who May Find This Useful

Readers interested in food production, agricultural practices, environmental science, and health-related discussions may find this thread relevant.

BWV
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Because you know, science. Nitrogen is nitrogen whether it comes from a factory or a bovine posterior, and ‘natural’ insectides can be every bit as toxic as ‘artificial’ ones

not to mention reducing crop yields

but people have weird purity taboos around food and organic is kosher/halal for WASPs

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/st...JPPXCMSHrixQYRSkY0WomEFnJHYP5X_V9otHhAYXiL9lw
 
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Well... it's not that simple.
Topics like this, you know... :wink:

In general, it's absolutely true. What we call 'organic' is just some absurdly overpriced gimmick.
On the other hand, biotech and marketing indeed produced some quite 'interesting' things so scepticism is definitely not unfounded.

So ... it's just not that simple.
 
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My wife buys organic cereals, fruits and vegetables, but I prefer to grow our own vegetables and berries, organically. We do not use pesticides, but rely on insects such as praying mantis and others, or we physically remove the insects that damage our berries and vegetables.
 
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As has already been mentioned: It is not that simple.
While it is true that the word "organic" has little meaning, is is also true that not all ways of producing food are equally good/bad for the environment.
It is possible to reduce your impact on the environment by thinking about what you buy.
Also, in many cases this will involve NOT buying (or buying less of) a product rather than buying "organic" (e.g. eating less beef, eat fruit/veg that are in season where you live etc)Also, the "nitrogen" issue is a bit is a bit of a red herring. The problem is not the amount of nitrogen that is actually needed to grow the food. The problem has been/is that industrial; fertilisers have been used (partly because they are so cheap) in the wrong way. many farmers have been using way more than is actually needed and the surplus has ended up in the waterways. In many cases this has been possible to mitigate by better legislation rather than switching to natural fertilisers (which in some cases can also be problematic)
 
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I think the organic purists are approximately as crazy as the organic naysayers. That being said, on a personal level I think the prudent course is to worry about our food, particularly for children..

BWV said:
‘natural’ insectides can be every bit as toxic as ‘artificial’ ones
This is true but brand new chemicals are necessarily more suspect for subtle problems. Natural selection will have had some utility in making me resistant to long standing toxins. Also we produce a much larger variety much more quickly.


BWV said:
but people have weird purity taboos around food and organic is kosher/halal for WASPs
I believe some of these had particular reasons to exist at the time of their formulation, but I cannot cite the research. As a medical research engineer I do know that pigs and humans share a lot of diseases for instance.

On what planet is it a good idea to feed low level antibiotics to animals routinely ? Or "ripen" food grains using Glyphosate? Some parts of agrobusiness seem pretty nuts to me. But there are a lot of folks to feed and they are remarkably cost effective.
 
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f95toli said:
As has already been mentioned: It is not that simple.
While it is true that the word "organic" has little meaning, is is also true that not all ways of producing food are equally good/bad for the environment.
Of course, but that is exactly the point of the article
 
Rive said:
Well... it's not that simple.
Topics like this, you know... :wink:
Good point: "better" depends on who you ask. The farmers, distributors, consumers, politicians and advocacy groups all have different agendas/priorities.
hutchphd said:
I think the organic purists are approximately as crazy as the organic naysayers.
Wait, what? What does an extreme/crazy organic naysayer even look like? The extreme side of "organic purists" is pretty much literally crazy. It overlaps with a segment of anti-vax/extreme alternative healthcare groups (essential oils, homeopathy). It's full-throttle crackpottery. And even people who are less passionate tend to hold factually wrong beliefs about the issue. To me it seems that anti-science/capitalism is a core feature of the movement.

I do joke that I have a strong preference for "inorganic" food, and I do try to avoid "organic" if I can, but I don't always pay attention and when the options are limited I eat what's available. I don't think there's any extremism on this end beyond me/that.
On what planet is it a good idea to... "ripen" food grains using Glyphosate?
Glyphosate is a ripener? I thought it was a herbicide? But broader...I mean...there's a reason why they do these things, you just have to ask/look if you're really concerned/curious. You can't just say something is crazy if you're not actually looking at the reason its being done.
 
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Just because I don't mention it does not mean I am careless with facts. Often the reason they do these things is the almighty dollar.
russ_watters said:
Glyphosate is a ripener? I thought it was a herbicide? But broader...I mean...there's a reason why they do these things, you just have to ask/look if you're really concerned/curious. You can't just say something is crazy if you're not actually looking at the reason its being done.
I know why and it is in fact crazy. Perhaps you need to do some homework?



https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2020/07/08...-to-refuse-crops-with-pre-harvest-glyphosate/.
 
hutchphd said:
Just because I don't mention it does not mean I am careless with facts. Often the reason they do these things is the almighty dollar.

I know why and it is in fact crazy. Perhaps you need to do some homework?

https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2020/07/08...-to-refuse-crops-with-pre-harvest-glyphosate/
Your claim = your homework, or rather burden of proof requirement. But also your phrasing there ("In what world...?") means "I don't understand". So if you do understand; what, specifically, makes that crazy? Yes, frequently it is about money. You're not saying that's what makes it crazy, are you?
 
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  • #10
Tasteless tomatoes that look ripe - that is crazy. What's the point of growing, packing, shipping, and retailing those things?
 
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  • #11
gmax137 said:
tomatoes that look ripe
Still sells like crazy.
 
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  • #12
Rive said:
Still sells like crazy.
I couldn't find a "sad, but true" emoji.
 
  • #13
russ_watters said:
What does an extreme/crazy organic naysayer even look like?
People who think Nature needs to be constantly corrected. People who think we are always improving because of the work we do and if there are still problems, that's because we don't do enough. People who think that one day science will gives us the correct recipe such that we can all finally live in Utopia.
 
  • #14
jack action said:
People who think Nature needs to be constantly corrected.
For Agriculture it does. Has anyone ever tried a 'natural' banana?

1625594555560.png


https://www.sciencealert.com/fruits...tion-photos-genetically-modified-food-natural
 
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  • #16
jack action said:
Right, I remember when, 10 000 years ago, people couldn't eat. Those millions of years we roam this Earth without eating. How those animals in the wild survive without genetically modifying their food is beyond me.
Right, for humans to survive eating like they did 10,000 years ago would only require around a 99.95% population decline
 
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  • #17
jack action said:
People who think Nature needs to be constantly corrected. People who think we are always improving because of the work we do and if there are still problems, that's because we don't do enough. People who think that one day science will gives us the correct recipe such that we can all finally live in Utopia.
Except for the word "Utopia", I'd say that sounds a lot like how I might describe the purpose of an engineer...or even an artist/architect.

But I really did mean the question literally. As-in, literally, what does an extremist on that side look like/how do they manifest? Or at least could I get a specific belief? It's easy enough to find truly nutty claims about modern food online, like that it causes cancer or can modify your DNA. If such nuttiness exists on the other side, I'd be interested to see it. To me it looks like the claim was exaggerated, and if so I was willing to let it lie at that.
 
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  • #18
BWV said:
Right, for humans to survive eating like they did 10,000 years ago would only require around a 99.95% population decline
BWV said:
For Agriculture it does. Has anyone ever tried a 'natural' banana?

View attachment 285560

https://www.sciencealert.com/fruits...tion-photos-genetically-modified-food-natural
Yeah, it's both about successfully feeding the population and about quality/taste/edibility. Sure our ancient ancestors managed to survive, but the natural fruits/veggies they ate were truly awful compared with what we've engineered over the millenia.
 
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  • #19
f95toli said:
While it is true that the word "organic" has little meaning, is is also true that not all ways of producing food are equally good/bad for the environment.
"Organic" means, Carbon compounds other than carbonates. Probably a very narrow point of view!
 
  • #20
hutchphd said:
Or "ripen" food grains using Glyphosate?
Well, not exactly ripen. Some crops like wheat, soybean, and corn are not harvested until they die the reason being to dry out the "fruit" before harvest so it can be stored without rotting and reduce its weight.. At some point, the "fruit" has ripened but the plant is still alive. Glyphosate just speeds up the dying so the crop can be harvested sooner or perhaps at a more convenient time.

Some crops are genetically engineered to resist glyphosate so it is used to kill weeds.

The point it is one more chemical we are putting into our system. whose long-term effect is unknown. And we wonder why so many younger people have health problems.

Yes, organic food is expensive not only because of market demand but it is labor-intensive. And yes natural is not always the best for us nor can it be even safe if the food is grown in areas with naturally occurring high concentrations of heavy metals since plants tend to absorb these metals.
 
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  • #21
Kind of reminds me of the wood-burning stove fad that happened in the 70s and 80s. Sure! If you live on a farm in rural Vermont, go ahead, pick up some dead fall and heat your rustic log home with wood. If you wanted the millions of apartment dwellers in NYC to switch to wood stoves, you'd, a) deforrest the entire state of NY and all the surrounding states, b) you would create an air pollution problem the likes that the world has never seen, similar to the reason NYC banned steam locomotives from entering the city in the early 1900s, and c) you would relegate and a whole lot of people to the job of cutting and transporting millions of trees for the sole purpose of burning them.

Much of the same reasoning surrounds the organic food discussion. For the small producer to use all "natural" means of fertilizing and pest control, it's doable. For the massive production farms it becomes less attractive. Furthermore, using animal waste products as fertilizer is a good way to poison a population if the poop used is laced with e-coli, which it often is. Hemlock is natural. So is strychnine. For a backyard garden to depend on praying mantises for crowd control is possible (although I see very few praying mantises any more), but on a 1000 acre farm… really?
 
  • #22
trainman2001 said:
Kind of reminds me of the wood-burning stove fad that happened in the 70s and 80s. Sure! If you live on a farm in rural Vermont, go ahead, pick up some dead fall and heat your rustic log home with wood. If you wanted the millions of apartment dwellers in NYC to switch to wood stoves, you'd, a) deforrest the entire state of NY and all the surrounding states, b) you would create an air pollution problem the likes that the world has never seen, similar to the reason NYC banned steam locomotives from entering the city in the early 1900s, and c) you would relegate and a whole lot of people to the job of cutting and transporting millions of trees for the sole purpose of burning them.

Much of the same reasoning surrounds the organic food discussion. For the small producer to use all "natural" means of fertilizing and pest control, it's doable. For the massive production farms it becomes less attractive. Furthermore, using animal waste products as fertilizer is a good way to poison a population if the poop used is laced with e-coli, which it often is. Hemlock is natural. So is strychnine. For a backyard garden to depend on praying mantises for crowd control is possible (although I see very few praying mantises any more), but on a 1000 acre farm… really?
In the 70's we heated our house with wood, but it was not due to fad, but more economic need. We had a huge house at the time, and heating it with oil would have been prohibitively expensive for my parents.
We also were under somewhat unusual circumstances. The house was located on a one acre plot, that sat right in the middle of 10,000 acres owned by a logging company. My dad was able to arrange with the owner to harvest fire wood from it. The only stipulation was what trees he cut down.
At that time Alder was considered "trash wood" of no commercial value. In fact, as far as the logging company was concerned, it was a nuisance, as it grew fast and tended out compete the Douglas fir for sunlight. Our thinning it out benefited the company, so they were happy for us to cut down as much as we could.
 
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  • #23
I prefer inorganic food.

For those who remember the first season of SNL: "Quarry. Better tasting 'cause it's mined."
 
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  • #24
gleem said:
Some crops are genetically engineered to resist glyphosate so it is used to kill weeds.
Or it is used before planting or locally to knock down existing weeds. But to use it at exactly when the fruit is finally forming seems to me particularly reckless. I think it is particularly useful when the crops are trying to be squeezed into a short growing season.
I think it is not particularly toxic and occasionally use it myself as a herbicide. But I seldom sprinkle it on my food.
 
  • #25
Had a real world experiment in Sri Lanka, which mandated organic farming:

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised in his 2019 election campaign to transition the country’s farmers to organic agriculture over a period of 10 years. Last April, Rajapaksa’s government made good on that promise, imposing a nationwide ban on the importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and ordering the country’s 2 million farmers to go organic.
The result was brutal and swift. Against claims that organic methods can produce comparable yields to conventional farming, domestic rice production fell 20 percent in just the first six months. Sri Lanka, long self-sufficient in rice production, has been forced to import $450 million worth of rice even as domestic prices for this staple of the national diet surged by around https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-seeks-rice-bailout-from-china-after-fertilizer-ban-89819/https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-seeks-rice-bailout-from-china-after-fertilizer-ban-89819/. The ban also devastated the nation’s tea crop, its primary export and source of foreign exchange.-

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/05/sri-lanka-organic-farming-crisis/
 
  • #26
My concern about "organic" food is that there is no real definition of it. Some guy who uses every chemical he can find, but uses the poop from his chickens (or whatever) as fertilizer in addition to industrial fertilizer, can claim it's organic. Even if he's busy giving his chickens eighteen kinds of hormones.

I grew up on a farm that produced veggies for sale at market. The thing I look for is *fresh*. We used to take the cooking pot out into the field and pick the veggies directly into the pot, bring it back in the house, cook it, and eat it. On the table in less than one hour after being in the ground. Or we'd pick the tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, etc., and make the salad with stuff that was in the ground less than an hour ago. Yum!

Same with keeping chickens. Fresh eggs so fresh they are still warm from the hen. They taste GOOD!

Whenever I see a roadside produce stand I want to stop and buy everything. Farm fresh eggs, fresh honey, home-made maple syrup, pick-your-own apples, peaches, etc. I love all that. Fresh!
 
  • #27
Hope this isn't too off-topic....

In earlier times some of those ailments we call life-style diseases (cardiovascular problems, periodontal disease, etc....) was uncommon among the African Maasai natives. I once wondered why we just don't all lived like them but all is, as you say, not so simple.

Traditional Maasai Dietary Practices and Their Inapplicability to Modern Carnivore Diets: A Narrative Review.

What I also find a little strange is that products (such as chemicals in food and agriculture) are used indiscriminately and then first removed if problems occur while it's the other way around with medicine. I don't know what the raison d'être behind it is, but perhaps progress would be too slow if we were just a little more cautious. A lot of deaths on that account though.
 
  • #28
sbrothy said:
I don't know what the raison d'être behind it is,
Its money for greedy people.
A problem accentuted in our modern society.
 
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