Don't waste your money on organic food

[PeroK]

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

Given the growing, rabid anti-environmentalism, fuelled by you-know-who and his acolytes on this side of the Atlantic, attacking organic farming seems dangerously perverse. If you come to the UK, you can bathe or swim in raw sewage in our rivers and round our coastline, courtesy of the out-of-control water companies.

I'm not persuaded that organic farming is an evil in our society today.

 

[BWV]

Given the growing, rabid anti-environmentalism, fuelled by you-know-who and his acolytes on this side of the Atlantic, attacking organic farming seems dangerously perverse. If you come to the UK, you can bathe or swim in raw sewage in our rivers and round our coastline, courtesy of the out-of-control water companies.

I'm not persuaded that organic farming is an evil in our society today.

So a ‘whatabout Trump’ is the best argument you can come up with?

 

[PeroK]

So a ‘whatabout Trump’ is the best argument you can come up with?

Even if you banned all organic farming, I don't see that the world would be a better place. Possibly quite the reverse.

 

[BWV]

Even if you banned all organic farming, I don't see that the world would be a better place. Possibly quite the reverse.

Who said anything about banning organic farming?

 

[PeroK]

Who said anything about banning organic farming?

If no one bought it, that would amount to the same thing.

 

[BWV]

If no one bought it, that would amount to the same thing.

So we shouldn't criticize it then? If you read the OP the whole point was 'organic' was just a lazy marketing gimmick and environmentally sustainable farming requires more careful science, but by all means lets just go with organic so we can all feel good about ourselves

 

[PeroK]

So we shouldn't criticize it then? If you read the OP the whole point was 'organic' was just a lazy marketing gimmick and environmentally sustainable farming requires more careful science, but by all means lets just go with organic so we can all feel good about ourselves

Of all the environmentally distastrous things we are doing, you chose to attack organic farming, which is at worst of dubious merit. What's the motivation for choosing that, of all things?

The basic tenet that we must face up to the fact that current human activities are unsustainable is under attack. Organic farming, however imperfect, is at least an attempt to redress the balance. By attacking that specifically, you are nailing your colors firmly to the anti-environmentalist mast. Whether you like it or not, that's how it will be interpreted.

 

[BWV]

Of all the environmentally distastrous things we are doing, you chose to attack organic farming, which is at worst of dubious merit. What's the motivation for choosing that, of all things?

The basic tenet that we must face up to the fact that current human activities are unsustainable is under attack. Organic farming, however imperfect, is at least an attempt to redress the balance. By attacking that specifically, you are nailing your colors firmly to the anti-environmentalist mast. Whether you like it or not, that's how it will be interpreted.

So once again, all you can offer are political arguments, and now a bit of ad hominem, along with some pearl-clutching outrage that somehow these points might be associated with the wrong team

 

[PeroK]

So once again, all you can offer are political arguments

I would say that your position is profoundly political in the first place. I was fighting fire with fire, as it were. Others have taken scientific issue with what you have said in previous posts.

I wanted to specifically address the dubious and somewhat cynical political arguments that you introduced. The following is a particularly nasty example. Equating organic farming with slavery!

Back in the good old days when farming was 100% organic and Haber's miracle invention of artificial fertilizer was decades away, feeding America required Chinese slaves to harvest and load bird guano from islands off the Pacific Coast of S America

This is straight out of the anti-environmentalist playbook.

 

[BWV]

I would say that your position is profoundly political in the first place. I was fighting fire with fire, as it were. Others have taken scientific issue with what you have said in previous posts.

I wanted to specifically address the dubious and somewhat cynical political arguments that you introduced. The following is a particularly nasty example. Equating organic farming with slavery!


This is straight out of the anti-environmentalist playbook.

Right, so while you continue to engage in political and ad hominem responses, the point of the guano article was the much smaller population of US in the mid 1800s required massive imports of this stuff to feed its population - the much larger per-capita population of livestock was not sufficient to generate enough manure - the point being is that organic - I.e. eliminating artificial fertilizer- is not a viable global agricultural solution.

 

[collinsmark]

Nitrogen in soil. This video may provide some context for several previous posts.

 

[russ_watters]

Old thread, but in the US "Certified Organic" is an FDA/government certification. So complaints about bad government regulation as a motive for choosing organic are problematic; It's bad government science chasing bad government science. Either way what we need is better general/overall regulation, not a dubious carve-out.

Note:

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.

That isn't true in the US, for the FDA, and I doubt it is true in the EU either (I see you are from Denmark).

 

[Mark44]

Thread closed temporarily for moderation.

 

[berkeman]

After a Mentor discussion, the thread will remain closed.