Sectorgame

Well, it has been mentioned before that one of the reasons that the average lifespan has increased from about 40 to around 70 in the last few hundred years has been due to the treatment of crops. Entire villages used to be decimated if their crops got infected.

I don't have a problem with Organic food as such, heck I used to grow stuff on an allotment, but before people start screaming that we should stop treating crops with pesticides, fungicides etc, they really need to sit back and wonder why we started doing it

Edit :

Snacks are a priority for Susan Guegan, 44, a mother of four boys in Boulder, Colorado. Guegan made their food from scratch when they were babies. Now she buys organic versions of the cookies and hot dogs they ask for.

"They love Oreos," she said. "They'll say, 'Can we get this?' I'm like, 'Can you read me the ingredients?' They'll laugh and try to say some of them. I'll say, 'You can put that back.' "

What...The....****? Tell you what love, tell your kids they can have the cookies once they learn to fecking read then!

pyro-manic wrote:Well, that's your opinion karajorma, and you're entitled to it of course, but I disagree. I also disagree on the GMO thing, but that's another issue which I won't go into now. Personally, I'd rather eat something that hasn't been sprayed with anything (and yes, the source of the stuff I get at home is entirely free of pesticides, of any description. It gets planted, it grows, it gets dug up/picked, and delivered to the door) than eat factory-farmed stuff from a supermarket.

If you want to eat food completely free of any pesticides then that's fine. I reckon you're paying an enormous mark up for food that is to all intents and purposes the same as anything you could get at a conventional farm shop but it's your money and your choice. If you're willing to pay extra for freshness then that's all to the good but if I want freshness I'd rather pay less and get food that tastes exactly the same and is just as good for me.

People who are proponents of organic food need to realise that they are no different to people who are proponents of shopping at Asda rather than Tesco. It's a personal choice and nothing more. I defend your right to make that choice.

What they don't have the right to do is to lie about it. Claims that organic food is better for you are complete crap. Even if the levels of pesticides in conventional farming are dangerous (And there's not a jot of evidence to prove that it is) you have to balance that against the increase in food poisoning cases and the danger from molds and fungi that conventional methods keep under control.

And that's just with the organic farming that doesn't use "natural" pesticides. It might be worth pointing out that one of those chemicals has since been banned after it was noticed that it was actually a carcinogen. Great job! Convince people to give up the tried and tested pesticeds and get them to use one that definately gives you cancer and then tell them it's healthier!

Similarly claims that organic farming is better for the planet aren't just crap. They're rubbish because of crap. Or more specifically manure. That stuff washes off the fields into rivers and chokes them up due to the way it fertilises the growth of aquatic plants. Yes you can have that effect with non-organic fertilisers but the chemical companies that make them go to great lengths to prevent it precisely because farmers pay a lot of money for their chemicals and consider them going into the rivers a waste.

The same goes for farmers dumping sulphur on their fields.


The fact is that at the moment we're in a rather stupid backlash against science. People have decided that they aren't going to trust science and instead want to trust something else regardless of whether or not it's sensible or even good for them.

Want to know something else funny? For years people have been getting worried about E-numbers and artificial preservatives simply because they are chemicals. No research. No proof that any of them are bad for you. They're chemicals, Just look at that name. Antioxidants. That must be bad for you.

Then food scientists go around telling us that we should eat more tomatos and drink a glass of wine every day because they have anti-cancer and anti-heart disease properties due to the fact that both of those are good sources of antioxidants :rolleyes:

I fully agree with karojama on all points, Ii remember in my high school bio calss how everyone was so against GMO except for me and this one other guy... heh.

Also, evrything is carcinogenic...

The only "organic" food I've eaten on a regular basis are the tomatoes/cucumbers/lettuce that we grow in our back garden. As far as I'm concerned, the only reason that it tastes better than store-bought produce is because it's fresh off the vine, not because of anything we sprayed/didn't spray on it. And that mother banning her kids from eating Oreos should be arrested for child abuse.

I think you guys missed the biggest point. Its nothing todo with taste and safety from artificial pestisides.

It's all to do with marketing.

Take a walk down your local shopping aisle. The biggest selling point these days for consumer products is natural ingredients. Its where culture has evolved too. Shampoo's, drinks, skin products, food products etc etc.

Most of the successful products really push 'All Natural Ingredients'. People don't know much about science, except that the TV told them 'natural' is better, which is ultimatly todays propaganda, advertisement, and commercialism influence over the general populace.

The evidence is all before us.

Grug wrote:I think you guys missed the biggest point. Its nothing todo with taste and safety from artificial pestisides.

It's all to do with marketing.

I didn't miss the point. I said it was a hoax. The word is synonymous with marketing

Funny thing is, there used to be a law in the UK which said that advertising could only promote the merits of the product and not attack other brands etc.

It's funny how the interpretation of that rule has been twisted over the years.

Indeedily.

My bad, that I have been out for a while because I've been busy. Anyway, I am glad to be back and see some serious comments about oganic food.

I don't care if people choose to eat organic food, but it annoys me when people are advertising how good organic food is for people and the environmant. That's just plain nuts. I will not go on and on about the reasons why organic food is not the best food of all because they had already been said by many of you here. You can eat whatever organic food you want but don't 'sell' it to the world as it's the best food people could ever get.

What they need to sell and educate is what an acceptable diet and lifestyle is.

So many people I know have the worst diets and are even starting to suffer from malnutrician.

I can confess that my own diet is pretty s### too. But at least I do try and eat healthy lunches and the like where I can. I'm just badly influenced when around others, need to have a stronger will power I think.

Yeah, I think having a proper diet and healthy live style (such as exercise) is far more important than saying eating organic food is healthier than eating non-organic food. I just can't fools who claim the latter.