Organic Food - P&T

[santo=dorf]

Good episode

 

I was going to post this in the gym forum however youtube embedded videos are not supported.

 

Is the cost of organic food really worth it?

Edited August 6, 2009 by santo=dorf

[Balta1701]

I'm just preemptively moving this to the filibuster while I type my reply.

[Balta1701]

Is Organic food worth it is a very, very complex question, and I can't come down on either side. It really depends.

 

I'll just start rattling off my thoughts;

 

1. Organic foods are often made without certain additives. However, some additives, like some preservatives, exist for a reason. Because otherwise, bad things can happen with food. You can get quite sick from eating things that aren't properly preserved or produced.

2. On the other hand, there is more than a little bit of evidence that other additives to food can also make you sick or kill you, especially with prolonged consumption. Pesticides, etc. Going organic should prevent some of those problems.

3. Some foods are more organic than others. It really doesn't matter, for example, if you spray bananas with tons of pesticides, because they have a thick skin. On the other hand, some foods take up more pesticides or get them on their skins more.

 

4. Organic foods often have very similar nutritional values to regular food. Especially vegetables. There are studies out there saying that organic foods don't produce significant nutritional gains.

5. On the other hand, it's really hard to control all the variables there. If you're having the exact same diet of organic and non-organic foods, then you're still getting a ton of vegetables, healthy foods, avoiding processed stuff. If you compare a person who's eating an organic diet versus eating heavy amounts of processed, americanized franken-foods, the health benefits would be enormous.

 

6. You can't tell me that grain fed beef tastes anywhere near as good as free-range or grass fed. Not even close. Ditto on a number of other food varieties.

 

7. The added cost; I'd love to shop at Whole Foods and go nearly all organic. I flat out can't afford to. I try to do as good as I can otherwise.

 

8. The government; under the Bush Administration, the food industry lobbied hard to weaken the definition of organic as much as they could, to sell more stuff as organic. They largely succeeded. A lot of things that are labeled "Organic" now wouldn't pass the original standards.

 

9. The environment; for me this is the biggy. It takes a huge amount of energy and releases enormous amounts of carbon to run our current food production system. It is totally unsustainable; as oil and energy costs continue to go up, maintaining our current food production system is going to be nearly impossible, especially if Global Warming has major effects on the growing system (drying out california, moving the corn growing belts north towards Canada). On top of that, the local environmental damage from fertilizers and pesticides is enormous. The only way that we're going to make the food production system work long-term is some sort of move in the direction of organic production, whether we make it there or not.

 

10. Overall, the average American diet is really bad these days. Loaded with processed, franken-foods, high fructose corn syrup, things that have been stripped of all their nutritional value, and it is a huge contributor to the obesity epidemic in this country. Costs are enormous. Moving towards anything that is healthier saves this country billions of dollars per year and saves lives.

[StrangeSox]

Large-scale organic farming, at least as the tech. currently exists, isn't sustainable. It would take way, way too much land.

 

I know they've had some problems of run-off from organic farms in Scotland polluting local water streams. Manure run-off isn't necessarily better than fertilizer run-off.

edit:

You can increase biodiversity, however.

 

If I remember what I've read correctly, our highly-homogeneous agricultural strains are susceptible to some sort of pandemic which would lead to world-wide food shortages.

Edited August 6, 2009 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

I'd love to shop at the local farmer's market but it runs from something like 7-9 on Saturdays. That's prime sleeping time.

 

edit: and, as Balta points out, eating 'better' means paying more. Processed, mass-produced food is cheap.

Edited August 6, 2009 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

If I remember what I've read correctly, our highly-homogeneous agricultural strains are susceptible to some sort of pandemic which would lead to world-wide food shortages.

Our factory farm meat production system also is very susceptible to diseases and can in fact help create virulent strains (Typically, if say, a bug mutates in to a particularly virulent form of swine flu, it dies out pretty quick because it's strong. But if there are 100,000 other pigs sitting right next door...suddenly the virus can move through the community and develop and mutate in to something that can hit humans. You may have heard of the results of this).

[Balta1701]

I'd love to shop at the local farmer's market but it runs from something like 7-9 on Saturdays. That's prime sleeping time.

 

edit: and, as Balta points out, eating 'better' means paying more. Processed, mass-produced food is cheap.

It's cheap at the time of purchase. The health care you have to get resulting from it is expensive and is an indirect cost.

[3E8]

Organic food tastes better to me. The difference in most fruits and chicken are especially noticeable. And if you buy Whole Foods house brand stuff on selective items (I don't buy my toilet paper, cereal, etc. there), it's not anymore expensive than the regular store

[SoxFan562004]

P&T put on very good shows. It's been a great jumping off point for me on different topics.

[Stocking]

Organic food tastes better to me. The difference in most fruits and chicken are especially noticeable. And if you buy Whole Foods house brand stuff on selective items (I don't buy my toilet paper, cereal, etc. there), it's not anymore expensive than the regular store

Clearly you didnt watch the video and I'd bet anything you couldn't tell the difference in a blind test. That one b**** was great with the creamier, better finish banana while the other was just a banana taste. JFC I hate earthies.

 

[StrangeSox]

Organic food tastes better to me. The difference in most fruits and chicken are especially noticeable. And if you buy Whole Foods house brand stuff on selective items (I don't buy my toilet paper, cereal, etc. there), it's not anymore expensive than the regular store

 

There's another factor to consider: the Whole Foods-type market is already a premium market compared to standard grocery store vegetables. So, even if they were selling non-organics, they might taste better simply because Whole Foods supplies high-quality (and higher cost) goods.

[iWiN4PreP]

Organic food is the way to go, but its hard to do when there isnt much of it where you live

[santo=dorf]

It's cheap at the time of purchase. The health care you have to get resulting from it is expensive and is an indirect cost.

What studies are there that say organic is much more healthier than regular vegetables? I'd glady eat pesticide plants over organic Chinese (20% of the organic market) fruits and vegetables.

 

How much healthier are (supposedly) organic foods over traditional grown plants? Enough to offset anything the human body takes in? Example: Am I just as healthy to eat an organic carrot and drink a Coke instead of eating a regular carrot and drinking water? If so, is that even worth the cost. Toss out the junk food: How longer would one expect to live on an organic versus non-organic diet?

[Balta1701]

What studies are there that say organic is much more healthier than regular vegetables? I'd glady eat pesticide plants over organic Chinese (20% of the organic market) fruits and vegetables.

 

How much healthier are (supposedly) organic foods over traditional grown plants? Enough to offset anything the human body takes in? Example: Am I just as healthy to eat an organic carrot and drink a Coke instead of eating a regular carrot and drinking water? If so, is that even worth the cost. Toss out the junk food: How longer would one expect to live on an organic versus non-organic diet?

A coke is terrible for you. You're better off with the regular carrot and tap water.

 

I think I said something to this effect in my long post: studies show there are some benefits health-wise to organic food. They tend to contain more vitamins, etc. But it's so complicated that there are dozens of studies saying different things; there's no easy answer. It's going to take years, decades of study. Different foods have different levels of benefits, there are very limited studies on the effects of certain pesticides and fertilizers on people, etc. Some effects, like increasing or decreasing rates of cancer, might take 30 or 40 years to show up. And then the real rub becomes; how do you compare people eating an organic-only diet to a non-organic-only diet...because your 2 groups aren't necessarily sampling the key part of the problem. If you're focusing on eating healthy and you wash your foods, etc., the difference with organic foods is much smaller than the difference between those 2 groups and the folks eating at McDonalds 4 times a week.

[3E8]

Clearly you didnt watch the video and I'd bet anything you couldn't tell the difference in a blind test.

If you really believe that I'd bet anything you have a palate like a horse's ass

[santo=dorf]

So then the 90% of the people who were eating the same banana or the 73% who liked the non-organic tomatoes despite showing a bias towards organic have bad palates?

[3E8]

A lot of organic shoppers probably can't tell the difference. When I'm at Whole Foods, I get the feeling some people are shopping there because it's trendy. Not because they care about taste. And that experiment could be total bulls***. Of course not all organic produce is created equal, and vice-versa for non-organic. They could've purposely chosen the ripeness or quality of their samples for dramatic effect. We also don't know how large the group they polled was

[Stocking]

If you really believe that I'd bet anything you have a palate like a horse's ass

This horse's ass's palate has some land to sell you for your perfect untested palate to grow better tasting organic fruits on.