Babyboomers - Are Organic Foods Necessary For A Healthy Diet?

[webmaster]

The bottom line is that organic does not mean what many people think it means. It does not mean absolutely no pesticides or no antibiotics or no irradiation or no genetic engineering!

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/babyboom68.htm

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This was an irresponsible article at best. All a person has to do to make their own decision on this is to compare organic and unorganic produce at their local farmer's market. Organic produce is often bigger, more deeply colored and intensely flavored. To say that a vegetable simply wouldn't grow if it didin't have everything it needed is silly. There are plenty of unhealthy humans that sustain themselves on packaged and processed foods. These people grow, but do not experience the health and vitality that is possible when someone truly gets everything they need. I'd say that everyone should do their own experiementing when it comes to organic produce. If you don't see/taste/experience a benefit then go back to conventional produce. Don't avoid it because some dude on the internet said so. My .02.

[G.W. Hayduke]

That was a nice little piece of PROPAGANDA. I hope everyone who reads this will see how bluntly one-sided it is.

Phooey. 40 years ago we had scientists and doctors swearing up and down that smoking wasn't dangerous. I'd rather take my chances and rinse my lettuce extra carefully to avoid e. coli than put my trust in Uncle Sam's minions keeping hazardous chemicals out of my food. After all, these are the same geniuses who classify french fries and ketchup as 'fruits and vegetables'. ;-)

[galahan]

This article has pretty much sealed it in my mind, never to listen to any recommendations made by bb.com on health or nutrition. How can you be so irresponsible as to publish this rubbish? Your making recommendations to people concerning their health, this is serious stuff.

For starters the article is plagiarized--hopefully with permision--from here:
http://www.quackwatch.org/01Quackery...s/organic.html

Are you seriously giving health tips from a site called quackwatch?!

The article itself is poorly writted and makes unsubtatianted, misrepresented or plainly false claims. It doesn't even answer the 4 questions it lays out at the beginning.

The First World Congress on Organic Food certainly did *not* reach the conclusion that food is less safe. Concerning e.ecoli both the symposium and other studies have concluded that certified organic food are just as likely as regular food to show cases of e.coli.

Concerning vitamin and mineral count, the difference is not "minimal". "The greatest differences among all vegetables tested were in magnesium (organic was 29% higher), vitamin C (27% higher), and iron (21% higher). In fact, organic food had higher amounts of all minerals tested, although the difference was not always statistically significant because of small sample numbers. Organic crops had 15% fewer nitrates than conventionally grown foods and lesser amounts of toxic heavy metals. "
(Effect of Agricultural Methods on Nutritional Quality: A Comparison of Organic with Conventional Crops, Virginia Worthington MS, ScD, CNS, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1998, Alternative Therapies, Volume 4, 1998, pages 58-69)

Those difference may not seem much is you're taking multi-vitamin supplements, but if you're not, the difference is significant.

Now, do supermarkets charge more for organic products than for regular products? Well they might tag on a little bit, but the biggest reason for the higher price is that organic food is more expensive to produce! Organic food is mostly grown by smaller farmers, who have to let things follow their course of growth, apply crop rotation, etc... Buying a pig from a fellow who can produce 100 a year, is obviously going to be more expensive than one who can pump out 100 a day.

Real organic food definitely tastes better. If you don't believe this go to some third-world country and eat organic fruit and vegetables there.

Organic food is better for the environment. That's a given I think, but I can supply articles and studies if required.

So is organic food better all the way, every time? No. But the most significant problems facing organic food is the lack of standardization of labelling and quality control. Without those standards available and enforced, you'll certainly find very poor quality organic foods, but the problem isn't the concept but rather the implementation.

More studies here:
http://journeytoforever.org/garden_organiccase.html

To bb.com, please be a more serious about what you publish.

[G.W. Hayduke]

THANK YOU!!!!

I hate that quakwatch site. The guy who runs it obviously doesn't research much into his work and has a very clear agenda. Basically, this last article by the "Babyboomers" has sealed my growing suspicion that they're idiots.

[G.W. Hayduke]

On the other hand, we in the West have worked hard and smart to develop the most materially prosperous civilization to ever appear on the planet and the rest of the world is straining to achieve the same level.

That is in excerpt from the article. Talk about egocentric. He is saying that the West worked hard AND smart to get to be such a materialistic society (as if that' a good thing). Yeah right. Secondly, what makes him think that the rest of the world wants to be anything like us?

[FierceFists]

Originally Posted by Aeternitatis

Yeah right. Secondly, what makes him think that the rest of the world wants to be anything like us?

you mean other than the fact that the rest of the world is becoming or already has been westernized? lol the rest of the world is being devoured by western society and its influence, how can you not see that? I mean just like at coca cola and its whole santa claus image, its practically spread around the world. Even japan and other non-christian countries celebrate christmas which is a western idea. There's a whole slew of other things as well.

[G.W. Hayduke]

Originally Posted by FierceFists

you mean other than the fact that the rest of the world is becoming or already has been westernized? lol the rest of the world is being devoured by western society and its influence, how can you not see that? I mean just like at coca cola and its whole santa claus image, its practically spread around the world. Even japan and other non-christian countries celebrate christmas which is a western idea. There's a whole slew of other things as well.

That's true, they are being DEVOURED. I think that's the key word here. Although some of the more economically viable countries have become westernized, I do believe that at least some people are realizing this materialistic world view is a path of destruction.

[never2late]

I have found myself becoming increasingly disappointed in the baby-boomer series of articles at bb.com. While written and presented with the air of authority, it only takes several paragraphs before one begins to question that assumption. This latest Organic Foods article is certainly case in point.

First, organically grown foods are not priced higher just because they are "organic", they are priced higher because they are of higher quality overall. You pay for quality in all things, not just food. To present as factual that there are no discernable differences is nothing short of absurd -- unless of course one does not have the ability to distinguish between the two in the first place.

Then there is the issue of growth and fertilization. The rich soil that provides the foundation for the growth of organic produce is a microcosm of living organisms itself. Organisms, I might add, that are killed through the use of chemical fertilizers, leading to the severe soil-erosion and drought problems of modern day farming methods.

See for yourself how far off this article truly is -- and at relatively little expense: next trip to the market, purchase a tomato grown hydroponically in a greenhouse under artificial lighting -- and an organically grown tomato from rich, living soil. Take them home, look them over, feel them, slice them, and taste them. Need I say more?

As proponents as well as practioners of healthy living, we know that what we consume as food becomes our own living tissue. As such, we are also proponents and practioners of scientific thought and reasoning when it comes to bodybuilding methods. It is only through wisdom and knowledge that we can make our choices.

The choice that this article makes -- as well as tries to pursuade us to make -- amounts to nothing more than misinformation at best, and lack of knowledge at its worst.

[dougrules]

No way Jose!


"Supermarkets promote organic foods because they charge premium prices which increase their profits."

That's not how supermarkets work. They don't stock a product until they see that its consumer base is growing at or over about 3% a year. If you tell a supermarket about a product, and it's not growing that fast, they won't stock it. They will likely special order something for you, but they won't stock it regularly. Doesn't matter what it is, or how expensive. The flip is true: if you tell a supermarket you'd like to see a product, and it happens to fit those criteria, they will pick it up whether it is fried geese or chainsaws.

Best,
Douglas