is Organic food better

[Jenny Green]

Dear Jenny

It’s good to hear from you again and I do apologise if my words were taken as derogatory, they were not meant to be, really. However you must agree that they did seem to have the desired effect on the deafening silence!

I also admit for a brief moment it did, erroneously, occur to me that you might also be having the same techno problems as me in getting to hear the programme.

Best wishes

Barney

Apology accepted Barney. I still haven't had time to listen to the programme but may have over the weekend.

[Allan]

If you are going to ask whether Organic food is better you must say which Organic food and better than which non-organic food. Organic food may be better sometimes but not just because it happens to be organic. I could show you Organic food that I would be ashamed to try to sell. Is my food to be condemned because I choose to kill perennial weeds on empty ground with glyphosate, or happen to find that slug killer saves my lettuce.
Outside our Health Food shop is unpacked Organic Swiss Chard, wilting in the sun while it is ignored by the customers who go inside and buy top quality Swish Chard, prepacked in chemical polythene bags and as fresh looking as the moment it was picked. No wounder it always sells out. It so happens that we never use chemicals on that crop but we cannot call it Organic nor local grown if that means Hereford as the farm is about 2 miles inside Wales.

[alan refail]

Let Peter Melchett speak for himself:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/pet ... althi.html


I concur with his last sentence:

'In what is still my favourite comment on all this, a member of the public told the BBC: "I take my vegetables seriously, but I take my politicians with a pinch of salt."'

[alan refail]

Beefy

Your reply hardly adds to rational debate. You misread my post. I was merely suggesting that caution is advisable. You say:

"What happened in the past with chemicals etc is not a good enough reason to ban them for the future."

So we don't learn from past mistakes? We believe everything we are told? Remember thalidomide? We do; our children were born just after, thank God, the horrendous results it had. My wife refused all drugs.

Alan

[Johnboy]

Alan,
The trouble with Organic Practitioners is that they can keep raking the past up. Has Thalidomide or anything approaching that severity occurred since.
The answer to that is NO! That is because there are safeguards in place that were not there before.
If it were not for Medicines, which are formulated by scientists, being freely available the standard of health in this country would be considerably lower. You lot prefer to listen to Peter Melchett with the load of crap he spouts.
Get up to date Alan and get real!!
JB.

[alan refail]

Johnboy
You'll be shouting next!

Re drugs try a search on Vioxx

Cofion gorau

Alan

[Cider Boys]

I fail to follow the rationale in the argument that some drugs have caused harm so organic food is better than conventionally grown.

Unfortunately most drugs have side effects but clearly without them our health would be far poorer. The organic followers seem to want us to return to the ignorant days of folklore and intuition. Most rationale people would prefer to live in an enlightened modern age with the help that education and science has given us. The organic movement of today is submerged in myth and a 'rose tinted’ view of how life would be without those nasty chemicals. In short they live in a fantasy world. Alarmingly when their claims have been unsubstantiated they resort to scare tactics to frighten members of the public into believing their falsehoods. Of course there are many benefits in organic methods but to take the polarised view that organic is always ‘better’ holds the modern organic lobby up to well deserved ridicule.

Barney

[Johnboy]

Alan,
When you can tell me explain to me in words of one syllable what this has to do with organics then I will cool off but you are guilty, as is Peter Melchett, of trying to play with the emotions of the nation in order to convert then to organics. This is called Emotional Blackmail! To do this means that yours, and his, argument is a very lean one.
With regards to Thalidomide thousands of women took the drug but mercifully very few, in percentage terms, were affected in the horrifying way.
It is of no use trying to use medicines to further the cause of organics because irrespective whether every person in the land is organic it would sadly not have prevented the Thalidomide incident.
Whether you like it or not your life is governed by scientists of one sort or another. The sooner you realise this the better. Just about everything you handle is a chemical or has been produced by a chemical process or a chemical has been used somewhere along the line. This is why I say get up to date and get real.
I do not know how old you are but I would suspect that you have eaten conventionally produced food for more than half your life. How much harm has it done you? How much harm has it done anybody for that matter.
JB.

[Cider Boys]

SNAP!!!

Barney

[lizzie]

I buy some organic products because I have found that they do not aggravate my IBS as much as non-organic equivalents. Lifestyle choice? Probably so.

I also feel that "proper food" is food cooked from scratch at home, with fresh ingredients and not processed to within an inch of its life.

I buy veg and meat grown, reared and slaughtered in the UK only and have sourced my local suppliers accordingly. My local supermarket is selling locally produced meats and veg from the Merseyside area at vastly increased prices. I can go to source and buy cheaper so I do.

On the lottie I have to be pragmatic. I use glypsophate on the bindweed cos, frankly, life's too short and my back won't put up with constant digging. I use fym, calcified seaweed etc when I need to. I try to grow without chemicals because I want to, not because some scientist tells me it's better.

I agree with Johnboy in many respects. All these studies are all linked to the government and the ministers who have fingers and shares in many different organisations. I just do what I feel best for my family.

I heard one mother at school who buys only organic talking about the SA. I asked that, since she had a very large back garden, why didn't she grow her own. She replied that soil is dirty and little darling isn't allowed near dirt and she doesn't know how to grow anything. She has a gardener for the house. If that's the person the SA is aiming for, i'll steer well away and do my own thing

[richard p]

jb im amazed at your last comment re thalidomide .

your finishing comment shows a complete lack of awarness of what is actually happening in the health of the population that words fail me

[Gilly C]

Lizzie you say you use FYM on your lottie have you thought what food the animals are fed on that provide your FYM and how we got BSE ?

I think we have to make our choices and do as much or as little as is needed to be happy in what we put into our bodies !

[beefy]

Beefy

Your reply hardly adds to rational debate.

Alan

Thats funny because I was under the impression that being organic ment living without chemicals.No chemicals in food or the enviroment so I think its perfectly rational to try and draw up a senario where no chemicals exist.And BTW I forgot to add the transport industry as without chemicals you have no fuel, no tyres for vehiles.As Johnboy quite rightly said" Just about everything you handle is a chemical or has been produced by a chemical process or a chemical has been used somewhere along the line." Have you any idea the amount of things that a chemical free world would not have .As regards drugs you want to ban them all because of what a few have done and now that some of the toughest regulations in the world can probably never happen again.So no pain killers or penicillin to fight infections.
I really think its time the orgainc movement,SA or whatever they want to be called stood back and really looked at what they think they want and what the results of this would be.
Richard p says "your finishing comment shows a complete lack of awarness of what is actually happening in the health of the population that words fail me "
If people would get off their backsides and either get a job or some regular exercise I think you will find that the health of the nation would improve not wether or not they eat organic food.In a world were children sit in front of tv and video games and eat high fat diets you are going to have problems . The solution is to get them active as eating organic food won't help if they still sit on their backsides all day.

[Johnboy]

Hi Gilly,
What do you think cattle are fed on that would give anybody BSE? Since BSE animal protein is not allowed in cattle food.
BSE contrary to Alan's belief was cause by a political decision and against the advice of Scientists.
The person who gave the assent to render carcases at a lower temperature is the person responsible for BSE. If it had been a scientist we would know who it was because he would have been hung out to dry!
As it is we probably will never know who was responsible. To now suggest that it is unwise to use FYM is to put it mildly 'totally ridiculous.'
JB.

[Johnboy]

Well Richard as regards this subject the sooner words fail you completely the better.
What was I supposed to say about Thalidomide?
I stand by my last sentences?
Before you completely dry up you might give us your 'state of the nations health' bit so that we are not all left guessing!
JB.