13+ Things You Didn’t Know About Organic Food

Who are the idiots that wrote this piece?  “…conventional farming which can contaminate soil and water with chemicals and nitrogen.”  Nitrogen is a required nutrient for plants!  One of the reasons you plant alfalfa or clover is that it fixes nitrogen from the air into the soil!  Or how about this “…you can feel good that workers, animals, and the environment were all treated better in the process.”  The animals were treated better by being allowed to have tapeworm or suffer from diseases because they are antibiotic free!  What a crock!  I bet these people don’t hesitate to take antibiotics when THEY are sick.  Another stupidity; “Chemical fertilizers are only so successful in controlling pests before they develop tolerances. Then, new stronger formulas need to be developed, which eventually taps out our soils. “  Fertilizers do not control pests at all, that is not what they are for!  They add nutrients to the soil so plants can grow better and have increased yields.  The second part of that quote about tapping out the soil is just as stupid, plants consume nutrients to create food, does not matter whether they are organic or not.  If you do not add the nutrients back in then your yields will decrease and “tap out” the soil regardless of whether the food produced is organic or not.  Obviously the authors have never even tried to garden, much less farm.  They apparently are just parroting whatever eco-nut lines they here.

Calling other people idiots shows you lack understanding.  I prefer–so far as I can afford it–to eat produce that was not treated with chemicals.  I don’t eat meat (except fish), so I don’t worry about that, and I prefer wild fish over farmed.  If you don’t want to buy organic natural foods, don’t.  Some of us do.  Thank you.

Feed Yourself = organic
feed the world= GMO
and mr bloomberg read a book or a take a couple of classes before  you post something controversial.
For your personal enlightenment, Fertilizers are for nutrients, not for controlling pest, pesticides control insect pest and herbicides control weeds. In GMO fields many companies require a non GMO “refuge” usually representing 5 percent of the field to allow weeds and insects a place to survive. These companies are profit driven such as any other business, but they are aware they cannot change ecosystems single handily and have positive long term outcomes. Manure used to also provide much of the industries fertilizer, which would be considered organic, but there are not enough beef and livestock producers left to provide. Another point some un informed critics may take interest in, is that there are often higher premiums
that pay producer more for nonGMO products. While they are still allowed to use chemicals, the seed and final product contain no genetic modification. Seeds and plants cannot tell if they are are receiving “organic” nutrients or “chemical” and neither can their offspring.

end rant. merry christmas

Organic crops cannot feed the world; their yield is simply not sufficient.  It saddens me that people don’t understand that GMO crops are nothing new, as we’ve been using less targeted methods for a century, and that even organic crops have been significantly modified from their “natural” state.  Do you know how genetic modification can take place with organic strains?  Since we can’t use our biotechnology to make targeted mutations, we irradiate seeds with x-rays, increasing the mutation rate significantly, and hope that a few seeds come out with the properties that we need.  Obviously, this causes all sorts of side effects that are far more unpredictable than using targeted gene insertion and modification (using genes whose functions we already know, by the way).

But go ahead and eat your organic food, and just remember that it likely contains genes that have never seen the light of day in any organism via natural evolution and whose long-term effects are comparatively unknown compared to pesticides (and although some of the more dangerous natural pesticides, such as nicotine, are banned in the US, who knows what natural pesticides are used in imported organic food. I’d rather trust chemical pesticides that have decades of science backing them up).

Also remember that if you want the whole world to eat organic, you’ll have to choose which 3 billion people have to die so that there’s enough farmland for the rest of us.  Norman Borlaug (and if you don’t know who that is, shame on you, you shouldn’t be in this conversation) is spinning in his grave listening to this holier-than-thou drivel.

This is the absolute worst written article to be published on the the subject.  Especially the discussion of “stronger formulas”.  This does not happen.  If you wish to write a scientific article,  ask someone who actually knows the space.  This is a joke and very misleading.