In article
,
Billy wrote:
Funny that you should hold me to a higher standard than yourself,
especially since the site you gave me appears to be a private lab that
does extensive work for the "biotech" industry.
Here is more information than you gave me.
Omnivore¹s Dilemma
p. 179
³The organic label is a marketing tool," Secretary Glickman said. ³It is
not a statement about food safety. Nor is 'organic' a value judgment
about nutrition or quality."
Some intriguing recent research suggests otherwise. A study by
University of California‹Davis researchers published in the Journal of
Agriculture and Food Chemistry in 2003 described an experiment in which
identical varieties of corn, strawberries, and blackberries grown in
neighboring plots using different methods (including organically and
conventionally) were compared for levels of vitamins and polyphenols.
Polyphenols are a group of secondary metabolites manufactured by plants
that we've recently learned play an important role in human health and
nutrition. Many are potent antioxidants; some play a role in preventing
or fighting cancer; others exhibit antimicrobial properties. The Davis
researchers found that organic and otherwise sustainably grown fruits
and vegetables contained significantly higher levels of both ascorbic
acid (vitamin C) and a wide range of polyphenols.
The recent discovery of these secondary metabolites in plants has ought
our understanding of the biological and chemical complexity of foods to
a deeper level of refinement; history suggests we haven't gotten
anywhere near the bottom of this question, either. The first level was
reached early in the nineteenth century with the identification of the
macronutrients‹protein, carbohydrate, and fat. Having isolated these
compounds, chemists thought they'd unlocked the key to human nutrition.
Yet some people (such as sailors) living on diets rich in macronutrients
nevertheless got sick. The mystery was solved when scientists discovered
the major vitamins‹a second key to human nutrition. Now it's the
polyphenols in plants that we're learning play a critical role in
keeping us healthy. (And which might explain why diets heavy in
processed food fortified with vitamins still aren't as nutritious as
fresh foods.) You wonder what else is going on in these plants, what
other undiscovered qualities in them we've evolved to depend on.
In many ways the mysteries of nutrition at the eating end of the food
chain closely mirror the mysteries of fertility at the growing end: The
two realms are like wildernesses that we keep convincing ourselves our
chemistry has mapped, at least until the next level of complexity comes
into view. Curiously, Justus von Liebig, the nineteenth-century German
chemist with the spectacularly ironic surname, bears responsibility for
science's overly reductive understanding of both ends of the food chain.
It was Liebig, you'll recall, who thought he had found the chemical key
to soil fertility with the discovery of NPK, and it was the same Liebig
who thought he had found the key to human nutrition when identified the
macronutrients in food. Liebig wasn't wrong on either count, yet in both
instances he made the fatal mistake of thinking that what we knew about
nourishing plants and people was all we need to know to keep them
healthy. It's a mistake we'll probably keep repeating until we develop a
deeper respect for the complexity of food soil and, perhaps, the links
between the two.
But back to the polyphenols, which may hint at the nature of that link.
Why in the world should organically grown blackberries or corn contain
significantly more of these compounds? The authors of Davis study
haven't settled the question, but they offer two suggest theories. The
reason plants produce these compounds in the first place is to defend
themselves against pests and diseases; the more pressure from pathogens,
the more polyphenols a plant will produce. These compounds, then, are
the products of natural selection and, more specifically, the
coevolutionary relationship between plants and the species that prey on
them. Who would have guessed that humans evolved to profit from a diet
of these plant pesticides? Or that we would invent an agriculture that
then deprived us of them? The Davis authors hypothesize that plants
being defended by man-made pesticides don¹t need to work as hard to make
their own polyphenol pesticides. Coddled by us and our chemicals, the
plants see no reason to invest their sources in mounting a strong
defense. (Sort of like European nations during the cold war.)
A second explanation (one that subsequent research seems to suppport)
may be that the radically simplified soils in which chemically
fertilized plants grow don't supply all the raw ingredients needed to
synthesize these compounds, leaving the plants more vulnerable to
attack, as we know conventionally grown plants tend to be. NPK might be
sufficient for plant growth yet still might not give a plant everything
it needs to manufacture ascorbic acid or lycopene or resveratrol in
quantity. As it happens, many of the polyphenols (and especially a
sublet called the flavonols) contribute to the characteristic taste of a
fruit or vegetable. Qualities we can't yet identify, in soil may
contribute qualities we've only just begun to identify in our foods and
our bodies.
-----
And,
https://sharepoint.agriculture.purdu...ons/2-%20Wedne
sday,%20September%2017,%202008/Concurrent%20Session%203/The%20Organic%20v
s%20Conventional%20Debate%20-%20Can%20We%20Strike%20a%20Balance%20Between
%20Passion%20and%20Science.pdf
and,
http://www.agricultureinformation.co...g/18027-organi
c-vs-conventional-debate-continues.html
and,
http://www.innovations-report.com/ht...ort-31531.html
I await your ****ing and moaning.
-Billy
gunny, sorry I missed the humor in your response.
--
billy, I have oft said that your attempts at self righteous indignation
are
a joke, now let me add to that your pseudo-intellectual attempts are as
well.
I don't want your 7th grade book report on the " Organic Bible" nor your
lame attempts to bring this thread back to your pathetic philosophical
platforms.
This is one of those frequent times you should have kept your mouth shut
so
as not to remove all doubt.
-------
You didn't answer the question(s), you neglected to proofread your
report
and your references; none of which adequately addressed your premise
and
you posted a cut and pasted underlined, disjointed, jumbled, juvenile
writing reverting to your usual organic dogma.
Your still pathetic, little boy.
----
Sorry, gunny, that you can't read, but that isn't my fault. Everything
is there to substantiate my assertions, except for he part where
chemfert fed plants grow faster (as it damages the soil ecosystem),
leading to more tender foliage (which happens to be where the nitrates
are stored), and that in turn attracts insect predators. Of course. if
you are growing indoors, there are no insects, and less flavonoids.
Take another look at the poverty of information in the cite you gave
http://hydromall.com/web/content/view/28/41/ from Plant Research
Technologies Inc. and see if you can find the parameters that you are
asking of me.
Now you can GFY ;O)
--
³When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist.²
-Archbishop Helder Camara
http://tinyurl.com/o63ruj
http://countercurrents.org/roberts020709.htm