The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

Old Codger writes

Blimey! I agree with you Oz. Twice in one week :-)

PLEASE stop agreeing with me.

It damages my street cred.

--
Oz
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The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

diane writes

I am looking for a weed killer that will not be harmful to my dog

Why do you want to feed weedkillers to your dog?

If your are concerned about safety otherwise, the read the label, and
follow the instructions on the can.

Even if it doesn't say so, it may give you peace of mind to prevent
access to the sprayed area for 24hrs (unless the label demands longer).


--
Oz
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The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
writes

Er, surely a toxin is only a toxin if our digestion can't cope with it
and it poisons us. Anything we can successfully digest and either
metabolise or excrete is, almost by definition, not a toxin.

How very wrong can some people be?

.... I don't know, care to explain?

--
Chris Green )

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

In uk.rec.gardening Michael Saunby wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...

: Specific enzymes exist to detoxify plant toxins that were naturally in
: our diet - and they have worked well enough to get us this far.

: No they haven't. [...]

? Clearly we got here. Pesticides and herbicides can hardly take
responsibility for that - since they are a recent phenomenon.

: The same is not true of man-made insecticides, pesticides and fungicides.

: Of course not - they've not evolved to harm anything that eats them, indeed
: they've been designed not to.

More to the point, they've been designed to make the chemical corps money.

To that end, they are invisible to consumers - and likely do the minimum
necessary to pass regulator's safety standards.

: All in all it's better to eat meat - animals generally defend themselves by
: running away rather than producing toxins, so all you need is a means of
: catching them.

Not logical. You can't conclude it's better to eat meat because it can
run away.

Meat is higher up the food chain for one thing - and thus will concentrate
environmental toxins.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

In uk.rec.gardening BAC wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
: In uk.rec.gardening Tumbleweed

: It makes reasonable sense:
:
: Our digestive tract has evolved to cope with natural toxins.

: In which case we probably don't regard the food source as toxic at all. Or
: not - in which case the toxins remain toxic to humans, and we presumably
: have learned to avoid ingestion, or to process the food so as to reduce the
: toxicity to levels we consider acceptable. Similar to how we might deal with
: foods we know to have been treated with 'artificial' toxins, really.

Our taste buds do their best to warn us about many plant toxins.

The plants are happy to cooperate in making themselves taste pungent.

By contrast, the artificial toxins have been designed to be tasteless and
invisible to consumers.

Strawberries are one of the most pesticide-infected types of produce.
They don't have natural toxins in. They are "designed" to be eaten by
mammals like us. The fungicides sprayed on strawberries are toxic to
animals like us. http://www.pesticideinfo.org/PCW/DS.jsp?sk='1016'
lists the crap sprayed on strawberries. There can be no contest here.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

"Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
In uk.rec.gardening BAC wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message
...
: In uk.rec.gardening Tumbleweed

: It makes reasonable sense:
:
: Our digestive tract has evolved to cope with natural toxins.

: In which case we probably don't regard the food source as toxic at all.
Or
: not - in which case the toxins remain toxic to humans, and we
presumably
: have learned to avoid ingestion, or to process the food so as to reduce
the
: toxicity to levels we consider acceptable. Similar to how we might deal
with
: foods we know to have been treated with 'artificial' toxins, really.

Our taste buds do their best to warn us about many plant toxins.


I've never tried raw soya but I reckon it's not good to eat. A lot of what
we eat today needs some processing, to grow it in large quanties requires
modern technologies. What alternative do you propose - starving people?

The plants are happy to cooperate in making themselves taste pungent.

By contrast, the artificial toxins have been designed to be tasteless and
invisible to consumers.


And safe!

Strawberries are one of the most pesticide-infected types of produce.
They don't have natural toxins in. They are "designed" to be eaten by
mammals like us. The fungicides sprayed on strawberries are toxic to
animals like us. http://www.pesticideinfo.org/PCW/DS.jsp?sk='1016'
lists the crap sprayed on strawberries. There can be no contest here.

Strawberries aren't meat. I rest my case. Try bacon.

Michael Saunby

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

Tim Tyler writes
In uk.rec.gardening Michael Saunby wrote:

: The same is not true of man-made insecticides, pesticides and fungicides.

: Of course not - they've not evolved to harm anything that eats them, indeed
: they've been designed not to.

More to the point, they've been designed to make the chemical corps money.

So what do you think they should do, produce them as a public service?

Don't be a prat.

To that end, they are invisible to consumers - and likely do the minimum
necessary to pass regulator's safety standards.

Since the regulator's standards (UK, certainly) are horribly tough,
that's true of some pesticides. Remember the typical cost to do the work
required by the regulator costs 50M UKP. That is, it's very very
thorough indeed.

Hardly surprising, the manufacturer and regulators get to eat the
produce they approve.

: All in all it's better to eat meat - animals generally defend themselves by
: running away rather than producing toxins, so all you need is a means of
: catching them.

Not logical. You can't conclude it's better to eat meat because it can
run away.

I see you have missed the point completely.

Meat is higher up the food chain for one thing - and thus will concentrate
environmental toxins.

But not pesticides, because they are biodegradeable - a requirement.

--
Oz
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The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

On Wed, 21 May 2003 17:05:11 +0100, Oz
wrote:

Tim Tyler writes
In uk.rec.gardening Michael Saunby wrote:

: The same is not true of man-made insecticides, pesticides and fungicides.

: Of course not - they've not evolved to harm anything that eats them, indeed
: they've been designed not to.

More to the point, they've been designed to make the chemical corps money.

So what do you think they should do, produce them as a public service?

Don't be a prat.

Oh dear, the last refuge of a beaten man I'm afraid.

One should embrace a good solid argument as an education, especially
when beaten by it!
--








So, you dont like reasoned,
well thought out, civil debate?

I understand.

/´¯/)
/¯../
/..../
/´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
/'/.../..../......./¨¯\
('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...')
\.................'...../
''...\.......... _.·´
\..............(
\.............\..

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

Tim Tyler writes

Our taste buds do their best to warn us about many plant toxins.

Unfortunately not always, with fatal results.
Try the strychnine tree for example.

The plants are happy to cooperate in making themselves taste pungent.

Whether toxic or not, this can be a useful strategy, sometimes.

By contrast, the artificial toxins have been designed to be tasteless and
invisible to consumers.

One thing I am certain about, and that is that smell and taste features
absolutely nowhere in anyone's selection procedure for pesticides. The
infinitesimal residues (if any) left by the time you eat it are only
detectable (if at all) by hugely sophisticated analytical equipment.

Just to give you some idea I have visited a site where they could test
at these levels. They had three areas, with separate doors to the
outside and staff from each area were not allowed to touch each other
until their shift had finished. This was because if one of the 'low
level detection' area walked through the 'high level' area (where the
test applications were made) then they would totally trash the analysis
just from particles they picked up walking through.

As any farmer would tell you, many sprays smell 'rather strongly'.

So you are quite incorrect.

Strawberries are one of the most pesticide-infected types of produce.
They don't have natural toxins in.

I very much doubt that. When I grew them nothing much but the odd slug
ate them, which is always a giveaway.

They are "designed" to be eaten by
mammals like us.

The fruits maybe. That doesn't mean they aren't toxic. I expect there is
a fair bit of oxalic acid in them just the same.

The fungicides sprayed on strawberries are toxic to
animals like us.

Fungicides are toxic to fungi.
That's why they are called fungicides.

http://www.pesticideinfo.org/PCW/DS.jsp?sk='1016'
lists the crap sprayed on strawberries. There can be no contest here.

Maybe, you haven't quoted any of them.

--
Oz
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The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

In article , Oz
writes
writes
In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
writes

Er, surely a toxin is only a toxin if our digestion can't cope with it
and it poisons us. Anything we can successfully digest and either
metabolise or excrete is, almost by definition, not a toxin.

How very wrong can some people be?

... I don't know, care to explain?

1) Many toxins are highly biodegradeable. Cyanide, for example is broken
down in a few tens of seconds. Pity you get to die first.

2) Many toxins get broken down by the gut, you just have to worry about
the bit that you get to absorb before it's broken down.

3) Many toxins get excreted, often damaging the kidneys and causing
kidney failure (some mushroom toxins being the best known).

4) Many toxins form the basis of vaccinations though admittedly after
they've usually been deactivated.


--
Malcolm

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

"Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
In uk.rec.gardening Michael Saunby wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...

: Specific enzymes exist to detoxify plant toxins that were naturally in
: our diet - and they have worked well enough to get us this far.

: No they haven't. [...]

? Clearly we got here. Pesticides and herbicides can hardly take
responsibility for that - since they are a recent phenomenon.

: The same is not true of man-made insecticides, pesticides and
fungicides.

: Of course not - they've not evolved to harm anything that eats them,
indeed
: they've been designed not to.

More to the point, they've been designed to make the chemical corps money.

so what? why should people who work for chemical companies work for nothing?

To that end, they are invisible to consumers - and likely do the minimum
necessary to pass regulator's safety standards.

so you always drive at 20mph in a 30mph zone? Or do you do the minimum
necessary to pass the regulators safety standards and drive at 30?




Jim Webster

--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

"Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
In uk.rec.gardening BAC wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
: In uk.rec.gardening Tumbleweed

: It makes reasonable sense:
:
: Our digestive tract has evolved to cope with natural toxins.

: In which case we probably don't regard the food source as toxic at all.
Or
: not - in which case the toxins remain toxic to humans, and we presumably
: have learned to avoid ingestion, or to process the food so as to reduce
the
: toxicity to levels we consider acceptable. Similar to how we might deal
with
: foods we know to have been treated with 'artificial' toxins, really.

Our taste buds do their best to warn us about many plant toxins.

so you don't eat peppers?

Jim Webster

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

"Oz" wrote in message
...
BAC writes
In which case we probably don't regard the food source as toxic at all.
Or
not - in which case the toxins remain toxic to humans, and we presumably
have learned to avoid ingestion, or to process the food so as to reduce
the
toxicity to levels we consider acceptable. Similar to how we might deal
with
foods we know to have been treated with 'artificial' toxins, really.

So far as I am aware allowed pesticide levels in treated produce are not
related to subsequent treatment by the purchaser (which may, or may not,
reduce levels further).


Yes, but I was thinking more of people eating 'wild' foods, not produce,
e.g. Colin's one man eatathon to rid the country of J Knotweed, which might
well have taken a sizeable dose of God Knows What a few hours before he
harvested it.

snip sensible stuff, for which many thanks


Further the ADI is in essence set by the maximum amount of that produce
a consumer could theoretically eat. There are stories about excessive
proposed intakes such as the one where the proposed possible carrot
intake was close to 100% of diet (they might be carrot loving
veggies...), and was well over the toxic intake for the carrots
themselves. In this situation you wouldn't be harmed by the pesticide,
but would be killed by the carrots.


So what is the deadly dose of carrots, and does it alter if they are cooked?

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

BAC writes

"Oz" wrote in message

So far as I am aware allowed pesticide levels in treated produce are not
related to subsequent treatment by the purchaser (which may, or may not,
reduce levels further).


Yes, but I was thinking more of people eating 'wild' foods, not produce,
e.g. Colin's one man eatathon to rid the country of J Knotweed, which might
well have taken a sizeable dose of God Knows What a few hours before he
harvested it.

Anyone taking 'wild' food from inside an arable field that he doesn't
know the treatment of is being a tad naive.

If you want wild food, take it from wild places.

Further the ADI is in essence set by the maximum amount of that produce
a consumer could theoretically eat. There are stories about excessive
proposed intakes such as the one where the proposed possible carrot
intake was close to 100% of diet (they might be carrot loving
veggies...), and was well over the toxic intake for the carrots
themselves. In this situation you wouldn't be harmed by the pesticide,
but would be killed by the carrots.


So what is the deadly dose of carrots,

It's a lot, but quite easily reached if you try.


and does it alter if they are cooked?

Not as far as I am aware.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
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The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

In article , Jim Webster
writes

wrote in message
...
In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote:

"Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
In uk.rec.gardening Tumbleweed
wrote:
It makes reasonable sense:

Our digestive tract has evolved to cope with natural toxins.

no, our digestive tracts have evolved to cope with SOME natural toxins.
Also the plants and their toxins are still evolving

Er, surely a toxin is only a toxin if our digestion can't cope with it
and it poisons us. Anything we can successfully digest and either
metabolise or excrete is, almost by definition, not a toxin.

in which case Glyphosphate, the start of this thread, is not a toxin.

I think we have to be careful just how we bandy such words about. If I
remember correctly, asprin is poison for cats, if so, then Asprin is a
toxin.

And penicillin kills guinea pigs....


Trouble is we are all sloppy and casual and neglect to put in the full
details. Perhaps if we say plants produce an array of substances, many of
them toxic in varying degrees to many species.
But the obvious thing to do is eat more meat. Once it's been killed most of
your problems with regard to its defence mechanisms are over :-))

--
Five Cats

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

Five Cats writes

And penicillin kills guinea pigs....

Indeed it does. Stone dead.

If discovered today it would have been rejected on first screening,
never to be seen again.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
writes
In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
writes

Er, surely a toxin is only a toxin if our digestion can't cope with it
and it poisons us. Anything we can successfully digest and either
metabolise or excrete is, almost by definition, not a toxin.

How very wrong can some people be?

... I don't know, care to explain?

1) Many toxins are highly biodegradeable. Cyanide, for example is broken
down in a few tens of seconds. Pity you get to die first.

2) Many toxins get broken down by the gut, you just have to worry about
the bit that you get to absorb before it's broken down.

3) Many toxins get excreted, often damaging the kidneys and causing
kidney failure (some mushroom toxins being the best known).

In fact I can't, offhand, think of any toxins apart from heavy metals
(which are excreted, but slowly) that don't fall into one, some or all
of the groups above. A moment's thought, and you would have realised the
same.

None of which really affects what I said.

A toxin is something toxic which poisons us. If it doesn't poison us
(i.e. is successfully managed by our digestion) then it's not a toxin.

Some things which are toxins to some animals are not toxins for other
animals for just this reason.

--
Chris Green )

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

"Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
In uk.rec.gardening Tumbleweed
wrote:

: You miss the point, 'organic' plants are also full of insecticides and
: fungicides, naturally evolved to be super efficient at such stuff as
: mimicking animal hormones, (see the recent news on soy milk, killing
insects
: etc.
: When a random sample of around 50 of these chemicals was tested to the
same
: standards as man-made pesticides, 50% of them were found to be toxic, in
: fact *much more* toxic than would be allowed for man-made chemicals.
Thus
: the man made pesticides about which you complain are less toxic than
half
: these naturally ocurring chemicals. You complain about 'junk' when you
refer
: to man-made chemicals that have undergone rigorous testing, yet you eat
: plants full of hundreds of untested, probably more dangerous chemicals,
with
: no worries.

It makes reasonable sense:

Our digestive tract has evolved to cope with natural toxins.

Hmm. Let's just see how my digestive tract has evolved to cope with this
nice pie full of shiny, succulent, tasty and digestible Atropa berries. Or
on second thoughts, maybe not. Maybe it's just a 'gut feeling', but...

Specific enzymes exist to detoxify plant toxins that were naturally in our
diet -
and they have worked well enough to get us this far.

Being smart enough not to believe this sort of guff got us this far. Being
smart enough to help evolution along with plant strains that were more
nutritious and (in some cases) less toxic got us this far.

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

In article , Oz
writes
Five Cats writes

And penicillin kills guinea pigs....

Indeed it does. Stone dead.

If discovered today it would have been rejected on first screening,
never to be seen again.

Except that mice & rats are used a great deal more than GPs for
testing.....
Still I guess it might kill those as well.


--
Five Cats

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
: Tim Tyler writes
:In uk.rec.gardening Michael Saunby wrote:

:: All in all it's better to eat meat - animals generally defend themselves by
:: running away rather than producing toxins, so all you need is a means of
:: catching them.
:
:Not logical. You can't conclude it's better to eat meat because it can
:run away.

: I see you have missed the point completely.

The point was apparently:

Assertion: "All in all it's better to eat meat"
Justification: "animals generally defend themselves by running away
rather than producing toxins"

A dumb syllogism with a false conclusion.

:Meat is higher up the food chain for one thing - and thus will concentrate
:environmental toxins.

: But not pesticides, because they are biodegradeable - a requirement.

Please don't publicly spout mis-information like this on health topics.

An estimated 88% of all pesticide residues resident in food are found in
meat and dairy products.

Numerous pesticides are concentrated in animal fat.

E.g. see:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

Here it is in plain english:

``Beyond reflecting long-term energy balance, [adipose] tissue offers a
relatively stable depot of triglyceride and fat-soluble substances, such
as fat-soluble vitamins, and pesticides. As a tissue it represents the
greatest reservoir of carotenoids in the body. Halogenated hydrocarbons
may be measured in concentrations of hundreds-fold greater than those in
blood of the same individuals.''

- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

"Halogenated hydrocarbons" are typically pesticides and herbicides.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...

: Our taste buds do their best to warn us about many plant toxins.

: so you don't eat peppers?

I often go easy on many pungent fruit and vegetables.

I'm not sure what your point was - since the fruiting bodies of
many peppers are neither particularly pungent nor terribly toxic.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

In uk.rec.gardening Michael Saunby wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
: : "Tim Tyler" wrote in message
: : In uk.rec.gardening Tumbleweed

: : It makes reasonable sense:
: :
: : Our digestive tract has evolved to cope with natural toxins.
:
: : In which case we probably don't regard the food source as toxic at all.
: : Or not - in which case the toxins remain toxic to humans, and we
: : presumably have learned to avoid ingestion, or to process the food
: : so as to reduce the toxicity to levels we consider
: : acceptable. Similar to how we might deal with
: : foods we know to have been treated with 'artificial' toxins, really.
:
: Our taste buds do their best to warn us about many plant toxins.

: I've never tried raw soya but I reckon it's not good to eat. A lot of what
: we eat today needs some processing, to grow it in large quanties requires
: modern technologies. What alternative do you propose - starving people?

What alternative? - to promoting pesticides as safe?

Warning people that many pesticides are not safe - and encouraging them
to eat certified-organic produce - or at the very least wash their fruit.

: The plants are happy to cooperate in making themselves taste pungent.
:
: By contrast, the artificial toxins have been designed to be tasteless and
: invisible to consumers.

: And safe!

Indeed - but that often appears to be a secondary requirement.

Corporations want their products to sell. Only if there is
significant damage which tracable back to them, and they can't
claim innocence through ignorance - do they apparently get concerned.

Safety typically comes through regulation and testing - not
from the manufacturers - but DDT should have taught us that
it is not an infallible system.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
: Tim Tyler writes

:By contrast, the artificial toxins have been designed to be tasteless and
:invisible to consumers.

: One thing I am certain about, and that is that smell and taste features
: absolutely nowhere in anyone's selection procedure for pesticides. The
: infinitesimal residues (if any) left by the time you eat it are only
: detectable (if at all) by hugely sophisticated analytical equipment.

: Just to give you some idea I have visited a site where they could test
: at these levels. They had three areas, with separate doors to the
: outside and staff from each area were not allowed to touch each other
: until their shift had finished. This was because if one of the 'low
: level detection' area walked through the 'high level' area (where the
: test applications were made) then they would totally trash the analysis
: just from particles they picked up walking through.

: As any farmer would tell you, many sprays smell 'rather strongly'.

: So you are quite incorrect.

Reading comprehension problems? Or are you just a troll?

:Strawberries are one of the most pesticide-infected types of produce.
:They don't have natural toxins in.

: I very much doubt that. When I grew them nothing much but the odd slug
: ate them, which is always a giveaway.

I presume you were growing them on your own private planet - where
there are no birds.

:They are "designed" to be eaten by mammals like us.

: The fruits maybe. That doesn't mean they aren't toxic. I expect there is
: a fair bit of oxalic acid in them just the same.

The most toxic bit is probably the seeds - but very few of them are
digested.

:The fungicides sprayed on strawberries are toxic to
:animals like us.

: Fungicides are toxic to fungi.
: That's why they are called fungicides.

Because something is toxic to one kingdom that doesn't mean it
isn't toxic to other ones.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

Five Cats writes
In article , Oz
writes
Five Cats writes

And penicillin kills guinea pigs....

Indeed it does. Stone dead.

If discovered today it would have been rejected on first screening,
never to be seen again.

Except that mice & rats are used a great deal more than GPs for testing.....

The guinea pig is one of the standard mammals.

Still I guess it might kill those as well.

No, it doesn't kill rats and mice.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

Tim Tyler writes
In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...

: Our taste buds do their best to warn us about many plant toxins.

: so you don't eat peppers?

I often go easy on many pungent fruit and vegetables.

I'm not sure what your point was - since the fruiting bodies of
many peppers are neither particularly pungent nor terribly toxic.

Jalapenos are most definitely highly 'pungent', but not toxic.

Red kidney beans (a tad undercooked) are not at all pungent, and very
toxic.

Taste, and bitterness, are a crude and fallible test for toxicity.
Much better to know what is and isn't particularly toxic.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
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The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

Tim Tyler writes
In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
: Tim Tyler writes
:In uk.rec.gardening Michael Saunby wrote:

:: All in all it's better to eat meat - animals generally defend themselves by
:: running away rather than producing toxins, so all you need is a means of
:: catching them.
:
:Not logical. You can't conclude it's better to eat meat because it can
:run away.

: I see you have missed the point completely.

The point was apparently:

Assertion: "All in all it's better to eat meat"
Justification: "animals generally defend themselves by running away
rather than producing toxins"

A dumb syllogism with a false conclusion.

It's a fact that toxin levels are lower in meats than vegetables.
However I suspect this goes against your religion.

:Meat is higher up the food chain for one thing - and thus will concentrate
:environmental toxins.

: But not pesticides, because they are biodegradeable - a requirement.

Please don't publicly spout mis-information like this on health topics.

It is in fact true.

An estimated 88% of all pesticide residues resident in food are found in
meat and dairy products.

Factually incorrect.

Numerous pesticides are concentrated in animal fat.

No, just DDT.

``Beyond reflecting long-term energy balance, [adipose] tissue offers a
relatively stable depot of triglyceride and fat-soluble substances, such
as fat-soluble vitamins, and pesticides. As a tissue it represents the
greatest reservoir of carotenoids in the body.

Carotenoids are, of course, natural. Carrots are full of them and at
MUCH higher levels than you find outside polar bear liver. They are, I
agree, toxic.

Halogenated hydrocarbons
may be measured in concentrations of hundreds-fold greater than those in
blood of the same individuals.''

DDT, there you go. Banned in the early 70's.

"Halogenated hydrocarbons" are typically pesticides and herbicides.

Not modern ones (ie post early-mid 70's).

Please try to keep up to date, say within the last 20 years or so.

It's not hard.

--
Oz
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The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

Tim Tyler writes
In uk.rec.gardening Michael Saunby wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
: : "Tim Tyler" wrote in message
: : In uk.rec.gardening Tumbleweed

: : It makes reasonable sense:
: :
: : Our digestive tract has evolved to cope with natural toxins.
:
: : In which case we probably don't regard the food source as toxic at all.
: : Or not - in which case the toxins remain toxic to humans, and we
: : presumably have learned to avoid ingestion, or to process the food
: : so as to reduce the toxicity to levels we consider
: : acceptable. Similar to how we might deal with
: : foods we know to have been treated with 'artificial' toxins, really.
:
: Our taste buds do their best to warn us about many plant toxins.

: I've never tried raw soya but I reckon it's not good to eat. A lot of what
: we eat today needs some processing, to grow it in large quanties requires
: modern technologies. What alternative do you propose - starving people?

What alternative? - to promoting pesticides as safe?

Indeed they are.

Warning people that many pesticides are not safe - and encouraging them
to eat certified-organic produce - or at the very least wash their fruit.

Washing has no effect.

: The plants are happy to cooperate in making themselves taste pungent.
:
: By contrast, the artificial toxins have been designed to be tasteless and
: invisible to consumers.

: And safe!

Indeed - but that often appears to be a secondary requirement.

Not to the regulators, and they have the say that counts.

Corporations want their products to sell. Only if there is
significant damage which tracable back to them, and they can't
claim innocence through ignorance - do they apparently get concerned.

Nothing they say counts.
It's what the regulator says that counts.

Safety typically comes through regulation and testing - not
from the manufacturers -

yawn So what's new?

Heard of the 30 MPH speed limit?

but DDT should have taught us that
it is not an infallible system.

Indeed it taught us a lot. Not least that toxicity, biodegradeability
and carcinogenicity are important as well as other things.

Learned in the 60's, regulations in place in the 70's.
Ever increasing regulation ever since: gold plating.

Please try to keep up to date.

--
Oz
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"Oz" wrote in message
...

Red kidney beans (a tad undercooked) are not at all pungent, and very
toxic.

What is the toxin in kidney beans?

M

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

On Thu, 22 May 2003 22:11:15 +0100, Oz
wrote:



It's a fact that toxin levels are lower in meats than vegetables.
However I suspect this goes against your religion.

To hell with toxin levels. I've just been reading a news report
according to which the much-maligned Atkins diet, in which fat people
stuff themselves with meat and very little else, is both healthy and
efficient.
As you don't need to be fat to follow it, and it sounds delicious,
I'm going to try it.
To the butcher!
We leave at dawn!

--
Paul

http://paulrooney.netfirms.com/myweb/index.htm
Updated 13th May 2003

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

"Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...
In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message ...

: Our taste buds do their best to warn us about many plant toxins.

: so you don't eat peppers?

I often go easy on many pungent fruit and vegetables.

I'm not sure what your point was - since the fruiting bodies of
many peppers are neither particularly pungent nor terribly toxic.

I think you better start doing some basic research, how pungent are red
kidney beans


on your taste bud and pungency test which are safest, red kidney beans or
peppers?

Jim Webster
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

On Thu, 22 May 2003 21:21:56 GMT, "Michelle Fulton"
wrote:


"Oz" wrote in message
...

Red kidney beans (a tad undercooked) are not at all pungent, and very
toxic.

What is the toxin in kidney beans?

M

Phytohaemagglutinin

see http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/chap43.html

--
Peter Duncanson
UK

The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

Oz wrote:

So what is the deadly dose of carrots,

It's a lot, but quite easily reached if you try.

Urban (or perhaps, rural) myth. See http://www.steelgirl.com/carrot.htm

--
Mike Humberston
Barnes, London

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The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

Tim Tyler wrote:

The fungicides sprayed on strawberries are toxic to
animals like us.

If strawberries are supposed to be covered in fungicide then why is it that if I
keep strawberries in my fridge for more than a few days they rapidly become
covered in white fuzz?
--
Mike Humberston
Barnes, London

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The dangers of weed killers - Glyphostae aka Roundup, the hidden killer.
 

Oz wrote:

Just to give you some idea I have visited a site where they could test
at these levels. They had three areas, with separate doors to the
outside and staff from each area were not allowed to touch each other
until their shift had finished. This was because if one of the 'low
level detection' area walked through the 'high level' area (where the
test applications were made) then they would totally trash the analysis
just from particles they picked up walking through.

This doesn't make sense. Analytical labs which are set up to detect extremely
small quantities of substances have to keep the samples isolated from all
possible contaminants and that will include keeping them isolated from
contamination by the people who are working on them.

Also it doesn't require particularly sophisticated equipment or test conditions
to detect pesticides on at the levels which are present on vegetables which are
purchased by consumers. A gas chromatograph fitted with an electron capture
detector will do it for many although combined gas chromatography/mass
spectrometry may be required for unequivocal identification of some compounds.

--
Mike Humberston
Barnes, London

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Michelle Fulton writes
"Oz" wrote in message
...

Red kidney beans (a tad undercooked) are not at all pungent, and very
toxic.

What is the toxin in kidney beans?

You will have to look it up, but fortunately it's destroyed by proper
cooking. New veggies buying the dried beans are particularly at risk,
and people have died. It tends to get reported in the UK about every
five years, usually few or no deaths because they have been cooked (just
not quite enough) but very ill people.

Best to buy it ready cooked in a tin.

--
Oz
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Mike Humberston writes
Oz wrote:

Just to give you some idea I have visited a site where they could test
at these levels. They had three areas, with separate doors to the
outside and staff from each area were not allowed to touch each other
until their shift had finished. This was because if one of the 'low
level detection' area walked through the 'high level' area (where the
test applications were made) then they would totally trash the analysis
just from particles they picked up walking through.

This doesn't make sense. Analytical labs which are set up to detect extremely
small quantities of substances have to keep the samples isolated from all
possible contaminants and that will include keeping them isolated from
contamination by the people who are working on them.

So it does make sense then.

Also it doesn't require particularly sophisticated equipment or test conditions
to detect pesticides on at the levels which are present on vegetables which are
purchased by consumers.

That's not what those developing and running the tests say.
Also it's not 'detect' it's quantitively measure.

A gas chromatograph fitted with an electron capture
detector will do it for many although combined gas chromatography/mass
spectrometry may be required for unequivocal identification of some compounds.

Very probably. Whilst arsenic and other heavy metals in mineral water
has been easily and readily measurable for years by very primitive
equipment. Heavy metals are not biodegradeable and only very slowly
excreted.

--
Oz
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Mike Humberston writes

If strawberries are supposed to be covered in fungicide then why is it that if I
keep strawberries in my fridge for more than a few days they rapidly become
covered in white fuzz?

For pesticides there is a 'last spray to harvest' interval.

This is to ensure that the pesticide levels in the produce when sold is
below the required limit. For a 'programmed' spray plan the 'last spray'
is timed to easily miss the *earliest* harvest date because it's
unsalable until after that date.

However the weather is fickle. You have (for something like
strawberries) to allow for the hot spell that brings them on quick, so
the typical spray to harvest period is much more than the minimum.

This mostly isn't a problem because fungi usually need very special
conditions to attack plants successfully. They need the right
combination of rainfall, humidity, temperature AND the spores must be
there in significant quantity. Keep the spore level very low and it
takes them a long time to mount an effective attack that is visible,
even if the plants are unprotected. So you get 'effective protection'
for some (significant) time after the spray has vanished.

The uk regulations and inspections are very harsh, not to mention most
growers grow in full view of dozens, sometimes thousands, of people
(like roads) making cheating highly risky. This is NOT so in many other
EU countries and effectively non-existent in most second and third world
countries. This is one reason, out of many, why UK producers are being
put out of business by outside producers.

Remember france, for many years, exported three times the amount of
organic wheat than it produced. The fraud was caught, but it took years
and was exceptionally obvious.

--
Oz
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Mike Humberston writes
Oz wrote:

So what is the deadly dose of carrots,

It's a lot, but quite easily reached if you try.

Urban (or perhaps, rural) myth.

http://www.feelhealthynow.com/FAQ/sk...h_diet_FAQ.htm

'm drinking carrot juice regularly and my skin seems to be turning
orange or yellow? What's happening?

There are two possible reasons why your skin is turning orange. Either
your body is unable to process all the carotene properly in the carrot
juice you are drinking and high-carotene vegetables you are consuming,
or your liver is toxic. Either way, the color shows up in your skin.

If you are having difficulty processing carotene:

You may be drinking too much carrot juice at once. Your body can't
really assimilate more than 8-10 oz. of carrot juice at one time (taken
on an empty stomach). So if you're drinking a bigger glass than that,
you could be causing your own problem. Instead, try drinking no more
than 8 oz. at a time. If you're trying to add extra carrot juice to your
diet (possibly because you're fighting cancer and want the extra
antioxidants), then drink 8 oz. of carrot juice and wait at least an
hour before ingesting more. Your body can handle it at this rate and you
shouldn't be getting discolored skin.

Remember that while excess carotene can often cause this condition in
children, it is uncommon in HEALTHY adults because their liver should
function well enough to convert the beta-carotene to vitamin A and
eliminate the rest from the body. As a rule, spinach juice won't turn
you green, beets won't turn you red, carrots won't turn you orange. We
usually get yellow / orange when we are jaundiced because our liver is
congested or it is casting off toxins. The skin is one of four organs of
elimination in your body. Some toxins will come out there.


http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache...w.countrylife-
restaurant.co.uk/nuggets/cap1.pdf+%22vitamin+A%22+toxin&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Was that a good idea?

It's true that vegetables are an important part of a healthful diet.
It's also true that they are
increasingly being valued for their role in preventing disease. But five
pounds of one vegetable
every day? Judith's body eventually rebelled. Her skin took on a sickly
yellowish colour. Fearing
hepatitis, she rushed to the doctor. He explained that carrots contain
an orange-yellow dye
known as beta-carotene. The body handles reasonable quantities of this
substance, but excessive
amounts are stashed away in the liver, skin, and mucous membranes,
turning them the colour. of
a carrot.


http://endoflifecare.tripod.com/juve...ase/id228.html

Those who intend to take a supplement are advised to take only the
recommended dose, or the dose prescribed by one's physician, because
health risks can arise when there is too much of any given vitamin or
mineral in the body. Too much of this. .could lead to this.

Beta-carotene (Vitamin A)
Liver damage, yellowing of the skin (may also increase risk of lung
cancer in smokers), birth defects

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulate

Other compounds that are not normally considered toxic can be
accumulated to toxic levels in organisms. The classic example is of
Vitamin A, which becomes concentrated in carnivore livers: Polar bears
are the classic example: as a pure carnivore that feeds on other
carnivores (seals), they accumulate extremely large amounts of Vitamin A
in their livers. It was known by the native peoples of the arctic that
the livers should not be eaten, but Arctic explorers have suffered
vitamin A poisoning from eating the bear livers (and there has been at
least one example of similar poisoning of Antarctic explorers eating
huskie dog livers).


--
Oz
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