45 replies to this topic

[Peter]

I have not eaten at McDonald's in 5 years and I do not eat any fast food for that matter. My family only eats organic meat which does not come from cows who eat other cows!

[SkiBachelor]

Does anyone here even know what Organic means anymore? I even see beds that state they're organic and when you ask the sales person, they can't answer how they are organic!

[Bill]

For it to be "organic" a certain percentage has to be that. Not the whole entire thing, so watch the labels.

[liftmech]

An organic mattress is made from organic cotton. Cotton is one of the most heavily sprayed (pesticides and such) crops in America. Google 'organic cotton' and find out. Organic, as a label describing products, isn't just limited to food products.

From an earlier comment- how is fast food best? As someone just posted, McDonald's burgers are the worst in the industry. I have no idea what goes into them and I'm not sure I want to know. I'm not a food snob, but I get an upset stomach whenever I eat beef products there. Fast food is cheap and quick because of the cheap ingredients used. Most of the cows come from feedlots where all they do is stand around in their own $#!t all day, ingesting who knows how many different species of nasty microbes. I have nothing against eating beef, and as far as the 'humane treatment' of animals destined for food I can't really say if there is such a thing. I do know that feedlot animals have to be shot full of antibiotics just to keep them healthy, which makes the bugs more resistant to the drugs, so the cattlemen need to give the animals more drugs, and so on. At least pasture-raised animals only need drugs when they're truly sick.

[Callao]

What it means to be organic was defined in 1990 by the USDA and further defined in 2002, which included rules and regulations about who could apply the USDA "Organic" stamp to their product. The definitions are long! Here is a small section of the "Preamble" that talks about the production of livestock (you can just read the synopsis in the next post):

Livestock Production

Any livestock product to be sold, labeled, or represented as organic must be maintained under continuous organic management from the last third of gestation or hatching with three exceptions. Poultry or edible poultry products must be from animals that have been under continuous organic management beginning no later than the second day of life. Milk or milk products must be from animals that have been under continuous organic management beginning no later than 1 year prior to the production of such products, except for the conversion of an entire, distinct herd to organic production. For the first 9 months of the year of conversion, the producer may provide the herd with a minimum of 80-percent feed that is either organic or produced from land included in the organic system plan and managed in compliance with organic crop requirements. During the final 3 months of the year of conversion, the producer must provide the herd feed in compliance with section 205.237. Once the herd has been converted to organic production, all dairy animals shall be under organic management from the last third of gestation. Livestock used as breeder stock may be brought from a nonorganic operation into an organic operation at any time, provided that, if such livestock are gestating and the offspring are to be organically raised from birth, the breeder stock must be brought into the organic operation prior to the last third of gestation.

Should an animal be brought into an organic operation pursuant to this section and subsequently moved to a nonorganic operation, neither the animal nor any products derived from it may be sold, labeled, or represented as organic. Breeder or dairy stock that has not been under continuous organic management from the last third of gestation may not be sold, labeled, or represented as organic slaughter stock. The producer of an organic livestock operation must maintain records sufficient to preserve the identity of all organically managed livestock and all edible and nonedible organic livestock products produced on his or her operation.

Except for nonsynthetic substances and synthetic substances included on the National List that may be used as feed supplements and additives, the total feed ration for livestock managed in an organic operation must be composed of agricultural products, including pasture and forage, that are organically produced. Any portion of the feed ration that is handled must comply with organic handling requirements. The producer must not use animal drugs, including hormones, to promote growth in an animal or provide feed supplements or additives in amounts above those needed for adequate growth and health maintenance for the species at its specific stage of life. The producer must not feed animals under organic management plastic pellets for roughage or formulas containing urea or manure. The feeding of mammalian and poultry slaughter by-products to mammals or poultry is prohibited. The producer must not supply animal feed, feed additives, or feed supplements in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

The producer of an organic livestock operation must establish and maintain preventive animal health care practices. The producer must select species and types of livestock with regard to suitability for site-specific conditions and resistance to prevalent diseases and parasites. The producer must provide a feed ration including vitamins, minerals, protein, and/or amino acids, fatty acids, energy sources, and, for ruminants, fiber. The producer must establish appropriate housing, pasture conditions, and sanitation practices to minimize the occurrence and spread of diseases and parasites. Animals in an organic livestock operation must be maintained under conditions which provide for exercise, freedom of movement, and reduction of stress appropriate to the species. Additionally, all physical alterations performed on animals in an organic livestock operation must be conducted to promote the animals' welfare and in a manner that minimizes stress and pain.

The producer of an organic livestock operation must administer vaccines and other veterinary biologics as needed to protect the well-being of animals in his or her care. When preventive practices and veterinary biologics are inadequate to prevent sickness, the producer may administer medications included on the National List of synthetic substances allowed for use in livestock operations. The producer may not administer synthetic parasiticides to breeder stock during the last third of gestation or during lactation if the progeny is to be sold, labeled, or represented as organically produced. After administering synthetic parasiticides to dairy stock, the producer must observe a 90-day withdrawal period before selling the milk or milk products produced from the treated animal as organically produced. Every use of a synthetic medication or parasiticide must be incorporated into the livestock operation's organic system plan subject to approval by the certifying agent.

The producer of an organic livestock operation must not treat an animal in that operation with antibiotics, any synthetic substance not included on the National List of synthetic substances allowed for use in livestock production, or any substance that contains a nonsynthetic substance included on the National List of nonsynthetic substances prohibited for use in organic livestock production. The producer must not administer any animal drug, other than vaccinations, in the absence of illness. The use of hormones for growth promotion is prohibited in organic livestock production, as is the use of synthetic parasiticides on a routine basis. The producer must not administer synthetic parasiticides to slaughter stock or administer any animal drug in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The producer must not withhold medical treatment from a sick animal to maintain its organic status. All appropriate medications and treatments must be used to restore an animal to health when methods acceptable to organic production standards fail. Livestock that are treated with prohibited materials must be clearly identified and shall not be sold, labeled, or represented as organic.

A livestock producer must document in his or her organic system plan the preventative measures he or she has in place to deter illness, the allowed practices he or she will employ if illness occurs, and his or her protocol for determining when a sick animal must receive a prohibited animal drug. These standards will not allow an organic system plan that envisions an acceptable level of chronic illness or proposes to deal with disease by sending infected animals to slaughter. The organic system plan must reflect a proactive approach to health management, drawing upon allowable practices and materials. Animals with conditions that do not respond to this approach must be treated appropriately and diverted to nonorganic markets.

The producer of an organic livestock operation must establish and maintain livestock living conditions for the animals under his or her care which accommodate the health and natural behavior of the livestock. The producer must provide access to the outdoors, shade, shelter, exercise areas, fresh air, and direct sunlight suitable to the species, its stage of production, the climate, and the environment. This requirement includes access to pasture for ruminant animals. The producer must also provide appropriate clean, dry bedding, and, if the bedding is typically consumed by the species, it must comply with applicable organic feed requirements. The producer must provide shelter designed to allow for the natural maintenance, comfort level, and opportunity to exercise appropriate to the species. The shelter must also provide the temperature level, ventilation, and air circulation suitable to the species and reduce the potential for livestock injury. The producer may provide temporary confinement of an animal because of inclement weather; the animal's stage of production; conditions under which the health, safety, or well-being of the animal could be jeopardized; or risk to soil or water quality. The producer of an organic livestock operation is required to manage manure in a manner that does not contribute to contamination of crops, soil, or water by plant nutrients, heavy metals, or pathogenic organisms and optimizes nutrient recycling.

[Callao]

The USDA has posted on their website:

"USDA makes no claims that organically produced food is safer or more nutritious than conventionally produced food. Organic food differs from conventionally produced food in the way it is grown, handled, and processed."

"The USDA Organic seal also tells you that a product is at least 95 percent organic."

USDA Consumer Brochure

And quotes from the Preamble:
"The producer must not use animal drugs, including hormones, to promote growth in an animal or provide feed supplements or additives in amounts above those needed for adequate growth and health maintenance for the species at its specific stage of life."

"The producer of an organic livestock operation must administer vaccines and other veterinary biologics as needed to protect the well-being of animals in his or her care. When preventive practices and veterinary biologics are inadequate to prevent sickness, the producer may administer medications included on the National List of synthetic substances allowed for use in livestock operations. . . . The producer must not withhold medical treatment from a sick animal to maintain its organic status. All appropriate medications and treatments must be used to restore an animal to health when methods acceptable to organic production standards fail."

USDA Production and Handling Preamble

[Callao]

If you like to read, you can see that the "organic" regulations mostly apply to the caring of animals (humane, if you will), rather than the production of healthy food. I think that the federal government felt they had to regulate something that was becoming a huge fad--"Organic"--to protect consumers from those selling regular product under a special label. This is regardless of the fact that evidence showing such a "special" product to be more healthy, is limited.

There is too much hype and emotion in the media, because it sells--everything from Supersize Me to the Atkins Diet. Sure they contain elements of truth--but they have to go so extreme one way or another, to get publicity. Comments like "My family only eats organic meat which does not come from cows who eat other cows!" only utilizes the "gross" factor, which is not a legitimate reason for widespread avoidance.

What's the matter with feeding cows cows anyway? Can somebody give me a real reason?

[cjb]

The choices of what was eaten are also an issue as well as the rest of his lifestyle choices. If anyone out there would finance me, I'll eat nothing but McDonalds for a month and show an improvement in health, I guarantee it and I am already pretty healthy. Of course I'll have to have some kind of compensation for eating McDonalds for a month, it is my least favorite fast food. By alot!

[chasl]

I generally live in Vermont and when I am there my wife and I only eat Organic meats and vegetables, one because it is better for you and two organic food, in all actually tastes much better. Simple test, take an organic egg and a standard egg brake them open in the same bowl and you can see the difference.
I will tell you it costs a lot more money to eat organic but it is worth it.

[SkiBachelor]

I think the reason why I not in the whole organic thing is because I live in Oregon and most the products I consume are already organic, without the organic label on them. Probably because Oregon based companies have been producing organic products for a long time and they feel that putting the organic label on them will confuse them that they're having to pay more for that organic label on the package.

[skier691]

yummy... Mcdonalds... my main winter food source. Eat plants, eat meat, eat whatever you want, its all good.

[k2skier]

I'm going vegetarian. Nothing but beer! It's just made from plants, right?

Fast food joints is a large part of why the US is the most obese country in the world

[Callao]

Eggs? Whether they are more healthy or not is up to debate. Appeal by appearance or taste, now that is something I would consider a quantifiable reason. We raise our own eggs here. Over the years, I've noticed the different appearance of the eggs (brown, white or the occasional green shell), and the yolks are darker. Interestingly, I noticed while living in Canada that all the yolks were darker than south of the border.

"Organic" is not so much concerned with a nutritional value, as it is with a humane value. It asks the question, "How are we treating our animals?"

Mere looking at an egg is not going to tell me which is more healthy. But it will tell me which is more attractive. "Yes please, I will take the pretty one."

[Callao]

Remember my Chicken in a Bucket?

 IMG_0136_1.JPG (253.79K)
Number of downloads: 3

This is justifiably inhumane: we blamed this one on the dog.

It's all part of farm life. Things live, poop, and die. And sometimes critters have to live outside. When they're done with that, we bag their dead bodies and through them in the trash. What is it with some city people, with their cats, who can't seem to get a grasp that animal life isn't as full of soft carpet, litter boxes and home-cooked meals as they'd like? What's next, parsley grown in humanely-air-conditioned green houses?

Life is much more resilient than what man has conditioned his life to. We felt bad about the Chicken in the Bucket. However, we have never had any indication from our dead animals that they preferred a humane burial over being tossed into the dumpster. Respect life. Respect humans more.

[zeedotcom]

The definition of organic depends on what you are talking about. Most times, Organic is implying that natural means, if any, are used to control pests, weeds, etc. Organic cherries, for instance, are often sprayed with mud to make it difficult for bugs to get into them. The other option is to use pesticides.

With regard to life, a quote from Jurassic Park:
"Because the history of evolution is that life escapes all barriers. Life breaks free. Life expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way." Malcom shook his head. "I don't mean to be philosophical, but there it is."

[Callao]

Hopefully the mud is organic.

[KMS]

Some things to think about

From a Southampton University Study published in the British Journal of Medicine:

One observational study in the British Journal of Medicine found that high childhood IQ was associated with vegetarianism in later life. According to the study, "Higher IQ at age 10 years was associated with an increased likelihood of being vegetarian at age 30 [...] IQ remained a statistically significant predictor of being vegetarian as an adult after adjustment for social class (both in childhood and currently), academic or vocational qualifications, and sex."
Researchers said it could explain why people with higher IQ were healthier as a vegetarian diet was linked to lower heart disease and obesity rates.
Vegetarians were more likely to be female, to be of higher occupational social class and to have higher academic or vocational qualifications than non-vegetarians.
However, these differences were not reflected in their annual income, which was similar to that of non-vegetarians.
Lead researcher Catharine Gale said: "The finding that children with greater intelligence are more likely to report being vegetarian as adults, together with the evidence on the potential benefits of a vegetarian diet on heart health, may help to explain why higher IQ in childhood or adolescence is linked with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease in adult life."



From the National Academy of Sciences:

“The U.S. population consumes relatively large amounts of meat and sugar, more refined than whole-grain products, and larger amounts of commercially processed than fresh foods. In contrast, most of the world's population today subsists on vegetarian or near-vegetarian diets for reasons that are economic, philosophical, religious, cultural, or ecological. Indeed, humans appear to have subsisted for most of their history on near-vegetarian diets.”

From The United Nations Population Fund:

“Each U.S. citizen consumes an average of 260 lbs. of meat per year, the world's highest rate. That is about 1.5 times the industrial world average, three times the East Asian average, and 40 times the average in Bangladesh (6.5 lbs).”

From The Worldwatch Institute:

Each kilo of meat represents several kilos of grain, either corn or wheat, that could be consumed directly by humans. If the 670 million tons of the world's grain used for feed were reduced by just 10 percent, this would free up 67 million tons of grain, enough to sustain 225 million people or keep up with world population growth for the next three years. If each American reduced his or her meat consumption by only 5 percent, roughly equivalent to eating one less dish of meat each weak, 7.5 million tons of grain would be saved, enough to feed 25 million people-roughly the number estimated to go hungry in the United States each day.

The massive quantities of waste produced by livestock and poultry threaten rivers, lakes and other waterways. In the United States, where the waste generated by livestock is 130 times that produced by humans, livestock wastes are implicated in waterway pollution, toxic algal blooms and massive fishkills. And livestock farms are getting larger throughout the world: one 50,000-acre hog farm under construction in Utah will produce more waste than the city of Los Angeles.

According to EPA, the world's livestock herds account for roughly 25 percent of anthropogenic emissions of methane-a potent greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. Moreover, the stagnant waste lagoons of factory-farm operations emit an additional 5 percent of human-induced methane, making livestock production the largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions.

The China Health Project, a joint Sino-American undertaking, examined the health effects of changes in the Chinese diet since the economic reform of 1978 and concluded that the recent increases in breast cancer, colorectal cancer, cardiovascular disease and obesity are closely linked to increased meat consumption. Moreover, these disease changes occurred at a level of meat consumption that is only a fraction of the typical American or European intake. The Chinese Academy of Preventative Medicine recently advised the Chinese government to limit the country's meat consumption, citing the massive health care costs-totaling in the hundreds of billions of dollars-that widespread chronic illness could inflict on the world's most populous nation.
Dr. Colin Campbell of Cornell University, who headed the China Health Project, conservatively estimates that excessive meat consumption is responsible for between $60 and $120 billion of health care costs each year in the United States alone. Domestic cash receipts for the meat industry totaled roughly $100 billion in 1997. If Campbell's estimates are correct, it is possible that this industry is a net drain on the American economy.

In poorer nations, the hard-fought advances against many infectious diseases are currently being undermined by a new epidemic of lifestyle diseases, due to rising consumption of animal products. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "wide adoption of the high-fat, hamburger-lifestyle" in developing nations has already lead to increased cancers and cardiovascular illnesses. WHO feels the situation will only get worse as chronic lifestyle diseases rapidly emerge as the major killers in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

[Callao]

Finally we get some real stats. The IQ study is an interesting one, and successfully addresses the link between income and vegeterianism, which I thought would be a factor, but apparently was not. I wonder, though, if (as this study was performed in Britain) that we are doing nothing more than identifying a sort of "micro-culture"-- or in other words, finding a group of people (who are defined separate from the general population by some other factor) who show higher IQ, and because of that some other factor, also choose to become vegetarians. Just remember, association does not imply causation.

However, stats from the Worldwatch Institute seemed biased. Look at this:
"The China Health Project, a joint Sino-American undertaking, examined the health effects of changes in the Chinese diet since the economic reform of 1978 and concluded that the recent increases in breast cancer, colorectal cancer, cardiovascular disease and obesity are closely linked to increased meat consumption."
I find it hard to believe that meat-consumption is the only thing that has changed in China since 1978 (China has been going through huge changes). Some other things that have changed is technology, population density, pollution, and above all, methods of measuring disease rates. They need to be much more thorough by going in, and isolating the variable by comparing the two populations (and I'm sure that some groups, which you have not cited, have actually gone and done this).

Personally, I highly suspect that eating excessive (as I leave "excessive" undefined) amounts of meat does in fact affect health negatively. But I don't think that anybody should be convinced of that by the statements Worldwatch has made above, which are simplified statements concerning a much more complicated issue.

[liftmech]

Eating excessive amounts of anything can be unhealthy. Cutting out portions of one's diet can also be unhealthy (notice I said can, not will- lift mistress mentioned correctly that soy is a complete-protein food, and that it can and does take the place of meat for many people). The human animal is, last I checked, omnivorous.

[zeedotcom]

Everything in China has changed since 1978. They have increased pollution immensely. Their economy has also grown, allowing them access to a lot of material things that they may not have had before (I consider McDonalds a material thing). There is much discussion about obesity in children, largely blamed on TV and video games, etc. These "lifestyle" things have likely contributed greatly to America's issues. I know for a fact that I have seen myself change in the last 10 years. I was a skinny kid at 13. I did a lot of stuff outside, and I ate relatively well (because that is what my parents gave me). I got a bit older, started working more, had more money to blow on crap like DVDs and video games (and yes, beer). I still try to be careful, but I can also tell you that I have a few pounds that I wouldn't mind getting rid of in the interest of health, both current and future. I don't seem to gain weight, I just don't seem to lose it much. Cutting out the excess fat, the extra sugar, and the beer does seem to help though. However, nothing substitutes for being active.

My plan for the healthy American: Eat Less. Move!