Organic is just green washing, it doesn’t mean no chemicals. Plenty of organic products contain toxic chemicals and heavy metals. Organic oats have been found to contain glyphosate. Organic spices have been found to contain heavy metals.
Organic means that no non-organic pesticides have been used in production. There are still organic ones available, which are less dangerous. Especially to the farmers who are the first ones to get exposed to the poisons we spread on the fields.
care to cite any decent research proving you point?
there's an extensive body of research on synthetics having no effect on human health, from goverment funded, private and independent research... if you access your country's official institution you'll see there's plenty of synthetics allowed in organic agriculture just because they mimic perfectly "organic" substances
interesting point too, is the lack of any extensive meta-analysis/studies on organic pesticide impact on health and plus the fact organic farm is rather poor (produce less than 2% of the global food) and usually if not always lack good machinery to spread pesticides on the recommended quantities science points out (which organic agriculture also has less literature on that too)
Why were they allowed in the first place, if "research" was enough? Science is not definitive, and what we believe to be an approximation of the truth today way be discovered to be totally wrong tomorrow. You are confusing science and religion.
Would you defend, for instance, that DDT and other organochlorine poisons are safe? They were the darling of scientists and agrobiz companies for a long time, until we discovered well that they were dangerous.
Of course, if we find a strict equivalent to a biopesticide that happens to be synthetical, it would be a good substitute. But most synthetic pesticides are not like this, unfortunately.
And what you say about the lack of studies regarding organic farming is a plain lie, it takes 30 seconds on google scholar to find it:
as many synthetic are developed... last time i was making an inventory of an exclusive corn and soybean high tech farm (selling on the hundreds millions USD) there was at least 45 different pesticides... some were distributed in a quantity of 10 mililiters! per hectare with machine with proper air filter at the cabine of the tractor never seen by the organic movement, which by the way, considering their ~ 30% increase in land, fertilizers and pesticides needs and their production totalling less than 2% of all the global food, feels quite a stretch to read author's conclusion of your last study...
your 2° cited study shows improvement on soil quality by variety/rotation, what it has to do with GMO technology? one literally can plant varied stuff while using synthetic pesticides... take a look on most health studies done in organics and health not controlling for life style factors, nor any major study even found dangerous levels of pesticides in food. don't get me wrong, there are niche cases were organic crops just make sense but when you start dismissing GMO technology for a 8 billion and growing world, which in decades will move out of the rural ambient (rural flight is an on going thing, literally no one wants to work in farms, much less in organic ones were the workload is much bigger, if not borderline on slavery (trust me, i did some WWOOF)), feels pure ignorancy out of greenwashing or small studies compared to what we rolled on science the past 30 years of GMO technology
Why are synthetics regularly banned if they are safe then? Is every farm high-tech, with million dollars tractors and big, flat fields? How about crops where pesticides have to be applied manually? How about communities near the fields, which breathe those products?[0]
Why are you trying to slide the discussion with GMOs, which aren't relevant since we talk about pesticides?
Saying that "organic has 2% of the world crop" is not true : certified organic crops, yes. Most of the earth's biomass grows without synthetic pesticides, and many farms in the world have the same practices without the labels.
In general, organic farming is a reference, of course that it doesn't have to be a religion. It is also a great source of scientific experimentation, especially for soil regeneration and biodiversity (which alas, I know, isn't profitable for Monsanto&co... yet!)
Using less pesticides in general is something that is proven better[1], and doesn't necessarily reduces yields[2]. Organic farming is part of the global effort for the reduction in pesticide usage, and doesn't have to be hegemonic. Having "organic farming only" areas are for instance great to create havens for biodiversity, while agricorps are allowed to run wild elsewhere.
Overall it's great for consumer choice, and reducing to the maximum pesticides intake for children should be a goal, given their sensitivity to endocrine disruptors.
Organic is a label which means something specific. Compliance with the definition is controlled by law, however imperfectly. It is not just greenwashing.
You are both correct. Organic means something specific. However what it means is not what most people think it means. People want healthy and good for the earth - that is not what organic gives you. Sometimes it does, but sometimes conventional ag (with all those scary chemicals) is better.
Yes, I get this argument. But everybody intuitively understands the basic proposition of organic. Namely: "We have not added anything to your food for which you don't have many thousands of years of evolutionary preparation." That is not pseudoscience, it's rational circumspection. Or, as the European Commission calls it, the "precautionary principle". Speaking for myself, I find it convincing.
Problem is we have modern science which in same cases has proven that the modern chemicals are less harmful. Remember lead was considered normal for many thousands of years
Modern science can only "prove" that something is not harmful on a timescale of a year or perhaps a decade, not a generation or more. If the precautionary principle had been applied in Roman times, lead would not have been considered safe. Nor asbestos, nor thalidomide, nor microplastics, nor a bunch of synthetic molecules - "proven safe" - that are routinely added to non-organic food in order to improve its yield or its cosmetic aspect or whatever. That was my point.
That is still better than organic, which doesn't even ask what science can show about chemicals. The obvious example is organic doesn't have GMOs, even though GMOs are the only foods we even try and prove safe. Everything else, what we just assumed, but nobody has ever actually checked.
The argument we are having here is essentially a classic of philosophy: empiricism versus rationalism. You keep arguing for the former; I am arguing for the latter. It is true that molecule X may not present an observable danger to health; it is also true that it may be reasonable to believe it does present one (most obviously because we do not have thousands of generations of evolutionary adaptation to it, as is the case with both lead and GMOs).
This dichotomy underpins a difference in regulation between the USA and Europe. As mentioned already, the EU Commission applies the "precautionary principle" in its legal regime for food and chemicals. This is not "unscientific". Empiricism has been more popular in the Anglophone world, but rationalism was one of the pillars of the scientific Enlightenment.
I used lead as an example only because everyone actually understands why it's harmful. There are a number of chemicals that are more harmful, common vinegar for example in the concentrations that are useful, but nobody understands it because nobody has actually read the safety information on such chemicals.
Agricultural use is a lot more concentrated though, which is important. In the case of vinegar this is about safety.
Though I don't know how much vinegar is used in ag - my facebook feed is full of people who don't need roundup because some concoction of vinegar, salt, and dish soap works - they never point out that you need PPE to work with this stuff that isn't required for roundup.
Agricultural use is not more concentrated than culinary use by the time it goes into my mouth. I've never tasted any vegetable off the shelf that was more sour than a pickle.
Occupational exposure is certainly a totally different story but the context of the story and root of this thread was about the consumer safety of the end product.
True. My tea merchant sells two varieties of the same tea. The organic and the regular. I asked what the difference was, and they said the tea comes from the same village, and that the organic one was lower quality, so they invested in EU stamps to get a higher price, while the higher quality one did not feel the need. No difference essentially, except that the organic was priced higher.
So I always make a point to buy the inorganic one (pun intended!).
But it is controlled for the wrong criterias.
"Natural" doesn't mean healthy or good for the environment.
It is only greenwashing and "appeal to nature" fallacy
Or do you need evidence that the bio labels are not optimizing for health or environment? Check the rules. Most of them are just there to restrict synthetic products, regardless of their impact.
Organic means that no non-organic pesticides have been used in production. There are still organic ones available, which are less dangerous. Especially to the farmers who are the first ones to get exposed to the poisons we spread on the fields.
care to cite any decent research proving you point?
there's an extensive body of research on synthetics having no effect on human health, from goverment funded, private and independent research... if you access your country's official institution you'll see there's plenty of synthetics allowed in organic agriculture just because they mimic perfectly "organic" substances
interesting point too, is the lack of any extensive meta-analysis/studies on organic pesticide impact on health and plus the fact organic farm is rather poor (produce less than 2% of the global food) and usually if not always lack good machinery to spread pesticides on the recommended quantities science points out (which organic agriculture also has less literature on that too)
Not all synthetics are dangerous, many are. Many are banned, with the list growing each year: https://www.npic.orst.edu/reg/restricted.html
Why were they allowed in the first place, if "research" was enough? Science is not definitive, and what we believe to be an approximation of the truth today way be discovered to be totally wrong tomorrow. You are confusing science and religion.
Would you defend, for instance, that DDT and other organochlorine poisons are safe? They were the darling of scientists and agrobiz companies for a long time, until we discovered well that they were dangerous.
Of course, if we find a strict equivalent to a biopesticide that happens to be synthetical, it would be a good substitute. But most synthetic pesticides are not like this, unfortunately.
And what you say about the lack of studies regarding organic farming is a plain lie, it takes 30 seconds on google scholar to find it:
- Farmers in organic farms are less exposed to health effects of synthetic pesticides: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03784...
- Organic farming improve soils and yields: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1658077X2...
- Review on organic food quality and health effects: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12940-017-031...
> Not all synthetics are dangerous, many are. Many are banned, with the list growing each year: https://www.npic.orst.edu/reg/restricted.html
as many synthetic are developed... last time i was making an inventory of an exclusive corn and soybean high tech farm (selling on the hundreds millions USD) there was at least 45 different pesticides... some were distributed in a quantity of 10 mililiters! per hectare with machine with proper air filter at the cabine of the tractor never seen by the organic movement, which by the way, considering their ~ 30% increase in land, fertilizers and pesticides needs and their production totalling less than 2% of all the global food, feels quite a stretch to read author's conclusion of your last study...
your 2° cited study shows improvement on soil quality by variety/rotation, what it has to do with GMO technology? one literally can plant varied stuff while using synthetic pesticides... take a look on most health studies done in organics and health not controlling for life style factors, nor any major study even found dangerous levels of pesticides in food. don't get me wrong, there are niche cases were organic crops just make sense but when you start dismissing GMO technology for a 8 billion and growing world, which in decades will move out of the rural ambient (rural flight is an on going thing, literally no one wants to work in farms, much less in organic ones were the workload is much bigger, if not borderline on slavery (trust me, i did some WWOOF)), feels pure ignorancy out of greenwashing or small studies compared to what we rolled on science the past 30 years of GMO technology
https://biofortified.org/genera/independent-funding/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3367244/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7061863/
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600850
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6918800/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10814746/
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1602638
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44264-023-00009-7
Why are synthetics regularly banned if they are safe then? Is every farm high-tech, with million dollars tractors and big, flat fields? How about crops where pesticides have to be applied manually? How about communities near the fields, which breathe those products?[0]
Why are you trying to slide the discussion with GMOs, which aren't relevant since we talk about pesticides?
Saying that "organic has 2% of the world crop" is not true : certified organic crops, yes. Most of the earth's biomass grows without synthetic pesticides, and many farms in the world have the same practices without the labels.
In general, organic farming is a reference, of course that it doesn't have to be a religion. It is also a great source of scientific experimentation, especially for soil regeneration and biodiversity (which alas, I know, isn't profitable for Monsanto&co... yet!)
Using less pesticides in general is something that is proven better[1], and doesn't necessarily reduces yields[2]. Organic farming is part of the global effort for the reduction in pesticide usage, and doesn't have to be hegemonic. Having "organic farming only" areas are for instance great to create havens for biodiversity, while agricorps are allowed to run wild elsewhere.
Overall it's great for consumer choice, and reducing to the maximum pesticides intake for children should be a goal, given their sensitivity to endocrine disruptors.
[0] https://oem.bmj.com/content/68/9/694.short
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42452-019-1485-1
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/nplants20178
> There are still organic ones available, which are less dangerous.
"Organic" as in certified 'Organic' or as in the class of molecules?
If the former then I'd love to see the classification requirements that make a qualifying chemical safer all the ones that aren't.
If the later, that's blatantly untrue
"Organic" as in "allowed in what is commonly called 'organic farming'". You can find the rather short list here: https://www.agdaily.com/technology/the-list-of-pesticides-ap...
Note that other countries may have different legislations. You are also free to eat DDT to prove that organic farming is not really safer.
> There are still organic ones available, which are less dangerous.
You’re gunna want to look at the later half of that.
Organic is a label which means something specific. Compliance with the definition is controlled by law, however imperfectly. It is not just greenwashing.
You are both correct. Organic means something specific. However what it means is not what most people think it means. People want healthy and good for the earth - that is not what organic gives you. Sometimes it does, but sometimes conventional ag (with all those scary chemicals) is better.
Yes, I get this argument. But everybody intuitively understands the basic proposition of organic. Namely: "We have not added anything to your food for which you don't have many thousands of years of evolutionary preparation." That is not pseudoscience, it's rational circumspection. Or, as the European Commission calls it, the "precautionary principle". Speaking for myself, I find it convincing.
Problem is we have modern science which in same cases has proven that the modern chemicals are less harmful. Remember lead was considered normal for many thousands of years
Modern science can only "prove" that something is not harmful on a timescale of a year or perhaps a decade, not a generation or more. If the precautionary principle had been applied in Roman times, lead would not have been considered safe. Nor asbestos, nor thalidomide, nor microplastics, nor a bunch of synthetic molecules - "proven safe" - that are routinely added to non-organic food in order to improve its yield or its cosmetic aspect or whatever. That was my point.
That is still better than organic, which doesn't even ask what science can show about chemicals. The obvious example is organic doesn't have GMOs, even though GMOs are the only foods we even try and prove safe. Everything else, what we just assumed, but nobody has ever actually checked.
The argument we are having here is essentially a classic of philosophy: empiricism versus rationalism. You keep arguing for the former; I am arguing for the latter. It is true that molecule X may not present an observable danger to health; it is also true that it may be reasonable to believe it does present one (most obviously because we do not have thousands of generations of evolutionary adaptation to it, as is the case with both lead and GMOs).
This dichotomy underpins a difference in regulation between the USA and Europe. As mentioned already, the EU Commission applies the "precautionary principle" in its legal regime for food and chemicals. This is not "unscientific". Empiricism has been more popular in the Anglophone world, but rationalism was one of the pillars of the scientific Enlightenment.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/glossary/precauti...
Why are you allowing chemicals with proven toxicity then?
Yes, but we understand modern science as it pertains to both... which is why lead is controlled for both organic and non-organic farming.
Honestly curious, which of these is more harmful than the non-organic alternatives?
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-I/su...
I used lead as an example only because everyone actually understands why it's harmful. There are a number of chemicals that are more harmful, common vinegar for example in the concentrations that are useful, but nobody understands it because nobody has actually read the safety information on such chemicals.
I would imagine any agricultural use of vinegar as an organic chemical pales in comparison to it’s culinary use.
Agricultural use is a lot more concentrated though, which is important. In the case of vinegar this is about safety.
Though I don't know how much vinegar is used in ag - my facebook feed is full of people who don't need roundup because some concoction of vinegar, salt, and dish soap works - they never point out that you need PPE to work with this stuff that isn't required for roundup.
Agricultural use is not more concentrated than culinary use by the time it goes into my mouth. I've never tasted any vegetable off the shelf that was more sour than a pickle.
Occupational exposure is certainly a totally different story but the context of the story and root of this thread was about the consumer safety of the end product.
Are you sure the basic proposition of organic isn't "we can get people to pay more if we put on this label".
Speaking for myself, yes, I am sure. See previous comments for explanation.
True. My tea merchant sells two varieties of the same tea. The organic and the regular. I asked what the difference was, and they said the tea comes from the same village, and that the organic one was lower quality, so they invested in EU stamps to get a higher price, while the higher quality one did not feel the need. No difference essentially, except that the organic was priced higher.
So I always make a point to buy the inorganic one (pun intended!).
Within the EU, it does. There's a whole regulation for it: EU 2018/848.
At least in Germany we have “Bio” which is a organic label that is controlled at least somewhat.
But it is controlled for the wrong criterias. "Natural" doesn't mean healthy or good for the environment. It is only greenwashing and "appeal to nature" fallacy
Strong claims require strong evidence, not just throwing random fashionable words others are using. Your claims are very strong.
Do you need evidence that "Natural doesn't mean healthy or good for the environment"?
Asbestos, is "natural". So is Arsenic. And CO2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
Or do you need evidence that the bio labels are not optimizing for health or environment? Check the rules. Most of them are just there to restrict synthetic products, regardless of their impact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification#False_as...
People are downvoting you, but you’re right: https://news.immunologic.org/p/organic-foods-are-not-healthi...
Organic is marketing. Organic produce is more profitable.