Confirmation bias and anecdote doesn't do for evidence. Set up a blinded taste test. Then come back and tell us that you can tell the difference.
Organic Food
- Thread starter Puppycow
- Start date
Confirmation bias and anecdote doesn't do for evidence. Set up a blinded taste test. Then come back and tell us that you can tell the difference.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Oh, if he buys cheapo supermarket cuts versus prime well-butchered and hung "organic" I'll concede he might be able to tell the difference. But it won't be anything to do with whether or not the animal of origin was ever vaccinated, or had a prophylactic worm dose.
Rolfe
Rolfe
Until we know more about how he's cooking it, I am going to remain very skeptical. Besides, that's not a like-for-like comparison. As I said in my earlier post, in blind testings when the meat is aged the same, people can't tell the difference. Food critics can't tell the difference. And with meat like chicken, people are very seduced by things like colour and shape, same as the tomato issue.
I mean, I can claim I can tell the difference between a homegrown tomato and a supermarket one, whether either is organic is irrelevant. But I doubt I could tell the difference between an organic homegrown tomato and and a non-organic one.
If he was in the UK I'd set up the tasting myself. I still have to organise the Marmite/Vegemite and bottled water tastings we've been discussing on UK Skeptics.
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I agree that overuse of antibiotics is not good in general, but I'm not sure what "problems" you mean in the US with hormones. It's a myth that animals are "pumped full of hormones" in the US. There are some hormone treatments which are used, but I think you'll find that they're quite reasonable in both dose and type and have been researched pretty well. They're regulated by the FDA and the USDA.
The idea that there are famers pumping as much hormones as they can into animals is a myth. It's irritating that the EU seems to be so paranoid about it.
Also, the actual hormones which remain in the meat is not necesserily higher than that of non-treated animals who's hormone levels would run the gammet. There's no solid evidence that it's harmful to humans to eat meat treated with these hormones anyway. There are a lot of claims about it causing cancer. The studies which show this are, at best, dubious.
http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/Factsheet/Diet/fs37.hormones.cfm
Hey Rolfe, I agree with most of what you're saying. I think the idea of withholding effective treatment from animals because of some ideological stand is not just ridiculous but horrendous.
Anyway, on to a minor point of disagreement.
For instance, a farmer may be able to save money by giving his pigs a smaller living space, but by so doing expose them to a greater risk of infection. The antibiotics that he puts in their food to prevent that infection may cost less than maintaining that larger living space. In that case his interest (and that of the consumer, at least in the short term) lies in the use of less space and more antibiotics.
Some would suggest that the longer term negative effects, or the negative impact on animal welfare, are more important than the increased cost in this case. (by longer term negative impact I mean, for instance, possible antibiotic resistance)
Of course, I don't know how often farmers face that sort of balance. And I don't know that much about the laws, particularly in england, regarding how much space, for instance, each pig should be given. I'm just suggesting that there are times when it can be in a farmer's interest to do things that are not in society's interests, or the interests of the animals.
You also suggested that if people think that the current system has problems they should work to fix those problems rather than create a new system. I see two problems with that:
1. At present they are unlikely to be successful. Maybe that's because they are wrong. Maybe it's because others simply aren't aware of the problems and aren't interested in hearing about them. Regardless, if they aren't likely to be successful at changing the current system, sure they can do what they can, but they might think of doing something else that will have an effect in the present. You said you boycott organic meat because of ethical issues with it. I respect that quite a bit and your argument has gone some way in convincing me to do the same. From their perspective, by creating another source of meat they allow themselves and others the option of doing the same - boycotting meat that they feel is unethically produced.
2. Creating a separate system - and gaining the publicity that goes with it - may be an effective way of bringing the issues that they think are important to people's attention. That may be their best chance of effecting change.
Anyway, I think I should give my own viewpoint
:
What I care about are three things: cost, animal welfare, and the environmental implications. Sadly, I think that organic food comes up short on all three issues.
Cost wise, obviously, it tends to be more expensive.
Regarding animal welfare, I don't know enough, but from what I've read organic meat tends to be produced in much the same way as non-organic meat, but without decent medical care. They may say that they treat the animals better, but because "organic" is pretty vague, the requirements for the label end up doing very little to ensure a better life for the animals involved. In that sense, organic meat is likely worse from an animal welfare standpoint.
Environmentally speaking we're in an even worse state. We need a certain amount of food to support the current world population. Organic food requires more land for the same amount of food. The means the per person we're using more land.
To look at the same point differently, the organic movement drives up the price of food (because without it more food would be produced on the same amount of land, on average, worldwide). This drives up the value of arable land. Which increases the demand for more of it - fueling deforestation, for instance.
Anyway, on to a minor point of disagreement.
On the other hand, sometimes it's not a matter of only using this approach when there are no other options. It's a matter of using this approach when other options are more expensive in the short term.
For instance, a farmer may be able to save money by giving his pigs a smaller living space, but by so doing expose them to a greater risk of infection. The antibiotics that he puts in their food to prevent that infection may cost less than maintaining that larger living space. In that case his interest (and that of the consumer, at least in the short term) lies in the use of less space and more antibiotics.
Some would suggest that the longer term negative effects, or the negative impact on animal welfare, are more important than the increased cost in this case. (by longer term negative impact I mean, for instance, possible antibiotic resistance)
Of course, I don't know how often farmers face that sort of balance. And I don't know that much about the laws, particularly in england, regarding how much space, for instance, each pig should be given. I'm just suggesting that there are times when it can be in a farmer's interest to do things that are not in society's interests, or the interests of the animals.
You also suggested that if people think that the current system has problems they should work to fix those problems rather than create a new system. I see two problems with that:
1. At present they are unlikely to be successful. Maybe that's because they are wrong. Maybe it's because others simply aren't aware of the problems and aren't interested in hearing about them. Regardless, if they aren't likely to be successful at changing the current system, sure they can do what they can, but they might think of doing something else that will have an effect in the present. You said you boycott organic meat because of ethical issues with it. I respect that quite a bit and your argument has gone some way in convincing me to do the same. From their perspective, by creating another source of meat they allow themselves and others the option of doing the same - boycotting meat that they feel is unethically produced.
2. Creating a separate system - and gaining the publicity that goes with it - may be an effective way of bringing the issues that they think are important to people's attention. That may be their best chance of effecting change.
Anyway, I think I should give my own viewpoint
:
What I care about are three things: cost, animal welfare, and the environmental implications. Sadly, I think that organic food comes up short on all three issues.
Cost wise, obviously, it tends to be more expensive.
Regarding animal welfare, I don't know enough, but from what I've read organic meat tends to be produced in much the same way as non-organic meat, but without decent medical care. They may say that they treat the animals better, but because "organic" is pretty vague, the requirements for the label end up doing very little to ensure a better life for the animals involved. In that sense, organic meat is likely worse from an animal welfare standpoint.
Environmentally speaking we're in an even worse state. We need a certain amount of food to support the current world population. Organic food requires more land for the same amount of food. The means the per person we're using more land.
To look at the same point differently, the organic movement drives up the price of food (because without it more food would be produced on the same amount of land, on average, worldwide). This drives up the value of arable land. Which increases the demand for more of it - fueling deforestation, for instance.
Pipirr
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2006
- Messages
- 1,433
An old farmer I used to work with told me, "you can't beat the taste of a hen raised on the midden'.
The midden in question being a big steaming pile of slurry and straw that we had cleaned out the barn that morning.
I think his point was that if you want flavour, feed your animals poop.
The midden in question being a big steaming pile of slurry and straw that we had cleaned out the barn that morning.
I think his point was that if you want flavour, feed your animals poop.
Professor Yaffle
Butterbeans and Breadcrumbs
You should probably have started a new thread - it makes it easier for other peopl searching to find out if a question has been asked before.
Anyway, from the Alzheimer's Association:
http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_myths_about_alzheimers.asp
Rolfe
Adult human female
I don't really know a great deal about the US situation. Only that, when I've had this discussion before, I've been bombarded with claims that cattle in the USA are routinely given BST (bovine somatotrophin) which doesn't happen in Britain and which I can see there might be problems with - if not from consumer health issues, then for animal welfare reasons. If that's not the case, then I'd be glad to hear it.
Also, while I know that antibiotic usage here is almost entirely therapeutic, with a small amount of genuine prophylaxis (and no, it's not as simple as "give the pigs more space and the L. intracellularis will magically go away") and really no "growth promoter" use at least in mammals, I don't know the situation in the US. So I tend to cover my back a bit by acknowledging that there might be issues in the US which could alter the balance. For example, I find it hard to believe that one can't get simple pasteurised milk in the US, that it's either go for no treatment at all (frankly dangerous) or you're stuck with a whole gamut of homogenisation and additives and so on, but from what others have posted that seems to be the case.
So, I was just covering my back, and if these aren't issues in the US either, then so much the better.
Rolfe.
dakotajudo
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2005
- Messages
- 395
The USDA standards for organic meat is pretty specific - and make clear that animal health is not to be neglected. See http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/NOP/standards/ProdHandReg.html or http://agbiopubs.sdstate.edu/articles/ExEx2059.pdf
One of the problems producers have, switching to organic, is that you can't just "go organic". Animals get sick to the point where "organic" methods fail, they get treated according to standard methods, but must be taken out of the organic program.
So, either you sell animals, individually, to non-organic producers or you run an organic program along side the standard herd.
Well, yes and no. Current practice for maintaining herds on pastureland is pretty intensive, to the point that pastures are net carbon sources (because they're losing soil carbon).
Then there's the net nitrogen loss. Soil microbes fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, but that takes time, so you use synthetic fertilizers - but that's a pretty big energy cost. Then there's the run-off problems.
So yeah, organic methods may require more acres, but they also do less damage to those acres in the long term.
As for driving up cost of arable land - that's going up anyway, with corporate agriculture; small farmers are getting sqeezed out because they can't bid as much for the same land.
One other thing, not on topic but is taking land out of production, are the rich, urban dwellers buying summer or vacation homes in the country - Montana, for instance - or setting up hunting preserves. For example, Ted Turner - http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071129/BUSINESS01/711290357/1436/BUSINESS .
Personally, I've got no problems with organic production. There are legitimate concerns, of quality versus quantity, that consumers should have the option. (Surprisingly, perhaps, I'd formed that opinion before realizing that one of the largest organic beef companies is centered in my hometown http://www.dakotaorganic.com/AboutUs/processing_plant.php - it opened after Dad had retired).
With respect to antibiotics, current chicken production needs a lot of inputs, because modern broiler breeds grow much to fast for traditional feed methods. Bone growth problems are what I'm most familiar with (when I raised hybrid broilers, they needed vitamin supplements in the water; feed supplements were not enough), but I suspect there's a need for prophylatic antibiotics as well.
With hogs, the situation is more complex. The hog confinement operations I'm familiar with are highly controlled environments - workers "shower in" and "shower out", and the list of potential prophylactic antibiotics is pretty long - see http://extension.missouri.edu/explorepdf/agguides/ansci/g02353.pdf . I couldn't find much information on the relationship between swine immune responsiveness and growth rate, but my general feeling is that hogs that are more genetically resistant to disease are not going to be higher producers. In otherwords, modern swine breeds need help to stay healthy (although in may be a simple as limiting disease exposure and the associated growth drag).
Our hogs, they were outside animals; but then, we had to be extra careful about cooking our pork.
I'll have to do some more research on it, but it's difficult because there is a lot of really bad info out there on it. Based on what I've seen the human effects seem to be something which have been shown to not be of concern, considering the actual amounts and such. I don't see grounds for concern over safety.
You're right about animal welfare though, that is more legitimate a concern. It's not like cattle are drenched in the stuff or anything, but there are credable reasons I've seen in that area. The EU approved it for use in all member countries a while ago but it was put on moratorium. Canada has limited use.
There's a lot of agendas out there, but as I said: Animal welfare might be a legit concern. I'll have to do more digging on that one. I just think the whole food supply things are not nearly what they are stated to be