Organic Woo?

[Pipirr]

Is it really children reaching puberty earlier, or particularly girls reaching it earlier?

/I blame soy products!

Blame the absent father, too....

The relations between intactness of the parental unit (e.g., father absent at age 14) and pubertal timing in both men and women were examined in a US national probability sample. In both men and women, an absent father at age 14 predicted an earlier age of puberty (e.g., early menarche or voice change). There was little evidence that an absent mother or the presence of a stepfather, independent of a father's absence, was related to early puberty in either men or women. The results extend previous research and suggest that certain psychosocial factors (i.e., father absence) may affect growth and development in both adolescent girls and boys.

 

[kellyb]

I see where you are coming from. I always just thought that "organic" meant a better quality of life for the animal, but maybe not in all cases. You are right, the farms I have visited have all been quite small.

It's usually not the case, at least with milk. With milk, what's happened is that a bunch of conventional farms have switched to organic (the organic mega-companies lure them in with with promises of higher profits) and basically nothing changes other than a few "chemical" related practices. The cows still live miserable, overcrowded lives. Pretty much all the "organic" milk you see for sale at the grocery stores come from big dairy farms that used to be conventional and haven't changed their practices in any meaningful way when it comes to cow-happiness.
The organic labels (namebrands) advertise in a way that give a terribly false impression. They don't actually enforce the "humane treatment" standards they imply (but never even explicitly state exist, if you look closely).

On the bright side, I get the impression that all farms (conventional and otherwise) have gotten a lot better since the 1980's. I check out the PETA site every once in a while to check out whatever sort of "worst of the worst" videos they've been able to dig up/film lately, and nothing new comes close to what was going on back in the 80's. It's still sad, but not breathtakingly "I want to go crawl up somewhere and weep for shame for being a human" bad like it used to be.

 

[farmermike]

Organic is a production standard, not a product standard, after all, and until the organic industry starts testing, and proving, that it's produce meets these nutritional standards, its all just hot air.

Exactly
And Rolf that was an excellent post.The experience I've had with my vets has been generally good,they're very tactful and admit that they have to be part psychologists in dealing with all the different people with their different ideas.They have one vet at the clinic who deals with organic,homeopathic,alternative "cures".Just like human health care ,these things seem to go on and generally become acceptable with very little accountability.

 

[ZirconBlue]

I think the major point for clarification (from luchog) is between factory-farmed eggs having low nutritive content, and factory-farmed eggs having lower nutritive content than free-range. That would still allow for them having high nutritive content. I'm not sure which luchog is claiming.

I think that the claim is "lower" not "low". Personally, I buy Eggland's Best eggs, because -- based on the nutrition information on the cartons -- they are nutritionally superior to other eggs available at the grocery store.