Not all plants die when sprayed, may be the wrong time to spray, wrong mixture, whatever. They may wilt and then revive. If all herbicides were 100% effective it would be a wonderful worldTexasBred":d4depc13 said:
GMO Feed
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IGotMyWings
Well-known member
I don't know what, if any, effects GMO feed or seed will have on the future. What I do know is that there is a growing market for naturally produced food. I know that with continued prevalence of genetic seed stock, those of us who choose to produce or purchase natural foods will be hard pressed to do it. The government regulations say that GMO is not allowed in organic feed, so, by their own standard, they are agreeing with my stand that it's not natural. Why don't they allow it, if it's just as good as or better than "natural" and perfectly fine?
Below are two articles that discuss the RR weed problems. The second site shows that Monsanto has been aware of the problem for at least nine years, and is already secured the patent for the upcoming super spray. With the advent of the super spray, it stands to reason that the hold up in it's marketing is either that they are waiting for just the right moment, or they are currently doing more genetic tinkering to make sure that they can also sell you the super spray ready seed to go with it. As for the dead plants building immunity, just so you know; the dead ones aren't the problem. It's the ones that don't die that are the problem.
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/courses/chm333/Roundup Article.pdf
http://www.france24.com/en/20090418...anto-heartlands-genetically-modified-US-crops
I have addressed how we can feed the world. The problem isn't that there isn't enough food, the problems lie with the distribution http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu22we/uu22we09.htm. If we can increase the nutrient value of our product, and improve how it's distributed, then we'd be ahead of the game. I've talked about ways to improve the product, but I will admit that I'm at a loss on figuring out how to better distribute it!
Again, I'm not trying to imply that I know it all about everything. I am hoping that some of those who have read through these posts will give some thought to what I've said, and make truly educated choices about how they produce beef. If that truly educated choice is the exact opposite of the way I do things, I'm okay with that, as long as you can say that you've done the homework and figured it out and not blindly followed what the big business marketing departments have said should be done.
Below are two articles that discuss the RR weed problems. The second site shows that Monsanto has been aware of the problem for at least nine years, and is already secured the patent for the upcoming super spray. With the advent of the super spray, it stands to reason that the hold up in it's marketing is either that they are waiting for just the right moment, or they are currently doing more genetic tinkering to make sure that they can also sell you the super spray ready seed to go with it. As for the dead plants building immunity, just so you know; the dead ones aren't the problem. It's the ones that don't die that are the problem.
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/courses/chm333/Roundup Article.pdf
http://www.france24.com/en/20090418...anto-heartlands-genetically-modified-US-crops
I have addressed how we can feed the world. The problem isn't that there isn't enough food, the problems lie with the distribution http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu22we/uu22we09.htm. If we can increase the nutrient value of our product, and improve how it's distributed, then we'd be ahead of the game. I've talked about ways to improve the product, but I will admit that I'm at a loss on figuring out how to better distribute it!
Again, I'm not trying to imply that I know it all about everything. I am hoping that some of those who have read through these posts will give some thought to what I've said, and make truly educated choices about how they produce beef. If that truly educated choice is the exact opposite of the way I do things, I'm okay with that, as long as you can say that you've done the homework and figured it out and not blindly followed what the big business marketing departments have said should be done.
novaman
Well-known member
In case anybody doesn't already realize it, there is now Liberty Link in many crops which ends the problems with weeds becoming resistant to Roundup.
longtimelurker
Well-known member
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I think you may be a little to far removed from agriculture to understand what you are saying. You want to pound the non gmo drum but you use gmo's everyday, if you are involved with agriculture.IGotMyWings":3978nxqq said:
TexasBred
Well-known member
IGOT....do you raise each and every bite of food that goes into your cattle?? If not then you are "blindly following" someone elses guarantee that the ingredients are "natural". The govt didn't put that restriction on GMOs because they agree with your standard. It's there to insure that you practive what you preach. Keep in mind that these are the same people who allow the antibiotics to be given to feedlot cattle.
Again...don't make the claim that your grass fed beef is a healthier product than grain fed. You have only one snippet of information to back you up and that is "higher Omega 3 fatty acids" and even that is not a constant....it's like looking at a tag on feed and one claims to be better because at 20 ppm zinc it has twice as much zinc as the one that only has 10 ppm...both might as well have none.
fargus
Well-known member
I'm going to step into this discussion.
First topic was the GMO feed. If the issue with GMO's is the chemical "unnatural" tinkering done in a laboratory than you need to discard any conventional seed variety and return to using landraces. Some of the conventional plant breeding methods used would make most people shudder. Consider that conventional plant breeding uses mutagens (basically cancer-causing agents) to CAUSE random point mutations, and then breed from the resulting progeny. This is accepted around the world as conventional, not transgenic. Tell me how putting a batch of seed in a "big bubbling pot of nasty" (the technical term used by the Master's student who developed group 2-tolerant lentils in Western Canada) is safe, predicatable and natural? Doubled-haploid breeding is likewise conventional breeding, and speeds the development of inbred parent lines enormously. Do you know how that is done? Isolating germs cells during meiosis and treating them with a chemical called colchizine, which inhibits cell division. It forces the haploid cells to reproduce their chromosomes, and then inhibits the cell split, so the chromosomes double back up as homologous pairs. Homozygous at every loci! They then treat with further chemicals to "tissue culture" the resulting diploid cells, grow them out and insert those genetics into a conventional breeding program. So my question is simple. How "natural" is all that? I am obviously not opposed to these things (I work as a salesman for a crop inputs supplier and seed dealer as well as running a cattle farm.) The line between GMO and conventional is VERY blurry.
Second, the topic has evolved into a discussion of the nutritional benefits of GMO vs conventional. One of the posts cited lower protein and riboflavin levels, and blamed it on GM crops. Horse manure. Plant breeding has done a fantastic job of increasing the efficiency of nutrient use in all of our crops. It used to take 1.2 lbs of nitrogen to grow 1 bushell of corn. Now it takes about 0.9 lbs. Of course the protein levels are going to be lower, we've been selecting for nitrogen use efficiency, and protein is approximately 16% nitrogen by mass. Similarly, by continuing to select for higher yields without pushing fertility correspondingly higher we are seeing a dilution effect. It isn't that the corn or wheat plant is producing less protein, or riboflavin, or whatver we are measuring per unit land area. It is actually producing more, but it is diluted by a higher overall yield of plant material. That is plant breeding, not transgenics at work.
I'm not knocking organic or natural production systems, but which leg are you standing on?
First topic was the GMO feed. If the issue with GMO's is the chemical "unnatural" tinkering done in a laboratory than you need to discard any conventional seed variety and return to using landraces. Some of the conventional plant breeding methods used would make most people shudder. Consider that conventional plant breeding uses mutagens (basically cancer-causing agents) to CAUSE random point mutations, and then breed from the resulting progeny. This is accepted around the world as conventional, not transgenic. Tell me how putting a batch of seed in a "big bubbling pot of nasty" (the technical term used by the Master's student who developed group 2-tolerant lentils in Western Canada) is safe, predicatable and natural? Doubled-haploid breeding is likewise conventional breeding, and speeds the development of inbred parent lines enormously. Do you know how that is done? Isolating germs cells during meiosis and treating them with a chemical called colchizine, which inhibits cell division. It forces the haploid cells to reproduce their chromosomes, and then inhibits the cell split, so the chromosomes double back up as homologous pairs. Homozygous at every loci! They then treat with further chemicals to "tissue culture" the resulting diploid cells, grow them out and insert those genetics into a conventional breeding program. So my question is simple. How "natural" is all that? I am obviously not opposed to these things (I work as a salesman for a crop inputs supplier and seed dealer as well as running a cattle farm.) The line between GMO and conventional is VERY blurry.
Second, the topic has evolved into a discussion of the nutritional benefits of GMO vs conventional. One of the posts cited lower protein and riboflavin levels, and blamed it on GM crops. Horse manure. Plant breeding has done a fantastic job of increasing the efficiency of nutrient use in all of our crops. It used to take 1.2 lbs of nitrogen to grow 1 bushell of corn. Now it takes about 0.9 lbs. Of course the protein levels are going to be lower, we've been selecting for nitrogen use efficiency, and protein is approximately 16% nitrogen by mass. Similarly, by continuing to select for higher yields without pushing fertility correspondingly higher we are seeing a dilution effect. It isn't that the corn or wheat plant is producing less protein, or riboflavin, or whatver we are measuring per unit land area. It is actually producing more, but it is diluted by a higher overall yield of plant material. That is plant breeding, not transgenics at work.
I'm not knocking organic or natural production systems, but which leg are you standing on?
Douglas
Well-known member
IGotMyWings":39b6g2t9 said:
I really believe that grass produced beef is better nutritionally than grain fed. If customers want to eat it fine. Grain fed beef is higher in fat and other stuff we don't need, but saying GMO grain is the problem is nonsense. And i believe that an organic tomato and a convntional produced tomato that is properly washed before eating are exactly the same nutritionally. Organic is a marketing scheme like CAB
TexasBred
Well-known member
fargus":gv7aga9v said:
Good info Fargus...AND, the lower the protein in corn......the higher the energy. ;-)
Douglas
Well-known member
This guy steven lendman you quoted is a left wing anti-globalist whacho who works for this organization:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=home
They seems to believe that 9/11 was a government conspiracy as follows:
This more open approach taken in the international media – I could also have included the Japanese media – might be a sign that worldwide public and corporate media organizations are positioning themselves, and preparing their audiences, for a possible revelation of the truth of the claim that forces within the US government were complicit in the attacks – a revelation that would call into question the publicly given rationale for the military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Another crazy conspiracy that the government is weaponizing the avian flu:
There is alarming evidence accumulated by serious scientific sources that the US Government is about to or already has 'weaponized' Avian Flu. If the reports are accurate, this could unleash a new pandemic on the planet that could be more devastating than the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic which killed an estimated 30 million people worldwide before it eventually died out. Pentagon and NIH experiments with remains in frozen state of the 1918 virus are the height of scientific folly. Is the United States about to unleash a new racially selective pandemic through the process of mandatory vaccination with an alleged vaccine "against" Avian Flu?
Anyone who believes this stuff is a moron.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=home
They seems to believe that 9/11 was a government conspiracy as follows:
This more open approach taken in the international media – I could also have included the Japanese media – might be a sign that worldwide public and corporate media organizations are positioning themselves, and preparing their audiences, for a possible revelation of the truth of the claim that forces within the US government were complicit in the attacks – a revelation that would call into question the publicly given rationale for the military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Another crazy conspiracy that the government is weaponizing the avian flu:
There is alarming evidence accumulated by serious scientific sources that the US Government is about to or already has 'weaponized' Avian Flu. If the reports are accurate, this could unleash a new pandemic on the planet that could be more devastating than the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic which killed an estimated 30 million people worldwide before it eventually died out. Pentagon and NIH experiments with remains in frozen state of the 1918 virus are the height of scientific folly. Is the United States about to unleash a new racially selective pandemic through the process of mandatory vaccination with an alleged vaccine "against" Avian Flu?
Anyone who believes this stuff is a moron.
MoGal":1q13nmnm said:
fargus
Well-known member
TexasBred":1ooy90vi said:
Yes.... what an awful thing. :roll:
IGotMyWings
Well-known member
I was raised working on my uncle's grain and livestock farm. When I started my own herd (many years later), I was somewhat at a loss because I had never started from scratch. My uncle had cows, his pastures were established and all that sort of thing. I was taking my little patch of ground that had been grain farmed for years (I cash rented it out), and turning it into pasture and hay ground. If I am out of touch, it's with the grain farming portion of things as I haven't pulled a plow, etc. for ages.
Now, with that said, I do consider myself to be more up to speed with cattle. Do I know it all? Nope. Do I know more that some? Yup. When I decided to raise cattle, I had figured on doing it the way my uncle did, and the way everyone else did. Matter of fact, that's exactly what I did. I fed grain, calf starter, creep pellets, and such. When my friend was telling me about her, once in a while, similar reaction to meat that she has to penicillin, I started checking things out. That led me to ponder the effects of growth hormones, along with antibiotic residues. I honestly believe that the same things that make our cattle fatter faster makes us fatter.
My research led me to what I do now. I raise grass fed beef. I do so because I believe that it's a healthier choice, and that's important to me. If you Google or whatever grass fed beef, you'll see that there are sellers that are charging $25-$40 per pound. I think that's gouging, and can't figure out how they can justify prices that high. Yes, grass fed takes longer, but I don't think it takes long enough or cost enough that a person needs to charge that much to show profit. As for organic being a scheme? Well, I think to some it is. They jump through the hoops in order to cash in. I was just at Kroger earlier today, and they have organic milk for $5.39/half gallon. What a bargain! I deal with those who are consumers, and to them, organic or natural food is a real concern. Some, as I've said before, can't drink "normal" milk because it makes them sick. They drink raw, unfettered milk, and they are fine. So far, the majority of my interested customers have been college educated people, some with backgrounds in nutrition. These are people who do their homework, and that homework has led them to the natural/organic market. They want natural meat, raw milk, and vegetables that were grown within minutes of their urban homes, not picked before ripe an gassed to change color.
GMO seems wrong to me, personally, because I believe it takes away from the nature of the product. Since the USDA, and their "truth in advertising" say that organic producers cannot use the product because it doesn't qualify as "natural" feed, they agree that no matter how good it might be in one respect, it still isn't natural. Sadly, even with that being proven to be true, there are still some that argue that GMO is natural. Even if I was all for GMO, but were to be a certified organic producer, I would have to be against it because it jeopardizes my feed supply especially if the alfalfa takes a market share comparable to what other RR crops have taken.
Natural food tastes better. I'm not talking about grass vs. grain fed, I'm talking about food, in general, that is made with real (meaning natural) ingredients. Real butter, real sugar, real everything makes the end product better. Like I asked before (but nobody answered) do you prefer artificially flavored vanilla ice cream, or naturally flavored vanilla ice cream? Do you prefer margarine over butter? How many of you, when you go into a town that has "city water" salivate like Pavlov's dogs at the sight of the first water fountain you see because you just dig you some chlorinated water? The same principle applies to our meat and dairy. If we feed real feed, the end result will be better tasting meat. Along that line, I also said that it's not so much you or me, the producer, that controls the end product, but those who taint it when it's processed. Although I have never toured a feedlot, I have driven by them, and although not all are as bad as the media shows, there are plenty that are. Why would a feedlot keep sick cattle with the healthy? Because SOME of them don't care. If the meat from a sick steer is ground up with the meat of ten healthy ones, the mixture will be low enough that it'll pass inspection. The FDA has guidelines for acceptable levels of all sorts of bad things in what we eat, like mouse droppings in peanut butter, for example. Look at all of the meat recalls because of E.Coli. E.Coli is a naturally occurring thing. It is more prevalent in grain fed cattle than grass fed because the corn, during digestion, creates an environment where it flourishes. Because the same concerned people who would never stuff cattle with unneeded antibiotics to keep them from getting sick because of the dirty conditions (that don't exist, right?) hire unskilled people to carve up the cattle, E.Coli contaminates the meat. Rather than slow things down a bit, or better train their people, they spray the meat with ammonia. Yum!
The cycle starts with GMO feed sources, that by the government's own standards aren't natural (but many of you argue that they are), and feeding steroids to the cattle, which is getting farther away from nature - ponder this...we all know what steroid use does to humans, remember Lyle Alzado? Anyway, I digress. After we feed the all natural genetically modified feed and steroids, and get that calf to market weight, we take it to the market. The market we sell too sells on up the food chain to those nice people who run those squeaky clean feedlots where they stuff the cattle with antibiotics and more steroids before taking the calf on it's last ride to the saw. In the slaughter house, where things move at a fast pace, and because of poor training, not one, or ten but, hell, I don't know; how many animals does it take to contaminate 22,000 pounds here or 41,000 pounds there? Sorry, I digressed again. A large enough portion of the animals slaughtered in the assembly line fashion that they are, are done so improperly causing tens of thousands of pounds of beef to be recalled because it's making people sick. Again, rather than slow the line down a bit, or hire/train better cutters, IBP comes up with a solution. A solution of ammonia to spray on our food to kill a bacteria that carelessness has put into our food supply.
Starting with GMO feed, and ending with ammonia fog, each step of the modern cattle raising process gets farther and farther away from nature, and I'm sorry if it offends some, but that HAS to impact the flavor and overall nutritional value. If your goal is to feed the world, why not try to feed the world better tasting, and better for them food? Oh yeah, I forgot. Genetically modified, steroid enhanced and ammonia sprayed food is just as good. My bad. I'll just sit over here with my little dunce cap on. :dunce:
Before I climb on that stool in front of the class, wearing my pointy little hat, I would ask that you check out http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/31/food-industry-environment#. Joel Salatin is a guru of sorts in the natural food world. He's much smarter about this sort of thing than I am.
Now, with that said, I do consider myself to be more up to speed with cattle. Do I know it all? Nope. Do I know more that some? Yup. When I decided to raise cattle, I had figured on doing it the way my uncle did, and the way everyone else did. Matter of fact, that's exactly what I did. I fed grain, calf starter, creep pellets, and such. When my friend was telling me about her, once in a while, similar reaction to meat that she has to penicillin, I started checking things out. That led me to ponder the effects of growth hormones, along with antibiotic residues. I honestly believe that the same things that make our cattle fatter faster makes us fatter.
My research led me to what I do now. I raise grass fed beef. I do so because I believe that it's a healthier choice, and that's important to me. If you Google or whatever grass fed beef, you'll see that there are sellers that are charging $25-$40 per pound. I think that's gouging, and can't figure out how they can justify prices that high. Yes, grass fed takes longer, but I don't think it takes long enough or cost enough that a person needs to charge that much to show profit. As for organic being a scheme? Well, I think to some it is. They jump through the hoops in order to cash in. I was just at Kroger earlier today, and they have organic milk for $5.39/half gallon. What a bargain! I deal with those who are consumers, and to them, organic or natural food is a real concern. Some, as I've said before, can't drink "normal" milk because it makes them sick. They drink raw, unfettered milk, and they are fine. So far, the majority of my interested customers have been college educated people, some with backgrounds in nutrition. These are people who do their homework, and that homework has led them to the natural/organic market. They want natural meat, raw milk, and vegetables that were grown within minutes of their urban homes, not picked before ripe an gassed to change color.
GMO seems wrong to me, personally, because I believe it takes away from the nature of the product. Since the USDA, and their "truth in advertising" say that organic producers cannot use the product because it doesn't qualify as "natural" feed, they agree that no matter how good it might be in one respect, it still isn't natural. Sadly, even with that being proven to be true, there are still some that argue that GMO is natural. Even if I was all for GMO, but were to be a certified organic producer, I would have to be against it because it jeopardizes my feed supply especially if the alfalfa takes a market share comparable to what other RR crops have taken.
Natural food tastes better. I'm not talking about grass vs. grain fed, I'm talking about food, in general, that is made with real (meaning natural) ingredients. Real butter, real sugar, real everything makes the end product better. Like I asked before (but nobody answered) do you prefer artificially flavored vanilla ice cream, or naturally flavored vanilla ice cream? Do you prefer margarine over butter? How many of you, when you go into a town that has "city water" salivate like Pavlov's dogs at the sight of the first water fountain you see because you just dig you some chlorinated water? The same principle applies to our meat and dairy. If we feed real feed, the end result will be better tasting meat. Along that line, I also said that it's not so much you or me, the producer, that controls the end product, but those who taint it when it's processed. Although I have never toured a feedlot, I have driven by them, and although not all are as bad as the media shows, there are plenty that are. Why would a feedlot keep sick cattle with the healthy? Because SOME of them don't care. If the meat from a sick steer is ground up with the meat of ten healthy ones, the mixture will be low enough that it'll pass inspection. The FDA has guidelines for acceptable levels of all sorts of bad things in what we eat, like mouse droppings in peanut butter, for example. Look at all of the meat recalls because of E.Coli. E.Coli is a naturally occurring thing. It is more prevalent in grain fed cattle than grass fed because the corn, during digestion, creates an environment where it flourishes. Because the same concerned people who would never stuff cattle with unneeded antibiotics to keep them from getting sick because of the dirty conditions (that don't exist, right?) hire unskilled people to carve up the cattle, E.Coli contaminates the meat. Rather than slow things down a bit, or better train their people, they spray the meat with ammonia. Yum!
The cycle starts with GMO feed sources, that by the government's own standards aren't natural (but many of you argue that they are), and feeding steroids to the cattle, which is getting farther away from nature - ponder this...we all know what steroid use does to humans, remember Lyle Alzado? Anyway, I digress. After we feed the all natural genetically modified feed and steroids, and get that calf to market weight, we take it to the market. The market we sell too sells on up the food chain to those nice people who run those squeaky clean feedlots where they stuff the cattle with antibiotics and more steroids before taking the calf on it's last ride to the saw. In the slaughter house, where things move at a fast pace, and because of poor training, not one, or ten but, hell, I don't know; how many animals does it take to contaminate 22,000 pounds here or 41,000 pounds there? Sorry, I digressed again. A large enough portion of the animals slaughtered in the assembly line fashion that they are, are done so improperly causing tens of thousands of pounds of beef to be recalled because it's making people sick. Again, rather than slow the line down a bit, or hire/train better cutters, IBP comes up with a solution. A solution of ammonia to spray on our food to kill a bacteria that carelessness has put into our food supply.
Starting with GMO feed, and ending with ammonia fog, each step of the modern cattle raising process gets farther and farther away from nature, and I'm sorry if it offends some, but that HAS to impact the flavor and overall nutritional value. If your goal is to feed the world, why not try to feed the world better tasting, and better for them food? Oh yeah, I forgot. Genetically modified, steroid enhanced and ammonia sprayed food is just as good. My bad. I'll just sit over here with my little dunce cap on. :dunce:
Before I climb on that stool in front of the class, wearing my pointy little hat, I would ask that you check out http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/31/food-industry-environment#. Joel Salatin is a guru of sorts in the natural food world. He's much smarter about this sort of thing than I am.
fargus
Well-known member
Alright, I'll answer your questions. But you need to answer mine.
I prefer real sugar, buttar to margarine and we drink whole milk. I won't argue that grass-fed beef CAN be healthier than the grain-fed beef you buy at the store. But amongst all your rhetoric you haven't defended why you think GMOs are the culprit. I have demonstrated the remarkable grey area that exists between transgenic and "natural" plant breeding, but I have seen no response to that. Now, I don't usually stoop to this level of rhetoric, but what makes natural better? The regulations exist the way they do because you need to draw a line in the sand, that is how laws operate. Is cyanide not natural? When you compare LD 50s Atrazine is safer than Aspirin (a natural product, don't deny it) and Roundup is safer than table salt.
The issue of taste has already been addressed. It is a matter of preference, and in most things it is an acquired taste. The odds are against consumer acceptance of grass-fed beef from a taste perspective because we've been hard-wired by evolution to crave fats, oils, salt and sugar. There is more fat in grain-fed beef, so we instinctively crave it.
I understand your concerns regarding the industrialization of our food processing system, but that has indirect and tenous links to GMOs at best. In fact, lets discard GMO, because you are making a liar out of yourself by continuing to use that term. We'll look like educated people and refer to them as transgenics from here on out. I didn't see anybody argue that transgenics are natural. I am a university educated person, in genetics, nutrition and soil management. I question the economics of transgenics, but not the equivillancy of the product produced.
I read the article you posted a link to. I limit my chemical inputs here. Why? Because when the situation demands that I use them I want the most bang for my buck. I choose to improve my cashflow by not outlaying for expensive inputs, but forgoing the incremental gains that go along with them. We have an "industrial style" hog barn. I hate it. I agree that not allow a pig to express its natural behaviours is cruel, and unnecesary. Do we need to feed antibiotics as a growth promotant? No. But to not treat a sick animal when we have the ability to to do so, just to keep an arbitrary organic or natural designation is its own brand of cruelty. I'm not attacking how you choose to do things, as we are more similar than I think you realize, but blindly clinging to either side of the arguement is the height of folly.
I prefer real sugar, buttar to margarine and we drink whole milk. I won't argue that grass-fed beef CAN be healthier than the grain-fed beef you buy at the store. But amongst all your rhetoric you haven't defended why you think GMOs are the culprit. I have demonstrated the remarkable grey area that exists between transgenic and "natural" plant breeding, but I have seen no response to that. Now, I don't usually stoop to this level of rhetoric, but what makes natural better? The regulations exist the way they do because you need to draw a line in the sand, that is how laws operate. Is cyanide not natural? When you compare LD 50s Atrazine is safer than Aspirin (a natural product, don't deny it) and Roundup is safer than table salt.
The issue of taste has already been addressed. It is a matter of preference, and in most things it is an acquired taste. The odds are against consumer acceptance of grass-fed beef from a taste perspective because we've been hard-wired by evolution to crave fats, oils, salt and sugar. There is more fat in grain-fed beef, so we instinctively crave it.
I understand your concerns regarding the industrialization of our food processing system, but that has indirect and tenous links to GMOs at best. In fact, lets discard GMO, because you are making a liar out of yourself by continuing to use that term. We'll look like educated people and refer to them as transgenics from here on out. I didn't see anybody argue that transgenics are natural. I am a university educated person, in genetics, nutrition and soil management. I question the economics of transgenics, but not the equivillancy of the product produced.
I read the article you posted a link to. I limit my chemical inputs here. Why? Because when the situation demands that I use them I want the most bang for my buck. I choose to improve my cashflow by not outlaying for expensive inputs, but forgoing the incremental gains that go along with them. We have an "industrial style" hog barn. I hate it. I agree that not allow a pig to express its natural behaviours is cruel, and unnecesary. Do we need to feed antibiotics as a growth promotant? No. But to not treat a sick animal when we have the ability to to do so, just to keep an arbitrary organic or natural designation is its own brand of cruelty. I'm not attacking how you choose to do things, as we are more similar than I think you realize, but blindly clinging to either side of the arguement is the height of folly.
Douglas
Well-known member
Implanted beef contains about 11ng of estrogen per serving. Adults males produce 100,000 ng per day naturally and women 5 million. But of course those 11 ng are the dangerous ones because they are not natural. I suppose the naturally occurring 12,000 ng in a serving of cabbage are fine however. Also we should not unnaturally refrigerate anything we eat, that HAS to be a bad thing. We need to go back to naturally curing meats with salt. Also don't wash your hand before you eat with anything kind of soap or cleaner that would be way too unnatural. No, common sanitation practices should be avoided at all cost. What we really need is organic tomatoes gowned naturally in greenhouses or black plastic. My masters degree has served me well because we education people are the only ones who know anything of course so don't argue with me. That Obama guy has been very productive this last year because he is so smart and well educated, experience is so over rated. And the science is settled, well may not.
Douglas
Well-known member
What say you mayo clinic:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/organic-food/NU00255
Organic food: Buy or bypass?
Many factors may influence your decision to buy — or not buy — organic food. Consider these factors:
Nutrition. No conclusive evidence shows that organic food is more nutritious than is conventionally grown food. And the USDA — even though it certifies organic food — doesn't claim that these products are safer or more nutritious.
Quality and appearance. Organic foods meet the same quality and safety standards as conventional foods. The difference lies in how the food is produced, processed and handled. You may find that organic fruits and vegetables spoil faster because they aren't treated with waxes or preservatives. Also, expect less-than-perfect appearances in some organic produce — odd shapes, varying colors and perhaps smaller sizes. In most cases, however, organic foods look identical to their conventional counterparts.
Pesticides. Conventional growers use pesticides to protect their crops from molds, insects and diseases. When farmers spray pesticides, this can leave residue on produce. Some people buy organic food to limit their exposure to these residues. Most experts agree, however, that the amount of pesticides found on fruits and vegetables poses a very small health risk.
Environment. Some people buy organic food for environmental reasons. Organic farming practices are designed to benefit the environment by reducing pollution and conserving water and soil.
Cost. Most organic food costs more than conventional food products. Higher prices are due to more expensive farming practices, tighter government regulations and lower crop yields. Because organic farmers don't use herbicides or pesticides, many management tools that control weeds and pests are labor intensive. For example, organic growers may hand weed vegetables to control weeds, and you may end up paying more for these vegetables.
Taste. Some people say they can taste the difference between organic and nonorganic food. Others say they find no difference. Taste is a subjective and personal consideration, so decide for yourself. But whether you buy organic or not, finding the freshest foods available may have the biggest impact on taste.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/organic-food/NU00255
Organic food: Buy or bypass?
Many factors may influence your decision to buy — or not buy — organic food. Consider these factors:
Nutrition. No conclusive evidence shows that organic food is more nutritious than is conventionally grown food. And the USDA — even though it certifies organic food — doesn't claim that these products are safer or more nutritious.
Quality and appearance. Organic foods meet the same quality and safety standards as conventional foods. The difference lies in how the food is produced, processed and handled. You may find that organic fruits and vegetables spoil faster because they aren't treated with waxes or preservatives. Also, expect less-than-perfect appearances in some organic produce — odd shapes, varying colors and perhaps smaller sizes. In most cases, however, organic foods look identical to their conventional counterparts.
Pesticides. Conventional growers use pesticides to protect their crops from molds, insects and diseases. When farmers spray pesticides, this can leave residue on produce. Some people buy organic food to limit their exposure to these residues. Most experts agree, however, that the amount of pesticides found on fruits and vegetables poses a very small health risk.
Environment. Some people buy organic food for environmental reasons. Organic farming practices are designed to benefit the environment by reducing pollution and conserving water and soil.
Cost. Most organic food costs more than conventional food products. Higher prices are due to more expensive farming practices, tighter government regulations and lower crop yields. Because organic farmers don't use herbicides or pesticides, many management tools that control weeds and pests are labor intensive. For example, organic growers may hand weed vegetables to control weeds, and you may end up paying more for these vegetables.
Taste. Some people say they can taste the difference between organic and nonorganic food. Others say they find no difference. Taste is a subjective and personal consideration, so decide for yourself. But whether you buy organic or not, finding the freshest foods available may have the biggest impact on taste.
Douglas
Well-known member
What say you India:
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/genetica ... ticide_use
Cotton crops in India that were genetically modified to resist insects produced dramatically increased yields and significantly reduced pesticide use compared with non-bioengineered crops, according to the results of farm trials reported by researchers in California and Germany. The study, published Friday, Feb. 7, in the journal Science, holds particular promise for small-scale, low-income farmers in developing nations, said the researchers. These farmers, especially those in tropical regions, regularly risk large, pest-related crop losses because they cannot afford to use the pesticides available to larger farms. From the University of California, Berkeley:Genetically But for the majority of developing nations, the high cost of pesticides makes them too risky an investment for small, non-commercial farmers, the authors argued. In addition, chemical pesticides are much more harmful to farmers' health and the environment, and require a significant amount of technical knowledge to be used properly, they said. "Many of the rural poor in developing countries are undereducated," said Qaim. "If they had effective pesticides, they would still have to know that the proper time to spray would be when the bollworms are in a certain larval stage, a window of opportunity that lasts a mere two to three days." modified cotton crops produced greater yields, reduced pesticide use in India
"Understanding how to use pesticides properly is difficult, but replacing the type of seed used is easy and thus more desirable," Zilberman added. "The bottom line is, biotechnology has the potential to positively impact the lives of small, poor farmers in developing nations. It would be a shame if anti-GMO (genetically modified organisms) fears kept important technology away from those who stand to benefit the most from it."
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/genetica ... ticide_use
Cotton crops in India that were genetically modified to resist insects produced dramatically increased yields and significantly reduced pesticide use compared with non-bioengineered crops, according to the results of farm trials reported by researchers in California and Germany. The study, published Friday, Feb. 7, in the journal Science, holds particular promise for small-scale, low-income farmers in developing nations, said the researchers. These farmers, especially those in tropical regions, regularly risk large, pest-related crop losses because they cannot afford to use the pesticides available to larger farms. From the University of California, Berkeley:Genetically But for the majority of developing nations, the high cost of pesticides makes them too risky an investment for small, non-commercial farmers, the authors argued. In addition, chemical pesticides are much more harmful to farmers' health and the environment, and require a significant amount of technical knowledge to be used properly, they said. "Many of the rural poor in developing countries are undereducated," said Qaim. "If they had effective pesticides, they would still have to know that the proper time to spray would be when the bollworms are in a certain larval stage, a window of opportunity that lasts a mere two to three days." modified cotton crops produced greater yields, reduced pesticide use in India
"Understanding how to use pesticides properly is difficult, but replacing the type of seed used is easy and thus more desirable," Zilberman added. "The bottom line is, biotechnology has the potential to positively impact the lives of small, poor farmers in developing nations. It would be a shame if anti-GMO (genetically modified organisms) fears kept important technology away from those who stand to benefit the most from it."
IGotMyWings
Well-known member
Now we're talking! Discussion that doesn't start with nuh-uh!
I understand that certain modifications have been God sends, like the insect resistance in cotton. And as hypocritical as it may be, I can live with that (see, I'm not really a tree hugger), but I'm not eating my cotton sheets.
I have no proof that transgenic feeds in livestock or transgenic food for humans is bad, but it is, by definition, not natural, and as a natural food producer, I am concerned. Like I said, even if I personally thought GMO was the perfect solution to everything from world hunger to bucked teeth, because I choose to raise my cattle on natural feed sources, I would have to be against it because a) if it's "so" natural, why can't I feed it (if certified organic), and b) if it takes the market by storm like RR corn or beans, then my feed supply is in real danger of contamination. I, honestly, don't understand why we need RR forage crops, anyway. Maybe I live in a bubble, but my hay ground and the hay ground of my neighbor where I buy my hay seems to be pretty weed free without any treatment at all.
When it comes to health benefits of organic over mass produced, I don't know that it's the vitamin content and such that is the selling point so much that being certified organic means that every step of the process is tightly monitored. The dirt, the crop, and the processing facility, have all been voluntarily set to a higher standard, and no chemical additives are part of the process. Joel Salatin and his Polyface Farm is a good example of why people choose organic. He butchers chickens outside. When someone said thou shalt not because outside is dirty and contaminated, they challenged the logic, took his chicken and a store bought chicken to a university lab and each was tested for contaminants. Oddly enough, the one processed inside the "clean" factory environment was much more "contaminated" than the one processed outside. I don't eat a lot of fruits and veggies. I guess that is one reason I don't get to be in the tree hugger club...too much of a carnivore. Anyway, my mother, father-in-law, wife and others in my circle that love tomatoes eat them seemingly, by the ton in the summer, but don't buy them in the winter. Why? Because fresh tomatoes (not organic or whatever, just fresh) taste better than store bought. Isn't store bought fresh? It's red! It's firm! It's picked green and gassed until it turns red, so to their taste buds, there is a difference in a REAL fresh tomato and a real tomato that's freshness is faked, for lack of a better term.
What makes natural better? When you start making food out of fake ingredients, you take away from the nutritional value. Our bodies are designed to process sugar. Sugar that naturally occurs in oranges and apples, etc. Our bodies, studies have shown, have difficulty with high fructose corn syrup, or more accurately, corn syrup has been shown to block certain receptors that tell us when to stop eating. The label may indicate that the calories, vitamins and all that are similar if not equal, but that's not the whole of nutritional value.
As for steroids, yes, the human body produces them. What the human body doesn't do, when in perfect working order, is over create them. It goes back to the previous paragraph. Our bodies know what to do with natural amounts of real sugar, and they know what to do with natural amounts of hormones. The body reacts to over abundance and adapts. With sugar, it makes and stores fat. With hormones, it takes them and does the same thing that they were fed to the cattle for...makes the body mature/grow faster. http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/hormones/
My link from transgenics to processing was more of a step by step; first, we start with tinkering with the food our food eats, and end with spraying the food with window cleaner to make it better? sort of thing. Each step of the process takes our product farther from what nature intended. I said before that the biggest part of the problem isn't what WE do as the producer, but what is done to our product after it leaves our care. It's a slope and what lies at the bottom of the slope is scary to me. As seen by some of the previous arguments against what I brought up, the thought process was simply to tell me that I'm making stuff up, and that transgenics are just as natural as natural. My information is just as susceptible to flaw as anyone else's but just like any other topic, there are different ways to look at it, and that's all I really wanted to show! There is a large number of people that blindly follow whatever someone tells them. Large companies are out for a buck. In order to have you help them make that buck, they will tell you that what they do is right, just, and perfectly safe. Ten years later, we find that they were greedy, and we got suckered. I researched grass feeding, I researched steroid use, and I decided that I liked the benefits of feeding grass and that steroids, to me, weren't a good idea. I don't know that GMO is a culprit or agricultural messiah. What I do know, again, is that transgenic or GMO feed is prohibited in a natural/organic meat operation. IF it is so pure and just as natural, then why can't I use it and have it considered a natural feed source? That's where my distrust comes from. Monsanto says it's better than nature, the USDA says it's not (as a feed source).
I would like to see agribusiness be run by agricultural business men. I would like to see the farmer have more control of his destiny. I would like to see people not having to worry about eating the food that we take pride in producing. When IBP or whoever has to recall 40,000 pounds of E.Coli contaminated meat, who looks bad? IBP? Nope. The cattle farmer does. The media asks questions about beef being safe, not beef from IBP. Oprah tells her audience that it makes her think twice about eating a hamburger! The meat, in and of itself, is safe. It's some chemical company/chemical additive or lackey on an assembly line that taints it, but we, the cattle farmers, take the hit.
The treating of a sick animal is the biggest reason I will never certify as organic. My operation is very small, and having to cull an animal that got a shot for a snotty nose would be a fair percentage of my "crop" and I can't afford to take that hit. Antibiotics may seem to go against my natural slant, but they have been around long enough that I don't have to rely on the chemical company's statement to know that they are safe to use as a therapeutic response. As antibiotic residue is not only a concern of mine, but of my customers, I promise to exceed the WD time by double the label before I offer that animal for sale. Over the past two years, I've given one shot.
I also took a hit because I said that many of my customers are educated. What I meant by that was not to claim that education is better than experience, and that one has to have a degree to be smart. What I was trying to say was that the people who have come to me about grass fed beef are thinking people, who have thought about their food choices, and are making decisions based on what they have learned. Based on what they learned, and the changes in their diets to natural food (like raw milk), they say that they feel better. Am I supposed to tell them that they just think they fell better when they eat natural food?
My comments about taste was not so much grass fed verses grain fed. It was about natural ingredients making the final product taste better. Like you, I like real butter, because it tastes better. You want corn fed beef? Fine. I am not trying to say my beef tastes better than yours. Tastes are subjective. I don't like the taste of coffee, so I don't drink it. I'm not saying that corn is the evil, I'm offering the possibility that what is mixed with the corn may taint the flavor of the steak. I'm offering the possibility that what is mixed with the corn may alter the nutritional value (again, not so much the vitamin content, etc., but how the consumer's body uses or absorbs the nutrients) of the meat.
I understand that certain modifications have been God sends, like the insect resistance in cotton. And as hypocritical as it may be, I can live with that (see, I'm not really a tree hugger), but I'm not eating my cotton sheets.
I have no proof that transgenic feeds in livestock or transgenic food for humans is bad, but it is, by definition, not natural, and as a natural food producer, I am concerned. Like I said, even if I personally thought GMO was the perfect solution to everything from world hunger to bucked teeth, because I choose to raise my cattle on natural feed sources, I would have to be against it because a) if it's "so" natural, why can't I feed it (if certified organic), and b) if it takes the market by storm like RR corn or beans, then my feed supply is in real danger of contamination. I, honestly, don't understand why we need RR forage crops, anyway. Maybe I live in a bubble, but my hay ground and the hay ground of my neighbor where I buy my hay seems to be pretty weed free without any treatment at all.
When it comes to health benefits of organic over mass produced, I don't know that it's the vitamin content and such that is the selling point so much that being certified organic means that every step of the process is tightly monitored. The dirt, the crop, and the processing facility, have all been voluntarily set to a higher standard, and no chemical additives are part of the process. Joel Salatin and his Polyface Farm is a good example of why people choose organic. He butchers chickens outside. When someone said thou shalt not because outside is dirty and contaminated, they challenged the logic, took his chicken and a store bought chicken to a university lab and each was tested for contaminants. Oddly enough, the one processed inside the "clean" factory environment was much more "contaminated" than the one processed outside. I don't eat a lot of fruits and veggies. I guess that is one reason I don't get to be in the tree hugger club...too much of a carnivore. Anyway, my mother, father-in-law, wife and others in my circle that love tomatoes eat them seemingly, by the ton in the summer, but don't buy them in the winter. Why? Because fresh tomatoes (not organic or whatever, just fresh) taste better than store bought. Isn't store bought fresh? It's red! It's firm! It's picked green and gassed until it turns red, so to their taste buds, there is a difference in a REAL fresh tomato and a real tomato that's freshness is faked, for lack of a better term.
What makes natural better? When you start making food out of fake ingredients, you take away from the nutritional value. Our bodies are designed to process sugar. Sugar that naturally occurs in oranges and apples, etc. Our bodies, studies have shown, have difficulty with high fructose corn syrup, or more accurately, corn syrup has been shown to block certain receptors that tell us when to stop eating. The label may indicate that the calories, vitamins and all that are similar if not equal, but that's not the whole of nutritional value.
As for steroids, yes, the human body produces them. What the human body doesn't do, when in perfect working order, is over create them. It goes back to the previous paragraph. Our bodies know what to do with natural amounts of real sugar, and they know what to do with natural amounts of hormones. The body reacts to over abundance and adapts. With sugar, it makes and stores fat. With hormones, it takes them and does the same thing that they were fed to the cattle for...makes the body mature/grow faster. http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/hormones/
My link from transgenics to processing was more of a step by step; first, we start with tinkering with the food our food eats, and end with spraying the food with window cleaner to make it better? sort of thing. Each step of the process takes our product farther from what nature intended. I said before that the biggest part of the problem isn't what WE do as the producer, but what is done to our product after it leaves our care. It's a slope and what lies at the bottom of the slope is scary to me. As seen by some of the previous arguments against what I brought up, the thought process was simply to tell me that I'm making stuff up, and that transgenics are just as natural as natural. My information is just as susceptible to flaw as anyone else's but just like any other topic, there are different ways to look at it, and that's all I really wanted to show! There is a large number of people that blindly follow whatever someone tells them. Large companies are out for a buck. In order to have you help them make that buck, they will tell you that what they do is right, just, and perfectly safe. Ten years later, we find that they were greedy, and we got suckered. I researched grass feeding, I researched steroid use, and I decided that I liked the benefits of feeding grass and that steroids, to me, weren't a good idea. I don't know that GMO is a culprit or agricultural messiah. What I do know, again, is that transgenic or GMO feed is prohibited in a natural/organic meat operation. IF it is so pure and just as natural, then why can't I use it and have it considered a natural feed source? That's where my distrust comes from. Monsanto says it's better than nature, the USDA says it's not (as a feed source).
I would like to see agribusiness be run by agricultural business men. I would like to see the farmer have more control of his destiny. I would like to see people not having to worry about eating the food that we take pride in producing. When IBP or whoever has to recall 40,000 pounds of E.Coli contaminated meat, who looks bad? IBP? Nope. The cattle farmer does. The media asks questions about beef being safe, not beef from IBP. Oprah tells her audience that it makes her think twice about eating a hamburger! The meat, in and of itself, is safe. It's some chemical company/chemical additive or lackey on an assembly line that taints it, but we, the cattle farmers, take the hit.
The treating of a sick animal is the biggest reason I will never certify as organic. My operation is very small, and having to cull an animal that got a shot for a snotty nose would be a fair percentage of my "crop" and I can't afford to take that hit. Antibiotics may seem to go against my natural slant, but they have been around long enough that I don't have to rely on the chemical company's statement to know that they are safe to use as a therapeutic response. As antibiotic residue is not only a concern of mine, but of my customers, I promise to exceed the WD time by double the label before I offer that animal for sale. Over the past two years, I've given one shot.
I also took a hit because I said that many of my customers are educated. What I meant by that was not to claim that education is better than experience, and that one has to have a degree to be smart. What I was trying to say was that the people who have come to me about grass fed beef are thinking people, who have thought about their food choices, and are making decisions based on what they have learned. Based on what they learned, and the changes in their diets to natural food (like raw milk), they say that they feel better. Am I supposed to tell them that they just think they fell better when they eat natural food?
My comments about taste was not so much grass fed verses grain fed. It was about natural ingredients making the final product taste better. Like you, I like real butter, because it tastes better. You want corn fed beef? Fine. I am not trying to say my beef tastes better than yours. Tastes are subjective. I don't like the taste of coffee, so I don't drink it. I'm not saying that corn is the evil, I'm offering the possibility that what is mixed with the corn may taint the flavor of the steak. I'm offering the possibility that what is mixed with the corn may alter the nutritional value (again, not so much the vitamin content, etc., but how the consumer's body uses or absorbs the nutrients) of the meat.
Can't you still have your farm "certified organic" and still treat a sick animal with antibiotics? I thought you just couldn't market that particular animal as organic. Or am I off base?
By the way, I think you are comparing apples to oranges when you try to make a conection between margarine and butter, artificial vs natural flavoring, and even fresh vs out of season tomatoes when you are trying to make a case for organic vs gmo foods.
Also in regards to people you know not being able to eat conventional foods but are able to eat organics; wasn't there some tests or something done where they feed people organic foods but told them they were conventional and they still had a reaction? They figured it was a phychological issue and not a food issue. Maybe I dreamed that up, but I will search for it later if I have time.
Edit - I couldn't find any studies like I had mentioned so maybe I dreamed the whole thing up. But I did find several reports of 10's of thousands head of livestock and 1'000's of farmers dieing because of GMO crops and it's all being covered up by the government! :lol:
By the way, I think you are comparing apples to oranges when you try to make a conection between margarine and butter, artificial vs natural flavoring, and even fresh vs out of season tomatoes when you are trying to make a case for organic vs gmo foods.
Also in regards to people you know not being able to eat conventional foods but are able to eat organics; wasn't there some tests or something done where they feed people organic foods but told them they were conventional and they still had a reaction? They figured it was a phychological issue and not a food issue. Maybe I dreamed that up, but I will search for it later if I have time.
Edit - I couldn't find any studies like I had mentioned so maybe I dreamed the whole thing up. But I did find several reports of 10's of thousands head of livestock and 1'000's of farmers dieing because of GMO crops and it's all being covered up by the government! :lol:
fargus
Well-known member
Okay, but we're still not discussing the same things. I feel the point about transgenics in an organic system has been addressed. Nobody, least of all me, has said that transgenic is natural. I challenge you to quote somebody within this thread that stated that it is. As to the USDA saying it isn't allowed in organic, who wrote those rules? I doubt the standards were written by USDA; they were likely written by organic industry groups, adopted by the USDA and codified as regulations. Again, USDA doesn't comment on the quality of the feedstuff, they merely draw a line in the sand and say to get this certification "thou shalt not."
You did state that it isn't what we do, but what happens when it leaves the farm. So why villify transgenics, and the conventional production system? If you don't like big business fine, but don't think poorly of those of us who choose to use their products because they have a fit on our operations. If food safety is the issue tackle the problem, and in all the research I have read I still haven't seen a convincing argument that shows transgenic feedstuffs are a root cause. Every issue has two sides. We can argue the environmental problems of transgenics, and turn around and see the positives they provide. For example, gene drift is typically cited as a potential negative environmental impact. So be it. The introduction of Bt technology may well save the monarch butterfly, because we aren't spraying Bt toxin on corn crops. Same molecule, but much more targeted. The adoption of RoundupReady technology has allowed a more widespread adoption of no-till production. That saves hundreds of thousands of tons of topsoil each year.
I'm struggling to see the issue with transgenics. Improper use of antibiotics and other inputs are an issue for sure, but GMOs? I'm still not sold.
You did state that it isn't what we do, but what happens when it leaves the farm. So why villify transgenics, and the conventional production system? If you don't like big business fine, but don't think poorly of those of us who choose to use their products because they have a fit on our operations. If food safety is the issue tackle the problem, and in all the research I have read I still haven't seen a convincing argument that shows transgenic feedstuffs are a root cause. Every issue has two sides. We can argue the environmental problems of transgenics, and turn around and see the positives they provide. For example, gene drift is typically cited as a potential negative environmental impact. So be it. The introduction of Bt technology may well save the monarch butterfly, because we aren't spraying Bt toxin on corn crops. Same molecule, but much more targeted. The adoption of RoundupReady technology has allowed a more widespread adoption of no-till production. That saves hundreds of thousands of tons of topsoil each year.
I'm struggling to see the issue with transgenics. Improper use of antibiotics and other inputs are an issue for sure, but GMOs? I'm still not sold.
