HFWR
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
That looks like a blow-up doll for someone with a[-]n[/-] [-]imitation[/-] chocolate milk and male wrestler fetish...
Who Knows about Milk?
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OldAgePensioner
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Good Goddess, this thread is diabolical.
Blow up dolls? Synthetic pork making? Have HFWR and ladefina teamed to find the solution to the bad taste in milk and doesn't it play right back into MY original premise.
Sex alters taste.
Blow up dolls? Synthetic pork making? Have HFWR and ladefina teamed to find the solution to the bad taste in milk and doesn't it play right back into MY original premise.
Sex alters taste.
ERD50
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
OK, but how is that different from non-GM crops? They spread their pollen also.
The cases I'm aware of, those weedkillers are more environmentally friendly than the proprietary weedkillers they replace. Isn't that a win-win?
Well that could be, but I don't know where we draw the line. Organic farmers use pesticides too. They use other practices to eliminate pests. So that could impact the environment also. Some studies indicate that large scale organic farming would require a 1/3 or more land to be cultivated. There is a downside to that also. The GM crops that produce their own pesticides are just using the genes from other organisms that produced those pesticides. In fact, GM crops produce Bt, which is a pesticide that organic farmers use. Except, the GM plant produces it where right where it is needed, rather than getting sprayed all over.
Humans did that. You want to go somewhere with teaming natural wildlife? Visit (for a very short time!), the Chernobyl area. Since there are no humans there, the wildlife has come back in force, and no, they don't have three heads. No, I don't think that's a good solution (had to say that before greg started typing a response!), but maybe we should ask the animals?
OK, you hit my limit with that one!
I'll take a nice tasty, juicy conventionally grown Apple any day! -ERD50
maddythebeagle
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I didnt realize there was a market....Is that thing wearing a Bro....no it must be a manzier...
ladelfina
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ERD50, those are all good points (except for the one about regular corn pollination; I don't think anyone has been subject to lawsuits for the sheer bad luck of their corn having been passively pollinated by a non-patented strain..). It's true change happens for a number of reasons.
I think (w/r/t genetic modification) that the fear comes from change happening more rapidly than our capacity to absorb and monitor it, both physically/scientifically and psychologically. Also, you have to take into account the fact that it is seen as coming in a big, powerful top-down way. If "we" eat all the little songbirds then "we" are guilty; if Monsanto acts in such a way as to guarantee there's no longer any corn on the planet free of their patented modification.. "we" don't have any control over that. It's easier to blame "them" than "us".. (rightly or wrongly) even if the results are similar.
Unfortunately I threw it out in the move, but I used to have a poster from the sixties touting the wonders of nuclear power and how safe, clean and perfect it was, and how it was going to create a wonderful world of rainbows and harmony!! It may not be that the issue is so black and white, but you cannot underestimate the weight that industry brings to the table (see also prescription drugs, oil, insurance, etc.). We shouldn't DEMONIZE industry, but I think skepticism is also healthy.
Another aspect that is more pertinent to the milk thread is: are we interested in producing only the maximum food product X per acre, or are we interested in producing food that is healthful and TASTY!? In my entire life (47 years) I never had a fresh apricot that was worth 2 cents, much less the price I paid for it; when I came here, I found a struggling little tree in our yard that gave us a handful of apricots that blew my mind!! I can't even describe the flavor! The poor tree didn't yield anything this year (drought, insects, etc.) -- I should have watered more AND sprayed AND fertilized, etc., etc. There's a huge risk of losing useful plants that are just a little more troublesome and that render a little less, and also losing their genetic diversity along with some of the reasons that make food worth eating! Is there some scientist that wants to help me with my struggling tree, or are they busy making square tomatoes? The interests of business and of the consumer do not always converge perfectly.
Square Tomato - Davis Wiki
[1967]
What's interesting here is the huge leaps in production and profitability that have been made over the last several decades. That's coming to a kind of "natural" limit, so the hunt is on for even higher yields.. but at some point they will come up against a wall, GM or no GM. You're not going to get 437 tons of tomatoes from a half-acre no matter what you do. I don't know what their business model is to keep profits increasing once that wall is met. I imagine the main growth in the food industry has been coming, and will come, from processed foods.
It's true we have more fresh food available year-round, but it tastes worse. If I pass up supermarket apricots, apples, and tomatoes because they taste mealy and bland.. how is that effectively different from not having them because they are out of season? It's worse, because I tend to avoid them altogether! Now that people have forgotten what food used to taste like, you can sell anything.. so I don't see there being much market incentive to spend million$ on making it taste slightly more like its ancestors. At this point, it is what it is.
Hmm.. maybe a fun ER side job: package tours to Chernobyl?
P.S. (in a nice way), the word is "teeming".
I think (w/r/t genetic modification) that the fear comes from change happening more rapidly than our capacity to absorb and monitor it, both physically/scientifically and psychologically. Also, you have to take into account the fact that it is seen as coming in a big, powerful top-down way. If "we" eat all the little songbirds then "we" are guilty; if Monsanto acts in such a way as to guarantee there's no longer any corn on the planet free of their patented modification.. "we" don't have any control over that. It's easier to blame "them" than "us".. (rightly or wrongly) even if the results are similar.
Unfortunately I threw it out in the move, but I used to have a poster from the sixties touting the wonders of nuclear power and how safe, clean and perfect it was, and how it was going to create a wonderful world of rainbows and harmony!! It may not be that the issue is so black and white, but you cannot underestimate the weight that industry brings to the table (see also prescription drugs, oil, insurance, etc.). We shouldn't DEMONIZE industry, but I think skepticism is also healthy.
Another aspect that is more pertinent to the milk thread is: are we interested in producing only the maximum food product X per acre, or are we interested in producing food that is healthful and TASTY!? In my entire life (47 years) I never had a fresh apricot that was worth 2 cents, much less the price I paid for it; when I came here, I found a struggling little tree in our yard that gave us a handful of apricots that blew my mind!! I can't even describe the flavor! The poor tree didn't yield anything this year (drought, insects, etc.) -- I should have watered more AND sprayed AND fertilized, etc., etc. There's a huge risk of losing useful plants that are just a little more troublesome and that render a little less, and also losing their genetic diversity along with some of the reasons that make food worth eating! Is there some scientist that wants to help me with my struggling tree, or are they busy making square tomatoes? The interests of business and of the consumer do not always converge perfectly.
Square Tomato - Davis Wiki
Toward the Square Tomato - TIME
[1967]
What's interesting here is the huge leaps in production and profitability that have been made over the last several decades. That's coming to a kind of "natural" limit, so the hunt is on for even higher yields.. but at some point they will come up against a wall, GM or no GM. You're not going to get 437 tons of tomatoes from a half-acre no matter what you do. I don't know what their business model is to keep profits increasing once that wall is met. I imagine the main growth in the food industry has been coming, and will come, from processed foods.
It's true we have more fresh food available year-round, but it tastes worse. If I pass up supermarket apricots, apples, and tomatoes because they taste mealy and bland.. how is that effectively different from not having them because they are out of season? It's worse, because I tend to avoid them altogether! Now that people have forgotten what food used to taste like, you can sell anything.. so I don't see there being much market incentive to spend million$ on making it taste slightly more like its ancestors. At this point, it is what it is.
Hmm.. maybe a fun ER side job: package tours to Chernobyl?
P.S. (in a nice way), the word is "teeming".
OldAgePensioner
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In the vast universe of thought, this discussion of ideas has clearly regressed to the mean as one would expect. But in the continuum of thought that spans from far left nutcase ideology to far right nutcase ideology, this discussion has clearly remained a dull +/- 1dB subspace.
The taste of milk is clearly a function of humans intervening into nature. Milk should taste exactly like that suckled from the cow's teets on Noah's Ark.
Come to think of it. What kind of perverse mind would cause someone to squeeze on a cow's teet?
If you were in some woods and saw a new species, would you think "oh, I should squeeze some part of it's body and ingest the expectorant"? Yuucckkk.
The taste of milk is clearly a function of humans intervening into nature. Milk should taste exactly like that suckled from the cow's teets on Noah's Ark.
Come to think of it. What kind of perverse mind would cause someone to squeeze on a cow's teet?
If you were in some woods and saw a new species, would you think "oh, I should squeeze some part of it's body and ingest the expectorant"? Yuucckkk.
As a 30yr worker in the dairy producing field several factors can contribute to funny tasting milk.
If one of the machines that package the milk breaks down several hundred cases of milk can be stranded on the line before it gets to the coolers,this time could be as much as several hours and with summer temps into the 90's in a non air conditioned production area you can well imagine that the quality of the product is compromised,this scenario happens often.
Also products other than regular Homo,2%,1% and skim (A grade milk) have percentages of B grade milk,What is B grade milk? basically its milk that has been returned from the store due to leakage,past due date,over orders,wrong product in container or some form of production snafu and a host of other related problems,my job at the moment is separating what can be reused from the stuff that gets destroyed. usually this B grade milk gets repasturised goes into the making of coffee creamers,chocolate milk or any other novelty product.
Another area of potential problems is the operators of the packaging machines are usually the laziest of the workers as all they do is stand around and press buttons all day so they have a tendency to overlook various quality control issues such as fat tests,ph tests,container integrity tests and as a result its not unheard of for 1000 cases of homo to actually contain something else.
My personal take on milk is that it may be fine for baby cows but there are better dietary options for humans..
If one of the machines that package the milk breaks down several hundred cases of milk can be stranded on the line before it gets to the coolers,this time could be as much as several hours and with summer temps into the 90's in a non air conditioned production area you can well imagine that the quality of the product is compromised,this scenario happens often.
Also products other than regular Homo,2%,1% and skim (A grade milk) have percentages of B grade milk,What is B grade milk? basically its milk that has been returned from the store due to leakage,past due date,over orders,wrong product in container or some form of production snafu and a host of other related problems,my job at the moment is separating what can be reused from the stuff that gets destroyed. usually this B grade milk gets repasturised goes into the making of coffee creamers,chocolate milk or any other novelty product.
Another area of potential problems is the operators of the packaging machines are usually the laziest of the workers as all they do is stand around and press buttons all day so they have a tendency to overlook various quality control issues such as fat tests,ph tests,container integrity tests and as a result its not unheard of for 1000 cases of homo to actually contain something else.
My personal take on milk is that it may be fine for baby cows but there are better dietary options for humans..
greg
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ERD50:
OK, here I go again. You responded to Ladelfina and I'll add my two cents worth.
I believe genetically engineered crops are still forbidden in Europe. Those folks, the Euro gov't anyway, have decided that all the facts are not in yet, that there is the possibility that such scientifically (not naturally) modified foods may severely harm end users. So they wait and watch us, their free petri dish of experimentation.
Now to the [-]offensive[/-] political stuff where I bring up Hitler. You use the argument that many of these toxicity problems are so small that they are not worth worrying about in comparison to bigger issues. I see some of that reasoning. For example, a practicing alcoholic drinking a quart of whiskey/day, drinking wads of known toxin, probably need not worry too much about bovine growth hormone in his daily glass of milk. He has much bigger problems and may be on the way to losing his liver. You generalize this situation outward perhaps a bit too quickly though, assuming that everyone has a large number of crude problems that are more important to fix than subtle and as yet smaller problems.
My contention is that these smaller problems should also be fixed early because it is cheaper to fix things before they get bad or cause larger problems. SARS is a good example of this. The World Health Organization and countries involved jumped all over this initial problem almost immediately. It was stopped and squished out fast, cheaply and effectively, before things got way out of proportion. (If only that alcoholism could be fixed at the early stage of the problem? What a huge amount of money and misery could be saved by individuals and society.)
Now, in the early days of Hitler many folks and gov'ts of the world treated him like a little, slightly pesky, almost meaningless varmint, of little consequence. Even the German gov't didn't take him seriously, allowing him and his black shirts to grow in size, sophistication, and complication--kinda like the emergence of nasty little purposefully ignored toxin (or potential toxin) having little impact on society--yet. Even in the later stages of Hitler's early middle life, for example when Chamberlain went to Germany and offered him the Sudatenland (sp?) as appeasement, folks were struggling to offer just that one last thing that would finally satisfy Hitler.
Over the years folks had grown complacent, soft, and insensitive to the Hitler problem. They thought treating it/him as just a thing of lesser significance would be OK. And the developing apathy within Euro citizens and gov'ts itself subsequently grew into the controlling factor in how he was perceived and subsequently treated. Obviously, we know the results of that early apathy now, a resultant huge and expensive war with millions of lives lost. I suspect at the time it wasn't recognized as apathy, but rather as sound policy and behavior.
Now, the above is a mild dramatization, but still a valid point to my mind. (And I didn't call you Hitler either.) Europe suspects and may also have some documentation at this point that says genetically engineered foodstuffs are or could be harmful. Time will tell. But here in this country we have the invisible hand guiding our agricultural policies. And the visible parts of that invisible hand are currently busy passing money to influence our gov't policy with lobbyist monies. And this invisible hand clearly is doing this for its own self interest almost exclusively--and not for the good of consumers. Because if it was doing it for the good of consumers there would, at minimum, be labeling to inform folks that gm food was in their products. But they, the invisible hand folks, actually spent fairly large quantities of lobbying money to make sure that this labeling was not allowed on packaging. Hmmmm! For some reason they like to hide what they do. Perhaps there are just being nice and don't want us upset. I guess I should thank them, eh?
So, my point, ERD50, is that sometimes but not always it is very important to consider things that may appear to be insignificant (poodle skirt issues as you framed them) as having a serious potential to be very, very significant--that black swans such as Hitler can be found early and eliminated if there are citizens willing to consider such possibilities. Regarding our foodstuffs, the Euros still think that engineered foods may be potentially harmful. We have been twisted into believing that it may not or that the benefits far outweigh the future costs. I don't know what the real answer is--yet. But I do know that prudence going forward is warranted, that sensitivity to subtle levels of manipulation at the molecular level is worthy of carefully watching--or at minimum labeling those products so that I can avoid them if I desire. I don't want to find out that we've been slowly accumulating some nasty little toxins inside our bodies that someday, maybe twenty years from now will accumulate to the point that, perhaps, we die early or start having children born with three legs or flippers. Caution, alertness, and rationality are good. But fear is bad as is insensitivity and apathy to potentially negative events. To my mind.
And I directly addressed your argument and premises, as always.
OK, here I go again. You responded to Ladelfina and I'll add my two cents worth.
I believe genetically engineered crops are still forbidden in Europe. Those folks, the Euro gov't anyway, have decided that all the facts are not in yet, that there is the possibility that such scientifically (not naturally) modified foods may severely harm end users. So they wait and watch us, their free petri dish of experimentation
. Now to the [-]offensive[/-] political stuff where I bring up Hitler
. You use the argument that many of these toxicity problems are so small that they are not worth worrying about in comparison to bigger issues. I see some of that reasoning. For example, a practicing alcoholic drinking a quart of whiskey/day, drinking wads of known toxin, probably need not worry too much about bovine growth hormone in his daily glass of milk. He has much bigger problems and may be on the way to losing his liver. You generalize this situation outward perhaps a bit too quickly though, assuming that everyone has a large number of crude problems that are more important to fix than subtle and as yet smaller problems. My contention is that these smaller problems should also be fixed early because it is cheaper to fix things before they get bad or cause larger problems. SARS is a good example of this. The World Health Organization and countries involved jumped all over this initial problem almost immediately. It was stopped and squished out fast, cheaply and effectively, before things got way out of proportion. (If only that alcoholism could be fixed at the early stage of the problem? What a huge amount of money and misery could be saved by individuals and society.)
Now, in the early days of Hitler many folks and gov'ts of the world treated him like a little, slightly pesky, almost meaningless varmint, of little consequence. Even the German gov't didn't take him seriously, allowing him and his black shirts to grow in size, sophistication, and complication--kinda like the emergence of nasty little purposefully ignored toxin (or potential toxin) having little impact on society--yet. Even in the later stages of Hitler's early middle life, for example when Chamberlain went to Germany and offered him the Sudatenland (sp?) as appeasement, folks were struggling to offer just that one last thing that would finally satisfy Hitler.
Over the years folks had grown complacent, soft, and insensitive to the Hitler problem. They thought treating it/him as just a thing of lesser significance would be OK. And the developing apathy within Euro citizens and gov'ts itself subsequently grew into the controlling factor in how he was perceived and subsequently treated. Obviously, we know the results of that early apathy now, a resultant huge and expensive war with millions of lives lost. I suspect at the time it wasn't recognized as apathy, but rather as sound policy and behavior.
Now, the above is a mild dramatization, but still a valid point to my mind. (And I didn't call you Hitler either
.) Europe suspects and may also have some documentation at this point that says genetically engineered foodstuffs are or could be harmful. Time will tell. But here in this country we have the invisible hand guiding our agricultural policies. And the visible parts of that invisible hand are currently busy passing money to influence our gov't policy with lobbyist monies. And this invisible hand clearly is doing this for its own self interest almost exclusively--and not for the good of consumers. Because if it was doing it for the good of consumers there would, at minimum, be labeling to inform folks that gm food was in their products. But they, the invisible hand folks, actually spent fairly large quantities of lobbying money to make sure that this labeling was not allowed on packaging. Hmmmm! For some reason they like to hide what they do. Perhaps there are just being nice and don't want us upset. I guess I should thank them, eh? So, my point, ERD50, is that sometimes but not always it is very important to consider things that may appear to be insignificant (poodle skirt issues as you framed them) as having a serious potential to be very, very significant--that black swans such as Hitler can be found early and eliminated if there are citizens willing to consider such possibilities. Regarding our foodstuffs, the Euros still think that engineered foods may be potentially harmful. We have been twisted into believing that it may not or that the benefits far outweigh the future costs. I don't know what the real answer is--yet. But I do know that prudence going forward is warranted, that sensitivity to subtle levels of manipulation at the molecular level is worthy of carefully watching--or at minimum labeling those products so that I can avoid them if I desire. I don't want to find out that we've been slowly accumulating some nasty little toxins inside our bodies that someday, maybe twenty years from now will accumulate to the point that, perhaps, we die early or start having children born with three legs or flippers. Caution, alertness, and rationality are good. But fear is bad as is insensitivity and apathy to potentially negative events. To my mind.
And I directly addressed your argument and premises, as always.
OldAgePensioner
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Jambo101,
thanks for that "factual" information and not the totally inane babbling by some tree hugging cumbayahers, seeking to blame every issue on our government.
By the way, has Bush ever ordered you to reuse that tainted milk?
And I agree, milk tastes bad because it is bad.
I hope a chicken processing thread appears soon.
thanks for that "factual" information and not the totally inane babbling by some tree hugging cumbayahers, seeking to blame every issue on our government.
By the way, has Bush ever ordered you to reuse that tainted milk?
And I agree, milk tastes bad because it is bad.
I hope a chicken processing thread appears soon.
Fecal soup.
The milk that gets reused is not considered tainted,its milk that has to be pasturised a second time thus reducing it to b grade.The government has little say in how milk is processed,although they do have guidelines an inspector once or twice a year doesnt constitute much of an effort to insure those guidelines are being followed,and as the milk industry is highly competitive you can rest assured that every corner is being cut to save money.
With 12 pages of content about milk i dont have time to read all of them but its curious how such a topic can evolve into a rant about Hitler
With 12 pages of content about milk i dont have time to read all of them but its curious how such a topic can evolve into a rant about Hitler
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OldAgePensioner
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jambo101,
thanks, I agree. I've had friends in the food processing industry and they say similar things. Little government control and lot's of cut corners.
Dog food manufacturer Purina has an assembly line with animal carcass "fecal soup" rushing past and sloshing and spilling. Workers have to shovel the maggots of fthe floors and sometimes up to a foot along the walls. So says an old friend from my teenage years. He used to smell like well, hell.
thanks, I agree. I've had friends in the food processing industry and they say similar things. Little government control and lot's of cut corners.
Dog food manufacturer Purina has an assembly line with animal carcass "fecal soup" rushing past and sloshing and spilling. Workers have to shovel the maggots of fthe floors and sometimes up to a foot along the walls. So says an old friend from my teenage years. He used to smell like well, hell.
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ERD50
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Thanks for the replies everyone. I just skimmed and there are some really good points, a few of which I would like to expand on. But a bit later, as I'll be busy today. I'll be bottling a food product (definitely NOT milk!) that I supervised the production of, except for the raw ingredients. Plenty of nice locally (well, mid-west) grown/malted barley, a few ounces of not-so-local hops, a bit of not-so-local yeast, and some very local water went into the production. All 'natural' preservatives - heat, alcohol, acids from the hops, and a low pH from the grain malting process keeps the critters at bay. Re-used (better than re-cycled) bottles. How environmental of me!
And it will definitely be better tasting than the mass-produced bland stuff meant for average American consumer taste buds ( a tie in to ladelfina's apricot story).
- ERD50
PS - 'teeming' vs 'teaming' - yep, I gotta watch those spell checkers. Maybe T-AL can come up with a picture of a group of squirrels in baseball uniforms? Then they would be 'teaming'!
And it will definitely be better tasting than the mass-produced bland stuff meant for average American consumer taste buds ( a tie in to ladelfina's apricot story).
- ERD50
PS - 'teeming' vs 'teaming' - yep, I gotta watch those spell checkers. Maybe T-AL can come up with a picture of a group of squirrels in baseball uniforms? Then they would be 'teaming'!
OldAgePensioner
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ERD50,
what color bottles do you use? I saw some brown, very thick, bottles in Beijing recycled by a brewing company and some of them were velvety white on the outside due to little dings from 30 years of life. Cool to re-use.
what color bottles do you use? I saw some brown, very thick, bottles in Beijing recycled by a brewing company and some of them were velvety white on the outside due to little dings from 30 years of life. Cool to re-use.
Someone CALL overseers! ERD50 is about to deliberately bottle TOXINS for future consumption. Apparently, he's not bright ENOUGH to make the >>right<< choice about his health and his life. And, his POOR choices will cost us all in HIGHER health care costs. Oh, the humanity!!!!!! (random capitalization inserted for the benefit of "Wags").
Drink one for me, bro!
greg
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ERD50:
In my previous post I was talking about genetically modified foods and potential consequences. Here, I'd like to return and explicate an earlier post because I didn't do a good job. And it appeared like it was an ad hominem attack, which I'm sorry it had the appearance of.
You had mentioned that if milk (and foodstuffs in general) went up in price, that fewer folks (the poor) would be able to afford them. This would cause malnutrition at a minimum and possibly some starvation. For you, this was a good reason to keep food products cheap if possible, to sort of solve a wider good of not having even more obviously sick or dead folks. So, my understanding of your reasoning is that adding bovine growth hormone is probably a good thing, especially if there is no clear evidence that is bad--yet. Adding it would keep milk production high and costs down. I also believe that you think generalizing this practice to other foodstuffs (where other non-natural things are added or done to them) is OK if there is no obvious evidence of doing bad is found. This is my summation of your earlier 'either-or argument' as I understand it.
Here is what I didn't explain very well at the time. It is seeing the problem, as I believe, not from the level of the checkout counter of the food buying process but from a more holistic view as I see it. If this appears insulting to you . . . I'm sad.
Americans use on average approximately $6000+ of health care/year. I'm sure more when they are older and less when they are younger. If now, for example, we could reduce the costs of older American health care substantially this would be a good thing. I believe most if not all doctors will say that many if not most of the diseases they treat have a dietary origin correlation. Even the flu virus can have a greater effect on frail youths and elders, increasing the mortality rate among them during an epidemic. I think they'll also say that a large number of degenerative diseases common in older folks such as arthritis, diabetes, high BP, asthma, high cholesterol, etc. etc., all have a dietary basis (cause) or significant correlation. Doctors/scientists have identified and explicated many of the things I, her, call toxins. It is their improper use that toxifies them.
So anyway, we do have a chicken-egg issue here. How can we reduce the costs of health care in our society, especially among the elderly? One way to do this could very well be to reduce the toxins and bad behaviors that turn the elderly into [-]limping[/-] walking expenders of greater than $6K of health care per year. So, exercise would probably decrease some of those problems. Good eating habits and moderation would also probably have a significant effect on health care costs. Reducing the obvious toxins such as excess salt, perhaps many of the chemicals in preserved foods, and eliminating all the stabilizers added to packaged foodstuffs--all could help reduce the total health care package costs. I believe it could be a significant reduction. This saved money could then be used to enjoy a more active, less crippled, life and it would be back end repayment for all the up front money spent on better quality foods and time spent making sure one stayed healthy thruout life. As sort of virtuous egg-chicken circle where health care ended up cheaper for folks and they enjoy that healthy lifestyle more--which would be the exact opposite of the current chicken-egg toxic cycle we have going on now, where folks buy cheapy toxic food so that they can afford their health insurance co-pays. This to my mind is the real alternative either-or of the future.
In my previous post I was talking about genetically modified foods and potential consequences. Here, I'd like to return and explicate an earlier post because I didn't do a good job. And it appeared like it was an ad hominem attack, which I'm sorry it had the appearance of.
You had mentioned that if milk (and foodstuffs in general) went up in price, that fewer folks (the poor) would be able to afford them. This would cause malnutrition at a minimum and possibly some starvation. For you, this was a good reason to keep food products cheap if possible, to sort of solve a wider good of not having even more obviously sick or dead folks. So, my understanding of your reasoning is that adding bovine growth hormone is probably a good thing, especially if there is no clear evidence that is bad--yet. Adding it would keep milk production high and costs down. I also believe that you think generalizing this practice to other foodstuffs (where other non-natural things are added or done to them) is OK if there is no obvious evidence of doing bad is found. This is my summation of your earlier 'either-or argument' as I understand it.
Here is what I didn't explain very well at the time. It is seeing the problem, as I believe, not from the level of the checkout counter of the food buying process but from a more holistic view as I see it. If this appears insulting to you . . . I'm sad.
Americans use on average approximately $6000+ of health care/year. I'm sure more when they are older and less when they are younger. If now, for example, we could reduce the costs of older American health care substantially this would be a good thing. I believe most if not all doctors will say that many if not most of the diseases they treat have a dietary origin correlation. Even the flu virus can have a greater effect on frail youths and elders, increasing the mortality rate among them during an epidemic. I think they'll also say that a large number of degenerative diseases common in older folks such as arthritis, diabetes, high BP, asthma, high cholesterol, etc. etc., all have a dietary basis (cause) or significant correlation. Doctors/scientists have identified and explicated many of the things I, her, call toxins. It is their improper use that toxifies them.
So anyway, we do have a chicken-egg issue here
. How can we reduce the costs of health care in our society, especially among the elderly? One way to do this could very well be to reduce the toxins and bad behaviors that turn the elderly into [-]limping[/-] walking expenders of greater than $6K of health care per year. So, exercise would probably decrease some of those problems. Good eating habits and moderation would also probably have a significant effect on health care costs. Reducing the obvious toxins such as excess salt, perhaps many of the chemicals in preserved foods, and eliminating all the stabilizers added to packaged foodstuffs--all could help reduce the total health care package costs. I believe it could be a significant reduction. This saved money could then be used to enjoy a more active, less crippled, life and it would be back end repayment for all the up front money spent on better quality foods and time spent making sure one stayed healthy thruout life. As sort of virtuous egg-chicken circle where health care ended up cheaper for folks and they enjoy that healthy lifestyle more--which would be the exact opposite of the current chicken-egg toxic cycle we have going on now, where folks buy cheapy toxic food so that they can afford their health insurance co-pays. This to my mind is the real alternative either-or of the future.Greg,
To help move this into the area of tangible impact: can you provide a source for information on the demonstrated adverse health impact caused by food stabilizers and preservatives? It would be especially helpful if the source also considered offsetting benefits (e.g. from the avoidance of consumption of oxydized fats, etc)
I agree with the point you make about food choices being important in the overall health of people. I think the vast majority of the problem is that people eat foods in unhealthful proportions (not enough vegetables and whole grains, too much meat and starch, etc), and that many of us simply consume more calories each day than we burn.
Now, somehow converting that observation into concrete action is where I think our paths will diverge. I want people to make the right choices based on their own enlightened self interest. What would you propose as a way to get people to eat more in a more healthy way? I do not believe it is the place of the state to force adults to change behaviors that are not adversely affecting others. And, that brings us to health care polcy: To the degree that health care is publicly funded, we all gain the right to boss each other around, because your bad decisions are no longer your own business if they cost me money. We can tell ERD50 not to drink a beer because studies have shown that people who drink 12 beers a day get sick. We can tell Mrs Jones that she needs to show up for supervised aerobics 3 times per week, because she is fat and her heart functioning is compromised. Maybe under this regime we'll all live longer, and maybe we'll all be happy to comply. We'll enjoy our one lean chicken breast per week and huff and puff away on the treadmills happily until we die at 85, automatons for the state.
As for me--I think New Hampshire has a great state motto.
Samclem
(whose new motto is: "You can have this pork chop when you pry my cold, dead artherosclerotic hands from it.")
OldAgePensioner
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Motto: Live Toxin Free or Die
Slogan: Drink 0% Milk
Slogan: Drink 0% Milk
twaddle
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That reminds me of something. A lot of milk waste goes into the sewer, and cockroaches *love* milk. Don't ask me how I know, but those milk-drinking cockroaches get as big as bunnies! Well, at least it seemed that way when they attacked me....
Sarah in SC
Moderator Emeritus
More on the Organic Milk Story
Organic milk wars heat up - Oct. 3, 2007
Organic milk wars heat up - Oct. 3, 2007
Peaceful_Warrior
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I've been trying to live by the principles that we choose what exists in the world by how we spend our money. If we continue to buy non-GMO stuff, we send the message that is what we want.
Even Monsanto wouldn't produce GMO products if nobody bought them...
FinanceDude
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
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Genetically modified foods have been around for almost 60 years. Even so-called "organically" grown foods are grown from seeds that have been altered so they are more resistant to disease and such. That is not going to change anytime soon.......
And, no,I am not the expert. My deceased sister was, and she educated me ad infinitum on the subject......................
Actually our waste milk goes into large holding tanks where twice a week a farmer comes and picks it up to feed to his pigs,
If your bacon tastes a little sweeter toward the end of January its due to the unsold egg nog going to your local swine farm
If your bacon tastes a little sweeter toward the end of January its due to the unsold egg nog going to your local swine farm
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MikeD
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ERD50
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
OK, beer bottled, spent some time in real life, and now, back to T-Al's controversial thread about his store-bought milk not tasting quite so good all the time, but his wife can't really tell the difference. Geez Al, can you stick to the lighter topics for a change?
Oh, and thanks to Samclem for covering some of this so well in his post.
A few points for Ladelfina:
'
Don't know about a lawsuit, but the problem does exist with current hybrids, and people will sue over just about anything:
It's not all doom-and-gloom. In ANY market where cheap junk is being sold, there is almost always a market for the high quality stuff. Fast food didn't shut down high-end restaurants. You can buy cheap audio gear at WalMart, but there are still lots of manufacturers of super-high-end audio gear.
And for Greg - point-by-point just got too long. Even this is too long. It really boils down to what Samclem asked, can you provide anything to measure the risks/rewards of all these concerns you have? Without some measure of risk/reward, we wouldn't get out of bed in the morning for fear of... everything - really.
If you want to just say 'we don't know what will happen from 20 years of exposure to all these various things', then you have to provide an alternative. Consider this, seriously:
Without the advantage of hindsight, what would you have done with these proposals?:
1) Heat Pasteurization of milk (hey-hey, we are back to MILK!) - heat breaks down compounds in milk. Could there be long term health issues with these artificially modified compounds? How can you rule it out? So, do we accept deaths from unpasteurized milk because we are afraid of what the future *might* hold?
2) Chlorination of our water supplies - chlorine is a poison. You keep bringing up the possible issues of low-level and combinations of toxins. Again, do we accept deaths from un-chlorinated water supplies because we are afraid of what the future *might* hold? Who are we going to test this on for twenty years (or 80 years if it involves kids?)?
penicillin? vaccines, etc, etc....
I don't think these are exaggerations or distortions of your view, I think they fit directly into your line of thinking if they were new technologies being proposed today. Is spraying a crop with Glyphosate, which has been studied, tested and approved for use really worse than the idea of adding chlorine directly to our water supply? Or using tools to genetically modify plant DNA, rather than wait and seek out nature's random events?
So please greg, map out some examples for us - how DO we safely implement advances? Is science involved, or does the general population's fear of something new rule the day?
-ERD50
Oh, and thanks to Samclem for covering some of this so well in his post.
A few points for Ladelfina:
'
Don't know about a lawsuit, but the problem does exist with current hybrids, and people will sue over just about anything:
Another link mentioned they saw cross pollination of corn > 1600 feet away (as far as they tested).
Well, maybe they do converge. And not everyone wants the same thing. Certainly, many vegetables are grown and bred with shipping, shelf-life, ease of harvest, and other things over taste. But there is consumer demand for inexpensive foods, so the market meets the demand.
It's not all doom-and-gloom. In ANY market where cheap junk is being sold, there is almost always a market for the high quality stuff. Fast food didn't shut down high-end restaurants. You can buy cheap audio gear at WalMart, but there are still lots of manufacturers of super-high-end audio gear.
And for Greg - point-by-point just got too long. Even this is too long. It really boils down to what Samclem asked, can you provide anything to measure the risks/rewards of all these concerns you have? Without some measure of risk/reward, we wouldn't get out of bed in the morning for fear of... everything - really.
If you want to just say 'we don't know what will happen from 20 years of exposure to all these various things', then you have to provide an alternative. Consider this, seriously:
Without the advantage of hindsight, what would you have done with these proposals?:
1) Heat Pasteurization of milk (hey-hey, we are back to MILK!) - heat breaks down compounds in milk. Could there be long term health issues with these artificially modified compounds? How can you rule it out? So, do we accept deaths from unpasteurized milk because we are afraid of what the future *might* hold?
2) Chlorination of our water supplies - chlorine is a poison. You keep bringing up the possible issues of low-level and combinations of toxins. Again, do we accept deaths from un-chlorinated water supplies because we are afraid of what the future *might* hold? Who are we going to test this on for twenty years (or 80 years if it involves kids?)?
penicillin? vaccines, etc, etc....
I don't think these are exaggerations or distortions of your view, I think they fit directly into your line of thinking if they were new technologies being proposed today. Is spraying a crop with Glyphosate, which has been studied, tested and approved for use really worse than the idea of adding chlorine directly to our water supply? Or using tools to genetically modify plant DNA, rather than wait and seek out nature's random events?
I could buy this argument, except for the fact that we do use some amount of care (maybe not enough for you) before bringing new products/processes to market. Look at what the FDA rejects for example. And, when something is found to be dangerous, it tends to get removed from the market (lead-free plumbing, paints, gasoline; freon, etc). Not a perfect system of course, but really, what is the alternative? I fail to see how we could make any progress with your high standards of acceptance for change.
So please greg, map out some examples for us - how DO we safely implement advances? Is science involved, or does the general population's fear of something new rule the day?
-ERD50
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