Dear Gods!

[der_kluge]

Very funny! I liked it alot!



Whats there not to agree with? You'd rather eat chemically processed foods than organic foods?

It's not that simple. Those "chemicals" vastly increase the food output. If everyone switched to organic methods, there'd be more disease in the world, there'd be more bugs (more losses to insects) and it'd take 5 times as much land. I say more disease because fertilizer doesn't grow on trees, unfortunately. It comes in the form of feces, which is quite unsanitary.

And organic food is as healthy as regular food. An organic orange has no more vitamin D than a regular orange, it just might be a bit more unclean because they used poop to fertilize it, and it took a lot more land to grow it, oh, and it costs more.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

It's not that simple. Those "chemicals" vastly increase the food output. If everyone switched to organic methods, there'd be more disease in the world, there'd be more bugs (more losses to insects) and it'd take 5 times as much land. I say more disease because fertilizer doesn't grow on trees, unfortunately. It comes in the form of feces, which is quite unsanitary.

And organic food is as healthy as regular food. An organic orange has no more vitamin D than a regular orange, it just might be a bit more unclean because they used poop to fertilize it, and it took a lot more land to grow it, oh, and it costs more.

Actually, just about everything you said is incorrect. Organic farming methods can actually use a heck of a lot less land to grow a greater percentage of food using high yeald methods. Check out any books by John Jeavons for more info on alternative farming methods. As for fertilizer being feces, what do you think is still the primary fetilizer used on 90% of all farmland? Compsted manure. So organinc/chemically treated food still gets about the same amount of fecal matter on it before it gets to you.

I just don't see the need to pump food full of chemicals, genetically modify foods to make it easier for huge corporate farms to grow and harvest, all at the expense of taste, health, and productivity.

Did you know that a tomato is naturally a soft fruit, not the hard, pale pink, tasteless things you buy in the supermarket? They have been breed to be easy to harvest and transport, so they have really thick skins to withstand the machines used to harvest them. An organic tomato is going to be naturally soft, and it'll tast a hell of a lot better.

As for the example of an orange that you used, I peel my oranges befor eating them, so I'm not tto worried about poop being on the outside of the skin. And that organic orange is going to taste a lot better than the mass produced, monocrop, navel orange that ever supermarket in the country sells. Give me a blood orange, or a small herloom variety any day that is grown by an independant producer not in league with Sunkist or Dole.

And do we really need corn and wheat that has has genes from a squid bioengineered into it, so that when you hit the plants with a blacklight they glow? Makes it easy for the factory farms to see where their planting methods are going wrong and seeds are drifting into areas they don't want planted. But who knows what those genes are doing to the plant? I don't want my food to be coming from genetically modified grains, jsut because the good old USDA says it's ok to put squid genes in my corn.

I'm willing to pay a little more for naturally grown and breed fruit and vegitables, cheaper isn't always better.

 

[LightPhoenix]

And do we really need corn and wheat that has has genes from a squid bioengineered into it, so that when you hit the plants with a blacklight they glow? Makes it easy for the factory farms to see where their planting methods are going wrong and seeds are drifting into areas they don't want planted. But who knows what those genes are doing to the plant? I don't want my food to be coming from genetically modified grains, jsut because the good old USDA says it's ok to put squid genes in my corn.

I'm ambivalent on the whole organic vs. processed debate, because I really do see and understand the merit of both sides of the argument.

However, I never understand the whole anti-genetic modification sentiment. For example, wheat has been genetically engineered for thousands of years. Corn isn't even capable of reproducing on it's own, and hasn't been for some time. Cows, pigs, chickens, and all sorts of animals have been specifically bred for thousands of years to produce stronger, healthier animals. Hell, we've done it for entertainment too, with dogs.

Yes, I can understand why the insertion of genes into wheat to make them, for example, glow under a black-light (and now I'm going to have to bring one to the store with me some time, to test that ) is icky and moreover unnecessary. After all, that gene is producing a strange chemical, and that chemical may have unforeseen side effects. And I certainly don't trust the FDA (who I assume you meant, since they have say over this stuff, and not the USDA, IIRC) to act in the best interests of humans over corporations. I mean, this is the group that genetically modifies hearty crops to not reproduce, so farmers have to buy new seeds every year. Then again, there are a number of implementations that have been beneficial - resistance to certain diseases, for example. They've helped prevent large scale disease outbreaks like the potato famine that his Ireland.

Like I said, ambivalent.

 

[Angcuru]

I prefer organic simply because it tastes better. Chemically engineered foods taste bland and flavorless to me.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I'm with LightPheonix.


Also, I thought the Store Wars was interesting, but a wee bit lackluster compared to the other spoofs I've seen.

 

[Mr. T]

Very funny, I liked it. However they seem to imply that irradiation is bad. First, the ammount of radiation they use to irradiate is so tiny that someone would have to eat tons (literaly) of fruit for anything interesting to happen and second, if you've seen 28 Days Later, you should know that irradition makes food spoil slower. This is a good thing is 90% of London's population has been killed of infected with super-rabies. Survival makes you pretty hungry.

 

[Devilkiller]

I thought the film was very funny regardless of whether the message might be kind of bogus. It was made at the behest of the organic food council or somebody. They sell organic food, so obviously they're going to endorse organic food. Expecting otherwise would be kind of like expecting Coke to make a commercial that says Pepsi is just as good.

I don't want my food to be coming from genetically modified grains, jsut because the good old USDA says it's ok to put squid genes in my corn.

I eat calamari all the time. I particularly like it breaded and fried. This sounds like one stop shopping to me. What's wrong with squid?

 

[Nifft]

I just wish this issue wasn't so politicized.

It's a matter of historical fact that technology can do good things to crop yeilds, and it's also a matter of historical fact that greedy short-sighted industries have done very unhealthy things to people.

I'm sure in 100 years or so we'll know the truth of it. :\

-- N