From: c188-am@po.berkeley.edu (Leor Jacobi)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Organically grown foods (was Re: What's the Best Juicer)
Date: 20 Dec 92 19:53:17 GMT
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley


In rec.food.veg George Clark writes:

>If organically grown foods do taste better, are better for the environment,
>and everything else, then I wonder why fertilizers and pesticides are
>used at all. There's got to be some profit-motivated reason, but I don't
>know what it is.

Here it is:
Using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, farmers can maximize short-term
yields from their crops.  They can also insure that their crops are
"prettier".  It is a shame that such short-sighted practices are extremely
destructive.  Here is an excerpt from _GAIA: An Atlas of Planet Management_,
edited by Dr. Norman Myers:
--
Agribusiness Corporations
Large Corporations exercise much control over the supply of pesticides,
fertilizers, seeds, and machinery to farmers.  In the US, a handful of
enterprises produces around 65% of petroleum-based products used in
agriculture, and 75% of chemicals, while just a few firms supply half of all
hybrid seeds.  Similarly, a few dozen corporations dominate the processing,
manufacture, and marketing of food.  From their position of commercial
power, giant corporations exert undue influence over prices for farmer and
consumer alike... The advertising pressure in favor of more junk foods is
better understood when we note that fewer than 50 US corporations account
for over two-thirds of all food processing.
--
Without trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist, I think it is quite
evident that petroleum companies have a vested interest in selling their
by-products as pesticides.

>I dislike the dyes and waxes used to make produce appear to be something
>it is not. There is nothing unhealthy about it, but it is dishonest because
>dyes and waxes misrepresent the quality of the produce to the consumer.

I encourage you to seek out organically grown produce, perhaps at a local
farmer's market.  I have found this produce to be of dramatically higher
quality than the conventional grocery-bought kind.  Carrots are juicier than
I ever imagined.  Oranges and apples are much sweeter.  Tomatoes are more
flavorful, less mealy, and more tender (unlike store-bought tomatoes, bred
for mechanical harvesting, which can survive a 3-story drop).  Most of all,
there is a VARIETY.  In a large grocery store, one can get the feeling that
there is a lot of choice, but it is an illusion.  Again and again, one finds
the same foods packaged in different quantities and mixtures.  The
supermarket is actually confined to very few crops, perhaps (this is an
estimate of mine) 95% of the products are made up solely of about 100
different crops.  Oddly enough, there is more variety in the types of
chemicals added to the foods than in the foods themselves!  There are
thousands of plants known to be edible.  It stuns me how our culture
continuously demands new music, movies, and books from the entertainment
industry, yet we are content to keep eating the same s&*# year after year.
I haven't even mentioned the dangers of processed food...

--
 Leor Jacobi                ,__o  |"Darkness is the shore of light.
 leor@ocf.berkeley.edu    _-\_<,  | The truth is framed with lies...
			 (*)/'(*) | When you're thin and damp and shoddy,
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=| just remember you're in a body." - R.H.