The Foods We Eat and what they can do.
- Thread starter VanIsle
- Start date
Yeah, he's probably talking about a limited-scope UK study on organics vs. non-organics a little while back. Unfortunately, it didn't quite cover it all.
I'm not an expert on all this stuff (trying to learn more), but my understanding is that when they use inorganic (chemical) pesticides and herbicides on most fruits and veggies, those plants - which normally produce a natural, cancer-fighting substance originally intended (by nature) to fight off bugs and such - simply quit making this "good stuff." As a result, the "total" nutrition of the produce is lacking at least that element of goodness.
Again, I could look it all up somewhere but I'm pretty sure I'm right on the theory. Perhaps they simply measured the levels of carotene (Vitamin A)...not sure on that one. Studies can tell you anything, but they can also be misleading. I know one thing - having been raised in farm country, commercial carrots sure as hell don't taste anything like organic ones (we used to grow "organic", but didn't call it that back then...the fertilizer we used came from cow crap, not a pail from a chemical factory).
This "element" isn't included in conventional nutritional tests so it doesn't count, insofar as most studies go. There is also the fact that trace amounts of the chemical residues stay with the carrots, apples, etc. but I'm not sure if they can even measure that stuff reliably. Even if they did, the government would say that it is at "acceptable levels", and if all you ate was a few carrots in a week, everything would by hunky-dory. However, who measures the cumulative amount of bad stuff we ingest...the answer is, nobody.
I think there is far more info. available on the subject but it takes a pile of time and work to get at it all.
Dr. Art kind of reminds me of the folks - such as all levels of government - who say that "beef is beef." Now I'm a bit more up to speed on that subject. A feedlot cow (supermarket beef) is fed corn and other grains to fatten them up quickly, they go get sick. Why? Because they are ruminants, which essentially means their digestive system is designed to digest good, old-fashioned grass. It's a multi-stage digestive system. So when they eat grain and other non-grass food, they get quite sick, and their liver is one of the first things to go. To prevent that, feedlots load them up (with many pounds per day!) of antibiotics to ward off the sickness. They don't really eliminate the problem...the objective is to keep that commodity (the cow) alive long enough to slaughter, and fat enough to get a good return on their investment. Some of those antibiotics ends up the meat.
So what? Wellll...if you eat enough antibiotics (the opposite of probiotics, the fashionable ad term attached to yogurt), the "good bacteria" in your own gut get killed. And that's not good, as then your digestive system won't be up to speed and you can't absorb nutrients from your own food effectively.
We've all heard about BSE (Mad Cow)...well, that comes from animals eating animals. Used to be that we (Canada) allowed rendered cow blood and other cow products to be fed to feedlot cattle as protein supplements. That's now illegal, but it's OK to feed cattle products to other animals such as chickens and turkeys. However, don't forget that those chickens and turkeys can be fed cow-based protein supplements, so it stands to reason that eventually, if there is that very hard-to-kill BSE in a chicken, it could come right back to being eaten up by a cow. I hope you've noted that, thus far, none of this stupidity has anything to do with raising a healthy, happy cow. Nope.
It's the result of "food scientists" trying to get the best rate of return for the big producers. Hell, I'm a capitalist myself (note that it says "Conservative" on my avatar), but I learned long ago that if you kill or hurt your customers, you won't have any business in the future! So I don't believe they're following a "total quality concept" when it comes to raising commercial beef. (A side note: My definition of "quality" is "Conformance to Customer Requirements" so it might follow that if all that the average consumer wants is cheap food, they might be satisified, at least in the short term. Be careful what you wish for...)
But wait - there's more! The meat from feedlot cattle has been proven - scientifically, beyond a shadow of doubt - to be not as "good" for a human as grass-fed (only grass!) beef. Sure, the protein levels are similar, but there are other things to consider...things that have a very direct impact on human health.
Vitamin E levels in feedlot beef are almost non-existent, but quite high in grass-fed. Feedlot beef contains high levels of Omega-6 fats, low levels of Omega-3 fats. Omega-6 are the artery cloggers, Omega-3 is what your body needs to function. Grass-fed beef contains almost a perfect opposite of fat balance...high in Omega-3, low in Omega-6. Grass-fed beef contains high levels of CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid), which is a naturally-occuring cancer fighter when it gets to the human body. Feedlot beef contains virtually no CLA. There's lots more on the subject, but you get the picture...the website that is - in my opinion - the 'last word' on beef and other meats is Eat Wild and it's worth a look.
Last but not least, feedlot beef - to my taste buds - simply stinks. That could be partly the way they're raised (usually up to their knees in cow crap in an enclosed pen, vs. a nice open pasture), but likely due more to the method of killing. And you have not lived until you've been inside a high-volume modern abbatoir where the terrified animals are being handled in the most inhumane way possible. (After all, time is money, right?) As any hunter could tell you, if you scare an animal before it's killed, the resulting adrenalin will find its way through the tissues and produce a "wild" taste in the meat. In commercial beef, it literally stinks. (Your fast food burger is a product of that but don't worry...they have lots of "things" in that burger patty to cover up the smell. Nutritional value? Never heard of it)...
And yet, many doctors, government people, health departments, etc. still maintain that "beef is beef." Incredible. How come I can find this information but they can't/won't? I dunno - I'm just an average "foodie." Some of the officials act like a bunch of meat-heads!
And you can see why the average consumer isn't aware of the facts...look how long it took me to write - and you to read (I hope you did) - this long-winded diatribe on just carrots and beef! Who's got time?
Well, I make time for it because I think it's important. And to think it all started when one of my kids asked me why hamburger stinks, many years ago. It took a 5 yr. old to point out to me that something smelled rotten on her plate. Out of the mouths of babes...
Apologies to the members for the lengthy posting above but, as you may have guessed, food is a bit of a hot button for me!
Yes, if I recall, the only thing organic in Willy's Puddle is the pond scum.
Are you out near Likely or Horsefly?
Yes, I agree except that it's questionable if the pond scum is that pure...WL (better use some codes here to avoid offending anyone) is a bit of an "eating wasteland"...I've resorted to packing a lunch if I'm heading up there to do some shopping. Gawd, their food is bloody awful. Doesn't have to be that way, but nobody seems to give a sh*t. Or maybe they've never actually tasted any good food. Bizarre, considering all the nice beef in the pastures and grazing ranges around there. Another one of life's little mysteries.
Might have something to do with the 360 day hangover from Stampede.:roll::smile:
You must have thick skin. The bugs around there drive the moose crazy! (I've tree planted in the area).
The bugs drive some people nuts but I've never been bothered by them. Mind you, I'm from the wilds of Manitoba originally and the 'skeeters there are nasty. :smile:
Ever stop in downtown Miocene? I worked there 42 years ago, figure there must be a Walmart there now..............:lol::lol::lol:
About 15 miles east of 150 Mile House on the Horsefly Rd. Another watering hole out there is Ochiltree.
You talked about Dr. Art and the organic brouhaha, but I'm curious as to what you think about the food picture in general...for example, do you think food is as good (for you) now as it was back in your "good old days?" (We're all different ages, I assume)...
I do agree with you that the entire "organic" picture can be a bit overwhelming...now that some food bigger marketers have gotten involved, you really have to wonder how "pure" some of the so-called organic foods really are. Not only that, but when they talk about organic beef, I have to wonder why I'd want to eat a cow that's been fed organic grain (instead of grass)...the cow will get sick on the grain, no matter where it came from.
And while we're at it, it might be worth checking out Good Eating - Home Page as another interesting read-up on food. (Just trying to stay on the subject here...)
Cheers! ;-)
Yeah, he's probably talking about a limited-scope UK study on organics vs. non-organics a little while back. Unfortunately, it didn't quite cover it all.
I'm not an expert on all this stuff (trying to learn more), but my understanding is that when they use inorganic (chemical) pesticides and herbicides on most fruits and veggies, those plants - which normally produce a natural, cancer-fighting substance originally intended (by nature) to fight off bugs and such - simply quit making this "good stuff." As a result, the "total" nutrition of the produce is lacking at least that element of goodness.
Again, I could look it all up somewhere but I'm pretty sure I'm right on the theory. Perhaps they simply measured the levels of carotene (Vitamin A)...not sure on that one. Studies can tell you anything, but they can also be misleading. I know one thing - having been raised in farm country, commercial carrots sure as hell don't taste anything like organic ones (we used to grow "organic", but didn't call it that back then...the fertilizer we used came from cow crap, not a pail from a chemical factory).
This "element" isn't included in conventional nutritional tests so it doesn't count, insofar as most studies go. There is also the fact that trace amounts of the chemical residues stay with the carrots, apples, etc. but I'm not sure if they can even measure that stuff reliably. Even if they did, the government would say that it is at "acceptable levels", and if all you ate was a few carrots in a week, everything would by hunky-dory. However, who measures the cumulative amount of bad stuff we ingest...the answer is, nobody.
I think there is far more info. available on the subject but it takes a pile of time and work to get at it all.
Dr. Art kind of reminds me of the folks - such as all levels of government - who say that "beef is beef." Now I'm a bit more up to speed on that subject. A feedlot cow (supermarket beef) is fed corn and other grains to fatten them up quickly, they go get sick. Why? Because they are ruminants, which essentially means their digestive system is designed to digest good, old-fashioned grass. It's a multi-stage digestive system. So when they eat grain and other non-grass food, they get quite sick, and their liver is one of the first things to go. To prevent that, feedlots load them up (with many pounds per day!) of antibiotics to ward off the sickness. They don't really eliminate the problem...the objective is to keep that commodity (the cow) alive long enough to slaughter, and fat enough to get a good return on their investment. Some of those antibiotics ends up the meat.
So what? Wellll...if you eat enough antibiotics (the opposite of probiotics, the fashionable ad term attached to yogurt), the "good bacteria" in your own gut get killed. And that's not good, as then your digestive system won't be up to speed and you can't absorb nutrients from your own food effectively.
We've all heard about BSE (Mad Cow)...well, that comes from animals eating animals. Used to be that we (Canada) allowed rendered cow blood and other cow products to be fed to feedlot cattle as protein supplements. That's now illegal, but it's OK to feed cattle products to other animals such as chickens and turkeys. However, don't forget that those chickens and turkeys can be fed cow-based protein supplements, so it stands to reason that eventually, if there is that very hard-to-kill BSE in a chicken, it could come right back to being eaten up by a cow. I hope you've noted that, thus far, none of this stupidity has anything to do with raising a healthy, happy cow. Nope.
It's the result of "food scientists" trying to get the best rate of return for the big producers. Hell, I'm a capitalist myself (note that it says "Conservative" on my avatar), but I learned long ago that if you kill or hurt your customers, you won't have any business in the future! So I don't believe they're following a "total quality concept" when it comes to raising commercial beef. (A side note: My definition of "quality" is "Conformance to Customer Requirements" so it might follow that if all that the average consumer wants is cheap food, they might be satisified, at least in the short term. Be careful what you wish for...)
But wait - there's more! The meat from feedlot cattle has been proven - scientifically, beyond a shadow of doubt - to be not as "good" for a human as grass-fed (only grass!) beef. Sure, the protein levels are similar, but there are other things to consider...things that have a very direct impact on human health.
Vitamin E levels in feedlot beef are almost non-existent, but quite high in grass-fed. Feedlot beef contains high levels of Omega-6 fats, low levels of Omega-3 fats. Omega-6 are the artery cloggers, Omega-3 is what your body needs to function. Grass-fed beef contains almost a perfect opposite of fat balance...high in Omega-3, low in Omega-6. Grass-fed beef contains high levels of CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid), which is a naturally-occuring cancer fighter when it gets to the human body. Feedlot beef contains virtually no CLA. There's lots more on the subject, but you get the picture...the website that is - in my opinion - the 'last word' on beef and other meats is Eat Wild and it's worth a look.
Last but not least, feedlot beef - to my taste buds - simply stinks. That could be partly the way they're raised (usually up to their knees in cow crap in an enclosed pen, vs. a nice open pasture), but likely due more to the method of killing. And you have not lived until you've been inside a high-volume modern abbatoir where the terrified animals are being handled in the most inhumane way possible. (After all, time is money, right?) As any hunter could tell you, if you scare an animal before it's killed, the resulting adrenalin will find its way through the tissues and produce a "wild" taste in the meat. In commercial beef, it literally stinks. (Your fast food burger is a product of that but don't worry...they have lots of "things" in that burger patty to cover up the smell. Nutritional value? Never heard of it)...
And yet, many doctors, government people, health departments, etc. still maintain that "beef is beef." Incredible. How come I can find this information but they can't/won't? I dunno - I'm just an average "foodie." Some of the officials act like a bunch of meat-heads!
And you can see why the average consumer isn't aware of the facts...look how long it took me to write - and you to read (I hope you did) - this long-winded diatribe on just carrots and beef! Who's got time?
Well, I make time for it because I think it's important. And to think it all started when one of my kids asked me why hamburger stinks, many years ago. It took a 5 yr. old to point out to me that something smelled rotten on her plate. Out of the mouths of babes...
Well, this kind of long-windedness I like. Beats the heck out of eanassir's long-winded reposts, and other people with their cut & pastes. I learned something here about Omega 3s and 6s I didn't know. Not that we eat any factory beef, but I can laugh more solidly at our friends and acquaintances who habit places like A&W, McDuh's, and the like.
Jeez, I also seem to learn something new every day about our so-called "food." The reason I learned about the Omega 3 & 6 thing is this: My older brother, now a retired Chartered Accountant, had a triple-bypass operation a few years ago. He decided to change his lifestyle around (mainly eatin' better) and launched himself into a food study with a lot of intensity. He has never been married, so he had lots of time to really get into it. And "get into it" he did...
He started on meat (because the conventional doctors were giving him all kinds of advice about red meat, which he'd never give up) and really tore it apart. He has since gone on to the entire spectrum of food and he is likely as knowledgeable as anyone I've ever met. The only problem is, he's an accountant and doesn't like to "communicate" like I do! (I was the salesman in the family...he was the "brains")
Anyway, to make a long story somewhat shorter :?:, he filled in all kinds of blanks I had on the food picture...I had been at it for years since my young daughter told me "Daddy, this meat stinks!" and I began to look into it. Here's one example of advice that you have to take with a grain of salt (the good salt, please...ha, ha)...some people will say, "Eat more fish, less red meat." Bullsh*t, in my opinion. Why? Because they're talking about good fats and Vitamin E found in fish whose food chain starts with green stuff (plankton) in the ocean. Well, we have the same green stuff on dry land...it's called "grass." Which is why buffalo, elk, and even cows (those that eat only grass) end up with the same good fats and Vitamin E in their meat. Duh... Besides, there is a vast difference between a farmed fish (fed with protein stuff to make them grow faster) and a wild fish. A very big difference...it's just like factory beef vs. grass-fed. A bit of a no-brainer when you stop and think about it, eh?
I guess I could now be branded as a "food crusader" but I don't give a sh*t about labels...I believe it's a righteous pursuit and I'm primarily concerned about where the young people will end up when they grow up. They are collectively eating crap like no other time in history and there will be a price to pay. Well, let's face it - some are already paying it, in terms of Type 2 diabetes, obesity, etc. For the most part, it's a preventable problem. You don't really see the problem as widespread in many other countries, as the older or less-developed (third world) countries still actually eat a lot of real food (unprocessed, unscrewed-up)...granted, there are other problems in those countries with simply not enough food, but that's another story.
Here, we have an opportunity to clean things up and make life better for growing young 'uns, but it has to be an educational process. Tough job.
Jeez, there I go again...too much communicating :-|...well, thanks for listening and I take my hat off to you for avoiding factory meat! A smart and tasty choice.
I whole-heartedly agree with you about that, especially the fish thing. I've tried that farmed Atlantic. I just cooked a bit and tried it. It started out labelled fresh. My first thought after tasting it was that I might as well eat whitefish. The cats got the rest of it and I dug out a couple sockeye steaks. One of the fishmongers was trying to sell me some salmon from BC coast. I asked what make it was and he said Atlantic farmed. I said I'll pass, and he said he wasn't surprised. Apparentl;y he was a bit more gullible than I and bought some. I told him I hoped he didn't buy much, but if he had any he couldn't get rid of, I'd buy some for a reduced price and feed it to cats. lol I got 7 salmon filets for $10.00 when I saw him next time.
Ha, ha...that's a good one! I know a guy who used to work at a fish farm and he won't go near the stuff now. We kid him a bit, because he said he used to grow hair on his hands because of the growth hormones and stuff in the fish food. We told him that problem can be caused by other "activities" too! Ha, ha...
But the moral of the story is, even though he's no "foodie", he has enough experience to know - and tell everyone - that farmed fish is pure, unadulerated crap. (He used different words, but we're trying to be polite here!) I, for one, believe him!
PS re: the cats...I have a 14 yr. old male, street-wise cat named Einstein. I tried to get rid of some farmed tilapia one time (a fit of stupidity...didn't realize it was farmed until I got home and read about it) by feeding it to him. He just looked at it, sniffed it, and then left. He came back later with a beheaded squirrel and tore its guts out. So, I guess gutted squirrel is better than farmed fish, at least in the eyes of my "foodie" cat!