I guess we can agree to disagree.
cheers,
cheers,
jordan
By 'chemicals', what exactly do you mean?I don't necessarily want fewer proteins, sugars, fats, vitamins, minerals,etc., and those are all chemicals.In fact, the entire mass of the chicken is chemicals, so eliminating all ofthem leaves me nothing.Do you want all traces of selenium removed from the chicken?The LD50 is between 12 and 38 mg/kg.The LD50 for arsenic is much higher at 185 to 6400 mg/lg.So selenium is many times more toxic.And yet it is essential to your living past the next few weeks.Small amounts of arsenic are recommended for the health of the chicken.But because people think it is a poison, they are afraid of it in their food.But there is belladonna in your organic tomatoes and potatoes, and yet thatis OK with you. It also is more deadly than arsenic.If 'chemical' means 'stuff I don't know about', then there are far more chemicalsin 'organic' fertilizer than in ammonium nitrate. Not only does it containpathogenic live organisms that frequently kill people who eat uncookedproduce in their salads, but it includes millions of molecules that are notlisted on the label, and in varying proportions that are not standardized oreven measured.As it happens, I raise my own organic chickens. I eat the eggs they produce.They run around the farm and eat things out of our compost heap, and theyeat the maggots in the alpaca dung. They scratch in the dirt constantly. Andwhat is in the dirt? More arsenic than was measured in the feather-meal thatthe article discussed. Why? Because all dirt has arsenic in it. It is a commonelement. There is lead in there too, and mercury. And the eggs taste great.But you forget that we were talking about levels of these micronutrients thatare good for you. We see this all the time -- there is an optimal amount ofalcohol you should ingest for your health. I have already mentioned aspirinfor its heart benefits. Selenium and arsenic also have non-zero optimaldoses.
The reason we talk about these things on a science-oriented list is that badjournalism hurts people. And we scientists must try to undo the damage byexplaining the science to people who might think that the New York Timesmakes it true by printing this nonsense to sell more newspapers.Fear sells newspapers. Don't fear your food.--
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On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 4:13 PM, Jordan Miller <jrdnmlr@gmail.com> wrote:now you see why people err on the side of fewer chemicals in their foods rather than more. the studies are almost impossible to finance and prove either way. yet we have many many tragic examples of food supply contamination or drugs causing irreparable harm to individuals that we find out about decades later.remember melamine?jordanI'm not sure I understand.How would you quantify something that is unspecified?
What danger is organic food saving people from?Do I have to follow organic food eaters until they die to see if they livelonger than non-organic food eaters? The fact that they can afford to eatorganic means they are wealthier than most people, which might also skewthe data.-----Get a free science project every week! "http://scitoys.com/newsletter.html"
On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 1:49 PM, Jordan Miller <jrdnmlr@gmail.com> wrote:no one is stopping you from quantifying it. what would be a good way to do so?
jordan
On Apr 24, 2012, at 4:19 PM, Simon Quellen Field wrote:
> Arsenic is 'natural'.
> That makes it better than 'chemicals'.
>
> The argument that growing stuff with nitrogen fixed by bacteria in cow guts
> is better than growing stuff in nitrogen fixed by the Haber process is one
> that has not been proved. I would argue that there are more potential
> pathogens in cow manure than in ammonium nitrate. And more pharmaceuticals.
>
> The article said that there were no health risks, not that none were known.
> We have known about arsenic for a long time. And hormesis implies that the
> baby aspirin I take to keep my heart healthy should be thought of more as a
> vitamin than a toxin. They are feeding the arsenic to the chickens to improve
> their health. It is not being put in there to kill them or make them sick, and in
> fact it does neither.
>
> My complaint is that too many people make bad decisions based on this kind of
> bad logic. Don't eat apples, they contain cyanide. The same people who worry
> about arsenic in their chicken drive cars, and are much more likely to die from
> that than from anything they eat. The pollution they create that way is much more
> dangerous than the levels of arsenic needed to keep chickens healthy. The amount
> of money we spend on organic produce could keep millions from starving, but we
> choose to spend the money on an untested belief that organic produce will keep
> us safe from some unspecified and unquantified danger.
>
> -----
> Get a free science project every week! "http://scitoys.com/newsletter.html"
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 1:01 PM, Jordan Miller <jrdnmlr@gmail.com> wrote:
> > If there is no health concern, why suggest that everyone buy food that is more expensive
> > because the chemicals in it passed through animals instead of through fertilizer plants?
>
> This is the same argument used to justify the dumping of hexavalent chromium into water supply as depicted in Erin Brockovich. Also, lookup thalidomide if you want to see where this lax thinking -- "show me the proof" -- has led people astray.
>
> The reason it is a concern now is that health effects are often not known until it is "too late" -- e.g. until someone has contracted an incurable illness from it. especially with things as strong as arsenic. and it is really really difficult to trace it all the way back to the source of the toxin if it is in the food supply at these across-the-board levels. So history has taught us its better to err on the side of fewer chemicals than more chemicals.
>
> jordan
>
>
>
>
>
> On Apr 24, 2012, at 2:48 PM, Simon Quellen Field wrote:
>
> > Interesting that the link got split at the new line.
> > If you click on the second half of the link, it will work.
> >
> > The part of the article I was referring to was this:
> > " It turns out that arsenic has routinely been fed to poultry (and sometimes hogs) because it reduces infections "
> > It appears that you only remembered the second half of that sentence:
> > " and makes flesh an appetizing shade of pink. "
> > :-)
> >
> > My comments reflect my general disdain for this kind of journalism.
> >
> > It is what caused the maker of 'pink slime' to go out of business, laying off 300
> > employees, because some group picked a nasty sounding name for their product.
> >
> > The conclusion the article suggested, that we all eat expensive organic foods
> > instead, as if we could grow enough food for 6.8 billion people that way, is as bad
> > as any suggestion Marie Antoinette made about what the poor should eat.
> >
> > We could write an equally factual article about the cyanide we found in organic
> > apricots and apples, stating that "We were kind of floored," and
> > "It's unbelievable what we found." despite the fact that it is quite easily
> > believable. Other comments are equally stupid:
> > "We haven't found anything that is an immediate health concern," Nachman added. "But it makes me question how comfortable we are feeding a number of these things to animals that we're eating. It bewilders me."
> >
> > If there is no health concern, why suggest that everyone buy food that is more expensive
> > because the chemicals in it passed through animals instead of through fertilizer plants?
> >
> > Chemical tests are very sensitive. Farmers in China are apparently feeding Prozac to
> > chickens. A 30 day supply of fluoxetine would cost more than the chicken. Did they
> > re-test at a different lab to make sure there was no contamination? Did they retest
> > different chickens to see if that one chicken happened to eat the pill the farmer
> > dropped by accident?
> >
> > They say that trace amounts of acetaminophen were also found. Should I worry?
> > Millions of people dose themselves with amounts thousands of times higher on a
> > daily basis. Benadryl was also found. They say it reduces anxiety in chickens, and
> > apparently in doses small enough that it is cost-effective to feed to chickens that
> > wholesale for 59 cents a pound (USDA data). Don't you want your chickens to be
> > happy? Are you some kind of sadist? :-)
> >
> > The USDA data also show that organic chickens sell for $2.48 per pound. Why would
> > a farmer feed chickens expensive pharmaceuticals if not doing so would raise the
> > price they could get for the chicken four-fold? Because few consumers are willing to
> > pay four times the price for a chicken that has no 'immediate health' benefits.
> >
> > The part the article only mentions much later, almost as an afterthought, is more
> > important. Analyzing feather-meal can test for banned antibiotics. Government
> > inspectors should do this routinely, because there are good reasons for not allowing
> > antibiotics to be used in chicken farming. There are laws against it, but apparently
> > they are not being perfectly enforced. If this testing is cheap (it is), it should be used
> > so that scofflaws are caught and the practice is eliminated.
> >
> >
> > -----
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:50 AM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz787@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Your link doesn't work, it shows up as "http://goog_921276603/"
> >
> > The article didn't specifically mention it helped the chickens, rather
> > that it made them /look/ healthy
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 1:07 PM, Simon Quellen Field <sfield@scitoys.com> wrote:
> > > Have you measured the arsenic levels in your blood?
> > > If you don't have high enough levels, perhaps you are not eating enough
> > > chicken. If the levels are higher than optimal, there are standard methods
> > > for fixing that. But even heavy metals gradually leave your body over time.
> > > We are, as the original article said, talking about levels that are so low
> > > that
> > > they have no medical effects on humans, but apparently have beneficial
> > > effect on chickens. You may have to eat your weight in chickens to get the
> > > same benefits.
> > >
> > > -----
> > > Get a free science project every week! "http://scitoys.com/newsletter.html"
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 9:22 PM, Jordan Miller <jrdnmlr@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> does arsenic undergo biologic accumulation like I thought mercury
> > >> does? if so, this tends to accumulate more in species toward the top
> > >> of the food chain (e.g. humans) at higher and therefore more dangerous
> > >> concentrations.
> > >>
> > >> jordan
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On Apr 23, 2012, at 11:45 PM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz787@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> > On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 10:55 PM, Simon Quellen Field
> > >> > <sfield@scitoys.com> wrote:
> > >> >> OK, so the levels of arsenic in the chicken were not enough to cause
> > >> >> any
> > >> >> health concerns, but were enough to reduce infections in the chickens.
> > >> >>
> > >> >> It sounds like we should all start adding small amounts of arsenic to
> > >> >> our
> > >> >> diets,
> > >> >> unless we get enough of it in our chicken.
> > >> >>
> > >> >
> > >> > Going on that:
> > >> >
> > >> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis#2004_Taiwan_cobalt-contaminated_steel
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> > --
> > >> > Nathan McCorkle
> > >> > Rochester Institute of Technology
> > >> > College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics
> > >> >
> > >> > --
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> > College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics
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