organic food vs evolution ?
Image by USDAgov
The basic rule for organic agriculture is to allow natural substances and prohibit synthetic. For livestock like these healthy cows, however, vaccines play an important part in animal health—especially since antibiotic therapy is prohibited. Photo courtesy Pleasantview Farm, an Ohio certified organic dairy farm.
Question by HOTABIZ: organic food vs evolution ?
Why organic is still better for us and how long will take evolution for the adaptation of domestic species and the crops to adjust to all the addictive and chemicals involve in our agriculture , including us humans???
it seem evolution is not quite working for us !
yes sure organic has nothing to do with evolution;
“The three leading causes of death in industrialized countries are cancer, stroke and ischemic heart disease, whereas infections are more prevalent in developing countries”
http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/cheapfood012304.cfm
What do you think? Answer below!
11 Responses to organic food vs evolution ?
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Organic means that no pesticides or other chemicals were used in the growing of the product, how does that have anything to do with evolution?
carinata
February 4, 2012 at 4:29 pm
I’m not convinced that it IS…
The Reverend Soleil
February 4, 2012 at 5:02 pm
Actually, a piece of recent research by the Food Standards Agency (in the UK) shows that organic food is not nutritionally superior to non-organic
It just means that you don’t end up swallowing those pesticides/growth hormones etc if you choose organic.
(and what this has to do with evolution, I have no idea)
Sirensong sunshine
February 4, 2012 at 5:36 pm
… for evolution to have any involvement in it, we would have to wait until a favorable gene popped up at random that helped in that particular issue, and then we would have to wait for that gene to be spread among a population.
That is going to take much longer than the amount of time that humans have even been using such chemicals.
Jakob
February 4, 2012 at 6:11 pm
The fact that insects become resistant to pesticides over time is proof of evolution. The amount of pesticides used to kill insects is not enough to kill a human, which means that we do not have to evolve a resistance to the chemicals to survive as a species.
Try again.
Robin W
February 4, 2012 at 6:21 pm
Penn & Teller: Bullsh!t had an episode talking about organic vs regular produce.
They gave blind taste tests to some random people and they often weren’t able to distinguish organic from regular.
Aside from that, who knows what mutant creatures might emerge as a side effect of the various pesticides that make their way into aquifers and soil? Maybe some new parasites resistant to them will take hold and start gnawing on the roots of various plants vital to agriculture, causing worldwide economic crises.
Master ß
February 4, 2012 at 6:22 pm
There are a few nascent studies out there that initially suggest they are NOT better for us or the environment.
Now, none of it is conclusive…but some have pointed out that along with the advent of effective pesticides, the average life span increased. The speculation is that, since fruits and veggies were available to all at a cheaper price, we were getting better nutrition.
Organic fruits and veggies surely are not WORSE for you. But they have been shown to leave a LARGER carbon footprint, depending on where you buy them…for example, buying organic strawberries in, say, New York. Those need to be shipped across the country. Many organic foods need to be shipped further than their non-organic counterparts.
Now, as far as evolution and pesticides…well, I’m not entirely sure what the crap you are asking.
Gus
February 4, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Try getting an education! Rapid crop adaptations to chemicals is a vexing problem for farmers. This is a good example of real-time evolution at work.
harmonograph
February 4, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Actually a recent study found no significant benefit to eating organically grown food over food grown on huge farms that use pesticides.
Produce grown using pesticides and other modern methods, is just as digestible, just as nutritious, and cheaper because it can be grown in greater quantities!
Edit:
“yes sure organic has nothing to do with evolution;
“The three leading causes of death in industrialized countries are cancer, stroke and Islamic heart disease, whereas infections are more prevalent in developing countries””
And where is your conclusive evidence that a diet consisting of food grown with the use of pesticides causes ANY of these issues?
Our life spans have gotten longer and continue to, because of access to nutrious food. The fact that we are living longer is just as easily an explanation as to why we die of diseases like these, since many of them are way more common in those over the age of 40, rather than consuming food that might have some pesticide in it.
GambitGrrl
February 4, 2012 at 7:55 pm
organic food is only better if it is grown in soil that has been fertilized with natural elements and not stuff like ammonia that all the farm use to make the crops grow you only get nutrition out of something that has nutrition in the soil for it to soak up so there is no difference in my opinion as to whether the organic ( no pesticides ) or the organic (grown with ammonia ) is any differently in nutrition now if the dirt was fertilized with bone meal and cotton seed ,wood ashes ,and regular old cow manure then the food might have some actual vitamins and nutrients but their not ( except the ones i grow for my self )in my small garden as for Evolution i am sure if you keep trying you could produce something better if you tryed long enough but the fact that genetic manipulation has not worked very well as something always changes when they do genetic changes on plants like soy beans crack in the sun if they have been genetically altered and they have produced a corn that makes its own pesticide (not for human consumption )but it was mixed some time ago in the food chain and is still testing positive in corn sold to humans to this day in Africa our government (USA) offered to give the starving people the genetically modified corn but the African government at the time rejected it for fear of some backlash in the future and who knows what other side effects they might have in the long term maybe even produce a mold spore that can cure cancer or kill you who knows its just not been long enough since they have been doing genetic cloning ( evolution)of plants to tell
mindwarp
February 4, 2012 at 8:32 pm
It will take probably less than a year to see a huge drop in cancers and other diseases caused by chemicals in our food if the chems were removed. I have a friend who got her kids off of conventional food and eating only food she grew organic ally and within weeks they were no longer ADD and had lost weight. Several years later and they are about perfect kids health-wise.
With what we know about how chems effect the genome and epi-genome (very small but growing body of knowledge) the effects likely will last for 10’s of generations and there will be more and more mutations. So I guess the answer is for some things it will take possibly 1000 generations of eating and living chemically free before we quit seeing the effects of the chemicals
Ohiorganic
February 4, 2012 at 9:09 pm