Anyone whom has read this blog is probably aware that I don't like the Anti-GMO movement. I find the movement to be highly deceptive and uses propaganda and fear mongering in order to get people to buy "organic" food, and to reject all GMO foods no matter what.
Normally in spite their BS I would still have bought and eaten organic foods, not because I believed it was healthier for you (although I admit I at one time I did believe that) but because it tasted a little better, but now knowing more facts about the Anti-GMO movement and the extremes that they have gone to, and about organic food and it's sustainability, as well as the organic food industry itself, I can no longer consciously buy and/or eat organic foods. To put it bluntly I am now Anti-Organic Foods, and I have several reasons (besides what I just what said here) why.
My first and foremost reasons for why I am now Anti-Organic Foods is because of the Anti-GMO movement itself and what it's highly deceptive propaganda and fear mongering has done, which is to cause governments around the world to pass completely moronic Anti-GMO laws that is based off of fear rather than legitimate science, and has at times because of these laws hampered research into GMO foods, and to cause normally intelligent to reject GMO foods without any reason other than what lies the Anti-GMO movement has told them.
Another reason why I am now Anti-Organic Foods is because of the deaths that have been caused by the Anti-GMO movement and their propaganda, particularly in developing in certain developing countries where the leaders of those countries actually rejected food donations because they were lead to believe (most notably by Greenpeace) that the food may have contain GMO foods and was (according to these Anti-GMO groups) poisonous. This type of deception has resulted in thousands of deaths, and possibly more.
My third reason why I have rejected organic foods is because of the physical destruction caused by the Anti-GMO movement, particularly of experimental GMO food crops due to the perception that these crops were dangerous. This destruction has caused millions of dollars worth of damage, not to mention the lose of valuable research data. The fact that many Anti-GMO groups (including Greenpeace) often praise this destruction, and have been accused of directly or indirectly responsible of being the cause of such destruction only makes the whole Anti-GMO movement look so much worse to me.
Now my fourth reason for rejecting organic foods isn't because of the Anti-GMO movement, but because of organic foods itself.
Organic foods are luxury foods. That's all they are. They are not any healthier or better for you, they just taste better. They won't solve the world's food supply problems, and infact will make them worse due to organic foods having lower crop yields than GMO crops, and also not being able to be grown in as many places as GMO crops can.
Organic crops are also not as environmentally friendly as they're made out to be and require far more land to grow on than GMO crops do, and require far more pesticides inorder to keep insects away than GMO crops (and despite what you have been told a lot of farmers that grow organic foods actually do use pesticides, and lots of it).
My fifth reason for rejecting organic foods is because of the organic food industry itself, particularly with the self created perception that the organic food industry is a small and humble force. It is not.
Some of the farmers in the organic food industry might be small and humble, but the industry as a whole is a huge, multi-billion dollar industry (Whole Foods Market, one of the largest organic foods supermarkets, made over nine billion in 2010) so in my opinion it's very deceptive how the whole organic food industry has made itself out to be.
My final reason why I have rejected organic foods is because of the self imposed perception that organic foods are ethical.
In my opinion organic foods are not ethical. It's perceived ethicalness is based off of lies created by a group do-gooder no-nothings who believe that because something that is created by a multi-billion dollar corporation then it must be evil and dangerous. This type of belief has lead to both the creation of the most outrageous lies and have been the cause of many deaths, all inorder to force people to eat luxury foods.
Because of all this I have decided to avoid eating organic foods when and where I can. I just don't feel right eating something that is based off of lies.
Showing posts with label Organic woo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Organic woo. Show all posts
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
10 reasons why the Anti-GMO and the Anti-vaccination movement are a lot alike.
The Anti-GMO movements and Anti-vaccination movements are probably two of the biggest and most well known pseudoscience movements out there, with millions of people that adhere to their claims.
Besides the fact that both groups do have millions of proponents world wide and promote pseudoscience, both groups are a lot alike in other ways as well. Infact I've come up with about ten different reasons why they are so much alike, starting with the fact that...
Proponents of both get very emotional when you criticize and/or debunk them.
Ever get into an online discussion with someone whom either promotes Anti-vaccination or Anti-GMO nonsense, and you start to tell them what they claim is BS, and tell them why what they are claiming is BS? If you've answered yes then you know what usually ends up happening, and that is that they tend to go off the deep end and use all of these made up "facts" and logical fallacies and conspiracy theories, and in the end threats and accusations of being a shill are often made.
A proponent of one tends to be a proponent of the other.
It shouldn't be to surprising, but usually if someone is an Anti-GMO proponent, they usually tend to be an Anti-vaccination proponent as well, and vice-verse.
While this isn't necessarily true many websites that promote Anti-vaccination nonsense also tend to promote Anti-GMO nonsense as well. Infact some websites that claim to be "natural health" websites promote both equally instead of one overshadowing the other. Also, another thing about proponents of both are...
They tend to promote alternative medicine.
It shouldn't be to surprising that people in the Anti-vaccination movement are big proponents of alternative medicine, but it shouldn't also be to surprising that people in the Anti-GMO movement are also big proponents of alternative medicine as well.
Infact many people in the Anti-GMO movement will, besides just promote the usual alternative medicine nonsense, claim that organic foods can heal you of just about anything and everything as well (including stuff that doesn't even exist).
The only papers they've ever had published in creditable scientific journals have been debunked and retracted.
There are lots of studies that have been published over the years about the "dangers" of vaccines and GMO foods, and while the number of papers published may look impressive to some the reality is that it isn't, especially when you consider the fact almost all of these papers are published in "scientific journals" that a person pays to be published in.
Infact the only Anti-vaccination and Anti-GMO papers that I know of that have ever been published in credible scientific journals are the Wakefield study (published in the Lancet) and the Séralini study (published in Food and Chemical Toxicology) both of which have been formally retracted by the respective journals that they were published in after it was found that both studies data was founded off of both unethical experiments and fraudulent data, and they were only retracted long after both studies had been thoroughly debunked.
They both claim the same things about the products in terms of health effects.
Both the Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination movements not only claim that both GMO foods and vaccines are bad for you and cause a large amount of health problems (all of which have been proven to be untrue), but they also claim that they cause the same health problems!
Both most notably are claimed to cause autism, but both are also claimed to cause the spreading of diseases, and increases in infant mortality, and sterility, and cancer, and who knows what else. It almost seems like Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination movements are claiming that GMO foods and vaccines causes something new every week.
They both claim that the products have ingredients in them that they do not.
One of the biggest and most obvious BS things that both the Anti-vaccination and the Anti-GMO movement tend to do is that they both claim that the respective products that they believe are bad for you also contain ingredients that infact they do not contain at all.
For the Anti-vaccination movement they sometimes claim that vaccines contain the remains of aborted human fetuses (they do not) and the Anti-GMO movement claims that GMO foods contain animal DNA in them (they do not). While these are the more outrageous claims made by both respective movements, both also claim that the products that they are protesting against contain other chemicals in them that infact they do not.
Both groups claim that there is little to no regulation in either industry.
One of the main "claimed" reasons by so many people in the Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination movements is that they believe that GMO foods and vaccines are dangerous because they believe that there is very little to no testing and safety regulations what so ever in either industry.
In fact this couldn't be further from the truth for either one. Both the vaccine industry and the GMO foods industry are heavily regulated and go through numerous testing stages, and have to go through numerous government agencies before they are able to put their products onto market.
Both groups make claims of a conspiracy.
Both the Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination movements claim that the respective industries that they are protesting are involved in some kind of conspiracy. These conspiracy theories range from the plausible, but still disproven corporate greed and not caring about the health of others and putting out a product that has very little to no testing type of conspiracy theories, to some type of New World Order mass depopulation type of conspiracy theory (which if true then they've done a horrible job at it).
Also both groups claim that there is a conspiracy to suppress "information" (i.e. Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination claims) about the "truth" about GMO foods and vaccines. If this happened to be true then whoever is suppose to be suppressing this "information" has clearly done a terrible job at it because there are thousands of Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination websites, not to mention multiple groups that promote their beliefs.
Both groups have caused deaths.
One of the dark yet well known little secrets of both of these groups is that both groups have caused the deaths of thousands of people.
For the Anti-GMO movement the deaths caused by their propaganda comes in the form of people in developing countries starving to death because the leaders in some of these countries refused to accept food donations because they believed that the donations contained GMO foods (wouldn't matter if it did or didn't) and believed the Anti-GMO movement's claims that such food were poisonous.
For the Anti-vaccination movement the deaths caused by their propaganda comes in the form of children who's parents believed the Anti-vaccination movement's claims and didn't vaccinate their children, and their children got an infection from a disease that was completely preventable if they had been vaccinated, and the child died from that disease. Also the deaths are by children who were to young to be vaccinated, or couldn't be vaccinate for some medical reasons, but got a disease from a child that was infact old enough to be vaccinated but wasn't, and they died because of some other parent's carelessness.
While this fact about both groups are often ignored by both groups, it is not however ignored by skeptics and critics of the Anti-GMO and the Anti-vaccination movements.
Both groups don't talk about the good things what they protest have done.
Both groups just love to talk about all the "bad" stuff (i.e. made up stuff) about GMO foods and vaccines. What they don't tell you is all of the good things that GMO foods and vaccines have brought us, such a extending our life expectancy, and suppressing and even eliminating certain diseases, and over all improving our quality of life, as well as helping prevent people from dying.
Infact talking about all of the good things about GMO foods and vaccines almost seems like a kind of blasphemy to these Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination groups...
Besides the fact that both groups do have millions of proponents world wide and promote pseudoscience, both groups are a lot alike in other ways as well. Infact I've come up with about ten different reasons why they are so much alike, starting with the fact that...
Proponents of both get very emotional when you criticize and/or debunk them.
Ever get into an online discussion with someone whom either promotes Anti-vaccination or Anti-GMO nonsense, and you start to tell them what they claim is BS, and tell them why what they are claiming is BS? If you've answered yes then you know what usually ends up happening, and that is that they tend to go off the deep end and use all of these made up "facts" and logical fallacies and conspiracy theories, and in the end threats and accusations of being a shill are often made.
A proponent of one tends to be a proponent of the other.
It shouldn't be to surprising, but usually if someone is an Anti-GMO proponent, they usually tend to be an Anti-vaccination proponent as well, and vice-verse.
While this isn't necessarily true many websites that promote Anti-vaccination nonsense also tend to promote Anti-GMO nonsense as well. Infact some websites that claim to be "natural health" websites promote both equally instead of one overshadowing the other. Also, another thing about proponents of both are...
They tend to promote alternative medicine.
It shouldn't be to surprising that people in the Anti-vaccination movement are big proponents of alternative medicine, but it shouldn't also be to surprising that people in the Anti-GMO movement are also big proponents of alternative medicine as well.
Infact many people in the Anti-GMO movement will, besides just promote the usual alternative medicine nonsense, claim that organic foods can heal you of just about anything and everything as well (including stuff that doesn't even exist).
The only papers they've ever had published in creditable scientific journals have been debunked and retracted.
There are lots of studies that have been published over the years about the "dangers" of vaccines and GMO foods, and while the number of papers published may look impressive to some the reality is that it isn't, especially when you consider the fact almost all of these papers are published in "scientific journals" that a person pays to be published in.
Infact the only Anti-vaccination and Anti-GMO papers that I know of that have ever been published in credible scientific journals are the Wakefield study (published in the Lancet) and the Séralini study (published in Food and Chemical Toxicology) both of which have been formally retracted by the respective journals that they were published in after it was found that both studies data was founded off of both unethical experiments and fraudulent data, and they were only retracted long after both studies had been thoroughly debunked.
They both claim the same things about the products in terms of health effects.
Both the Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination movements not only claim that both GMO foods and vaccines are bad for you and cause a large amount of health problems (all of which have been proven to be untrue), but they also claim that they cause the same health problems!
Both most notably are claimed to cause autism, but both are also claimed to cause the spreading of diseases, and increases in infant mortality, and sterility, and cancer, and who knows what else. It almost seems like Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination movements are claiming that GMO foods and vaccines causes something new every week.
They both claim that the products have ingredients in them that they do not.
One of the biggest and most obvious BS things that both the Anti-vaccination and the Anti-GMO movement tend to do is that they both claim that the respective products that they believe are bad for you also contain ingredients that infact they do not contain at all.
For the Anti-vaccination movement they sometimes claim that vaccines contain the remains of aborted human fetuses (they do not) and the Anti-GMO movement claims that GMO foods contain animal DNA in them (they do not). While these are the more outrageous claims made by both respective movements, both also claim that the products that they are protesting against contain other chemicals in them that infact they do not.
Both groups claim that there is little to no regulation in either industry.
One of the main "claimed" reasons by so many people in the Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination movements is that they believe that GMO foods and vaccines are dangerous because they believe that there is very little to no testing and safety regulations what so ever in either industry.
In fact this couldn't be further from the truth for either one. Both the vaccine industry and the GMO foods industry are heavily regulated and go through numerous testing stages, and have to go through numerous government agencies before they are able to put their products onto market.
Both groups make claims of a conspiracy.
Both the Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination movements claim that the respective industries that they are protesting are involved in some kind of conspiracy. These conspiracy theories range from the plausible, but still disproven corporate greed and not caring about the health of others and putting out a product that has very little to no testing type of conspiracy theories, to some type of New World Order mass depopulation type of conspiracy theory (which if true then they've done a horrible job at it).
Also both groups claim that there is a conspiracy to suppress "information" (i.e. Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination claims) about the "truth" about GMO foods and vaccines. If this happened to be true then whoever is suppose to be suppressing this "information" has clearly done a terrible job at it because there are thousands of Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination websites, not to mention multiple groups that promote their beliefs.
Both groups have caused deaths.
One of the dark yet well known little secrets of both of these groups is that both groups have caused the deaths of thousands of people.
For the Anti-GMO movement the deaths caused by their propaganda comes in the form of people in developing countries starving to death because the leaders in some of these countries refused to accept food donations because they believed that the donations contained GMO foods (wouldn't matter if it did or didn't) and believed the Anti-GMO movement's claims that such food were poisonous.
For the Anti-vaccination movement the deaths caused by their propaganda comes in the form of children who's parents believed the Anti-vaccination movement's claims and didn't vaccinate their children, and their children got an infection from a disease that was completely preventable if they had been vaccinated, and the child died from that disease. Also the deaths are by children who were to young to be vaccinated, or couldn't be vaccinate for some medical reasons, but got a disease from a child that was infact old enough to be vaccinated but wasn't, and they died because of some other parent's carelessness.
While this fact about both groups are often ignored by both groups, it is not however ignored by skeptics and critics of the Anti-GMO and the Anti-vaccination movements.
Both groups don't talk about the good things what they protest have done.
Both groups just love to talk about all the "bad" stuff (i.e. made up stuff) about GMO foods and vaccines. What they don't tell you is all of the good things that GMO foods and vaccines have brought us, such a extending our life expectancy, and suppressing and even eliminating certain diseases, and over all improving our quality of life, as well as helping prevent people from dying.
Infact talking about all of the good things about GMO foods and vaccines almost seems like a kind of blasphemy to these Anti-GMO and Anti-vaccination groups...
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Anti-Vaccination & Anti-GMO: Proof that bad things do come from "Good Intentions"
Many of you probably already know about the Anti-vaccination and Anti-GMO crowds, and what they stand for. For those that do not, I'll refresh your memories:
The Anti-vaccination crowd claims that vaccines can cause debilitating in children, primarily autism, while the Anti-GMO crowds claim that food from genetically modified plants are unhealthy and possibly dangerous.
While I know that both of these groups believe very strongly that what they are saying is true, and that they are spreading whatever they think is true because they only have "good intention" and think what they're doing is right, the reality is what they are doing is very wrong.
Besides the fact that the information that both of these groups put out tends to be out right false, or is based upon outdated information, they don't seem to realize the real damage they are actually doing.
For the Anti-vaccination, the damage is very obvious.
The spreading of the anti-vaccine propaganda has caused some parents to become unnecessarily fearful of vaccines, which in turn has cause those parents to choose to not allow their children to get vaccinated, which has caused the rise of many illnesses among children that I had not even heard of anyone getting when I was in school, and that for the most part I didn't even think could kill someone because I had never heard of anyone dying from these illnesses before, more or less know someone who died from something like the measles.
As a result of this combination propaganda and paranoia, hundreds of children, if not more so, have died, and thousands of children have gotten sick unnecessarily because their parents failed to get them vaccinated, or because they were to young to get vaccinated, and they got sick from another child that was sick with something that could been prevent with a vaccine shot.
Then there is the Anti-GMO crowd, which while might not seem as harmful, could actually be worse.
While there is this popular belief that GMO foods are harmful, untested, and unregulated, all of these are false as GMO foods are heavily tested, heavily regulated, and are no more harmful than organic foods.
While organic food itself isn't actually bad, the people in the Anti-GMO crowd wants to ultimately ban GMO foods, and that is bad thing because the world population can not sustain it's current levels on organic food alone. In fact only 2/3 of that current world population would be able to sustain itself on organic food (and that's the high end).
The fact is that the world hunger problems are bad enough as they are, and would be far worse if the Anti-GMO crowd had it their way and the only food we grew was organic food.
I know that both groups have good intentions, and that both think what they are doing is for the betterment of human kind, but the fact is that they only things these two groups are doing are bringing needless suffering and death, and instead of being saviors of humanity, they are harming it.
The Anti-vaccination crowd claims that vaccines can cause debilitating in children, primarily autism, while the Anti-GMO crowds claim that food from genetically modified plants are unhealthy and possibly dangerous.
While I know that both of these groups believe very strongly that what they are saying is true, and that they are spreading whatever they think is true because they only have "good intention" and think what they're doing is right, the reality is what they are doing is very wrong.
Besides the fact that the information that both of these groups put out tends to be out right false, or is based upon outdated information, they don't seem to realize the real damage they are actually doing.
For the Anti-vaccination, the damage is very obvious.
The spreading of the anti-vaccine propaganda has caused some parents to become unnecessarily fearful of vaccines, which in turn has cause those parents to choose to not allow their children to get vaccinated, which has caused the rise of many illnesses among children that I had not even heard of anyone getting when I was in school, and that for the most part I didn't even think could kill someone because I had never heard of anyone dying from these illnesses before, more or less know someone who died from something like the measles.
As a result of this combination propaganda and paranoia, hundreds of children, if not more so, have died, and thousands of children have gotten sick unnecessarily because their parents failed to get them vaccinated, or because they were to young to get vaccinated, and they got sick from another child that was sick with something that could been prevent with a vaccine shot.
Then there is the Anti-GMO crowd, which while might not seem as harmful, could actually be worse.
While there is this popular belief that GMO foods are harmful, untested, and unregulated, all of these are false as GMO foods are heavily tested, heavily regulated, and are no more harmful than organic foods.
While organic food itself isn't actually bad, the people in the Anti-GMO crowd wants to ultimately ban GMO foods, and that is bad thing because the world population can not sustain it's current levels on organic food alone. In fact only 2/3 of that current world population would be able to sustain itself on organic food (and that's the high end).
The fact is that the world hunger problems are bad enough as they are, and would be far worse if the Anti-GMO crowd had it their way and the only food we grew was organic food.
I know that both groups have good intentions, and that both think what they are doing is for the betterment of human kind, but the fact is that they only things these two groups are doing are bringing needless suffering and death, and instead of being saviors of humanity, they are harming it.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Instead of GMO labeling laws, perhaps what we need is...
There has been a lot of debate recently over whether or not food companies should legally be required to label their foods as being either GMOs (Genetically Modified Organism) or not if they happen to actually be GMOs.
Supporters of these laws claim that this would give consumers the ability to know what they are buying, and whether or not they are actually buying something that is organic or not.
Critics on the other hand claim that such laws are unnecessary and even excessive, since it is well established that most foods are in fact either considered GMOs (technically speaking all foods are actually GMOs in one way or another) or at least would not be considered organic by many people in the organic food community, and that many people who do produce organic foods already label their products as being organic.
While this labeling law debate is sure to not go away any time soon, I do wonder if perhaps the anti-GMO crowd is going about this the wrong way. Perhaps instead of there being GMO labeling laws, there should be organic food labeling laws instead.
While the GMO food industry is heavily regulated by the Food & Drug Administration (despite what many people in the anti-GMO crowd believes) there is actually very little regulation for the organic food industry.
In the United States there are no laws that says what foods are considered organic, and what foods are not considered organic. In fact anyone can actually claim that the food that they are producing is organic, when in fact what the food that is being produced is not considered organic by anyone's standards...
While the United States Department of Agriculture does have a organic foods certification program that is regulated, there is no legal requirement in the U.S. that says a company has to go through this certification program before they start to claim their food product is organic, and no one can do anything about because there are no laws that says you can't do that.
It's even possible that some food producers will claim that their food is organic when it really isn't simply as a selling point, and so that they have an excuse to sell their product at a higher cost than what it really should be selling for in order to make a larger profit...
Also, the fact that there is no legal requirement for what can and can not be labeled organic foods might cause people not to wash off fruits and vegetables because they might not think it's necessary if they believe it's organic (this should be done anyways regardless if it really is organic or not as the USDA actually allows the use of pesticides for it's organic food certification program, and it's just common sense to do that anyways).
What really is needed is not GMO labeling laws, but organic food labeling laws, because not only would it be far easier and cheaper to implement (simply put, if someone doesn't believe that their product will receive a legal certification of being organic, they're probably not going to waste the time and money to try to get their product legally certified as organic in the first place when they can go on and sell it as it is, and they most likely won't claim that their product is organic because they won't want to face the legal circumstances if they do and they are not suppose to) and it would also allow consumers who choose to buy organic foods to know whether or not the food they are buying is in fact truly organic, and not just something some company claims.
At the very least it would help prevent companies from making fraudulent claims about their products...
Supporters of these laws claim that this would give consumers the ability to know what they are buying, and whether or not they are actually buying something that is organic or not.
Critics on the other hand claim that such laws are unnecessary and even excessive, since it is well established that most foods are in fact either considered GMOs (technically speaking all foods are actually GMOs in one way or another) or at least would not be considered organic by many people in the organic food community, and that many people who do produce organic foods already label their products as being organic.
While this labeling law debate is sure to not go away any time soon, I do wonder if perhaps the anti-GMO crowd is going about this the wrong way. Perhaps instead of there being GMO labeling laws, there should be organic food labeling laws instead.
While the GMO food industry is heavily regulated by the Food & Drug Administration (despite what many people in the anti-GMO crowd believes) there is actually very little regulation for the organic food industry.
In the United States there are no laws that says what foods are considered organic, and what foods are not considered organic. In fact anyone can actually claim that the food that they are producing is organic, when in fact what the food that is being produced is not considered organic by anyone's standards...
While the United States Department of Agriculture does have a organic foods certification program that is regulated, there is no legal requirement in the U.S. that says a company has to go through this certification program before they start to claim their food product is organic, and no one can do anything about because there are no laws that says you can't do that.
It's even possible that some food producers will claim that their food is organic when it really isn't simply as a selling point, and so that they have an excuse to sell their product at a higher cost than what it really should be selling for in order to make a larger profit...
Also, the fact that there is no legal requirement for what can and can not be labeled organic foods might cause people not to wash off fruits and vegetables because they might not think it's necessary if they believe it's organic (this should be done anyways regardless if it really is organic or not as the USDA actually allows the use of pesticides for it's organic food certification program, and it's just common sense to do that anyways).
What really is needed is not GMO labeling laws, but organic food labeling laws, because not only would it be far easier and cheaper to implement (simply put, if someone doesn't believe that their product will receive a legal certification of being organic, they're probably not going to waste the time and money to try to get their product legally certified as organic in the first place when they can go on and sell it as it is, and they most likely won't claim that their product is organic because they won't want to face the legal circumstances if they do and they are not suppose to) and it would also allow consumers who choose to buy organic foods to know whether or not the food they are buying is in fact truly organic, and not just something some company claims.
At the very least it would help prevent companies from making fraudulent claims about their products...
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Local Earth Day festival: Oh the Woo!
On April 20 my home town held it's annual Earth Day festival.
I walked down to it (since it is near my house, and I walk down to the area where it was held everyday anyways, so that's no problem) and took a look around to see what was going.
There was of course a lot of people selling stuff (clothes, hand made jewelry, etc.), there was activities for kids, and there was the selling and promoting of woo and pseudoscience...
Now there was a lot of promoting of organic foods (which doesn't bother me that much, it's just that there are some things that are claimed about it that are simply not true) and new age stuff, but there was also the promoting of things there that honestly should not have been there.
There was of course first this:
I have no idea what this has to do with Earth Day or conservation. All I know is that you are basically wasting $10 on something that is vague and won't really tell you anything.
Next I saw this:
It's bad enough that adults go to these fake doctors, but kids???
If your child has any of these problems, don't take them to a chiropractor, take them to a REAL doctor.
Besides, what does any of these things have to with the spine in the first place???
Finally there was this:
Yep, it's the blatant promotion of anti-GMO foods (and the basic promotion Monsanto conspiracy theories, and also thus the promoting of GMO conspiracy theories).
This of course wasn't the only things that promoted woo and pseudoscience (and in my opinion should not have been there) but these three things should never have been allowed to be there at all, because they have nothing to do with either Earth Day, nor the environment, and not only promoted stuff that not only wastes money, but also may be harmful.
There were a few booths there that really were promoting conservation and environmentalism, but they were just drowned out by the people promoting stuff that really had nothing to do with conservation and environmentalism.
Over all the whole event left me with a feeling that it was more about the promoting and selling (quite literally at that) of woo and pseudoscience, and that much of what was there should not have been there, and that the whole event was more of a promoting of the New Age movement, rather than conservation or the environment.
I walked down to it (since it is near my house, and I walk down to the area where it was held everyday anyways, so that's no problem) and took a look around to see what was going.
There was of course a lot of people selling stuff (clothes, hand made jewelry, etc.), there was activities for kids, and there was the selling and promoting of woo and pseudoscience...
Now there was a lot of promoting of organic foods (which doesn't bother me that much, it's just that there are some things that are claimed about it that are simply not true) and new age stuff, but there was also the promoting of things there that honestly should not have been there.
There was of course first this:
I have no idea what this has to do with Earth Day or conservation. All I know is that you are basically wasting $10 on something that is vague and won't really tell you anything.
Next I saw this:
It's bad enough that adults go to these fake doctors, but kids???
If your child has any of these problems, don't take them to a chiropractor, take them to a REAL doctor.
Besides, what does any of these things have to with the spine in the first place???
Finally there was this:
Yep, it's the blatant promotion of anti-GMO foods (and the basic promotion Monsanto conspiracy theories, and also thus the promoting of GMO conspiracy theories).
This of course wasn't the only things that promoted woo and pseudoscience (and in my opinion should not have been there) but these three things should never have been allowed to be there at all, because they have nothing to do with either Earth Day, nor the environment, and not only promoted stuff that not only wastes money, but also may be harmful.
There were a few booths there that really were promoting conservation and environmentalism, but they were just drowned out by the people promoting stuff that really had nothing to do with conservation and environmentalism.
Over all the whole event left me with a feeling that it was more about the promoting and selling (quite literally at that) of woo and pseudoscience, and that much of what was there should not have been there, and that the whole event was more of a promoting of the New Age movement, rather than conservation or the environment.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
5 Things I've noticed about... Organic Food
There's a lot of things I've notice organic foods and the claims about it, and of all the things I've noticed about organic foods, there are five things about it that really stand out for me.
So here are five things I've noticed about organic food:
5. It's expensive.
Organic food cost an awful lot, and in some cases twice as much as non-organic foods, and unless you are very well off, it can get expensive real quick and make a real hit on a households budget.
Even if organic food were to cost only 10% more than conventional food, the expense can still add pretty quickly, even if not all the food you buy is organic, just some of your food.
4. It's not as environmentally friendly as one might think.
Due to the sheer fact that organic farming doesn't produce as high of a yield of crops per acre as with regular farming, if organic farming was done nation wide (or world wide for that matter) over regular farming, then a lot more land would be needed to grow crops in order to feed everyone, thus things like deforestation would increase in order to make open land to grow crops on, and to raise animals for meat on.
3. There's no set guide lines for what's considered organic.
There is really no set of criteria or laws and regulations for what can be considered and labeled organic food, and also what is considered to be organic to one person might not be considered organic to another person.
Also, because there is no set criteria or guide lines for what is considered organic, a farmer could claim what they are growing is organic, but in reality is not by most anyone's standards, and could be claimed to be organic to only be used as a selling point to get people to buy their product.
2. The benefits don't outweigh the costs.
Studies have shown that organic foods is no more healthier or nutritious than conventional, non-organic foods.
In fact the only real benefits organic foods have over conventional foods is that sometimes organic foods tastes better, and that organically raised meat animals do have a much lower chance of getting certain types diseases that results from eating food made with animal by products, but it doesn't prevent animals from getting certain types of diseases that could be prevented through the use of antibiotics. Some people could even argue that not giving an animal antibiotics is a form of animal cruelty.
1. It's not really organic.
Most people who prefer organic foods over conventional foods will tell you that organic foods must be free of genetic modifications, but the thing about that is that most of our basic foods have been genetically modified at one point in time or another, either through crossbreeding, cross pollination, or just simple crop and animal selection.
Most of our modern basic foods are the result of some type of man-made genetic modifications. The only real difference is that it wasn't done in a laboratory using modern scientific equipment.
So here are five things I've noticed about organic food:
5. It's expensive.
Organic food cost an awful lot, and in some cases twice as much as non-organic foods, and unless you are very well off, it can get expensive real quick and make a real hit on a households budget.
Even if organic food were to cost only 10% more than conventional food, the expense can still add pretty quickly, even if not all the food you buy is organic, just some of your food.
4. It's not as environmentally friendly as one might think.
Due to the sheer fact that organic farming doesn't produce as high of a yield of crops per acre as with regular farming, if organic farming was done nation wide (or world wide for that matter) over regular farming, then a lot more land would be needed to grow crops in order to feed everyone, thus things like deforestation would increase in order to make open land to grow crops on, and to raise animals for meat on.
3. There's no set guide lines for what's considered organic.
There is really no set of criteria or laws and regulations for what can be considered and labeled organic food, and also what is considered to be organic to one person might not be considered organic to another person.
Also, because there is no set criteria or guide lines for what is considered organic, a farmer could claim what they are growing is organic, but in reality is not by most anyone's standards, and could be claimed to be organic to only be used as a selling point to get people to buy their product.
2. The benefits don't outweigh the costs.
Studies have shown that organic foods is no more healthier or nutritious than conventional, non-organic foods.
In fact the only real benefits organic foods have over conventional foods is that sometimes organic foods tastes better, and that organically raised meat animals do have a much lower chance of getting certain types diseases that results from eating food made with animal by products, but it doesn't prevent animals from getting certain types of diseases that could be prevented through the use of antibiotics. Some people could even argue that not giving an animal antibiotics is a form of animal cruelty.
1. It's not really organic.
Most people who prefer organic foods over conventional foods will tell you that organic foods must be free of genetic modifications, but the thing about that is that most of our basic foods have been genetically modified at one point in time or another, either through crossbreeding, cross pollination, or just simple crop and animal selection.
Most of our modern basic foods are the result of some type of man-made genetic modifications. The only real difference is that it wasn't done in a laboratory using modern scientific equipment.
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