1
00:00:03,279 --> 00:00:06,240
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how stork

2
00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:15,480
Speaker 1: dot com. Say you're welcome to stuff to blow your mind.

3
00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:17,960
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Christian Seger.

4
00:00:18,040 --> 00:00:20,439
Speaker 1: And today we are talking about something that seems like

5
00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:23,320
Speaker 1: it wouldn't blow your mind, but it is really interesting

6
00:00:23,440 --> 00:00:26,560
Speaker 1: and really controversial. Yeah, this is in a way, we're

7
00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:29,840
Speaker 1: kind of walking into a trap here because this is

8
00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:33,360
Speaker 1: a topic that a lot of people have definite opinions on.

9
00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:35,440
Speaker 1: You can even say you have. There's there's a certain

10
00:00:35,479 --> 00:00:40,520
Speaker 1: amount of faith and worldview wrapped up in this topic. Identity. Yeah,

11
00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:43,800
Speaker 1: your identity, how you fit into the world. Uh. And

12
00:00:43,880 --> 00:00:47,440
Speaker 1: also though we have studies a kind of pointing to

13
00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:51,120
Speaker 1: both sides of the argument, the argument of organic foods. Yep,

14
00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:54,440
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about organic food in particular.

15
00:00:54,440 --> 00:00:58,320
Speaker 1: We're gonna look at the scientific studies into its nutrition value,

16
00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:03,080
Speaker 1: also it's effect on the environment and whether pesticides do

17
00:01:03,160 --> 00:01:05,240
Speaker 1: anything to us or not. Yeah, and we're approaching this

18
00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:08,360
Speaker 1: from a you know, a middle path standpoint here. So

19
00:01:08,440 --> 00:01:11,360
Speaker 1: again we're probably gonna piss off everybody. I have a

20
00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:14,280
Speaker 1: feeling that like, if you are hard line in any

21
00:01:14,319 --> 00:01:16,920
Speaker 1: one of those camps you're going to be disappointed. But

22
00:01:16,959 --> 00:01:19,480
Speaker 1: if you're just kind of like I was, approaching this

23
00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:21,399
Speaker 1: like I'm like, you know, I go to the grocery

24
00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:24,039
Speaker 1: store and I see organic and I go, yeah, maybe,

25
00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:26,480
Speaker 1: but you know, I also have to like weigh my

26
00:01:26,520 --> 00:01:30,200
Speaker 1: concerns about costs. Uh. This is maybe going to be

27
00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:33,600
Speaker 1: a better episode for those people, people who haven't made

28
00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:35,640
Speaker 1: up their mind yet and are just kind of generally

29
00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:39,800
Speaker 1: curious about the science behind agriculture in the United States. Yeah,

30
00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:42,000
Speaker 1: and if nothing else, again, we're gonna approach it with

31
00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:44,559
Speaker 1: an open mind and it can be a conversation starter.

32
00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:47,320
Speaker 1: I'm sure everyone will have some feedback on this because

33
00:01:47,360 --> 00:01:50,520
Speaker 1: if nothing else, everybody eats, that's what we all do

34
00:01:51,120 --> 00:01:54,480
Speaker 1: every day. Well, we have to pick out new foods

35
00:01:54,680 --> 00:01:58,080
Speaker 1: with which to essentially construct our new bodies. Were to

36
00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:00,920
Speaker 1: try and put kind of a weird sci fi spin

37
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:03,320
Speaker 1: on it, we're all kind of we're like that mad

38
00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:05,560
Speaker 1: scientist who's lost his body and it's a brain and

39
00:02:05,560 --> 00:02:07,640
Speaker 1: it's a brain in a jar and he has to go, oh,

40
00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:08,880
Speaker 1: I need a new body. What am I gonna do.

41
00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:10,399
Speaker 1: I'm gonna build it out of corpses, and I'm gonna

42
00:02:10,400 --> 00:02:12,600
Speaker 1: build it out of machine parts or some sort of

43
00:02:12,680 --> 00:02:15,680
Speaker 1: energy force field. We have that similar situation, except we

44
00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:19,919
Speaker 1: have to choose more These carrots are those carrots? Do

45
00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:22,480
Speaker 1: I do? Do I do? Meet? Do I do? Um?

46
00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:24,840
Speaker 1: You know? Sweet? What am I building my new body

47
00:02:24,840 --> 00:02:27,960
Speaker 1: out of tombstone pizzas? I don't know? Uh? Yeah, I'd

48
00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:30,760
Speaker 1: say a good like percent of my body is maybe

49
00:02:30,840 --> 00:02:35,600
Speaker 1: tombstone and red barren um. And so okay, we recognize

50
00:02:35,639 --> 00:02:38,680
Speaker 1: that you may have some strong feelings about this, so

51
00:02:38,720 --> 00:02:40,720
Speaker 1: we figured this is a good point for us to

52
00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:43,920
Speaker 1: at the top remind you of all those places where

53
00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:46,640
Speaker 1: you can tell us what you think about organic food

54
00:02:46,639 --> 00:02:48,400
Speaker 1: and what you think about our take on it. So

55
00:02:48,919 --> 00:02:51,440
Speaker 1: we are stuff to blow your mind, and we are

56
00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:56,480
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, and Instagram now on all of

57
00:02:56,520 --> 00:02:59,799
Speaker 1: those will blow the mind. Uh, come visit us check

58
00:02:59,800 --> 00:03:01,960
Speaker 1: out the stuff that we're posting there. We don't just

59
00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:05,320
Speaker 1: post about our own podcasts. We also do videos and

60
00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:07,320
Speaker 1: we write articles that stuff goes up there, but we

61
00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:11,840
Speaker 1: also try to curate all the bizarre audity science stuff

62
00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:15,079
Speaker 1: that comes across our path as we're doing research throughout

63
00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:17,520
Speaker 1: the week. So that's a great place to follow us

64
00:03:17,560 --> 00:03:20,920
Speaker 1: and see all the kind of like neat, weird stuff

65
00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:23,360
Speaker 1: that we come up with in our travels, and of

66
00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:25,440
Speaker 1: course there's always stuff to blow your mind. Dot com

67
00:03:25,560 --> 00:03:28,480
Speaker 1: is the mothership. That's where we'll find all the podcast episodes, videos,

68
00:03:28,480 --> 00:03:31,760
Speaker 1: blog post links out to those social media accounts, and hey,

69
00:03:31,800 --> 00:03:35,120
Speaker 1: expect a facelift for that website in the months ahead.

70
00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:40,119
Speaker 1: Everything's getting redone, spruced up, the little more user friendly. Um,

71
00:03:40,120 --> 00:03:42,040
Speaker 1: we're looking forward to that. We had a very exciting

72
00:03:42,080 --> 00:03:44,280
Speaker 1: talk the other day about a potential news stuff to

73
00:03:44,280 --> 00:03:46,920
Speaker 1: blow your mind logo, which I think I'm very excited about.

74
00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:51,960
Speaker 1: Looks very cool. Okay, so organic food, I feel like

75
00:03:52,040 --> 00:03:54,280
Speaker 1: the best place for us to start is just sort

76
00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:58,160
Speaker 1: of an introduction into not what it is, but the

77
00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:01,520
Speaker 1: trajectory of how it became a part of our culture.

78
00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:05,480
Speaker 1: And a lot of this episode will be US centric

79
00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:09,720
Speaker 1: because we're both Americans. We live in America, and a

80
00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:12,320
Speaker 1: lot of the science seems to be done here, even

81
00:04:12,320 --> 00:04:17,680
Speaker 1: though a lot of the food is grown internationally. So

82
00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:21,599
Speaker 1: let's go back traditional farming before the Industrial Revolution in

83
00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:25,000
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. Think The Witch the movie The Witch Right,

84
00:04:25,040 --> 00:04:28,120
Speaker 1: and they're they're growing their pathetic little farm in Massachusetts

85
00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:32,799
Speaker 1: and they're trying to survive. Right. That's organic farming. Uh,

86
00:04:32,839 --> 00:04:35,600
Speaker 1: that's and that's basically what we're talking about going back

87
00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:39,840
Speaker 1: to here because Uh, in the nineteen thirties there were

88
00:04:39,839 --> 00:04:45,200
Speaker 1: two British scientists named Lady Eve Balfour and Albert Howard,

89
00:04:45,600 --> 00:04:49,279
Speaker 1: and they started looking at the role of agricultural production

90
00:04:49,440 --> 00:04:53,840
Speaker 1: in healthy food, and in particular, Howard recommended recycling all

91
00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:56,880
Speaker 1: of our waste, you know, including animal waste and human

92
00:04:56,920 --> 00:05:00,560
Speaker 1: waste basically sewage, so that we could fee the soil

93
00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:05,240
Speaker 1: on our farms. Around the mid twentieth century, incomes the

94
00:05:05,279 --> 00:05:10,000
Speaker 1: influx of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, they started to become

95
00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:14,479
Speaker 1: widespread and organic farming actually took on this weird kind

96
00:05:14,480 --> 00:05:18,080
Speaker 1: of cultish aspect. Like other farmers sort of looked at

97
00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:21,200
Speaker 1: it like why why are you still bothering with that? Like,

98
00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:23,680
Speaker 1: and when they would say things like well, you know,

99
00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:27,240
Speaker 1: I'm worried about these pesticides and the health effects or whatever. Uh,

100
00:05:27,279 --> 00:05:30,480
Speaker 1: they were looked at as proponents of doom and gloom. Well,

101
00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:32,160
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's one thing it's important keep

102
00:05:32,160 --> 00:05:34,560
Speaker 1: in mind about agriculture in general, is just to remind

103
00:05:34,560 --> 00:05:39,719
Speaker 1: everyone that agriculture itself is essentially unnatural, and it's it's

104
00:05:39,720 --> 00:05:42,560
Speaker 1: taking these plants that grow, you know, in a natural balance,

105
00:05:42,720 --> 00:05:46,320
Speaker 1: in a natural situation with other plants, taking and then

106
00:05:46,320 --> 00:05:50,880
Speaker 1: growing them exclusively in a you know, a plot of land. Yeah, totally,

107
00:05:50,920 --> 00:05:53,520
Speaker 1: Like just think of like and we'll talk about these later,

108
00:05:53,560 --> 00:05:56,640
Speaker 1: but like even organic practices like rotating crops in a

109
00:05:56,680 --> 00:06:01,880
Speaker 1: particular way or using predatory animals to pick off the

110
00:06:02,279 --> 00:06:07,120
Speaker 1: pests rather than using pesticides, like you're affecting the ecosystem

111
00:06:07,200 --> 00:06:10,200
Speaker 1: one way or the other. Yeah, you're still manipulating the environment.

112
00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:12,840
Speaker 1: And so what we're talking about with agriculture in channel,

113
00:06:12,839 --> 00:06:15,320
Speaker 1: it's just like to what degree or manipulating the environment,

114
00:06:15,360 --> 00:06:17,640
Speaker 1: what tools are using to manipulate the environment, and on

115
00:06:17,760 --> 00:06:21,640
Speaker 1: what scale. Absolutely so in the sixties and seventies, this

116
00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:24,440
Speaker 1: movement really picks up the organic farming movement. And the

117
00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:27,320
Speaker 1: reason why is because this book comes out by Rachel

118
00:06:27,400 --> 00:06:30,560
Speaker 1: Carson called Silent Spring. It sounds like a horror movie.

119
00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:34,279
Speaker 1: But no, maybe it is. Maybe it's written as a

120
00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:40,040
Speaker 1: horror movie. Organic food produce organic Yeah, maybe wow, that

121
00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:42,680
Speaker 1: that's write that one down. Put a copyright next to it.

122
00:06:44,320 --> 00:06:47,920
Speaker 1: Uh So, Basically, this book emphasized all the problems with pesticides.

123
00:06:48,200 --> 00:06:51,480
Speaker 1: At the same time, the United States was facing two problems,

124
00:06:51,600 --> 00:06:55,560
Speaker 1: water pollution from farming and the energy crisis in the seventies.

125
00:06:55,920 --> 00:06:59,560
Speaker 1: So farmers were like, well, maybe we will start using

126
00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:02,560
Speaker 1: fewer michals just because of these things going on. Now,

127
00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:06,000
Speaker 1: I'm gonna burn through history real quick here. Okay, nineteen

128
00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:09,240
Speaker 1: eighty the U. S Department of Agriculture starts actually getting

129
00:07:09,279 --> 00:07:11,920
Speaker 1: interested in organic farming, and they publish a report on it.

130
00:07:12,200 --> 00:07:15,120
Speaker 1: A year later, in nineteen eighty one, the American Society

131
00:07:15,160 --> 00:07:21,560
Speaker 1: for Agronomy argued that organic farming contributed more to sustainable agriculture. However,

132
00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:25,480
Speaker 1: they had clashes with the Reagan administration and so some

133
00:07:25,560 --> 00:07:27,640
Speaker 1: of that stuff didn't necessarily make it to the public

134
00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:30,560
Speaker 1: as quickly as they wanted it to. By the time

135
00:07:30,600 --> 00:07:32,560
Speaker 1: we get to the late eighties and the nineties, and

136
00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:35,040
Speaker 1: I remember these these times, well, this was really when

137
00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:37,720
Speaker 1: I started first hearing a lot about organic farming, and

138
00:07:37,800 --> 00:07:42,840
Speaker 1: I was a teenager. Um, the environmental movement really started

139
00:07:42,840 --> 00:07:47,480
Speaker 1: to gain sway. There were practices and emphasis on maintaining

140
00:07:47,560 --> 00:07:52,720
Speaker 1: bio diversity, animal welfare, and fair trade practices. That gets

141
00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:56,160
Speaker 1: us to two thousand two. This is when the U.

142
00:07:56,280 --> 00:07:59,320
Speaker 1: S d A created what are known as the National

143
00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:04,920
Speaker 1: Organic Standards, and those overrite any state regulations and create

144
00:08:04,960 --> 00:08:07,040
Speaker 1: the labeling system that we use now. So when you

145
00:08:07,080 --> 00:08:08,520
Speaker 1: go to the grocery store and you look at a

146
00:08:08,600 --> 00:08:11,800
Speaker 1: label on produce or meat or whatever about what it's

147
00:08:11,880 --> 00:08:16,000
Speaker 1: organic content, that's because of these National Organic Standards. And

148
00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:18,280
Speaker 1: I'm gonna buzz through them real quick, but they're important

149
00:08:18,320 --> 00:08:20,480
Speaker 1: to think about when you, like, I'm glad I read

150
00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:22,360
Speaker 1: this stuff next time in the grocery store, I'm definitely

151
00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:25,920
Speaker 1: gonna consider it. Okay, if it says a hundred percent organic,

152
00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:29,760
Speaker 1: that means the product was made only with organic products.

153
00:08:31,280 --> 00:08:34,360
Speaker 1: Products that say they are just organic, but they don't

154
00:08:34,400 --> 00:08:39,040
Speaker 1: say a hundred percent organic, they have to have ent

155
00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:45,560
Speaker 1: organic ingredients. And then if they quote contain organic products,

156
00:08:46,240 --> 00:08:49,600
Speaker 1: then they have to have at least seventy percent organic

157
00:08:49,880 --> 00:08:53,160
Speaker 1: ingredients in them. If there's under seventy, you don't get

158
00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:55,080
Speaker 1: a label, no label for you. You You don't you don't

159
00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:57,360
Speaker 1: get to advertise this. Now. One thing that's important to

160
00:08:57,400 --> 00:08:59,920
Speaker 1: remember that I read here is that the U. S

161
00:09:00,120 --> 00:09:04,160
Speaker 1: A does not regulate farmers who are producing. I believe

162
00:09:04,200 --> 00:09:07,960
Speaker 1: it's under five thousand units. So you know, if you're

163
00:09:07,960 --> 00:09:09,400
Speaker 1: just like if you have a small farm and you

164
00:09:09,440 --> 00:09:11,480
Speaker 1: go to a farmer's market and you're selling your wares,

165
00:09:12,080 --> 00:09:15,120
Speaker 1: I suppose you could make your own stickers that say organic,

166
00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:17,880
Speaker 1: even if you're you know, spraying chemicals all over them.

167
00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:21,360
Speaker 1: That seems unlikely right now. And on the chemical note,

168
00:09:21,400 --> 00:09:24,439
Speaker 1: it is worth noting here, I think it's important that

169
00:09:24,520 --> 00:09:29,800
Speaker 1: when we're talking about organic farming and conventional farming, because

170
00:09:29,800 --> 00:09:31,439
Speaker 1: because you know, it comes back to the whole thing

171
00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:35,000
Speaker 1: like like what is organic often feels like a weird

172
00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:38,599
Speaker 1: label because it's not like the alternative is inorganic, so

173
00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:42,839
Speaker 1: you're eating metal. But anyway, so, conventional farmers they can

174
00:09:42,880 --> 00:09:46,520
Speaker 1: apply any pesticide approved for use in the United States. Uh,

175
00:09:46,600 --> 00:09:49,320
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean they can just apply anything. There's oldest Okay,

176
00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:53,480
Speaker 1: organic farmers they can't use all of the same chemicals.

177
00:09:53,640 --> 00:09:56,679
Speaker 1: Now that doesn't mean organic farmers, um, you know, allow

178
00:09:56,760 --> 00:10:00,839
Speaker 1: insect pests and weeds to just run rampant. Uh. And

179
00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:03,680
Speaker 1: and they can also use pesticides and weed killers, but

180
00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:07,040
Speaker 1: they have a smaller list of approved substances to use.

181
00:10:07,400 --> 00:10:11,160
Speaker 1: Right So when you're buying organic, it doesn't necessarily mean

182
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:15,960
Speaker 1: pesticide free. It just means different pesticides. And there's something

183
00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:17,760
Speaker 1: to be said about that too, that will will delve

184
00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:19,840
Speaker 1: into a little bit more later in the episode as well,

185
00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:23,400
Speaker 1: and that like, you can be growing crops organically in

186
00:10:23,559 --> 00:10:27,760
Speaker 1: soil that maybe used to have pesticides, and those pesticides

187
00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:30,240
Speaker 1: can stick around for a couple of years. Indeed, so

188
00:10:30,320 --> 00:10:33,120
Speaker 1: here we are. It's twice sixteen, and food safety is

189
00:10:33,160 --> 00:10:36,000
Speaker 1: still a concern, right, We're all worried about it. Especially.

190
00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:38,680
Speaker 1: I thought of you quite a bit during this episode

191
00:10:38,679 --> 00:10:41,560
Speaker 1: because you have a young child, and I would imagine that, uh,

192
00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:43,160
Speaker 1: you know, if I were a parent, I would be

193
00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:47,200
Speaker 1: thinking what should I put in this little person's body? Right? Yeah,

194
00:10:47,240 --> 00:10:49,200
Speaker 1: I mean that that is always that has been on

195
00:10:49,200 --> 00:10:51,599
Speaker 1: our minds since that I came into a lot of

196
00:10:51,679 --> 00:10:54,160
Speaker 1: terrible way to go about talking about feeding a child.

197
00:10:54,280 --> 00:10:57,840
Speaker 1: But yes, yeah, I mean, well, you're you have all this,

198
00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:00,320
Speaker 1: all all of this emotion and energy and time and

199
00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:03,880
Speaker 1: money invested in this child, and you want, you absolutely

200
00:11:03,880 --> 00:11:06,920
Speaker 1: want everything to be best for the child, and then

201
00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:09,640
Speaker 1: you find yourself in the situation where you're like a dude,

202
00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:13,840
Speaker 1: he wants he wants these susages. Well, maybe maybe soysagees

203
00:11:13,880 --> 00:11:15,480
Speaker 1: in a good example, because I feel like most of

204
00:11:15,480 --> 00:11:18,439
Speaker 1: the soysage options are probably organic. But al right, so

205
00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:21,080
Speaker 1: let's see, you're buying fruit because the kid eats the

206
00:11:21,120 --> 00:11:23,319
Speaker 1: colossal amount of fruit, and you're like, do I get

207
00:11:23,360 --> 00:11:26,360
Speaker 1: them the organic bananas and the normal bananas? I want

208
00:11:26,400 --> 00:11:28,400
Speaker 1: him to have the best, But doesn't make that much

209
00:11:28,400 --> 00:11:32,240
Speaker 1: of a difference, And then you end up, yeah, you

210
00:11:32,320 --> 00:11:34,640
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta think about how this colossal amount of

211
00:11:34,640 --> 00:11:38,360
Speaker 1: fruit he's eating costs money, and then you if you

212
00:11:38,400 --> 00:11:41,000
Speaker 1: if I get the organic? Sometimes I feel like I

213
00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:44,000
Speaker 1: doubt myself. Am I engaging in his magical thinking? Here?

214
00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:46,800
Speaker 1: Am I sort of curbing my bets like someone who

215
00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:49,320
Speaker 1: just goes ahead and prays to a few different gods

216
00:11:49,360 --> 00:11:51,520
Speaker 1: in case they're there, you know, like, in case it

217
00:11:51,559 --> 00:11:53,440
Speaker 1: makes the difference, I'll go ahead and spend the money

218
00:11:53,440 --> 00:11:56,400
Speaker 1: on the organic. But is there any is there any

219
00:11:56,440 --> 00:11:59,200
Speaker 1: science backing me up on this? So if you're like

220
00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:01,760
Speaker 1: Robber and are out there and maybe you're thinking about

221
00:12:01,760 --> 00:12:03,640
Speaker 1: that for yourself, or maybe you're thinking about it for

222
00:12:03,679 --> 00:12:05,880
Speaker 1: your children or or jeesus, I don't know, Like I

223
00:12:05,880 --> 00:12:08,360
Speaker 1: imagine some people even think about this with their pets.

224
00:12:08,400 --> 00:12:11,240
Speaker 1: To write like organic food and pet food is probably

225
00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:14,120
Speaker 1: a big deal. UH, because as well discussed too, it's

226
00:12:14,160 --> 00:12:17,680
Speaker 1: like gets, they're they're sort of different sides to want

227
00:12:17,800 --> 00:12:20,200
Speaker 1: you buy organic. They're sort of the there the user

228
00:12:20,720 --> 00:12:23,200
Speaker 1: uh ended the version of it like houses affecting me,

229
00:12:23,240 --> 00:12:25,520
Speaker 1: houses affecting the child or the pet. But then there's

230
00:12:25,559 --> 00:12:28,600
Speaker 1: also the production level of it. You want to you're

231
00:12:28,600 --> 00:12:32,000
Speaker 1: buying a product that is the end result of one

232
00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:36,000
Speaker 1: version of the agricultural industry, and you are buying a

233
00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:40,240
Speaker 1: product in theory that reflects your ideals for that industry.

234
00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:44,000
Speaker 1: It's actually a perfect segue into paper that I looked

235
00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:48,720
Speaker 1: into for this episode. UH. It in particular looked at

236
00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:53,880
Speaker 1: the advertising of organic food and uh specifically how it

237
00:12:53,960 --> 00:12:59,640
Speaker 1: highlighted both personal and environmental concerns in tandem. UH. And

238
00:12:59,720 --> 00:13:02,600
Speaker 1: now that way is the most influential way to get

239
00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:07,160
Speaker 1: consumers to buy organic food, especially when the promotional messages

240
00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:10,520
Speaker 1: align with the core values of consumers culture. Right so

241
00:13:10,600 --> 00:13:14,880
Speaker 1: here in America, UH, where we align with what in

242
00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:18,200
Speaker 1: the article is referred to as egoism. UH. And we

243
00:13:18,280 --> 00:13:20,920
Speaker 1: like to think that we align with altruism as well. Right,

244
00:13:21,160 --> 00:13:24,240
Speaker 1: And those are the two ways sure fire ways to

245
00:13:24,320 --> 00:13:26,880
Speaker 1: get somebody to buy organic food is to make them

246
00:13:26,880 --> 00:13:29,360
Speaker 1: think about themselves and what's good for them, and then

247
00:13:29,360 --> 00:13:32,440
Speaker 1: to make them think that they're thinking about the welfare

248
00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:35,520
Speaker 1: of others around them. Uh. And so if you get

249
00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:38,720
Speaker 1: that's the one two punch that will sell organic every

250
00:13:38,720 --> 00:13:42,280
Speaker 1: time apparently, and selling organic, I mean that's that's a

251
00:13:42,360 --> 00:13:45,240
Speaker 1: key point here as well, because it's not just you know,

252
00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:47,760
Speaker 1: a bunch of roadside farmers, you know, maybe putting a

253
00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:50,480
Speaker 1: sticker on something. We're talking about an industry that in

254
00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:53,640
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve was a reported twenty nine billion dollar

255
00:13:53,679 --> 00:13:58,840
Speaker 1: industry and according to Euromonitor International, just one source. Uh,

256
00:13:59,400 --> 00:14:02,680
Speaker 1: they claim that by two thousand seventeen, this could be

257
00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:06,160
Speaker 1: a trillion dollar global industry. We need to get some

258
00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:11,560
Speaker 1: organic food sponsors. You need to get on it. Yeah,

259
00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:13,280
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of mon today.

260
00:14:13,320 --> 00:14:15,480
Speaker 1: I don't think our food oriented, but I'm going to

261
00:14:15,559 --> 00:14:17,280
Speaker 1: have a talk with them. Well, we have some coming

262
00:14:17,320 --> 00:14:19,120
Speaker 1: up coming along. I think we do have some food

263
00:14:19,120 --> 00:14:21,880
Speaker 1: sponsors coming up. But you know, the key here is

264
00:14:21,920 --> 00:14:24,400
Speaker 1: that when someone is selling you organic. Yeah, there are

265
00:14:24,560 --> 00:14:27,400
Speaker 1: marketing firms involved here, There are graphic designers involved here.

266
00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:30,880
Speaker 1: All the energy and manipulation that goes into selling you

267
00:14:30,960 --> 00:14:33,720
Speaker 1: absolutely anything is in play here. If you've got the

268
00:14:33,760 --> 00:14:36,640
Speaker 1: government involved, it's a big enough industry for them to

269
00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:40,000
Speaker 1: be paying attention. And uh, you know, call me liberal,

270
00:14:40,080 --> 00:14:43,280
Speaker 1: but I am glad when the government is regulating what

271
00:14:43,440 --> 00:14:47,200
Speaker 1: goes into my food, like, I'll take it. Uh. There

272
00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:49,000
Speaker 1: may be some farmers out there that don't like that,

273
00:14:49,080 --> 00:14:51,920
Speaker 1: but but it gives me a little bit of peace

274
00:14:51,960 --> 00:14:57,600
Speaker 1: of mind. So backing that up, poll showed that forty

275
00:14:57,720 --> 00:15:01,200
Speaker 1: five percent of Americans are actively see can to incorporate

276
00:15:01,280 --> 00:15:03,920
Speaker 1: organic food into their diet. This isn't just like I'm

277
00:15:03,960 --> 00:15:05,840
Speaker 1: going to the grocery store and I see the organic

278
00:15:05,880 --> 00:15:09,000
Speaker 1: avocados next to the regular avocados and I grab organic.

279
00:15:09,200 --> 00:15:11,240
Speaker 1: They're going to the grocery store with a list that

280
00:15:11,320 --> 00:15:14,880
Speaker 1: says organic avocados on it, right, like they want to

281
00:15:14,920 --> 00:15:17,960
Speaker 1: put it in their diet. In it was projected that

282
00:15:18,040 --> 00:15:22,040
Speaker 1: the organic food industry would see a sixteen percent growth

283
00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:25,120
Speaker 1: rate going into So that's leading us to that one

284
00:15:25,160 --> 00:15:29,600
Speaker 1: trillion dollar number. Man, put that into perspective, the average

285
00:15:29,640 --> 00:15:35,320
Speaker 1: American household spends four thousand dollars more a year on

286
00:15:35,480 --> 00:15:38,840
Speaker 1: organic food than unconventional food. That probably matches up with

287
00:15:38,880 --> 00:15:42,160
Speaker 1: our fruit badget I think for this for this kid, Wow, yeah,

288
00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:44,760
Speaker 1: he's just a he's just all made of fruit. That's

289
00:15:44,880 --> 00:15:47,200
Speaker 1: that's well. From what I know about your kid, he

290
00:15:47,240 --> 00:15:52,840
Speaker 1: really likes bananas and giraffes. So yeah, yeah, bananas and drafts.

291
00:15:53,040 --> 00:15:56,240
Speaker 1: He only eats bananas. Were not actively buying a black

292
00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:58,520
Speaker 1: market if you but yeah, but if you did, if

293
00:15:58,560 --> 00:16:04,240
Speaker 1: you organic giraffe meat, alright, only the best. So what

294
00:16:03,880 --> 00:16:06,560
Speaker 1: we we talked a little bit about the whole U.

295
00:16:06,680 --> 00:16:09,320
Speaker 1: S d A thing, But what exactly is organic food?

296
00:16:09,360 --> 00:16:12,960
Speaker 1: You know? Like, what's the difference here? Yeah? I mean

297
00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:15,840
Speaker 1: that's the question we all end up asking ourselves when

298
00:16:15,840 --> 00:16:17,600
Speaker 1: we're we're in the line, you know it is it

299
00:16:17,720 --> 00:16:19,720
Speaker 1: what is the difference? Or am I just paying extra

300
00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:23,040
Speaker 1: so I don't have to think about what the difference is. Well,

301
00:16:24,040 --> 00:16:27,200
Speaker 1: So a lot of the like history and basic breakdown

302
00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:30,440
Speaker 1: stuff that we're giving you here comes from the Salem

303
00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:35,760
Speaker 1: Press Encyclopedia entry on organic food and the debate in particular,

304
00:16:36,040 --> 00:16:38,760
Speaker 1: But we also looked at I would say another god

305
00:16:38,840 --> 00:16:42,440
Speaker 1: like twelve twenty studies of what's going on with organic

306
00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:46,600
Speaker 1: food in science in particular, organic food is any crop

307
00:16:46,880 --> 00:16:52,920
Speaker 1: or animal product that's produced without pesticides, man made fertilizers, additives,

308
00:16:53,040 --> 00:16:57,600
Speaker 1: or growth regulators. So we're talking about fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy,

309
00:16:57,880 --> 00:17:01,120
Speaker 1: and meat. Now, So me being the vegetarian on the show,

310
00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:03,960
Speaker 1: I was like, oh right, meat, Like I didn't even

311
00:17:04,040 --> 00:17:06,800
Speaker 1: realize that you could buy organic meat, but that makes sense.

312
00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:09,439
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, I mean the whole meat. The

313
00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:12,120
Speaker 1: whole meat issue is a kind of a subject unto itself, right,

314
00:17:12,560 --> 00:17:15,480
Speaker 1: because you you get into issues of not only like

315
00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:18,320
Speaker 1: like the organic aspects of the food, but also the

316
00:17:18,840 --> 00:17:22,760
Speaker 1: you know, how are the animals treated, what were they fed? Yeah,

317
00:17:23,160 --> 00:17:26,240
Speaker 1: so that's that's almost a whole podcast onto itself. Yeah.

318
00:17:26,600 --> 00:17:30,399
Speaker 1: So the idea here originally was to encourage soil and

319
00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:34,960
Speaker 1: water conservation, go back to that seventies thing with water crisis, uh,

320
00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:39,040
Speaker 1: and reduce pollution. So they started using natural fertilizers to

321
00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:44,400
Speaker 1: feed soil and plants. Also included, sorry, also excluded from

322
00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:50,400
Speaker 1: the organic food category would be genetically engineered feuds. That's

323
00:17:50,400 --> 00:17:56,560
Speaker 1: another episode. Genetically engineered foods, human sewage and their radiation

324
00:17:57,000 --> 00:17:59,880
Speaker 1: that kills germs and bacteria. So you you know, if

325
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:02,600
Speaker 1: it's just a swamp things situation waiting to happen, right,

326
00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:06,679
Speaker 1: toxic avengers, I think. But but seriously, yeah, so like

327
00:18:06,760 --> 00:18:10,280
Speaker 1: those uh, I think of those like weird foods that

328
00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:12,679
Speaker 1: had started popping up in grocery stores that are like

329
00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:17,000
Speaker 1: giant versions of the fruit that like we used to buy,

330
00:18:17,119 --> 00:18:19,639
Speaker 1: you know, the apples that are like twice the size

331
00:18:19,640 --> 00:18:21,720
Speaker 1: and globe bright red and it's like, oh, they look

332
00:18:21,760 --> 00:18:24,720
Speaker 1: super pretty well that's because they're genetically modified and I radiated,

333
00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:26,679
Speaker 1: or yeah, they're the kind of apples that I remember

334
00:18:26,680 --> 00:18:29,160
Speaker 1: hearing they would they would have them on set for

335
00:18:29,320 --> 00:18:33,160
Speaker 1: mad Men, and they would have their their their historical

336
00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:36,520
Speaker 1: accuracy department would come in and say no, no big,

337
00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:39,800
Speaker 1: Yeah they're too big, Like no, no, apple um would

338
00:18:39,840 --> 00:18:43,000
Speaker 1: have been this size. That's funny or like, uh, you know,

339
00:18:43,080 --> 00:18:46,280
Speaker 1: I I shouldn't say this. And also I'll just throw

340
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:48,520
Speaker 1: out there that I don't know whether these are genetically

341
00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:51,119
Speaker 1: modified or not, or if it's just a hybrid fruit.

342
00:18:51,200 --> 00:18:53,439
Speaker 1: But grapples. Have you ever had one of those before?

343
00:18:53,800 --> 00:18:57,480
Speaker 1: It's like a grape apple combination. Yeah? Are they the

344
00:18:57,520 --> 00:18:59,360
Speaker 1: size of a grape, so like an apple the size

345
00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:02,720
Speaker 1: of a grape or more like a smaller apple, if

346
00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:05,440
Speaker 1: remember correctly. Yeah, I don't think I don't remember trying

347
00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:08,399
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah. Well, you know, I don't know necessarily

348
00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:10,480
Speaker 1: that that would be considered organic, but I'm sure that

349
00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:13,400
Speaker 1: there is a organic way to produce such a thing

350
00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:18,159
Speaker 1: if you're I don't know, holistically growing them together anyway.

351
00:19:18,520 --> 00:19:21,560
Speaker 1: So for pest control, these organic farmers they say what

352
00:19:21,720 --> 00:19:24,080
Speaker 1: they follow that guy's advice, like I Howard, and they

353
00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:29,639
Speaker 1: use biological means crop rotation and animal maneuver uh. And

354
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:31,960
Speaker 1: like I mentioned before, the U. S d A has

355
00:19:32,320 --> 00:19:36,080
Speaker 1: strict governmental standards about what qualifies was organic. You don't

356
00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:38,320
Speaker 1: get that seal without meeting with the U. S d A.

357
00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:43,280
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. It's voluntary, but many producers use it.

358
00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:47,040
Speaker 1: Why because of the marketing value right like wild It's

359
00:19:47,080 --> 00:19:49,679
Speaker 1: like if you're a farmer and you say, you know what,

360
00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:52,480
Speaker 1: I'm gonna like change this whole production method that we're doing,

361
00:19:53,080 --> 00:19:56,280
Speaker 1: uh to organic. You're doing it because you recognize that

362
00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:58,560
Speaker 1: there's value in the market. Yeah, and you're creating a

363
00:19:58,560 --> 00:20:01,080
Speaker 1: premium product that you can then they can then sell

364
00:20:01,119 --> 00:20:04,840
Speaker 1: at a premium price. One last thing keep in mind

365
00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:10,040
Speaker 1: throughout this podcast, the words natural and organic are not

366
00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:13,679
Speaker 1: interchangeable terms. Okay, so when we're talking about organic, that

367
00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:18,439
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean natural. Right, And to go back to

368
00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:21,879
Speaker 1: my earlier point, if you want to get serious about agriculture,

369
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:26,440
Speaker 1: and uh, just about anything in agriculture is not natural

370
00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:31,080
Speaker 1: unless you're walking, you know, unless it's like hunter gathering level. Yeah. Yeah.

371
00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:33,560
Speaker 1: We actually did an episode of brain Stuff that was

372
00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:36,520
Speaker 1: sort of about like, uh, you know, if the world ends,

373
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:38,800
Speaker 1: like how do I go about foraging for food? And

374
00:20:38,840 --> 00:20:41,320
Speaker 1: I did all the research and for the outline for it.

375
00:20:41,320 --> 00:20:44,800
Speaker 1: It's pretty fascinating, but like, yeah, it's hard to find. Like,

376
00:20:45,040 --> 00:20:47,480
Speaker 1: dandelions are one of the few things that you can

377
00:20:47,520 --> 00:20:50,000
Speaker 1: just eat, but you can't eat them if they're like

378
00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:54,320
Speaker 1: within something like fifty meters of any road or or

379
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:58,440
Speaker 1: human environment, like like even a farm, because of the

380
00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:01,720
Speaker 1: potential chemicals that could uh travel on the air and

381
00:21:01,760 --> 00:21:06,120
Speaker 1: get on them. So go dandelions. All right, We're gonna

382
00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:08,200
Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we come back, we're

383
00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:10,879
Speaker 1: going to look at some of the science behind the

384
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:15,800
Speaker 1: pros and the cons for organic foods. Essentially, the scientific

385
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:18,240
Speaker 1: argument that is still going on at the end of

386
00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:19,879
Speaker 1: this episode. You're still gonna have to make up your

387
00:21:19,880 --> 00:21:22,359
Speaker 1: own mind. So so don't worry. We're not we won't

388
00:21:22,359 --> 00:21:23,840
Speaker 1: do it for We're not going to do an attempt

389
00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:26,119
Speaker 1: to do it for you. But yeah, quick break, and

390
00:21:26,119 --> 00:21:33,600
Speaker 1: then we're right back in it. All right, we're back.

391
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:36,240
Speaker 1: So yeah, let's talk about some of the pros and

392
00:21:36,280 --> 00:21:39,240
Speaker 1: cons here. Let's start with Now, let's let's be positive,

393
00:21:39,280 --> 00:21:42,520
Speaker 1: and let's start with the pros. What the science telling

394
00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:49,000
Speaker 1: us about the advantages of organic food Well, proponents say

395
00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:56,679
Speaker 1: that organic farming reduces the environmental impact and protects the soil. However,

396
00:21:56,760 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 1: experiments show over a number of years there is a

397
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:05,960
Speaker 1: nine seven percent reduction in pesticides and organic fields. So okay,

398
00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:09,359
Speaker 1: so that's good, right, a majority. And this is this

399
00:22:09,400 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 1: gets back to people with children. A majority of pesticides

400
00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:18,400
Speaker 1: that are found in infants and kids originate from their diet,

401
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:21,760
Speaker 1: so it does seem to make sense for them to

402
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:25,119
Speaker 1: eat organic at these vulnerable ages, right as their bodies

403
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:29,840
Speaker 1: are processing and growing. Another plus about organic foods is

404
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:33,960
Speaker 1: that they can counteract pesticide exposure to their Studies that

405
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:38,560
Speaker 1: show that children who eat organic foods that have eaten

406
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:42,000
Speaker 1: foods that have pesticides in them, it will reduce the

407
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 1: pesticides in their body by fift So it's like a

408
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:49,560
Speaker 1: you know, cure late wounds spell for pesticides. So we're

409
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 1: basically looking at a goal here of uh, reducing the

410
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:57,160
Speaker 1: amount of pesticide residue that's on the produce. Right. It's

411
00:22:57,160 --> 00:22:59,639
Speaker 1: not like, let's let's not let's be clear here, like

412
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:02,639
Speaker 1: convey National Foods is not like they spray the pesticides

413
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:03,840
Speaker 1: on them and then they just put them in the

414
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:08,360
Speaker 1: grocery side, right, But there's a residue that's left over. However,

415
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:12,520
Speaker 1: there are residues on both organic and non organic slash

416
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 1: conventional foods. They almost never, however, exceed government safety thresholds.

417
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,320
Speaker 1: So the U. S d A is just as strict

418
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:25,240
Speaker 1: with conventional grown foods as they are with organic foods.

419
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:27,879
Speaker 1: So that's important to keep in mind. Yeah, Now, the

420
00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:30,600
Speaker 1: certainly the the issue of kids is a big thing,

421
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:32,679
Speaker 1: and we're probably gonna keep going back to that. The

422
00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:35,920
Speaker 1: In two thousand and twelve, the American Academy of Pediatrics

423
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 1: advised parents to limit a child's exposure to pesticides, but

424
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:43,359
Speaker 1: they also they didn't make a statement about whether organic

425
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 1: foods are ultimately a better choice for children than conventionally

426
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:50,960
Speaker 1: grown foods. They they they admitted that more research was

427
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: needed to nail it down, but they went a had

428
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:55,399
Speaker 1: made this this advisory, um and and a lot of

429
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:58,119
Speaker 1: research has come in the wake of that. One study

430
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 1: that is often mentioned, and this is ultimately a small study,

431
00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 1: but a two thousand fifty study publishing Environmental Health Perspectives,

432
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:08,399
Speaker 1: looked at twenty Oakland, California kids and twenty kids from

433
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 1: the agricultural region of Salina's hundred miles away. So they

434
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:16,640
Speaker 1: ate a conventional diet for four days, in an organic

435
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 1: diet for seven days, and then they returned to conventional

436
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,919
Speaker 1: foods for five days. Then, of course we took some

437
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: urine samples. Uh was why wouldn't you and us, I mean,

438
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:28,920
Speaker 1: their kids. There's gonna be urine. Oh yeah, it's it's

439
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 1: gonna be everywhere. Seventy of their urine samples collected daily

440
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 1: contained evidence of pesticides, but of the six most frequently

441
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 1: detected pesticides, two of them decreased by nearly fifty percent

442
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 1: when children were on organic diets, and the levels of

443
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 1: a common herbicide felled by twenty So the advantages there

444
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 1: are pretty obvious, right, so we'll take that in the

445
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: column four organic foods that if in particular for children, right, uh,

446
00:24:57,160 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 1: pesticides don't seem to be a great thing in their bodies,

447
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:02,960
Speaker 1: and if we want to reduce them, then organic foods

448
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:04,639
Speaker 1: is a good way to do that, either by just

449
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: feeding them exclusively organic food or giving them organic food

450
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,280
Speaker 1: occasionally to reduce the pesticides in their bodies. And of

451
00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:12,919
Speaker 1: course this is all uh, this is all important to

452
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: me too as not always a parent, but as an

453
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 1: adoptive parent, because you know, you you enter into the

454
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 1: scenario with so many unknowns about the child's past nutrition

455
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 1: was yeah, I mean you know, I know, you know,

456
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:27,920
Speaker 1: we knew basically, but when it comes down to like

457
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 1: was this organic that they were eating, you know, what

458
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 1: was pesticide level, etcetera? What what other kind of you know,

459
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:38,480
Speaker 1: uh agents were they exposed to? Like you, it's it's

460
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:40,639
Speaker 1: easy to do than just say, well, let's go as

461
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: organic as possible, let's limit as much as possible any

462
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: any new uh you know, but pollutants, any new pesticides

463
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:49,920
Speaker 1: thrown into the mix. That makes sense and as far

464
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:52,200
Speaker 1: as pesticides go, we're learning more and more about how

465
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: these substances travel and how they affect organisms. In two thousand,

466
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen study publishing in Environmental Toxology and kim

467
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 1: As Tree recorded pesticide compounds including fungicides in Pacific chorus

468
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: frogs living in national parks, forests, and other locations high

469
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Now in some cases we're

470
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: talking UH sixty two miles a hundred kilometers from the

471
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 1: nearest farms that had used those chemicals. We're seeing those

472
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 1: chemicals pop up in the frogs, and UH the pesticides

473
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: have such as this have been found to harm frogs

474
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:29,439
Speaker 1: immune systems, impact development, and even trigger sex changes. Granted

475
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:31,920
Speaker 1: we're talking about sex changes and frogs. Sex changes in

476
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 1: amphibians far different UH situation than any kind of conceivable

477
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 1: sex change in a human, but still we're seeing we're

478
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: seeing an impact on how their bodies work. We're saying

479
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: we've also seen connections to colony collapse in bees. So

480
00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:51,880
Speaker 1: the take over here seems to be that that pesticides,

481
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: first of all, when you introduce them to an environment,

482
00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: they're not gonna just stay on that farm there that

483
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:00,159
Speaker 1: they have a way of getting out. Yeah, and we

484
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 1: see them harming vulnerable creatures such as amphabians such as frogs.

485
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: Uh So the underlying message here is, yeah, this seems

486
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:10,879
Speaker 1: like something we should reduce as much as possible, as

487
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:14,439
Speaker 1: much as is sustainable from a feed the world standpoint,

488
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 1: And if you have the ability to limit the amount

489
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: of these things going into your child, then then I

490
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:23,120
Speaker 1: feel like I should do it. Yeah. And from the

491
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 1: you know, also keep in mind, from the perspective of

492
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: like being pro organic, there's still like, as we're talking

493
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: about how much it can travel, these pesticides can still

494
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 1: get on organic fields because of how much they travel.

495
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 1: Or for instance, if three years ago a farmer was

496
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: spring pesticides, then they cleared the crop, then they started

497
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 1: growing organic on that soil, there's still some pesticides in

498
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 1: the ground there as well. So you know, it's complicated. Yeah,

499
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:53,719
Speaker 1: and there's uh I don't want to go into too

500
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: much detail. And there's a two thousand fourteen study that

501
00:27:56,520 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 1: was oubolished in environmental health perspectives and they looked at

502
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:05,159
Speaker 1: pregnant women living near fields treated with pesticides, and they

503
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:12,359
Speaker 1: observed a correlation between proximity to pesticide fields and autism

504
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: in the in the children. So this study, just to

505
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: give you grounding, here n seventy pregnant women, one third

506
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 1: left than one third of them lived less than a

507
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:24,159
Speaker 1: mile from a site where pesticides have been applied, and

508
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 1: the women had a sixty percent higher risk of having

509
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:30,679
Speaker 1: a child with an autism spectrum disorder if they lived

510
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 1: closest to those sites. But again, this is just one study,

511
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 1: and like pretty much, this is the kind of caveat

512
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: we can throw out in any of these where we

513
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: have a lot of individual studies looking at little corners,

514
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 1: limited testing populations, and of course limited frames of time.

515
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 1: We don't have those big, you know, centuries spanning studies

516
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: involve lots of people. Yeah, So this whole like podcast

517
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: search was done during the same week that John Oliver

518
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 1: released the scathing commentary on how science is reported in

519
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 1: the news, and if you haven't seen it, I really

520
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: recommend it. We actually did a piece on how stuff

521
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: works now about it. But uh, I had that in

522
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 1: the back of my mind as we were working on this.

523
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: Every every study I saw, I was like, well, that's

524
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: twenty people in California. I know, like what do we

525
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 1: actually gather from that? And and as Oliver points out

526
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: in his piece, it's like what what we need to

527
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: be doing is replicating the studies so we can we

528
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 1: can determine whether or not they're valid, and then also

529
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 1: doing a review of all of the studies. Right, there's

530
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: not often a lot of money to be made in

531
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: those things, so they're not done luckily. In organic In

532
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: the organic food debate, there have been a lot of

533
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: reviews done, so that's a good thing, and in particular, um,

534
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: there's so there was one that looked at thirty four

535
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: studies from just the seventies in hill around now and

536
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 1: it found that organic vegetables have the same and maybe

537
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 1: sometimes higher nutrient contents than non organic conventionally grown food. Uh.

538
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 1: The gist of this is it's probably not more nutritious

539
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: to eat organic food, all right. So when this we're

540
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: getting into that big study that came out in those

541
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: posting the Annals of Internal Medicine and start everyone up

542
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: quite a bit with the with these key findings and

543
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 1: this also we're we're definitely getting into the potential cons

544
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 1: the downside or the just sort of the the the

545
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,960
Speaker 1: even kill nature of organic foods. And this is outside

546
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: of cost, right, Like you go to the grocery store

547
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: and the first thing you think of as a con

548
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 1: is like, well, that's a dollar more per thing, right, whatever. Yeah,

549
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:50,719
Speaker 1: obviously that that's a problem. You know, if they were

550
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: the same price, maybe it would be a lot easier

551
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 1: to say, Yeah, but I can only pay three dollars extra,

552
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 1: you know, so many times just for a you know,

553
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: a vague feeling of of of betternests. Right, we'll keep

554
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: in mind that four grand number that the average family

555
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 1: is spending on to keep organic food in their home. Yeah,

556
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: so this study is interesting. They collected two hundred peer

557
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:15,160
Speaker 1: reviewed studies. This is the crazy part to me. The

558
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: way they started was they searched fifty thousand papers that

559
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: so there's been that many papers written over fifty years

560
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 1: about organic food, so clearly there's a lot of interest

561
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: in this. Then from fifty thousand they whittled that down

562
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: to a hundred and sixty two that were relevant to

563
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 1: the question of the nutrient content. This required them to

564
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 1: compare the nutrient content in organic and conventionally grown food stuffs.

565
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 1: Then they assess the quality of each one of those articles,

566
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 1: and of those, only fifty five of those articles were

567
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 1: identified as being of satisfactory quality. So this says something

568
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 1: about sort of like the the um I guess rigor

569
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: of the scientific studies on organic foods alone, like how

570
00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: much quality was put into them and sort of like

571
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: how much scrutiny was put into them for this particular

572
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: Annals of Internal Medicine. Uh, Look, they ultimately came down

573
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: and said, uh, we're gonna identify the satisfactory quality and

574
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: look at thirteen of the most commonly reported nutrient categories

575
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 1: across the board here. Yes, so a lot of this

576
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: is coming down to nutrients, Like is organic a more

577
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 1: nutritious choice than conventional? And the studies indicated this is

578
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: not the case. And but one of the primary reasons

579
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:34,479
Speaker 1: is that organic and conventional veggies they vary tremendously in

580
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: terms of their nutritional payload. So you have so many

581
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 1: different factors, genetic makeup of different varieties, the rightness, the weather,

582
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: when is this food coming in, where is it coming from,

583
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: how long is it take to get there? It all

584
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 1: factors in and or the organic conventional divide is not

585
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 1: the best divide between higher and lower nutritional quality, and

586
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: we don't have a good system to measure these things yet. Yeah.

587
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 1: One of the really interesting sort of like anecto oats

588
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: that put this into perspective for me is like you

589
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 1: can go to the grocery store and you've got the

590
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: carrots in front of you, and one carrot can be

591
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: sitting next to another carrot and it can have three

592
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 1: times the amount of beta caroteen as its neighbor that's

593
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 1: on the same shelf. And that's not even whether they're

594
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: organic or conventionally grown, right, it's just based on all

595
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: of these different factors that go into growing a thing

596
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 1: in the world. Now, I also want to point out

597
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: and this this kind of dips back into our potential

598
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: pros category here, but a I do like two British

599
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: journal nutrition study they argued that you see seventeen percent

600
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 1: more anti oxidants in many forms of organic produce. Um,

601
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: So for some nutrients, organics might be better. For other nutrients,

602
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 1: conventional might be higher. Again, it doesn't give us a

603
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: clear indication, but it may be uh, you know, pushes

604
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 1: a few more points back in the in the pro category.

605
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 1: And then of course another we're focusing here on on

606
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: a nutritional value on anti oxidants, but that's hardly the

607
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 1: only factor. Who we've already talked about pesticides. But then

608
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: also there is the distance that the food is traveling

609
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 1: to reach you. Yeah, So the way that this is

610
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: measured is in something called food miles, and there was

611
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: a study that looked in particular at the greenhouse gases

612
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:19,720
Speaker 1: that were emitted when produces transported long distance and how

613
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: that mitigated the benefits of growing them organically. And by

614
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: food miles, what we're talking about here is the distance

615
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:29,880
Speaker 1: that the food travels from the field to the store. Ultimately,

616
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: buying organic food is comparable to its environmental impact, uh

617
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:40,720
Speaker 1: tow conventional food grown the bought at the market based

618
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:45,760
Speaker 1: on the miles. And the example here goes like this. Essentially,

619
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:48,720
Speaker 1: so you've got mangoes and green peppers. Let's look at those. Okay,

620
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 1: mangoes travel from Ecuador or Peru to the United States

621
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 1: rather than from Mexico to the United States, so they've

622
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 1: got longer to travel, which means that they're you know,

623
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 1: burning more fuel. Green peppers, if they're growing organically, they're

624
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:07,279
Speaker 1: grown in Mexico instead of in the United States. So

625
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: again a further food mile from as they say, from

626
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:15,919
Speaker 1: the farm to the market. Uh, and so ultimately that

627
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:18,799
Speaker 1: ends up adding to the environmental impact. So the take

628
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 1: I'm here is if the recipe calls from mango, go

629
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: ahead and substitute green pepper, and you can feel a

630
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: little better about your pepper. Yeah, exactly. Well, what they

631
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,280
Speaker 1: actually recommend is they just say, you know, if if

632
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 1: it's that big of a concern to you, switch to

633
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: locally produced food or go to your local farmers market. Yeah.

634
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: I think that's always so good. I mean, that's why

635
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: I enjoy going to the local farmers market, you know.

636
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: And and I say that with the caveat that there, Yeah,

637
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 1: you end up engaging in a lot of a lot

638
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,879
Speaker 1: of judgment calls that are more based in Oh well,

639
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: this hearkens back to some idealistic idea about what agriculture is.

640
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: This feels more you know, granola and and comfortable. But

641
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:00,720
Speaker 1: but yeah, some of the some of the science indicates

642
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,440
Speaker 1: that it's a good choice. Some of the science indicates, uh, well,

643
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:05,759
Speaker 1: maybe you're just paying extra for the feeling and the

644
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: experience of going to the farmers markets opposed to the

645
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,800
Speaker 1: nutritional take up. I suppose that's like always keep in

646
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 1: the back of your mind, like, uh, let's go back

647
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 1: to that marketing study, like is how much of your

648
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 1: egos involved in there? And how much of your altruisms

649
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:23,240
Speaker 1: involved there? And sort of way the two against one another. Um,

650
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 1: so there's we said, like, there haven't been a lot

651
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: of long term studies done here except one. There's one

652
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 1: really long term st being done and it's out of

653
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 1: you see Davis. And it's called the Long Term Research

654
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: on Farming Systems Project. It started in and the goal

655
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 1: is for it to go a hundred years so they

656
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:48,839
Speaker 1: can see what the benefits and cons of organic farming are.

657
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: So it's been twelve it started in nineteen any one,

658
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:55,200
Speaker 1: so it's been a little over twenty years at this point.

659
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 1: After ten years, they found one thing, well at least

660
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 1: one thing that was worth report. Okay, uh, tomatoes raised

661
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:07,440
Speaker 1: inorganic plots contain significantly higher levels of certain antioxidant compounds,

662
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: and that gets us back to the antioxidant thing. But

663
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:14,399
Speaker 1: for the most part, most studies about organic food are

664
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:16,879
Speaker 1: conducted over like a two two and a half year

665
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,799
Speaker 1: span if that, so we're not really looking at longitudinal

666
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:23,239
Speaker 1: effects on how this affects a human being throughout the

667
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 1: course of their lifetime. But hey, when that study finishes up,

668
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,360
Speaker 1: individuals who are alive then will have the benefit of

669
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:32,319
Speaker 1: the study and maybe they'll get to go see that

670
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 1: Robert Roderiguez film that went in the vault and listen

671
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:37,839
Speaker 1: to that Secret Utang album. All Right, we're gonna take

672
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: a quick break and when we come back, we're gonna

673
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:43,479
Speaker 1: jump right into it. Hey, everybody in this day and age,

674
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 1: you have to have a quality website. You want to

675
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 1: be professional, you want to look professional. The thing is

676
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,800
Speaker 1: not everybody has access to all the the top shelf

677
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 1: tools and talents required to make a great website. And

678
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,279
Speaker 1: that's where squarespace dot com comes into play. They have

679
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: all the tools and a very usable interface. You are

680
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:04,840
Speaker 1: not going to have to learn how the code in

681
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: order to in order to build a professional looking website.

682
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: Now we want you to try this out for yourself.

683
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 1: Now is the time to build that website you've been

684
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: dreaming off. So heading over to square space and use

685
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:20,319
Speaker 1: our promo code mind blown. This will get you in

686
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: the door with a ten percent off your first purchase

687
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 1: and a free domain. So get out there square Space,

688
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:34,360
Speaker 1: build that website. All right, there's a couple other cons

689
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: uh to organic farming that we should hit here. So

690
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 1: they may, like we said, they may or may not

691
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: actually be healthier or less contaminated than conventional food. They're

692
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 1: obviously more expensive. The reason why they're more expensive is

693
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: because of intensive labor that's involved with handweeding, as well

694
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:55,359
Speaker 1: as the cost of feeding organic food to livestock. Right,

695
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:59,439
Speaker 1: so that you know grows over time. And like I said,

696
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 1: even though organic farmers don't use pesticides, chemicals can still

697
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:06,839
Speaker 1: blowing into their farms, and in particular, the soils can

698
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 1: be polluted with something called polychlorinated biphennels uh and the

699
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: soil there can be contaminated for up to three years.

700
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:17,840
Speaker 1: So that's why I've been saying three years over and

701
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 1: over again throughout the episode, is because I had that

702
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 1: research on the brain. Also, in the two thousands, there

703
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 1: were actually salmonilla and E. Coal i outbreaks on organic

704
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: foods like spinach. Oh. Yeah, this has been in the

705
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: news very much so of late concerning certain restaurants as well. Yeah,

706
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: and it's worth mentioning too, right. So the reason why

707
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 1: is food contamination can increase when farmers use manure instead

708
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 1: of synthetic fertilizers. Why, Well, because bacteria exists in manure. Right,

709
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 1: it's more of a culprit for food borne illnesses, and

710
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:56,600
Speaker 1: this bacteria can get into the soil, increasing that risk

711
00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:00,040
Speaker 1: even further. But keep in mind this is not not

712
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: isolated just to organic farming. Right, we use maneuver for everything,

713
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 1: and it's in conventional food too, right, I'm using it

714
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 1: right now. Um. And then you've got the chemical and

715
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,839
Speaker 1: anti microbial washes that I mentioned earlier as well. So

716
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 1: they're allowed in conventional farming, not allowed in organic farming.

717
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:25,280
Speaker 1: Uh so, but it leads to recalls of the foods

718
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 1: that have the bacterial contamination in them, which is usually

719
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: the organics that aren't sprayed with these washes. Uh. But

720
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:36,319
Speaker 1: you know that depends on how like again, like what

721
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 1: do you want your food to be washed with water

722
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:44,759
Speaker 1: or anti microbial chemical baths? Um? This accounted for and

723
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:49,279
Speaker 1: by this I'm referring to specifically organic foods with bacterial contamination.

724
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:52,400
Speaker 1: It accounted for five to seven percent of all of

725
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:55,840
Speaker 1: the food recalls during the first half of so our

726
00:40:55,920 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 1: numbers are basically from Uh, you know, we're in mid

727
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 1: sixteen here and there hasn't been a while. There have

728
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:06,480
Speaker 1: been recalls, we haven't accounted for all of them yet.

729
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:12,479
Speaker 1: So probably because of organic foods expanding through the market share,

730
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 1: that's why that food recall bacteria contamination has risen. It's

731
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:20,839
Speaker 1: not like because there's like a particular breakout necessarily. It's

732
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,280
Speaker 1: more along the lines of like we talked about earlier,

733
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: people are buying a lot of organic food now and

734
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:29,879
Speaker 1: one last thing that they can of produce. And this

735
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 1: is definitely I would I would say falls under the

736
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:37,960
Speaker 1: egoism uh clause here is that they spoil faster because

737
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 1: they don't have the preservatives and pesticides and all that,

738
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 1: all the chemical stuff that makes them look great for

739
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: a long time. Uh, they go bad quicker. Yeah, that's

740
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: the like because I remember as a remember as a kid,

741
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: we would get these, you know, the giant red apples

742
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: that all may kind of have kind of tasteless in

743
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 1: a way, kind of waxy, but those things will last

744
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 1: forever um and nowadays, especially if I'm at a certain

745
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 1: store and we obtain a prepackaged container of organic produce,

746
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:09,359
Speaker 1: you get that home and you find, oh well, all

747
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: the ones at the bottom are already starting to go bad,

748
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:14,880
Speaker 1: so I'm left with with half of what I paid

749
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: um a premium price for Yes, it's true, it's true,

750
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:20,320
Speaker 1: and I have to eat those immediately or they're gonna go.

751
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 1: But I get that, especially like when I buy spinach

752
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: or when I buy strawberries, there's inevitably stuff that's already

753
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 1: gone bad at the bottom, even after I just first

754
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: brought it home from the grocery store. But hey, that's

755
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 1: the way of life, all right. Well, you know so

756
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 1: so so far, I feel like all that any of

757
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 1: us can do is you sort of take all the

758
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:43,040
Speaker 1: information and figure out to what extent you're going to

759
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 1: utilize it in your food choices, and then how you're

760
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:48,719
Speaker 1: gonna roll that out. So for me, it sounds like

761
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: what I would want to do is I I like

762
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 1: the tomato fact, and hey, I like fresh tomatoes. I

763
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:55,800
Speaker 1: like fresh local tomatus when they're in season. I should

764
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:58,720
Speaker 1: I should go that route, maybe get the antioxidant boost.

765
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:02,160
Speaker 1: But what can I do about the pesticide issue? Yeah, well,

766
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of cutting pesticides out of your food,

767
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 1: and maybe you also want to watch your budget. Here

768
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 1: are the most pesticide Latin foods in particular. So let's

769
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:15,160
Speaker 1: say you you're like, all right, I want to buy

770
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 1: organic just to like focus on the pesticides and and

771
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 1: keep them out of my kid's body, right, Okay, The

772
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:28,320
Speaker 1: most pesticide Latin foods are apples, celery, sweet bell peppers, peaches, strawberries,

773
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:37,080
Speaker 1: imported nectarines, grapes, spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, blueberries, and potatoes. Okay, However,

774
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:42,880
Speaker 1: the least pesticide residue is found on cabbage, onions, avocados,

775
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:49,000
Speaker 1: sweet corn, sweet peas, pineapples, mangoes, asparagus, kiwi, and grapefruit.

776
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: So those are the ones that you can worry less about, right,

777
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:55,720
Speaker 1: Maybe you know, if you're weighing the scales of justice

778
00:43:55,760 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 1: between your pocketbook and the pesticide factor, you know, maybe

779
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:02,879
Speaker 1: it's okay to go ahead and buy an avocado that's

780
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 1: not organic. All right. So there you have it, organic food.

781
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 1: Some of the pros, some of the cons, what the

782
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: science is saying, what our hearts are saying. And we

783
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:13,680
Speaker 1: would love to hear from everyone, Like, like I said,

784
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:15,840
Speaker 1: we're not trying to make up anybody's mind here. I

785
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 1: would like to hear what a what your take on

786
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:21,920
Speaker 1: organic foods is And then if you take any of

787
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: the science to heart, if you take any of the

788
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:26,719
Speaker 1: the the arguments to heart, how do you roll that

789
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: out in your own life? Like what choices are you making?

790
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:32,600
Speaker 1: What what is your line in the sand for organic

791
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 1: and conventional. Another thing that we were not able to

792
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 1: determine just by like doing the research that I have

793
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:43,800
Speaker 1: concerns about because I'm paranoid, is how these UH studies

794
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,400
Speaker 1: were funded to write, Like what kind of relationships the

795
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: university has had with local farmers, whether they're organic farmers

796
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:53,879
Speaker 1: or conventional farmers, or just an industry in general. How

797
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 1: are they funded? Who were they partners with, who are

798
00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 1: they friendly with? That kind of thing? You know. So

799
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 1: maybe some of you are out there, you work in academia,

800
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: and you go, oh hey, I remember that study. The

801
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: reason why it said that though, was this you know

802
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 1: the secret history behind it. I mean I worked in

803
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:12,279
Speaker 1: academia long enough to know that things like that happen. Yeah,

804
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 1: I mean. And it also comes back to the fact

805
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: that there are major players involved here. This is totally

806
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:18,799
Speaker 1: this is this is how we eat, So that the

807
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:22,919
Speaker 1: government is involved, UH, major organic food companies, major major

808
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 1: conventional food companies, and often those are the same companies

809
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 1: with their their hands in both pots. Yeah, and let's

810
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: remember that one trillion dollar number, right, everybody's going to

811
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:33,879
Speaker 1: be fighting for a part of that pie, whether it's

812
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 1: an organic pie or not. Indeed, indeed, all right, So, hey,

813
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us, you want

814
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:41,279
Speaker 1: to reach out to us again, go to stuff to

815
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mothership, that's we'll

816
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 1: find all the podcast videos, blog post links out to

817
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 1: social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter. We are blow

818
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:50,880
Speaker 1: the Mind on both of those. We are also on

819
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 1: Tumbler and Instagram. And if you want to write us directly,

820
00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 1: the old fashioned way to talk to us about organic food,

821
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: you can hit us up at blow the Mind at

822
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com for more on this and

823
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:14,359
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works? Doot

824
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: column