Jim Geraghty has some thoughts about organic milk:
I like living where I live, but I remarked to Mrs. Campaign Spot that the D.C. area can be a very “pious” place sometimes. Oh, it’s not the traditional definition of devotion to religion, but instead the need to showcase one’s loyalty to all the “right” causes and decisions and proper behavior. It seems that for some of these parents, sending organic milk to school with their kids is insufficient; they need everyone else to know they they only want organic milk for their kids, and that we really ought to be following the same dietary practices.
It’s not just DC, it’s any place with a high concentration of “progressives.” Ever wonder why Massachusetts is such a “blue” state? It goes all the way back to the people who founded it. They’ve merely swapped out their religion for a more secular piety. And sanctimony.
What the heck is “organic milk” anyway? All milk is organic otherwise it isn’t milk, it’s a substitute. Tired of the organic nonsense. Plus the vegetarian nonsense. Whatever.
I find myself in an odd position here. I take nutrition very seriously, and I would never buy non-organic milk. Usually I don’t even buy store milk – I get it from a local farmer, pasture raised and fresh off the cow. I think America’s health as a whole would dramatically improve if more people lived this way.
But I don’t want to compell people either. Peg this as just one more reason I support school vouchers. I would feel much better sending my kids to a school that only served organic food, and happily pay for it.
I’m a libertarian who is very much “into” (as the kids like to say) health and nutrition, but because I’m one of those weirdoes who believe my life and property are my own, I always feel slightly alienated when I’m in a health food store. Even tho’ the CEO is a libertarian who got in trouble for not parroting the Obamunist party-line, Whole Foods doesn’t help, with its check-out county magazine racks being stocked by so many Leftist publications and not a single copy of REASON, LIBERTY JOURNAL or even NATIONAL REVIEW. It’s ironic to me that people who won’t touch “non-organic” milk freely guzzle the Cult of the State’s Kool-Aid. And yet they always complain when Daddy and Mommy State want to regulate or even ban their nutritional supplements.
To paraphrase an old–but still true–political cliche, a government powerful enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take away your tryptophan and non-pasteurized milk.
“I would never buy non-organic milk”
Why not?
I used to be on a big organic milk kick not so much for the fact that it is organic but that it often lasts longer on the shelf in the refrigerator. But now that everyone buys organic milk the price is just too high to justify. When you see that even Walmart is starting to offer organic cans of tomato sauce then you know the phenomenon has jumped the shark.
I think kids can do just fine living off the same food that the majority of American adults enjoy during their lunch breaks at work — frozen dinners.
The hormones, pesticides and antibiotics they force feed the cows in non-organic factory farms (just so they won’t keel over and die from the living conditions) make it into the milk.
Plus, I’m a big believer in the adage that you are only as healthy as your food was in its prior life. Think about that, and consider why everything from autism to heart disease has gone from “unheard of” to “common” in just the one century since we went from artisinal farming to Kraft Foods Inc.
The fact is that life expectancy has been increasing solely due to two inventions: antibiotics and blood transfusions. In every other way we are far less healthy today than the Swiss peasants of the 16th century (that’s not hyperbole – I’ve read the archeological record for myself). And the majority of that is due to our present farming and food preparation practices.
Frankly, I don’t even use a microwave. Haven’t in years. Mice fed diets consisting solely of healthy but microwaved foods die of multiple organ failures and 1/2 life-expectancy. And I personally know a neurosurgeon who refuses to use artificial sweeteners or MSG because (in his words) “I’ve seen what they do to brains.”
The fact is that life expectancy has been increasing solely due to two inventions: antibiotics and blood transfusions.
Don’t forget public health things like sanitation systems, public restrooms, and mass inoculation.
Plus, I’m a big believer in the adage that you are only as healthy as your food was in its prior life. Think about that, and consider why everything from autism to heart disease has gone from “unheard of” to “common” in just the one century since we went from artisinal farming to Kraft Foods Inc.
Right. It has absolutely nothing to do with the huge increase in high-glycemic carbs (not helped in any way by the idiotic FDA pyramid) since the end of the war.
Sorry, it would be nice if it were just those evil chemicals and hormones, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.
“Think about that, and consider why everything from autism to heart disease has gone from “unheard of” to “common” in just the one century …”
Got nothing to do with improvements in health care that mean that things people used to simply die of, they now can be cured of or treated for, and hang around for years to talk about… nor of aggressive public-awareness programs (‘why, that kid’s not dumb, he’s autistic!’) … nor of the fact that, for the first time in world history, food is so cheap and commonplace (and physical labor is so rare, especially in the First World) that one of the major health threats of the poor is obesity, for crying out loud…yeah, it’s gotta be industrial farming.
Brock
In most states it’s illegal to sell raw milk – one more instance of mommy-government saving ourselves from ourselves.
I suppose there do exist dairy farmers who view their heifers as receptacles for force-fed “hormones, pesticides and antibiotics”, but I’ve never met one. They also make the same choice to save their animals from sickness and disease that, I suspect, even you might make if your child was sick – they administer antibiotics. And pull that animal from the milking herd, because the milk is tested every day, to ensure that it doesn’t have antibiotics.
If you think that explaining space to the general public is difficult – try explaining what actually happens on the farm.
I agree Brock, the U.S. was much better off when the farming economy could only support 100 million people. Better to see 1/2 to 2/3 of the population starve to death than to risk eating unhealthy food.
Oh, it’s much more important to nourish the body than the mind. All they use their brains for is to keep their skulls from imploding.
“Better to see 1/2 to 2/3 of the population starve to death than to risk eating unhealthy food.”
Bravo!
I know you were being sarcastic, but actually you are correct. It’s got nothing to do with high-glycemic carbs. The Irish ate potatoes by the ton, and the Pima Indians ate a whole bunch of corn and beans, and they didn’t have any our problems. The whole Glycemic Index things is a red herring.
But it sure does have a lot to do with overly processed white flour, white sugar, high fructose corn syrup and vegetable oils. Those factory foods were not invented for health purposes.
As for those who said that public sanitation also plays a part – you’re right. I was simplifying, and simplified too far. Sterilization of surgical tools is also a fairly recent advance that’s helped a lot of people.
But none of that takes back the fact that our food supply is poisonous, and that the national health would be improved by changing it.
Indeed it is. Which is why I have made a study of it, looking at the empirical, athropological and scientific evidence collected on human metabolism over the last century or so. I’ve read dozens of books on the topics; not popular titles but the meaty sort like Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Studies in Deficiency Disease, and Ancel Keys’ 2,000 page Minnesota Experiment. I can not only quote Gary Taubes, but I can explain exactly where he went wrong.
When you can say the same, we can have an informed discussion on the matter.
Including mine. I have to cross State lines to get it. And it pisses me off. I’m part of a group of citizens that is lobbying our State government to release us from this burden.
Don’t be a fucking retard. We don’t need GSM and chemical fertilizers to feed every American living today. That’s just the system we use because certain industrial interests (who sell GSM seed varieties and chemical fertilizers) have lobbied the government to tilt the playing field in their favor.
Some of the highest yielding farms in the country (and the world) are fully organic and biodynamic. A deep understanding of what plants actually need to thrive and grow is all that’s necessary to feed many times the current population.
The Irish ate potatoes by the ton, and the Pima Indians ate a whole bunch of corn and beans, and they didn’t have any our problems.
Corn and particularly beans don’t have a high glycemic index. And potatoes have a relatively high protein count.
The whole Glycemic Index things is a red herring.
But it sure does have a lot to do with overly processed white flour, white sugar, high fructose corn syrup and vegetable oils.
So, it’s not a glycemic index problem? It’s a white flour, white sugar, corn syrup problem? Do you know what the glycemic index is?
“Don’t be a fucking retard.”
Thanks for going the ad hominem route. It saves me the trouble of having to take your argument seriously.
“The Irish ate potatoes by the ton, and the Pima Indians ate a whole bunch of corn and beans, and they didn’t have any our problems.”
From the Great Famine entry in Wikipedia:
“Of the 100,000 Irish that sailed to Canada in 1847, an estimated one out of five died from disease and malnutrition, including over five thousand at Grosse Isle. Mortality rates of 30% aboard the coffin ships were common.”
I’ll gladly keep our problems, thanks.
Chris, I think “don’t be an ‘f-ing’ retard” is an appropriate response to your implication that Brock would be willing to see a signifcant portion of the population die so that the rest could have healthier foods.
Given the history American ingenity, especially in farming, isn’t it probable that we can both provide healthier foods and maintain or even expand our current populations? Seems we have a lot of binary thinkers here.
Rob,
I was implying that Brock may not have considered all the consequences of ditching what was once called “the green revolution”. I used a strong strain of sarcasm to make my point, and apparently both you and he have decided that implying I have a sub-nominal I.Q. is the proper response. Sarcasm isn’t for everyone I guess.
So I guess I could say that Chris L. wants to poison kids with unhealty food additives and farming practices, because that’s just using a “strong strain of sarcasm to make my point”. Of course that would be stupid, because just like I’m sure Brock doesn’t want to eliminate 33-66% of the population in the name of healty foods, I’m sure Chris L. isn’t defending unsafe food. Wait, did I just level an ad hominem attack on myself? My goodness.
Perhaps the sarcasm was too subtle for you. For that, I apologize.
Or perhaps your attempt at sacarsm was so blindingly stupid that the only appropriate response was to say so.
Truthfully, it wasn’t your lame attempt at sarcasm that offended me, it was your “delicate flower” response. You threw a big steaming turd into the debate and then got all offended when Brock, instead of stepping in it, told you to pick the damn thing up.
I wasn’t claiming to be a flower, delicate or otherwise. I was pointing out that once you go down the road of personal attack (the “fucking retard part”) the argument (with the person you attack anyway) tends to draw to a close because the listener now has license to legitimately ignore your points. The back and forth on this proves quite clearly that the ad hominem attack in this case has succeeded in ending the actual argument. One of the reasons such things are considered logical fallacies.
I sure do. And I know where healthy foods like potatoes, whole wheat bread, broccoli and steak go on it. Same for the bad white flour (high), sugar (lower) and vegetable oil (zero).
And where would you put MSG on that Index? You don’t.
The fact is there’s no correlation at all between health and the Glycemic Index. It’s as useful for finding healthy foods as a compass would be for finding the shortest route to Wal*Mart. Like I said, “red herring.”
And yet your actions betray that you are one …
I saw your sarcasm, loud and clear, Chris. But it wasn’t clever sarcasm; it was dumb and didn’t deserve a better response than the one I gave it.