Quotulatiousness

July 30, 2009

Organic food shock: no better than non-organic

Filed under: Environment, Food, Science, Wine — Nicholas @ 07:59

This is another one of those “someone paid money to conduct the study?” studies. Organic food has been a boon to certain producers, but it doesn’t provide the kind of benefits most purchasers expect:

But organic is certainly more expensive. A new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds:

On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods.

The study was commissioned by Britain’s Food Standards Agency.

I’ve been skeptical about the claims for “organic” products for quite some time. Similarly, I’m not convinced that there’s any great value in the “biodynamic” model for wine. My strong suspicion is that the same general quality of wine would be produced without all the new age woo-woo mystic crap, because the vineyard owner or manager is paying closer attention to the vines. That, IMO, is the key.

July 24, 2009

More on scapegoating plastic bags

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Environment — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:22

Back on the old site, I posted an item that related tangentially to the issue of plastic bags in supermarkets. Russ LeBlanc sent me a note, which I published as an update to that post. He’s now expanded on that idea, with a letter to newsdurhamregion.com:

You’d think in these tough economic times our public officials would avoid “trash talk.” Enough already!

Get to the real issues. Dwelling on emotional fallacies such as the dreaded plastic bag while people are left with little economic hope is unforgivable. Sorry, Camille, banning plastic bags will do less than little to save the planet. It isn’t even a start, but it does sound warm and fuzzy.

If our politicians feel it necessary to spend our hard-earned tax dollars on recycling studies then they should do due diligence and commission a study by independent biologists to find out if the other study is even worth it. Better yet, spend the money where it counts, attracting jobs.

See-through bags and supporting a big-business cash grab for something that represents less than one per cent of a landfill (plastic bags) is irresponsible. Heaven forbid we see a politician questioning this issue.

By the way, Madam Mayor, I’m sure the big retailers would welcome the reward card incentive program (even though it’s really a form of big business getting around the right to privacy issue). Perhaps we can use the points for a garborator?

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