Sometimes I can't tell if you're joking or not...

That makes 2 of us. And sometimes it is serious and the juxtaposition makes it a joke. As in the sea cow deal.

[Parallax]

It's all about choice.
People CHOOSE the high calorie option and then wonder why they're overweight..................

100% right. There is only one thing that makes you fat: Regularly taking in more calories than you burn in a day.

For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION

Eat and drink what you like.
Being American is apparently what kills you.

[Ratmagiclady]

Buying locally is ok but they need to stop relying on pesticides and chemical fertilizers like they do. If it's not an organic product it really donsen't matter where it's grown. It's still fed the same crap.

Actually, it still matters. Trucking food around the country and the world isn't free on any account.

Agribusiness *densities* of food production also require more pesticides and chemical fertilizers than your small farms do, and that stuff, and the feed, doesn't just appear in place, either.

Also, not all places which aren't or aren't yet, certified organic are actively using pesticides, BGH'es, antibiotics, or anywhere near as much of them as is standard procedure for big agribusiness outfits.

One thing you get out of supporting small farms is the human attention of farmers. Even if they have to break out some pesticides once in a while, they don't have the bad economies of scale that make 'Just spray everything' make 'economic sense.'

Actually, it still matters. Trucking food around the country and the world isn't free on any account.

Agribusiness *densities* of food production also require more pesticides and chemical fertilizers than your small farms do, and that stuff, and the feed, doesn't just appear in place, either.

Also, not all places which aren't or aren't yet, certified organic are actively using pesticides, BGH'es, antibiotics, or anywhere near as much of them as is standard procedure for big agribusiness outfits.

One thing you get out of supporting small farms is the human attention of farmers. Even if they have to break out some pesticides once in a while, they don't have the bad economies of scale that make 'Just spray everything' make 'economic sense.'

Actually your larger farms are going to use less. They have more acreage and tend to spray the least amount they can get away with since they have so much area to spray.
I go whenever possible to a u pick farm down in palmetto. About an hour's drive from home. He's not organic but real friendly and we talk about farming quite a bit. He's farming about 20 acres now but managed a few thousand before he "retired". He sprayed a whole lot less per acre on the large farm than he does now.

[Ratmagiclady]

100% right. There is only one thing that makes you fat: Regularly taking in more calories than you burn in a day.

For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.


Eat and drink what you like.
Being American is apparently what kills you.

Frankly, a lot of these 'studies' are a part of the system that tried to dismember what are systemic problems and look for one 'magic bullet,' usually by finding one thing to blame, and most especially while completely neglecting the exercise factor. Eating to fit your lifestyle, for one thing, is going to let your body regulate itself better.

It's also a matter of *quantities,* too, of course, which is one thing our rampant consumerism and drive-across-the-mini-mall lifestyle does to us.

Lots of white sugar, of course, is almost never good for you, especially if you have trouble burning the fat you already have. (Does make a nice cheat if like me you have the opposite problem of most: having a real hard time maintaining weight or putting it back on. I seem to have been built for speed, (and I like to think looks but not so much to last, at least through where I've been driving. I kind of run on the high-test and am in the shop an awful lot. I often wonder if Alfa Romeo has my blueprints on file somewhere. Too bad the same metabolism means I find white sugar pretty unpleasant to have a lot of. )

'Being American' certainly isn't good for you if you're essentially doing the same lifestyle and trying to find the one thing to blame that if only you can abstain from it, everything should be all right.

Certainly, selling lower-income people a lot of empty calories to scarf down when they have a free moment and then trying to make em earn enough money to afford the diet products doesn't help.

[Parallax]

An independent farmer will likely use less than a large corporate farm would because he sees that the money for the chemicals is coming directly out of his pocket. A good corporate manager will be mindful of expenses, but it just isn't the same mindset.

Sugar is really an "anti nutrient" since it takes more vitamins to metabolize than it gives. Glad I don't like it.

An independent farmer will likely use less than a large corporate farm would because he sees that the money for the chemicals is coming directly out of his pocket. A good corporate manager will be mindful of expenses, but it just isn't the same mindset.

The independent actually uses about the same or a tad bit more per acre.

[flyer]

For me it's been probably 25 years since I've had regular soft drinks. Can't stand sugar.

Maybe that explains the grumpiness!

[Ash]

Eat and drink what you like.
Being American is apparently what kills you.

Tha magic bullet doesn't exist.
Conveniently avoiding to address the weight/exercise/diet issue (95% of the problem) in favour of looking for a genetic or micronutritional cause of obesity and non-communicable diseases (less than 5% of the problem) is in vogue and has been since genetic studies on obesity had started some years ago.

One of my professors at uni coined the GI term and did all the initial research on the metabolic entity. Although the researchers know the higher importance of glycaemic load (ie. quantity of foodstuff) in contributing to nutritional disorders, they focus on what sells, and that's GI - it's now on all the breakfast cereal labels and is a huge selling book all over Australia.

So people go for a greater proportion of low GI foods but are also increasing their overall energy intake as a result. Lemmings, that's what we are...

[Parallax]

Frankly, a lot of these 'studies' are a part of the system that tried to dismember what are systemic problems and look for one 'magic bullet,' usually by finding one thing to blame, ...............

That's Right. Most people anymore, ideally, would rather have someone to sue when things don't go their way, but having something to blame is the next best thing, and sometimes the best they can do.

[Ratmagiclady]

Actually your larger farms are going to use less. They have more acreage and tend to spray the least amount they can get away with since they have so much area to spray.
I go whenever possible to a u pick farm down in palmetto. About an hour's drive from home. He's not organic but real friendly and we talk about farming quite a bit. He's farming about 20 acres now but managed a few thousand before he "retired". He sprayed a whole lot less per acre on the large farm than he does now.

Not less fuel trucking feed around, certainly, or less fertilizers to keep the density up. It sounds like he doesn't have a whole lot of hands on his present enterprise.

Of course, there's a limit to how much scaling-*down* has benefit operating on certain models, and if you aren't hiring employees, you're going to have to use more brute-force solutions. This is actually one of the benefits of community-supported agriculture:more security for the small farms.

Certainly, on the mass scale, paying Dow and DuPont to un-employ more farmers so we can be fed less-healthy food isn't doing our health or the environment any favors.

As with so many other things, our own human efforts can really moderate what damage we do to ourselves, our economy, and ecology. CSA's aren't going to replace agribusiness any time soon, but it helps change the model and break some of the vicious cycles. There's so many of us that the small changes for the better really add up, just as do the small abuses.

That's right RML it's all big business' fault.

As for my buddy, it's him, his wife and their daughter.
And I love going there. I have learned quite a bit about farming over the last 10 years from him. Plus he's a fisherman.

[Parallax]

Tha magic bullet doesn't exist.
Conveniently avoiding to address the weight/exercise/diet issue (95% of the problem) in favour of looking for a genetic or micronutritional cause of obesity ........................

A lot of our schools have dropped the requirement for daily physical education, and then they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to study why more and more kids are overweight.

[Ash]

Sugar is really an "anti nutrient" since it takes more vitamins to metabolize than it gives. Glad I don't like it.

Nice try, though not quite true.
Carbohydrate metabolism does require folate and other B vits, but their requirements are quite miniscule and easily attained in today's functional food-driven society.

Sugar (sucrose) is easily metabolised and provides an essential nutrient for the body's cells (glucose, the body's sugar) - the brain uses it as its obligatory energy source.

Sugar isn't as much the problem as the other carbs we consume in our diet.
A slice of bread contains 15g of refined carbs, quickly metabolised into body sugar.
A potato is almost exclusively made up of rapidly-digestible carbs (except for the water content) and is another food that is easy to get too much energy from.
Lots of other examples of these kinds of carbs found in large quantities in our diet...

I'll get off my soapbox now...