<Sarah wrote> <Another problem with organic food, Catherine, is that a lot of it has been covered in shit from farms, in place of of pesticides. Two problems with that: first, the farms that sell the manure may not have been organic and it may contain pesticides, and secondly, in eating these foods, you're supporting the continuance of factory farming, and the widespread feeding of animals, rather than humans>
Had to jump in a clarify some things for folks interested in this topic. The majority of compost added to organic (OG) farm soil is not of animal origin. Most is composted plant matter. Most of the manure spread on land in the U.S. (I can't speak for other countries) is used by conventional farmers. And whereas OG farmers are required to use only composted manure, conventional farmers are allowed to spray raw manure (as well as human sewage and other industrial farm waste products). You'll find many organizations that promote organic food and growing practices also take initiative to combat factory farming. It's true organic food cannot be guaranteed to be 100% pesticide/hormone/bacteria free. OG practices help minimize residue (through the composting process and the soil on an OG farm which is a far livelier digester of materials than on conventional farms). Eating organic doesn't support factory farming by any means - eating lower on the food chain, now that's something we (Americans anyway) could stand to work on. Jenny At 9:31 AM -0500 02/02/2003, Catherine McKay wrote: >And, if you want to be really paranoid about it, as I >sometimes am, even the organically grown stuff grows >in soil that has no doubt been subjected to >contamination of some kind, and is rained on by acid >rain. Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
