Whadda ya think of this?

Comment

Comment by Justin Kobbe on October 21, 2009 at 1:48pm

If you are looking to get organic on a budget always look for a local farm share - so much fresh produce you give some away and it's extremely affordable.

Comment by Christopher A. Moyer on August 13, 2009 at 11:10am

Hardly a fool! Besides, as you note, there are going to be considerable difference within a country, et cetera.

I didn't realize till now that you have Costa Rican property. If you ever need someone to do some on-the-ground research on Costa Rica living and its effects on optimal health and relaxation, please know I'll be happy to undertake an in-depth, first-person, longitudinal study. :)

Comment by Erik Dalton on August 12, 2009 at 9:24pm

Hey Christopher: Thx for correcting me on that Costa Rica stat. I've been spouting that claim for months since reading the headlines in San Jose's "Tico Times". I'd like to blame it on third-world reporting but I think it was more likely a 65-year old thinking deficit.
I'm sure they were probably reporting correctly and I read it wrong because I remember them mentioning the Blue Zone Longevity Study. http://www.sethbraun.net/9.html

Was talking to the guy who sold me my Costa Rica property and he told me the stats originated from a report from BlueZones.com that stated:
"There are four acknowledged blue zones around the world, and at first glance each one appears vastly different from the next. They are:

Okinawa, Japan
Sardinia, Italy
Loma Linda, Calif.
Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica

Although all are located in far-off corners of the world, members in each location's population have a higher chance of reaching a healthy age 90 than anywhere else on Earth. They also have higher percentages of centenarians, or people who've reached the age of 100."

Thanks again for clearing that up so I don't make a fool out of myself again in public...but it'll probably happen anyway.

Comment by Christopher A. Moyer on August 11, 2009 at 11:30am

Hi Erik - It's good to make your acquaintance.

Good points regarding likely biases and problems in research, especially medical research. It is going to be interesting to see how those problems do, or do not, get fixed.

I don't know a lot about Costa Rica, but I'd be surprised to find it has the *highest* life expectancy. I thought that claim belonged to the Scandinavian countries. Let's have a look...

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_lif_exp_at_bir_tot_pop-life-expectancy-birth-total-population

US #47, Costa Rica #55. Macau #1, followed by Andorra and Japan.

That was from a quick search - I'm not sure of the quality of that source. I could check it against other sources sometime, but I gotta do some other things first..

Also, I don't doubt that Costa Rica might be a great place to live, and to eat. I actually don't know much about it.

-CM

Comment by Erik Dalton on August 11, 2009 at 7:18am

Good point Christopher. However, conversations with my son-in-law who is one of the few genetic pharmacological researchers in the midwest present a different story. From college into professional life, he's seen increased pressure on researchers to design studies to obtain desired outcomes. Considering the enormous cost to perform double-blind studies today, much research is not challenged until lawsuits begin to fly, i.e., Lilly and silicone.

It really irritates me when I fill out a reflux questionaire and notice in very small letters at the bottom of the page the name AstraZeneca and then the MD prescribes Nexium (the little purple pill that was formerly called Prilosec before the patent ran out). The funded research study, test and drug should not have the same name attached to it...in my opinion. Check out this disturbing article I ran across a couple days ago: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/08/11/Doctors-Bribed-to-Hook-Your-Kids-on-Drugs.aspx

LL&W has a wonderful newsletter called Backletter which encapsulates all the major studies reported in the journals. Top researchers are constantly questioning how devices such as the cage fusion, artifical discs, etc. receive such quick approval only to discover later the studies were poorly designed and the results flawed. Hard to get em off the market once approved.

As for the food. My wife and I both lived on farms here in Oklahoma during childhood and I can tell you that crop spraying is not too subtle here...although I do admit it seems to be gettng better. Tour the Tyson Foods plant in Little Rock next time you're in this part of the country and observe the bloated state of these chickens stufffed full of growth hormones.
Give me food from most third-world contries any day....particularly Costa Rica which boasts the longest living people on the planet.

My son-in-law is

Comment by Christopher A. Moyer on August 10, 2009 at 9:08pm

Hi all.

I think Erik is correct that it can be a good idea to consider the motives and source of funding behind certain pieces or research. But I think we should also realize that such systematic bias or outright dishonesty is quite rare in science - at least that is my opinion. If this article is one that has reached its conclusions based more on bias or dishonesty than on fact, you can expect another team of researchers to come along with other data that challenges these conclusions.

Having said that, I do not find these conclusions surprising at all. This is not because I think organic food is not of value - in many ways I can understand the value in using minimal amounts of fertilizers, insecticides, and transportation. But the reason I think there is probably very little difference between organic and other foods is because we are lucky to enjoy such generally high-quality foods in most of our country. It is easy to forget that when we are very used to it and when many people are engaged in conversations about food quality and preferences. You do not have to go very far back in history to find times when generally lower technology meant it was much more likely that your food could be partially spoiled or infected as a matter of course.

In sum, food has never been safer than at any other time or place than it is for most of us today, organic or not.

-CM

Comment by Laura Allen on August 9, 2009 at 5:58pm

Just tell me where to send it and prepare to be lit up. We like it HOT! We grew the peppers, too.

Comment by Erik Dalton on August 9, 2009 at 5:05pm

Send some salsa...pleeeeeeaaassse

Comment by Laura Allen on August 9, 2009 at 4:53pm

I have lamented the prices of organic food, but after I watched some friends go through the process of becoming certified for that and how long it took them, and the labor they put into it, I really understand it a little better.

We're gardening organically at my house to avoid chemicals in our food, and like Mike says, for the taste. It's also just a satisfying thing to pick and eat things out of your own garden. Although I must say, if my husband plants 18 tomato plants again next year, you will be reading about his demise on these pages. I have made enough salsa to feed everyone on here!

Comment by Erik Dalton on August 9, 2009 at 4:20pm

Mike:
Oklahoma is located almost "dead-center" in the middle of the country and our health food stores are pitifully stocked with organic food. Even though we have an abundance of very small local organic growers, it it doesn't come through in a truck from Mexico or California, they just don't stock it.

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