# Yahoo! Article: "The 7 Foods Experts Won't Eat" Thoughts? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 10, 2009, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750 "2009-12-10T18:19:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/21 "2009-12-10T20:38:46Z")
> [@Lama\_Pacos](#): > > I’m disturbed that many here consider organic food a “scam”. While I agree that it may not make a significant health difference for the _individual consumer_, the difference between the environmental impact of conventional and organic farming is notable. It’s fine if you don’t care about the effects your actions have-- many people don’t-- but that doesn’t make things scammy just because you don’t want to step up. So, you’re “disturbed” based on a bunch of stuff that you probably can’t even support with hard data? ---
**Author:** ![ivn1188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e480ec/32.png) [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/22 "2009-12-10T21:25:19Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Except that generally, organic foods **do** have no or significantly lower pesticide content (not to mention not using a ton of chemical fertilizers, which can screw up local waterways with algae bloom and the like) compared to conventionally-grown foods, while bottled water is often just municipal tap water. I do agree that certain organic foods really don’t tend to have a significant pesticide uptake and thus can be skipped, though. Do you have cites for this and cites that the pesticide levels in normal foods are harmful? > [@Lama\_Pacos](#): > > I’m disturbed that many here consider organic food a “scam”. While I agree that it may not make a significant health difference for the _individual consumer_, the difference between the environmental impact of conventional and organic farming is notable. It’s fine if you don’t care about the effects your actions have-- many people don’t-- but that doesn’t make things scammy just because you don’t want to step up. That’s not really accurate either. Organic farming produces a smaller yield per acre in most cases, which means for the same amount of food, you must farm more land. Particulate runoff and fertilizer leaching are a problem with both organic and non-organic farming, and are a function of area. Organic fertilizers can actually be worse, because they aren’t balanced for the exact crop being grown. Without careful management you can get buildups of nutrients that a crop does not use much of, leading to acidic or basic runoff and leaching into local water supplies. Additionally, since organic fertilizers are much less concentrated and have inconsistent release rates, you have to apply more of them, and more often, which means more fossil fuel expenditures and soil work. Since you need more area for the same yield (which is offset by the price premium as it is, but it’s obvious that the more organic farming goes on, the less of a premium you can charge, so eventually you’ll end up with more land used to farm). It is not clear at all that organic farming, except in the case of smaller, very well tended plots, is more environmentally sound. Organics are also becoming trendy, which means large producers are using these techniques. It’s not like buying locally; all that organic food is still shipped across the country. Lower yields, more fertilizers, and the use of animal products that aren’t tailored to the crop over a larger area mean that organic might not be much, if any, better than normal farming for the environment beyond the idea that chemicals = bad. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/23 "2009-12-10T21:41:43Z")
I posted a thread in Great Debates about the ‘organic food is a scam idea’ if anyone wants to continue the debate. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/24 "2009-12-10T21:55:38Z")
Store bought potatoes don’t sprout? Mine sprout all the time. And last spring I planted six of them in my garden and they all grew into potato plants. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/25 "2009-12-10T22:05:59Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > Microwave popcorn??? It’s popcorn in a fucking bag. With added chemical flavoring. The EPA has investigated the occurrence of lung disease in people who work for microwave popcorn manufacturers, although at this point no one seems to think that it poses a danger to consumers. [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/popcorn.asp) has a good overview. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/26 "2009-12-10T22:09:34Z")
Yahoo often has distorted headlines–not necessarily wrong but definitely not the whole truth. It’s another sign they’re going downhill. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/27 "2009-12-10T22:13:36Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Store bought potatoes don’t sprout? Mine sprout all the time. And last spring I planted six of them in my garden and they all grew into potato plants. Weird - I did that too, only the year before. I got about a dozen potatoes out of one old nasty spud I found in the basement then, this year, a couple more came up and gave me a few more. This quote in the OP (from Jeffrey Moyer) " Washing isn’t good enough if you’re trying to remove chemicals that have been absorbed into the flesh." Is true as far as it goes but the implication that all non-“organic” veggies have “chemicals” in their flesh is un-true, of course. It is also partly true that some farmers wouldn’t eat the stuff they produce for market. They’re farmers, they probably have a nice garden to grow all the stuff they want to eat and they aren’t going to pull out the heavy equipment to prep and fertilize that little plot. Besides, the potatoes the farmers grow most are probably some high-starch russet that is only good for commercial frozen French-fries. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/28 "2009-12-10T22:32:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Buy a conventional potato in a store, and try to get it to sprout. It won’t," says Moyer, who is also farm director of the Rodale Institute (also owned by Rodale Inc., the publisher of Prevention). This is bullshit, as anyone who habitually forgets that they’ve got a sack of tates on the back steps can tell you. Store tates sprout just fine. IMNSHO, an obvious untruth like that taints the whole article. ---
**Author:** ![kombatminipig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5ac83/32.png) [@kombatminipig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kombatminipig)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/29 "2009-12-10T22:32:43Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > And just adding to the “WTF?” chorus about potatoes sprouting - dunno about sweet potatoes, but both the conventional and organic white potatoes that I’ve had will sprout away if I leave them for too long. They’re not actually very closely related. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ec8ea/32.png) [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Philosopher)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/30 "2009-12-10T22:55:08Z")
So clearly the ‘potatoes’ bit is worth ignoring, as are some of the others, like the advice about not eating conventional apples, given by a business executive at an institute for organic food. But a couple of those do look a bit worrying to me - the one about farmed salmon effectively being carcinogenic is apparently based on a paper published in the Science journal for instance. What about that one? ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/31 "2009-12-10T23:50:54Z")
Let’s just call the potato sprouting claim in the linked web page what it is: a deliberate lie. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/32 "2009-12-11T04:33:51Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Let’s just call the potato sprouting claim in the linked web page what it is: a deliberate lie. What I don’t get is why they even told this lie. I mean, do they seriously think that people will just forget about their store bought potatoes sprouting, and believe the lie that they just told? “Well gee, I always thought my older potatoes were sprouting, but maybe those are some funny kind of spider webs I never seen before anywhere else. Well, you learn something new everyday!” ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/33 "2009-12-11T04:58:52Z")
Potatoes are actually treated with [sprout](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4069/is_200309/ai_n9259326/) [inhibitors](http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/113408450/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0) like [Chloropropham](http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/choropro.htm) to keep them from sprouting. That’s as far as I have time to google, I don’t know why my potatoes still sprout, maybe it wears off or something. ---
**Author:** ![3\_20\_59\_or\_bust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/47e85d/32.png) [@3\_20\_59\_or\_bust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3_20_59_or_bust)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/34 "2009-12-11T05:10:34Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > With added chemical flavoring. The EPA has investigated the occurrence of lung disease in people who work for microwave popcorn manufacturers, although at this point no one seems to think that it poses a danger to consumers. [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/popcorn.asp) has a good overview. I don’t touch microwave popcorn - just the smell of the stuff is enough to tell you it’s far from healthy. When I want popcorn, I go “old school” and throw some oil and popcorn in a big pot. It takes about two minutes longer than microwave 'corn and actually tastes fresh and natural. Want butter on it? OK, that can go in the microwave. Melt a few pats and drizzle it on top. Add salt to taste. Yum. ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/35 "2009-12-11T05:22:23Z")
So… Why didn’t either Fruitcake or Cinnabons make the list? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/36 "2009-12-11T06:53:09Z")
Bollocks. Eat whatever the hell you want. Depending on which expert you’re talking to, and whose pockets they’re in, and what new discovery has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight, they’ll spout whatever contradictory crap they’re prompted to any given day of the week. If it tastes good and isn’t directly poisonous, then eat whatever you want. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/37 "2009-12-11T06:57:16Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Yahoo often has distorted headlines–not necessarily wrong but definitely not the whole truth. It’s another sign they’re going downhill. Nobody should count a source with such a silly and undignified name as “Yahoo” for serious information, no matter how many billions of dollars they have. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/38 "2009-12-11T07:05:13Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Nobody should count a source with such a silly and undignified name as “Yahoo” for serious information, no matter how many billions of dollars they have. Another startling thing that would confront a person brought here from the 1950s. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/39 "2009-12-11T07:35:11Z")
My first thought was “What does **MeanOldLady** hate about her salad?” 🆒 (I’m a bit worried someone’s gonna come by and tell me they don’t really look alike. I’m sure I probably have [own-race bias](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2452/own-race-bias-revisited)) ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750/40 "2009-12-11T07:42:11Z")
1. Conventional Apples I prefer my apples to be unconventional. For example, I’ve trained my apples to wear pants, but they refuse to wear socks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-article-the-7-foods-experts-wont-eat-thoughts/520750.md?page=3)