So, you’re “disturbed” based on a bunch of stuff that you probably can’t even support with hard data?
Do you have cites for this and cites that the pesticide levels in normal foods are harmful?
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.
I posted a thread in Great Debates about the ‘organic food is a scam idea’ if anyone wants to continue the debate.
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.
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 has a good overview.
Yahoo often has distorted headlines–not necessarily wrong but definitely not the whole truth. It’s another sign they’re going downhill.
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.
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.
They’re not actually very closely related.
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?
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!”
Potatoes are actually treated with sprout inhibitors like Chloropropham 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.
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.
So…
Why didn’t either Fruitcake or Cinnabons make the list?
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.
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.
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)
- 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.