How to tell organic from non-organic food?
March 3rd, 2009
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Well, of course, all food is organic, but when it comes to the arbitrary label that is stuck on the trendy foods, how the hell do you tell what is organic and what isn’t? After all, the food itself is not really altered by whether the nitrates or phosphates it absorbes came from exotic bat sh*t from Chile or some standard phosphate fertilizer. Much of the time, the chemicals that are put on the plants are also identical, even if one is synthetic and the other “natural.” And some fear that “organic” companies may have been spiking their fertalizer with a little bit of the synthetic stuff, which has happened before.
It would seem that milk would be even more difficult, given the degrees of separation between fertilizer, plant, cattle feed, cow and milk. So how do you verify it? Is it possible.
Well apparently it is. How? Isotopic composition analysis. Yes, you heard me right. The materials are so indistinguishable that the only way that can reliably tell them apart is the process of counting the different isotops of the elements they contain and looking for subtle variations that can produce an “isotopic fingerprint” of the element, allowing for a pretty good idea of what the original source of the element likely was.
And that is exactly what a German scientist has been trying to do. In a study of over 300 samples of ‘organic’ and conventional milk, it was determined that the two were generally indistinguishable except for two subtle variations: the first was that organic milk tended to have a very slightly higher amount of α-linolenic acid, a chemical which appears to be associated with the feed the animal is given. But this turned out to be a less than 100% reliable method of determining whether or not the milk is truly ‘organic’ because the levels tell more about the type of food that the cow is given than whether the food meets organic standards. Also, it fluctuates enough to make conventional milk appear organic on occasion, and
The second, more reliable, method involves analyzing the ratio of stable isotopes within the milk. While chemical analysis has turned out to be hit or miss, isotopic fingerprinting has generally been more successful. It’s certainly not foolproof, because it’s possible that synthetic fertilizers may be sourced from raw materials with similar ages and geological distributions to the certified “organic” stuff, but this seems to be the best thing anyone’s come up with thus far for solving this vexing non-existent problem.
As a general rule, materials from different sources around the world have slighly different ratios of stable isotopes. In this case, the ratio of carbon 13 to carbon 12 was used to determine whether the milk was consistant with organic sources of plant material. In the future, this may be expanded into other isotope families for more definitive tests.
Just so everyone knows how ridiculous this is: The way they can tell organic food from non-organic food with relatively descent condifence is by putting it through a series of chemical reactions that reduce it to purified hydrocarbons. They then break down these hydrocarbons to ultra-pure carbon which is then seperated into individual atoms which are ionized and accelerated through a series of magnetic fields. The heavier isotopes tend to be less deflected than the lighter ones. So they shoot the carbon ions through the magnetic fields thousands or millions of times and count how many are deflected by a given amount. Then they compare the ratios and determine if you were ripped off on your designer $12 a gallon milk.
By the way, if your question is “how much does this cost?” or “How much energy does this use?” I don’t have the exact numbers, but the answer to both is “a real real lot.”
Now who wants to bet that when and if this technique becomes standardized the organic agriculture interests are going to demand that the taxpayers foot the bill for the certification and test process?
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 12:19 am and is filed under Agriculture, Bad Science, Culture, Enviornment, Obfuscation, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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March 12th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Doc, why is my comment (#49) awaiting moderation?
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March 12th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
THE V said:
Telling us to search Google, (or in this case providing a link to a Google search) doesn’t constitute a reference, in particular when none of the entries support your initial contention. Nor does the passage you linked to in Tending Animals in the Global Village. The fact is you have provided nothing at all in the way of an argument, and nothing to contribute to this discussion.
I am sure nobody here finds your performance ether edifying or entertaining – most of us have run into teenage boys on the net trying to come off as an adult. While you may think you are succeeding, to the rest of us you are transparently immature.
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March 12th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Finrod said:
Because it had more than one link in it. It’s a spam ruducing measure. Most spam contains links in it (or other things that tip off the filters) and if I didn’t send some stuff for moderation this page could get overrun. A lot of spambots will detect that their comment was successfully posted and then start posting like crazy on the respective blog, so if it goes to moderation that cuts down on the spam load dramatically.
Having legitimate comments go there on occasion is the price we pay. I see them all and approve the ones that aren’t obvious spam. The reason I don’t do it right away all the time is I have a life (sort of).
Finrod said:
Okay, point taken. We want to do farming indoors and don’t want to use excessive amounts of land while still haveing plenty of volume.
In that case, however, I still don’t see how the “tower” as shown in the illustration are the way to go. The illustrations show something that is like a sky scraper, tall and thin, like the empire state building or something.
If you want to maximize the interior space and effeciency then tall is okay, but making it tall and fat is going to give you more volume per the material and it will simplify construction.
Take, for example, the Vehicle Assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center. At more than 500 feet tall, it qualifies as a sky scraper, but it also is 700 by 500 feet in footprint and has a whole orbiter payload processing area, hanger and support structures contained within it. When you see the VAB up close, it’s not really a sense of tallness that you get but more of just how massive it is in both height and width. If it were divided into floors (which it’s not, it does have upper decks and catwalks, but the inside is mostly cavernous. it would be something like 400+ acres of space. You’d have a hard time getting that with a tall, narrow building.
Aside from just geometry favoring fewer wider buildings (as opposed to several towers in a city like they build office buildings) any kind of high rise production house is going to need a lot of elevators. If it’s as wide as it is tall, you have more space for them.
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March 12th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Why aren’t tall, fat buildings more common?
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March 12th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
I have to admit that Finrod’s implied vision of having humanity concentrate into self-sustaining cities, while allowing the spaces now committed to farming return to the wild, is certainly an appealing one on several levels. For me it invokes images from the covers of the science fiction of the Sixties – a spire’d skyline covered by a transparent dome, with a spacecraft lifting off in the foreground. However, as doable as this is even now, it is probably only something that will be realized in the distant future.
Pity
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March 12th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
George Carty said:
Uh… how tall and how fat? Usually you go tall when you need lots of space in a limited area and fat when you have the space. Dome stadiums might qualify as “tall and fat” as would zeppelin hangers
THe VAB is an exceptionally tall building because of what it was built to do: process and assemble two Saturn-V rockets at the same time. It had to therefore be taller than the Saturn-v by enough for it to hoyst components to the top. It had to be large enough for the rockets and support equipment and it had to be enclosed because the Florida weather is not always cooperative.
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March 12th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
There has always been debate about human space exploration versus robots and automated systems. There are things that humans can do that no robot can, however. Humans can adapt and improvise and even our best AI can’t do things that humans can. That becomes a big issue when you get past earth orbit and the speed of light precludes direct remote control. Astronauts can also repair and modify satellites like they did with the hubble space telescope. NASA has looked into robotic missions for that kind of thing. Maybe they will be able to eventually get to that point, but when it comes to figuring out how to do something, it’s hard to beat actually being there in person. The first hubble mission the astronauts had to figure out how to solve some unexpected problems.
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March 12th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
I had two firefox tabs open reading two different posts and I posted in the wrong one. I’m going to repost my comment. Feel free to delete the one above.
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March 13th, 2009 at 4:57 am
drbuzz0 said:
I suspected as much.
drbuzz0 said:
I have a suspicion that the particular geometry illustrated is a measure aimed at getting as much natural light coverage as possible into each floor. Of course, if the bulk of lighting is artificial this is no longer an issue, but even with advanced nuclear power so much artificial light is still going to be expensive, so a case could possibly be made for a tall, thin geometry on economic grounds, to do everything possible to alleviate power costs. If someone feels competent to run the numbers, I’d love to see what might be done in that direction, and how well the illustration matches the projected optimal geometry.
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March 13th, 2009 at 5:02 am
DV82XL said:
The VF site has links claiming some interest from cities in the US and a project somewhere in the UAE, IIRC. If one or more of these proposals actually goes ahead, we might have some hard data by the middle of next decade.
Or more likely we won’t, but we can still hope.
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March 13th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
As promised here is the more verbose and condescending response. I will do my best to ensure it is condescending but I know I will succeed in being verbose.
My apologies the first link didn’t work as I had hoped. The book had a preview of some key chapters when I posted the link. It described subsistence farming (i.e. farming to provide 100% of all food needed for the family) as needing 0.2 hectares in Sub-Sahara Africa and 0.5 hectares per family in Bangladesh. It really was a surprising number for me as I would have expected a larger size. Then again in Bangladesh they can manage three cycles of rice per year.
Here another link listing only 1 hectare per family, again very surprising to me. These guys must be close to starvation most of the time. They may get 2 crops of rice a year of with yields of around 2-3 metric tons per acre per cycle.
http://geobytesgcse.blogspot.com/2008/04/case-study-of-subsistence-farming-rice.html
There have been many books written over the years on subsistence agriculture. Generally the land is cultivated using a rotation of legumes, vegetables and a starch crop.
In the U.S. the small Guernsey breed of cattle is preferred for this type of operation. They are 1/2 the mass of the Holstein’s they require much less feed. The total amount of land varies depending on the environment. In more northern regions more land is needed as the growing season is shorter. This skews most of the data published by Government sources high.
Then again I’ve worked on setting the official numbers of yields and such back when I worked for the USDA, Minnesota Ag Statistics Service. The numbers represent more of a regulation of the commodities market than actual yield. The yields based upon actual objective modeled data were 20-30% higher than the official number. I’m sorry I cannot provide documented proof of this because all papers and files were shredded after the meeting.
The second link is one that we’ve been tossing around at each other at work. You get too many professional scientist together and it can get childish. Then again anyone who thinks they are an adult all the time should be tossed in the street and beaten for being insufferable. The point remains the same, never rely on someone else’s citations. Flex your brain and fingers and look for yourself. (Is that condescending enough? I really did try)
Now that I have officially reached the verbose (and meandering) point I believe it is time to discuss the flaws of the VF concept.
We are all in agreement that energy is a major concern.
The next major flaw is the cost of labor. Currently growers pay minimum wage to anyone who is willing to work the brutal jobs outdoors. This keeps the food cost low. With this concept you would need a much more skilled labor force. In order to get employees you would have to pay 2-10 times more. This would increase the cost of food drastically.
Another issue is that this system is based upon a hydroponic fruiting or leafy vegetable model. I like my carrots, wheat, rye, potatoes, cherries, apples, pears, grapes, kiwi, oranges, limes, lemons, and corn. You really cannot grow these species very well or at all under hydroponics.
One of the big questions I have is how do they expect to recoup on the initial cost of setup? Large buildings with lots of equipment do not come cheap. Logically they would of course have to place some of the cost onto the produce. They could of course ask for government money but this really isn’t a viable solution long term. Not to mention the political suicide.
Another major concern is water. In any system when you are harvesting and removing nutrients from the system salt begins to build up. This may seam very puzzling to those who have never studied soils and plant science. Most forms of nutrients that plant use are ions. Nitrogen – NH4+, NO2-, NO3-, SO4-, PO4-2, K+, and so on. These all have complimentary charge ions to balance them. Since plants do not use all nutrients in the same quantities this leads to imbalances in the hydroponic solution. The common practice is to completely replace the solution when the EC (electrical conductivity) get’s too high. This uses up lots of water and discharges a lot of waste. Dumping this water into any existing sewage system is irresponsible as most large cities water disposal is drained into rivers and oceans after “treatment” today.
Alas that I all the time I have for today. I’ll try to write another essay for your enjoyment later if feel the need for more punishmetn.
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March 13th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
You’re no scientist, your not even an adult, you’re some kid in his parents basement. Do you honestly think you can fool us into believing you are professional with statements like this?
You still haven’t presented support of your initial statements. You apparently haven’t the slightest clue of how industrial farming works if you think that designers don’t deal with issues like salt buildup in the matrix right from the beginning. You have not done anything except a cursory Google search on the matter, and this is transparent to everyone here. You have nothing of substance to contribute to this discussion, and your posts are nothing more than exercises in stroking your own ego.
I intend to ignore you from this point forward, you have nothing to say.
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March 13th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
LMAO
Your naivity of how science actually works is really quite remarkable. Let me guess – undergrad degree only in something like business?
I’m still just a kid living in my parents basement. LOL
When it comes to agriculture I have just a wee bit of experience… as a commercial vegetable breeder. I specialize in melons. My job is to understand the needs of the grower, broker, retailer and consumer and then manipulate the genotype of the species to meet them. I’m sorry I work around a bunch of Ph.D’s and M.S.’s. If you wish for more technical terminology I’m sure I can satisfy your needs.
Here’s a small sample to whet your intellectual appetite:
I spent most of my day developing descriptions of the genetic controls in a population of RIL’s. If you wish I’m sure I could post excerpts on sutures, immature color, climacteric versus non-climacteric, ethylene dependent and independent controls, peduncle abscision, and other scintillating details. I could even toss out my current theory of expansins involvement in the breakdown of the plant walls hemicellulose/pectin matrix. I’m sure you would enjoy that one.
Please try to remove some of your preconceptions and try to understand a different perspective. We all have biases but we can choose to change them.
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March 13th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
There’s no need to get into a pissing contest here. From what I read from “The V” He/She knows at least a bit about what he/she is talking about and makes some good points. DV82XL is also very aware of how science works.
Lets also not start with the “My degree is bigger than yours” thing, because believe me, I have no problem finding legitimate PhD holders who can spew bull**** like the best of them.
Anyway, the whole vertical farming methodology is something we can talk about for the more distant future, but right now it can’t compete with the standard methods and I personally don’t think it’s going to be viablle any time soon, but who knows.
Also, thanks again to THE V for clarifying things involving preservation of fresh foods, gas packaging etc. Obviously this is a topic that is pretty broad as it applies to all manner of food products.
At least there seems to be agreement that the “organic” stamp on products is bull****.
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March 13th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
I’m sorry daddy. How long am I grounded for this time? Should I get your belt?
drbuzz0 said:
AGREED!!!!
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October 3rd, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Incoming enemy spam alert!
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