Ready for a challenge???

[Neal Wolbert]

I thought the following article might be worthy for all of us to consider. Your thoughts?
Neal

Why we must all give up organic in 2006: How fertilizers changed the
> world JOE FATTORINI, The Herald, Glasgow, Scotland
>
> It's self-indulgent, wasteful and frankly immoral. But you know how it
> is. I was swept along with the trend, and it felt good at the time.
> But I don't want to be a hypocrite. So I'm giving up organic food in 2006.
>
> The incident that stiffened my resolve was a white rubber-banded wrist
> thrusting across me to grab organic apples. Here was someone who
> professed solidarity with the world's hungry. Yet they support a
> farming method that would starve over half the world.
>
> The world was farmed entirely organically as recently as 1900. Since
> then the global population has increased over 3.5 times.
> Unfortunately, the area cultivated for food has merely doubled. Even
> so, collectively we're better fed. In the past 50 years, the number
> who are starving has halved as the population has doubled. This almost
> miraculous turn of events is down to nitrogen fertilizers.
>
> When it comes to basic needs such as food, the most important
> development of the last century has been the creation of nitrogen
> fertilizers. By replacing the nitrogen lost when a crop is harvested
> you can continue to plant the same plot of land each year without
> losing productivity. This means the same area of land produces anything up to double the quantity of food.
>
> It's certainly true that nitrogen fertilizers aren't without their problems.
> Nitrates in water and the eutrophication of lakes are both significant
> problems. But let's just imagine what would happen without them. Let's
> farm the current 1.5 billion hectares of farmland organically. A rough
> estimate suggests that we could sustain a global population of around
> 2.4 billion. Do you want to be responsible for telling 3.6 billion
> people that there's no food because you don't like "synthetic"
> fertilizers? You're not telling them that nitrogen fertilizers are
> actually that bad for them or anything. Just that you want a more
> "natural" diet. More in touch with nature. Well, they'll be in touch with nature all right. Under about six feet of it.
>
> Perhaps I'm being too harsh. Let's assume that we can increase the
> land we farm on. That's not without its problems. This year we are set
> to destroy some 25,000 sq km of Brazilian rainforest, but that will
> have to increase dramatically. And forget western luxuries such as
> national parks, or indeed, parks. Even if we managed to double the
> world's farmland and maintained productivity in increasingly marginal
> areas (like the Cairngorms), we're still short. That's still 200
> million dead people. Just because the Soil Association tells us that synthetic fertilizers are wrong.
>
> So I know what you're thinking. "Yes, but I don't want to feed the
> world organically. Just my precious family." I'm sorry, but that's
> rather along the same lines as: "I know they guzzle petrol like
> there's no tomorrow and are far more likely to kill pedestrians. But
> my family is special. I really need a beast of an SUV with spinning
> alloy wheels and DVD players in the headrests."
>
> At the very least, in a country like ours that produces excess food,
> organic farming robs land that might otherwise be used to promote bio-diversity.
> That's because organic fields need to be left fallow, growing
> leguminous crops or livestock whose feces can be used to return nitrogen to the soil.
> Yes, you read that correctly. The inefficiencies of organic land use
> make it less environmentally friendly than conventional farming whose
> efficiencies mean we can return land to nature. But there's a more sinister perspective.
> In our lifetime we'll see global population top 10 billion. We're
> lucky it won't be more.
>
> That alone means finding 35% more calories to feed the world. On
> decreasingly fertile land. But if we are self-indulgently to insist
> that we are so important that we should be fed organically, with its
> yields some 20% to 50% lower, that can only put an additional,
> unnecessary strain on feeding the planet. Every organic mouthful makes
> it more difficult to feed the most vulnerable. As the distinguished Indian plant biologist CS Prakash put it:
> "The only thing sustainable about organic farming in the developing
> world is that it sustains poverty and malnutrition."
>
> Now if this all makes you feel a little gloomy, then I'm delighted to
> report that like all the best resolutions, giving up organic food
> makes you feel better almost immediately. I already feel freed from
> the hypocrisy. Organic food sales have doubled since 2000. According
> to Mintel the greatest growth is currently among "lower-income
> consumers" and those concerned about the health impact of pesticide use in conventional farming.
>
> But wait a minute. Organic food - because it's so inefficient to
> produce - is considerably more expensive than conventionally farmed
> food. Yet it brings no health benefits and doesn't even taste better.
> If it did, then the Advertising Standards Authority wouldn't have
> upheld complaints against the Soil Association for describing organic
> as "healthier" than conventionally farmed food. Or as the Food
> Standards Agency put it in 2004: "Organic food is not significantly
> different in terms of food safety and nutrition from food produced conventionally."
>
> Sir John Krebs of the FSA has noted: "A single cup of coffee contains
> natural carcinogens equal to at least a year's worth of carcinogenic
> residues in the diet." Yet we're tacitly encouraging the nation's poor
> to spend cash on this indulgence. Consider Sir John again: "Dietary
> contributions to cardiovascular disease and to cancer... probably
> account for more than 100,000 deaths per year in Britain. Food
> poisoning probably accounts for between 50 and 300... pesticides in
> food, as well as GM food, are not responsible for any deaths."
>
> Wouldn't we be rather better encouraging Scotland's poor to eat more
> cheaper, conventionally farmed fruit and vegetable, and cut Scotland's
> disproportionately high share of the 100,000 deaths, than worrying
> about the non-existent risk posed by pesticides?
>
> And it seems tests that purport to show organic food as tastier simply
> show it as fresher or less intensively farmed. Local produce, farmed
> for quality, using conventional methods appears to be as tasty and
> often more so. The quality of lower-income household diets has a
> direct impact on the health and vigour of the nation. Yet we delight
> that the nation's poor are increasingly spending money they don't need to on a middle-class indulgence.
> This is no better than the parents who splash out on home cinemas and
> games consoles for themselves, leaving scant money to spend bringing
> up their children properly.
>
> I can see a few hackles rising at the suggestion that organic food is
> a "middle-class indulgence". And you're right. It's more a brand, or
> perhaps a religion. "Organic" sits up there with McDonald's,
> Microsoft, Starbucks, Tesco, Shell and Lucky Strike as one of the
> great brands of the twentieth century. A delicious study asked people
> their views on "carbon-based farming technology" that produced food
> with no demonstrable health or environmental benefits, and was sold at
> a premium to the public. By replacing the word "organic" it seems the public's passion for this bourgeois fad waned.
>
> As for a religion: well, perhaps I'm being naughty. But Patrick Holden
> of the Soil Association has insisted that you can't test the benefits
> of organic farming scientifically because organic farming is
> "holistic, integrated and [represents] joined-up thinking".
> Apparently, "holistic science strays into territory where the current
> tools of understanding that are available to the scientific community
> are not sufficiently well developed to measure what's going on".
>
> Many people defend religious faith in exactly the same way. It seems
> if the benefits of organic farming appear as non-existent as the
> Emperor's New Clothes, we're just not looking hard enough. In a
> wonderfully circular argument, the fact we can't find evidence of the
> benefits of organic farming is merely evidence of the shortcomings of
> science. And presumably will remain so until we can see benefits, even if that never comes to pass.
>
> Many years ago I was taught that you shouldn't confine yourself simply
> to giving things up. That positive resolutions were important, too. So
> here's
> mine: In 2006 I shall tuck into food made more productively and at a
> lower cost than organic and regular conventional agriculture. A food
> whose production increases biodiversity in fields and lowers pesticide
> use. A food enjoyed every day by 280 million Americans and indeed much
> of the livestock that we eat. A food that has brought nothing but
> health benefits to those who enjoy it. That's right. Call it what you
> will. Genetically Modified, GM, transgenic. I just like to think of it
> as safer, more productive, kinder to its local environment, and kinder
> to the globe. That's what I call good food.
>
>

[chaz]

and we wonder why our country has so much cancer.

[Neal Wolbert]

Got some data supporting your statement?
Neal

[livingsoils]

Yes, I agree we could not feed our world organically and I do look at the organic food trend as the new mass marketing for large corporations. But our society has changed and people want to feel good about what they eat. I wonder how many people have gardens in their backyard? Probably not many! :confused: Back in the day I remember almost everyone having a garden in their backyard. Now you don't see any. People want to have their Veggies without the work of weeding, peeling or sweating over a stove to can their harvest. People want immediate gratification and they will pay for the "organic" name.
I think we have to look at it at a more local level to be more successfully; buy local, CSA's and support local companies.
We also have to be more responsible for our little 1/2 acre lot. If people were more responsible at a local level by not putting excessive nitrogen on their lawn to keep it geen and spraying a bunch of unnecessary pesticides to keep their lawn pristine our waterways would not be in trouble.
I think we have to look at homeowners and educate them not the farmers.
Homeowners are more of a problem to our envronement than our farming practices.

Mike:waving:

[muddstopper]

I think before pasting jusdment on organic farming, one must first look at where all the organic materials are ending up. Huge mountains of trash are being hualled off each day and then buried in landflieds in somebodies back yard. Every peice of garbage is a organic nutrient in one form of other. Ask yourselfs why are our soils being so depleted of organic matter and the answer is staring you right in the eye. As wasteful as the whole worlds populations are, we as a socitey continue to squander our valuable resources. For centuries, all materials where redistributed across the globe. When a tree shed it leaves, the leaves return to the earth the nutrients it had consumed. Animals deposited their waste on the ground where it is consumed by microorganisms and the nutrients redistributed thruout the biosphere. It is only man that takes organic material from the soil and then buries it in large landfields where other forms of life can no longer reuse the valuable nutients our waste contain. All life forms are carbonbased and rely on the nutrient and mineral content of the earth to survive. The use of fertilizers hasnt resulted in more healthy foods, all one has to do is look at the number of people that visit the doctors offices to see that human health is suffering. Sure there are more people now than every before, some suggest that there are more people now than in all of history combined. As those people die, are the nutrients that are contined in thier bodies being recycled back into the soil, no, they are placed in coffins and then placed in metal vaults to insure that their decomposeing bodies donot return to the soil. Man is mining the soil of its valuable nutrients and then placing those nutrients in storage facilites that mother nature didnt intend for them to be placed. This practice as well as the burieng of our garbage is resulting in a depletion of valuable nutrients in all of our crop lands, all over the world. Chemical companies, in an attempt to replace nutrients lost are now mining the soils with heavy construction equipment. They then process those nutrients into more usable forms for application to our croplands. This is possible thru science, but advertising and selling of products has taken the first spot in the list of prioties companies place on soil fertility. More often than not, a fertilizer company will promote a product based on how much of that product they have to sell and not on the amounts the consumer needs to apply. For this reason, most everybody, including the organic minded consumers, tend to apply products they dont need, or in amounts that are not productive or even counter productive to a balanced soil ecology. Replacing valuable nutrients is now becomeing a major expense to large farming companies, they are spending billions of dollars each year to restore the fertility levels in their soil. the approach is calling for much more materials to be applied than just simple NPK fertilizers. In every Farm where the mico nutrients are being reestablished, crop production continues to clime. The overall quality of the crops has increased, and the need for large pesticide applications has decreased. Where best management practices are used, soil erosion has been reduced, meaning more of our soils are staying where they belong. There have been less reports of chemical contaminations to our lakes and streams as well as ground water. And the soil humis levels have increased. To simply forget organics and rely on chemical fertilizers without understanding the impact the chemical can have on our enviroment is folly, but so is just dumping a bunch of compost on a garden and thinking you are eating safer.

[cedarcroft]

I agree. I would rather buy a locally grown tomato than an organically grown tomato from bolivia or california, regardless of how it is grown. however, I feel very strongly about the overuse of lawn chemicals and pesticides in suburban areas. it is unnessacary and abusive, not to mention potentially harmful. if we can apply intelligent cultural practices and natural products in an effective manner that strengthens our plants and lawns we can radically reduce the need for pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals in suburban areas. step by step we can get these areas closer to their natural state. there is alot more suburban blight in the northeast than farms, so it is a huge step in the right direction.

[Prolawnservice]

Got some data supporting your statement?
Neal
Global Cancer Statistics, 2002

ATLANTA 2005/03/10 -A new report on global cancer trends finds men and women in North America have the highest cancer incidence worldwide, and that lung cancer is the main cancer in the world today. The study comes from researchers at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, and appears in the March/April issue of CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
The study is the latest in a series that began reporting on the global cancer burden in 1975. The new report emphasizes three major measures: incidence (number of new cases), mortality (number of deaths), and prevalence (number of persons alive with the disease), and addresses 26 types of cancer.

Based on available data, the study estimates that in 2002 there were 10.9 million new cases of cancer worldwide, 6.7 million deaths, and 24.6 million persons who had been diagnosed with cancer in the previous five years. Because data collection typically takes several years, (especially in developing countries), these are the most current estimates available. The report also details specific estimates by such factors as age group, sex, country, economic profile (developed versus developing), and cancer type:

--China has 20 percent of the world's total of new cancer cases (2.2 million)

--The 1.6 million cancers in North America account for 14.5 percent of the world's total

--For both men and women, the risk of being diagnosed with cancer is highest in North America

--The risk of dying of cancer is highest in Eastern European men and in women in Northern Europe

--In general, survival rates are better in developed countries, with the exception of Eastern Europe, which lags behind that in South America for most sites

--Lung cancer has been the most common cancer worldwide since 1985, and by 2002 accounted for 1.35 million new cases (12.4 percent of world total) and 1.18 million deaths (17.6 percent of world total)

--Just over half (50.1 percent) of lung cancer cases occur in developed countries, a significant change since 1980, when 69 percent were in developed countries

--The highest lung cancer rates occur in North American and European (especially Eastern Europe) men

--Although it is the most frequent cancer in men worldwide, lung cancer is second to prostate cancer in incidence in developed countries

--Breast cancer is by far the most frequent cancer of women, accounting for 23 percent of all cancers. Rates are highest in North America

--Because of its high incidence and relatively good prognosis, breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in the world, with an estimated 4.4 million women alive who have had the disease diagnosed within the last 5 years, compared to 1.4 million survivors men and women from lung cancer

The researchers say one striking feature of their results is the fact that, contrary to conventional wisdom, cancer is not a rare disease in developing countries. "Indeed, if viewed in terms of mortality, there is little difference," they say, noting that the chance of a man dying from cancer before age 65 is just 18 percent higher in developed countries, whereas for women in developing countries this risk is actually higher than in the developed world.

Parkin DM, Bray F, Ferlay J, Pisani P Global Cancer Statistics, 2002. CA Cancer J Clin 2005;55;74-108.

CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians is a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society providing cancer care professionals with up-to-date information on all aspects of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Published six times per year, CA is the most widely circulated oncology journal in the world, mailing to approximately 90,000 individuals, including primary care physicians; medical, surgical, and radiation oncologists; nurses; other health care and public health professionals; and students in various health care fields. CA is published for the American Cancer Society by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.



David Sampson
Director, Media Relations
American Cancer Society
213 368-8523
david.sampson@cancer.org

[Neal Wolbert]

If I'm reading the 2006 report right the most recent stats by the American Cancer Society show a general decline in the incidents of cancer per 100,000 people with the exception of a spike in lung cancer in the early 90's. Even that has taken a marked turn for the better in recent years. Am I reading the charts right or am I missing something? www.cancer.com

Neal

[upidstay]

Regarding tracking cancer rates:
How do they track it? Most of your 3rd world countries have no organized medical systems. We get diagnosed with cancer more her in the USA because we have hospitals and doctors to diagnose it. Hit the back woods of China, Cental America, Africa, and who knows what they are dying of?? No doctors, no diagnosis, no data. If there are no doctors in, say Chad who know how to diagnose Leukemia, then there ill be 0 cases.

[muddstopper]

Maybe someone can shed some lite on the rate of heart disease, which might be a better indication of the nutritional value of organic foods verses the chemically grown foods.

[muddstopper]

http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/hd.html
The ABCs of Nutrient Deficiencies
In 1930, Dr. Weston Price published an interesting paper in the Journal of the American Dental Society.6 For years, Dr. Price had been analyzing the amount of vitamin A and vitamin D in butterfat. He noted that these nutrients were most plentiful in the spring and fall, when cows had access to rapidly growing green grass. During the winter and the dry summer months, levels of these vitamins in butterfat declined or disappeared completely.
Dr. Price also tabulated the number of deaths from heart attacks in local hospitals. When he plotted these two variables against time on the same graph he found that deaths from heart disease were inversely proportional to the vitamin content in the butter. In other words, when nutrient levels were high, deaths from heart disease were low; and when nutrient levels were low in the winter and summer, deaths from heart disease were high. He found this pattern in many different localities, even in areas in the far north where there was only one vitamin peak, in midsummer, due to the short growing season.
Heart disease researchers have largely ignored the possible role of vitamin A and D in protecting the heart, probably because these fat-soluble vitamins are found only in the foods they have demonized—animal fats. Yet both nutrients play numerous important roles in the body chemistry, principally as catalysts for protein and mineral assimilation.7 Both nutrients support endocrine function and protect against inflammation. Vitamin A is needed for the conversion of cholesterol into steroid hormones and, in fact, is rapidly depleted by stress. Cholesterol-lowering drugs increase the body's need for vitamin A.
Vitamin D helps prevent high blood pressure and protects against spasms. As vitamin D is needed for calcium absorption, it contributes to a healthy nervous system and helps prevent arrythmias.
In the 1960s, a pair of Canadian doctors named Wilfred and Evan Shute claimed to prevent recurrence of problems in CHD patients with the administration of vitamin E.8 They pointed out that lack of vitamin E in the American diet is partially due to the milling process which eliminates the highly perishable wheat germ, a significant source of vitamin E. High levels of omega-6 fatty acids from commercial vegetable oils can actually raise the body's requirements for vitamin E. Vitamin E is an antioxidant that can prevent free radicals from causing damage at the cellular level and it plays an essential role in cellular respiration, particularly in the cardiac muscles. Vitamin E makes it possible for these muscles and their nerves to function with less oxygen. It promotes dilation of the blood vessels and inhibits coagulation of the blood by preventing clots from forming.
Dr. Linus Pauling, famous for his work on vitamin C, proposed vitamin C deficiency as a possible cause of CHD.9 A six-year Finnish study linked low blood levels of vitamin C to increased risk of heart attack during subsequent years.10 As an antioxidant, vitamin C protects against free radical damage. It has the effect of making oxygen metabolism more effective and may also help prevent clot formation. Vitamin C is essential for the production of collagen and therefore protects the integrity of the artery walls. Vitamin C is used up very quickly during periods of stress.
Researcher Kilmer McCully has found a positive relationship between deficiencies in folic acid, B6 and B12 and severity of hardening or stiffness of the arteries, as well as the buildup of pathogenic plaque.11 Vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 are found almost exclusively in animal products—the foods that proponents of the lipid hypothesis advise us to avoid.
Another nutrient found exclusively in animal products, particularly in red meat and organ meats, is coenzyme Q10, which serves as an antioxidant and as fuel for the mitochondria in the cells. In the body, coenzyme Q10 is most concentrated in the heart muscle cells. It seems to be helpful in reducing inflammation and has been used successfully in the treatment of heart disease.12 Cholesterol-lowering drugs greatly increase the body's need for coenzyme Q10.
Deficiencies of certain minerals have also been proposed as possible causes of heart disease. According to Dr. Roger Williams, an inadequate supply of magnesium may result in the formation of clots and contribute to calcium deposits in the blood vessels.13 Heart attack patients improve their survival chances from 50 to 82 percent when given intravenous magnesium in the first 24 hours following myocardial infarction.14
Many other minerals play a role in cardiovascular health. Copper and zinc, for example, are contained in enzymes that the body uses to defuse free radicals and that help create healthy collagen. These minerals are most easily assimilated from animal foods.
Deficiency of selenium has been linked to CHD15 and is associated with Keshan disease, characterized by fibrotic lesions in the heart.16 In conjunction with vitamin E, selenium has been used successfully to reduce or eliminate angina attacks. Soils in most of Finland are deficient in selenium, which may account in part for the fact that heart disease in that country is high. A national program to add selenium to the soil, initiated in 1985, may offer partial explanation for the decline in heart disease in Finland (although the decline began before the selenium enrichment program was instituted).
It is easy to make the case that, in spite of our prosperity, the actual nutrient content of our foods has declined during the last 70 years. A number of researchers have cataloged the decline of minerals in our soils, due to intensive farming practices.17 Most milk in the US today comes from cows housed in confinement dairies. They are fed dry feed and never see the green grass their bodies need to make large quantities of vitamin A and vitamin D. Isolated isomers of vitamin D are added to milk in an attempt to rectify this situation. Processed food, usually based on sugar, white flour and vegetable oils, has replaced many nutrient-dense foods that were eaten routinely in the past. Few Americans eat liver on a weekly basis or take cod liver oil as our ancestors did.
Nor do they use lard, which is another rich source of vitamin D. Like humans, pigs can get sunburned and, like humans, they make vitamin D through the action of sunlight on their skin and store the nutrient in their fat. Pigs raised in confinement will die if not exposed to UV-B light, the wave length needed for vitamin-D production. Fifty years ago, lard contributed important nutrients to the American diet but few people use it today.
Elusive Answers
The problem is that it is difficult to turn these clues and theories into solid scientific research. As vitamins and minerals work in synergy, it is impossible to accurately assess their effects as separate entities. For example, vitamin A and vitamin D are needed for magnesium and calcium absorption; vitamin C works with vitamin E and vitamin E works with selenium.
And whether nutrients are absorbed is also dependent on many factors. Phytic acid and oxalic acid in plant foods like soy and certain raw vegetables, for example, can block absorption of many minerals. Endocrine insufficiencies and lack of beneficial intestinal flora may inhibit nutrient absorption, even though the nutrients are plentiful in the food consumed.
Added to this is the fact that vitamin and mineral content of our foods varies enormously. Researchers cannot rely on nutrient tables to determine the quantities of vitamins and minerals their patients are consuming. They must analyze all the foods eaten to get accurate numbers—an expensive undertaking.
Scientists may attempt to get around this problem by giving synthetic vitamins in pill form, but this practice presents problems as well. Synthetic vitamin D2 added to milk actually has the opposite effect of naturally occurring vitamin D complex, causing decalcification of the hard tissues and calcification of the soft tissues, including the soft tissues of the arteries.18 For this reason, D2 has been quietly dropped as an additive and replaced by D3, but there is evidence that synthetic D3 is poorly absorbed.19 Synthetic vitamin E has had disappointing results in trials20—the Shute brothers actually used wheat germ oil, a source of natural vitamin E complex. Synthetic vitamins B1 and B2 can cause imbalances affecting the utilization of B6. In general, vitamins from food work more efficiently and are needed in smaller quantities than synthetic vitamins. Animal studies indicate that minerals taken in as a part of whole foods have more beneficial effects than those given as supplements.
Vitamins and minerals can be ineffective or even toxic in large amounts. Individuals with high levels of serum vitamin C had no better long term survival rates that those with levels that were in the normal range.21 The single negative study showing that magnesium had a worsening effect on CHD survival employed a far higher dose of magnesium than in the other studies.22
These complications do not mean that the effects of vitamins and minerals on cardiovascular health cannot be studied. It does mean that these studies must be performed with great care. Experts in the biochemistry of human nutrition should be involved in the design of such studies—something that rarely occurs. Study design must also include built-in protection against bias—from both those who are antagonistic to the view that nutrition plays a role in heart disease and those who may be too eager to embrace a strategy that relies on supplements.
Many opportunities to find dietary causes of heart disease have been squandered. Dr. Price's research on butter and heart disease, for example, could not be repeated today, partly because Americans no longer consume foods grown locally and partly because most have given up eating any butter at all. Data from the 1960s cited by Ancel Keys in his Seven Countries Study found a fivefold difference in rates of heart disease between Crete and Corfu.23 Keys and his colleagues had a unique opportunity to look at subtle dietary differences, including differences in soil composition, water content and cooking methods, because both populations consumed mostly locally grown food at the time but probably no longer do. Unfortunately, no one pursued this line of research.
Adventures in Macronutrient Land
Macronutrients are the larger components of our food—protein, carbohydrates and fats. Proponents of the lipid hypothesis have zeroed in on the fat component of our diet, blaming either all fats or just saturated fats for the CHD epidemic. The "prudent" diet calls for reduction of fat consumption to 30 percent of caloric intake and of saturated fat consumption to just 10 percent of caloric intake, or less than two tablespoons of saturated fatty acids in a diet of 2400 calories.
What clues can we derive from a study of lipid consumption patterns? One is that the actual amount of fat in the diet probably does not matter (except when it is so low as to result in deficiencies). The amount of fat in the American diet has held fairly steady at 35-40 percent of calories for the last 90 years, during the period when rates of heart disease were rising. The Masai, with 60 percent of their calories from fat, are free of heart disease. The traditional diet of the Eskimo and the North American Indians contained as much as 80 percent of calories as fat and there is no indication that they suffered from heart disease.
What consumption patterns do indicate, however, is that it is the type or quality of fat that matters. Ninety years ago, Americans consumed mostly animal fats—lard, butter and tallow from pasture-fed animals. These fats were stable and provided many important nutrients. Today most of the fats in the American diet are derived from plants—as liquid vegetable oils or oils that have been hardened through the process of hydrogenation. Large amounts of calories from polyunsaturated vegetable oils are new to the human diet and should certainly be explored more fully as a contributing factor.
There are several ways in which modern vegetable oils may have an adverse effect on CHD. First, because of modern processing methods, they tend to be rancid. Rancid fats contain large numbers of free radicals, molecules with unpaired electrons that are highly reactive. Free radical damage in the arteries is thought to be an important factor in the initiation of plaque. Secondly, these oils lack vitamins A and D found in animal fats and through processing are likely to be shorn of naturally occurring vitamin E and other antioxidants.
Another problem is that when polyunsaturated oils are consumed in large amounts, imbalances can occur that may predispose to heart disease. Research suggests that traditional diets contained from four to 10 percent of calories as polyunsaturated fatty acids with a ratio of about twice as many omega-6 fatty acids (mostly lin-oleic acid) as omega-3 fatty acids (mostly a-linolenic acid).24
Individuals who are trying to avoid saturated fats often end up with over 20 percent of calories as polyunsaturated fatty acids. The situation is further complicated by the fact that commercial vegetable oils contain mostly omega-6 fatty acids. The body uses these types of fatty acids to make localized hormones, called prostaglandins, that initiate the process of blood clotting and of inflammation. This is an important mechanism. Without it, we would bleed to death when we cut ourselves and wounds would not heal. The problem occurs when these clot- and inflammation-promoting prostaglandins are not balanced by prostaglandins that inhibit clotting.
Many of the anti-inflammatory and clot-inhibiting prostaglandins are made from omega-3 fatty acids, of which there are very few in commercial vegetable oils, or indeed in fruits, vegetables, fish and eggs raised by modern farming methods. Thus, when the diet contains too much of omega-6 fatty acids and not enough of omega-3 fatty acids, there may be a tendency to form blood clots leading to heart attacks.25
The research on omega-3 fatty acids is not conclusive. While some studies indicate that omega-3 fatty acids may be helpful, others showed no effect. One explanation for this may be found in the fact that saturated fats help the body store and use omega-3 fatty acids more effectively.26 Therefore, we would expect to find a correlation with consumption of omega-3 fatty acids and low rates of heart attacks in populations that use traditional diets containing saturated animal fats. But when omega-3 fatty acids are given to individuals who are avoiding saturated fats, the outcome may not be positive. In fact, there is evidence that overconsumption of omega-3 fatty acids in a diet lacking in saturated fats may actually be bad for the heart. In test animals, diets high in canola oil, which is relatively high in omega-3 fatty acids but low in saturated fats, caused fibrotic heart lesions, vitamin E deficiencies and abnormal changes to the blood platelets.27 When the diets contained higher levels of saturated fats, these problems did not occur.
Although research on trans fatty acids found in hydrogenated fats has not received much publicity, it adds up to a strong case for the theory that these manufactured fats contribute to heart disease.28 The tragedy is that those who are trying to avoid saturated fats and cholesterol will probably eat more trans fatty acids, because these are used in foods promoted as low in saturated fat and cholesterol.
Those who are trying to avoid eating lots of fat often replace fat calories with carbohydrate calories, usually calories in the form of refined flour and sugar. Yet several researchers have published studies linking consumption of refined carbohydrates, particularly sugar, with increased heart disease, including Yudkin in the 1950s and Lopez in the 1960s. Yudkin found that use of sugar was associated with increased adhesiveness of the blood platelets, increased blood insulin levels and increased blood corticosteroid levels.29
In addition, sugar consumption is associated with increased incidence of diabetes, and diabetics are said to be prone to heart disease. One researcher has proposed that a diet high in any type of carbohydrate, including carbohydrates from whole cereal grains, is associated with CHD.30 Of course, many products containing white flour and sugar also contain high levels of trans fatty acids and improperly prepared whole grains contain phytic acid that can block the uptake of important minerals including magnesium, zinc and copper.
Protein, the third macronutrient, also plays a role in heart health. When protein intake is inadequate, the heart muscle shrinks and cannot perform effectively.31 Soy-based liquid protein drinks and other foods predispose to arrhythmias.32 High protein diets that do not contain fats, particularly animal fats, can deplete stores of vitamin A and D and consequently interfere with mineral assimilation.33

[YardPro]

pro lawn

so after reading your data a few times i cannot find a connection that chaz was trying to make between nitrogen fertilizers and cancer. so you THINK that chaz's statement that nitrogen fertilizers are CUASING this cancer trend????? I think if nitrogen were the cuase we would all have cancer, becuase the air we breathe is 76% nitrogen....

[Prolawnservice]

pro lawn

so after reading your data a few times i cannot find a connection that chaz was trying to make between nitrogen fertilizers and cancer. so you THINK that chaz's statement that nitrogen fertilizers are CUASING this cancer trend????? I think if nitrogen were the cuase we would all have cancer, becuase the air we breathe is 76% nitrogen....
Its hard to know what to believe. Many times you need to weed through data because it's being promoted with a hidden agenda. Basically until we've got this whole life thing figured out, you need to do your own research. I feel similar to Muddstopper in respect that both materials have there use and place. I also feel education is the key to there uses. Americans and possibly humans in general need to get away from that whole if two pounds is good than four is better mentality. With better education and proper use of materials I feel many problems can be solved.:)

http://www.ota.com/organic/environment/fertilizers.html?printable=1&PHPSESSID=951ff9b4dfdd5b7f51be20d8dcfeb4b0

http://www.newfarm.org/columns/research_paul/2005/1205/fert.shtml

http://www.ewg.org/reports/Nitrate/NitrateHealth.html

[Norm Al]

organic spinach is klling people?