Organic Food, To Eat or Not to Eat

Today one of the local talkers was revisiting a British study which concluded that "organically grown" food is nutritionally no better than conventionally grown food. Approximately 3 femtoseconds after the news hit the airwaves the hippies' spin hit approximately 6 quadrillion rpm.

"But, but, but, it's not about the nutritional content, which is really higher, no matter what your studies say, it's really about saving Holy Mother Gaia. Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, carbon footprint, sustainable living, blah, blah, blah."

As I often say, where to begin?

Since we're suffering through the coldest, wettest "summer" since, if memory serves, 1992, let's start with carbon footprint, shall we? And where do we begin with that? How about this, GLOBAL WARMING IS A CROCK OF SHIT, BONEHEADS. Don't believe me? Go here, or read this or just ponder the following:

In the 70's the scare mongers had us entering a new ice age, in the 90's and early 00's they switched to catastrophic warming, and when the data from the last decade came in, showing a decline in temperatures, they switched to "climate change." Not one computer model predicted a decade of cooling wiping out a century's warming, not one computer model can come up with today's temperatures from yesterday's data, hell, no weatherman will predict more than a week out, yet the Warm Mongers want us to just take their word that man is fucking up the climate. Piss on them.

Still, they want us to believe that organic farming is going to save the planet by reducing our carbon footprint. Now, since the planet is cooling, it's kind of hard to sell me on the whole planet warming up thing, but, for the sake of argument, let's say ManBearPig is really coming. So what?

This is Canada, with the four seasons of June, July, August and hockey. I should give a shit that the planet warms up a couple of degrees and cuts a month out of hockey season? Don't we have indoor rinks for just such an emergency?

Seriously, most of Canada is uninhabitable, and non-arable, because of the cold. Warmer weather means more arable land, and better crop yields. It also means a shorter, warmer winter with less energy needed to heat our homes? Hmm, more food, so food prices go down, less heating so energy costs go down, and fishing season gets longer. Where's the downside? Seriously. Where's the fucking downside. In fact, if CO2 really is warming up the planet, I think it is every Canadian's patriotic duty to get out there, buy a Hummer, and run it 24/7.

On to chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and fungicides. Who needs 'em? We do. Think crop yields per man hour. Who are the ultimate organic farmers around here? The Mennonites and the Hamish. Their yields are lower, and the farming is labour intensive. Why do you think that organic food costs so bloody much? More labour, less yield.

Oh, and on the topic of herbicides, how do you clear a field of weeds? Burn it. Holy Mother Gaia might die from all the carbon released. And it's not real good for soil retension, you know, vapourizing it.

And those pesticides? Aside from increasing crop yields, do you really want bugs in your dinner? I don't. Kill the little fuckers.

The fungicides? See above, swapping mold for bugs.

And about their "organic" fertilizer. Know where that comes from? The south bound end of a north bound animal. Know what comes out with it? Methane. Guess what is a 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. Go on, guess. Starts with "meth," ends with "ane."

Hey, I know, let's all go veggie, kill all the pigs, cows and horses (also known as "sources of organic fertilizer"), lower our crop yields even more, lose a bunch of weight, get sick, and then, when global cooling takes 'hold, we can all freeze and die. That'll help Holy Mother Gaia.

You want to buy organically grown food? Fine, go ahead, it's your money, and I'm not the guy who is going to tell you how to spend your hard earned dollars. But, since there are no real benefits, and a whole bunch of drawbacks to organic farming, I think I'll just sit back, and laugh at you. And spend the money I save on a nice, juicy, feedlot grown, finished with corn from standard farming , 16 oz steak.

I hate hippies.