[lit-ideas] Re: Providing a fair wine and tasting
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:27:26 -0500 (EST)
-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Jan 14, 2007 12:44 PM
>To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Providing a fair wine and tasting
>
>At 12:18 AM 1/14/2007, you wrote:
>>My jokes get completely lost. I was kidding. Organic red
>>Jello? Like in you think red #40, red #2 are grown without
>>pesticides or fertilizer in the ground? Robert Paul picked up on
>>the joke to offer to wait until the FDA approved it. I was going to
>>tell him the FDA ruled it nonflammable and perfectly safe, but geez,
>>it's a joke Paul.
>
>Well... sorry, I guess my preconceptions of you are that you CANNOT
>joke about anything and have no discernible sense of humour -- in the
>common sense of it anyway. So... a belated "hahahaha"
Except that red #40 and red #2 are the new food group. Just discovered by
Merck and approved by the FDA. You'd better start eating your share quick.
Fortunately, they'll be available in pill form for your dining convenience.
>and how daring
>of you to imbibe in some ground up animal bones -- unless maybe you
>have connections to inorganic jello. .
>
Yes, I know that, and it does bother me, but there's not much I can do about
it. I'm already a near vegan, so I make that concession. In this animal
hating world my options are limited. Bread has eggs in it for example.
Gelatin is also a very "incomplete" protein for anyone using it to have
beautiful nails.
>>Actually, the real reason to buy organic (it really is more
>>nutritious, significantly even), is because it's far better for the
>>earth. Organic farming doesn't pollute with pesticides or
>>fertilizers that eventually wash into the Dead Zone.
>
>You see, this is precisely the nonsense talk that I cannot
>appreciate: "organic" farming? Imagine that... what are the rest of
>us heathens eating, metals? ionic solids? inorganic vegetables? That
>would be REALLY un-nutritious. Maybe we are already non-carbon based
>life and you just don't know about it. Once again, I'm not arguing
>with the process, I'm arguing about the stupid terminology.
>
Fertilizers and pesticides are petroleum based. Petroleum is a hydrocarbon.
The chemical definition of organic is that a molecule has carbon in it. So,
yes, petroleum based agriculture is in fact "organic". But life isn't made of
hydrocarbons, it's made of carbohydrates (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen) and fats
(carbon, hydrogen, oxygen) and proteins (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and
nitrogen). Just as an aside, speaking of protein, one of my cats years ago
jumped on the counter and drank a saucer of water that had plant fertilizer in
it after a plant drained. She drank the whole thing and was completely
unaffected. The fertilizer was in effect a shot of protein for her. Cats have
very high protein requirements so she could handle it. Cats will literally go
blind if they don't get enough protein. Needless to say, cat food has exactly
the right quantity and quality of everything cats need. But, it's an inside
joke in my warped sense of nonhumor that people think they'll die if they don't
get enough protein. If they knew what protein was chemically and the stress it
places on the kidneys for the kidneys to deaminate it (strip off the nitrogen,
the amine group), they'd probably still want to eat it because Atkins says it's
good.
Back to the subject, yes, of course we're a carbon based life form, but where
you want to get your nitrogen is the issue. Do you want it from petroleum
based sources (it would make Exxon happy) or do you want it from "organic"
sources, which is to say, composted manure? Composted manure sounds awful but
it's far better for the environment; it doesn't flow into the Gulf of Mexico
but just reconstitutes the soil. Nutritionally, organic, as the word is used
in the vernacular, to mean whole, integrated, produce is superior to
"conventional" produce. Tomatoes grown organically, for example are
significantly higher in lycopene than tomatoes grown with petroleum-based
fertilizers and pesticides. Obviously nature doesn't appreciate
petroleum-based food. Regarding meat versus produce, even though conventional
produce does tend to be relatively high in petroleum-based pesticides and
fertilizer, it's still far better to eat it than not eat it. I tend to eat a
lot of conventional produce because I like frozen spinach and the like for its
convenience. I've never seen organic leafy vegetables frozen. Meat is the
worst of all because it's the highest on the food chain. All the residues are
the most concentrated in the end user. I suppose that's a good reason not to
eat humans. Hahaha.
The Dead Zone is dead because it's composed to a large extent of agricultural
petroleum-based effluent that flows into the Mississippi from streams and
tributaries way upstream in the breadbasket of the U.S.
Republicans think industry needs to do whatever it wants or the economy will
crash down around them. Air and water are secondary considerations, and polar
bears going extinct because their ice floes are melting is an out and out joke
by humorless environmentalists.
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