Organic food? No thanks!
by Dennis T. Avery in American Outlook, Fall 1998
Cited in "Notable and Quotable," the Wall Street Journal
December 8, 1998
According to recent data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control (CDC), people who eat organic and "natural" foods are eight
times as likely as the rest of the population to be attacked by a
deadly new strain of E.coli bacteria (O157:H7). This new E.coli is
attacking tens of thousands
of people per year, all over the world. It is causing permanent liver
and kidney damage in many of its victims. . . .
Consumers of organic foods are also more likely to be attacked by a
relatively new, more virulent strain of the infamous salmonella
bacteria. Salmonella was America's biggest foodborne death risk until
the new E.coli O157 came along.
Organic food is more dangerous than conventionally grown produce
because organic farmers use manure as the major source of fertilizer
for their food crops. Animal manure is the biggest reservoir of these
nasty bacteria that are afflicting and killing so many people.
Organic farmers compound the contamination problem through their
reluctance to use antimicrobial preservatives, chemical washes,
pasteurization, or even chlorinated water to rid their products of
dangerous bacteria. One organic grower summed up the community's
attitudes as follows: "Pasteurization has only been around a hundred
years or so; what do you think people did before that?"
The answer is simple. They died young.
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