Bonnie,
How true! You're in the predicament that faces LE people. BGH is the least
of your worries... antibiotics; steroids & steroidal analogues &
insecticide/herbicide residues are the real problem - the residues of
weedicides are really a problem.
Farmers often bend /violate the law - with their margins, who'd blame them?
I know of several smallholders who (in my opinion ) are routinely
subclinically poisoned every time they treat a field.
And i know of a small amount who had to be hospitalized because of reckless
application of chemicals. Their actual knowledge of the mode of action and
toxicology of the chemicals was zero.
Additionally, farmers live so close to the forces of nature that they have
an almost fatalistic view of everything... which they end up imposing on us
via the food they supply us.
Short of testing everything you eat; you could have an idea of what might be
in purchased foods grown in your district if you scrutinise the growers of
food.
I became a vegan because I wanted to both lower my cholesterol & feed lower
down the food chain... later on I became an animal liberationist so it tied
in.
But if you grow your own and purchase neighbourhood grown foodstuff - at
least you have some control and information on what you're eating.
Certainly it would be easier to find out about local pesticide levels from
agricultural extension officers and plain hearsay... than buying stuff from
a supermarket that's plugged into a nationwide distribution network and
trying to guess it out.
cymm
-----Original Message-----
From: altamira <altamira@ecpi.com>
To: extropians@extropy.org <extropians@extropy.org>
Date: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 10:29 AM
Subject: RE: growth hormones (was hormoos)
>
>Several years ago I had an experience with 2,4-D (2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic
>Acid--same chemical family as 2,4,5-T or "Agent Orange") which is a
>broad-leaf herbicide extensively used on pasture land in my region. It's
>related to the plants' natural growth hormone and kills the plant by
causing
>unregulated growth.
>
>My neighbor needed to have his barn cleaned out, and I needed nutrients for
>my garden, so I got some good exercise shoveling manure. My neighbor didn't
>spray his pasture, so I felt certain the manure would be safe to use. After
>the addition of the manure, the garden soil was beautiful to behold.
>However, within a few days of transplanting into the garden, the plants in
>the nightshade family (including Irish potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and
>eggplants) began to grow in that frightening, contorted manner which
>indicates 2,4-D poisoning--the nightshade or solanacea family is especially
>susceptible to 2,4-D, so these were the first to exhibit symptoms.
>
>I immediately took some cuttings from the sick plants to my agricultural
>extension agent, who told me that he saw this sort of thing all too
>frequently. The 2,4-D is concentrated in the animals' urine, so the dose
>conferred by the manure can be even higher than the original dose applied
to
>the pasture. It turned out that my neighbor had bought some hay from a
>pasture that had been sprayed, and this was the source of the 2,4-D in his
>animals' manure. Sunlight breaks down the chemical within a few months, but
>in the absence of sunlight, it can persist for YEARS.
>
>The chemical is so powerful that a few molecules escaping from a tank on a
>passing truck can damage cotton crops. My ag extension agent, educated at a
>university which praised chemicals such as 2,4-D has come to see them as
>dangerous.
>
>I haven't seen any research addressing concentration of 2,4-D, bovine
growth
>hormone, or other chemicals in cows' milk, but I've seen research done on
>the breast milk of Inuit women living in remote sub-Arctic regions which
>have revealed surprisingly high concentrations of toxic chemicals
>(transferred from the developed world via wind & water) in their milk. I
>suspect that most commercial cows' milk contains fairly high doses of
>various synthetic hormones.
>
>Seeing's how I want to live a long and healthy life, I avoid the
>contaminated milk problem by milking my own goats or purchasing cows' milk
>from a dairy which claims not to use BGH (I've personally inspected the
>dairy to satisfy myself as to the truth of their claim). It doesn't make
>sense to me to take other life extension measures without paying close
>attention to the food I eat.
>
>Bonnie
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:35:31 MDT