Talk:Organic food/Archive 5

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MEDRS and food

Banner has general issues with the application of MEDRS to discussions of food. Banner, here is your red carpet to start things off...Jytdog (talk) 19:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll start off. I think that even if we accept studies that say organic food on average has more nutrients and fewer pesticides, we cannot use that information to claim it is healthier or that people would be healthier by eating only organic food. In comparison we can say that lemon juice has more vitamin C than lime juice, but we cannot say it is healthier or preferable because the incremental amount of vitamin C received may have no benefit if one receives adequate vitamin C. AFAIK no evidence suggests that there is a benefit to a person eating a balanced diet switching to organic food. TFD (talk) 21:02, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually there is evidence, the problem is that the evidence also has so many confounding factors that it is far from conclusive evidence. Eliminate the confounding factors, and you loose the emergent properties. So it is a very very very difficult thing to come to consensus, or even develop a proper study on. Therefore the consensus is there is no consensus on the health benefits of most organic foods. Like you said, there is consensus organic fruits and vegetables in general have more vitamin C, and there is consensus vitamin C is necessary for good health, but there is no way to say one particular apple that has more vitamin C because it is organic...... because it doesn't take into account the rest of the diet and whether vitamin C is even an issue for the apple eater. That's not even taking into account many other confounding factors like cultivar, soil health, ripeness when picked etc.... that often could affect the vitamin C content (and other things) even more than if the item is organic or not.Redddbaron (talk) 21:54, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you are following my point. There is of course an issue about what causes differences in measurements of nutritional quality of organic and conventional food. The milk study for example showed that organic milk was mostly more nutritious, but it was because organic cattle are more likely to graze in pastures. So the conventional milk in your store may be more nutritious than organic milk. But that is not the issue I was raising. Even if all organic products were more nutritious than conventional food, that would not make consuming them healthier, because so long as one has a balanced diet, there is no benefit in consuming more nutrients. For example, if one already consumes 100 mg per day of vitamin C, switching to apples higher in vitamin C provides no additional benefit as one's body will merely excrete any vitamin C it does not require.

The point of MEDRS in the discussion is that we do not want to tell readers that if they switch to organic food they will be healthier. The ethical issue is that unhealthy people will see a switch to organic food as a possible remedy for whatever illness they may have instead of seeking medical treatment. I do not see however that that means we cannot report comparative findings on nutrtional and pesticide content that have been published in peer-reviewed nutritional and agricultural journals, and can only report studies in medical journals. To me it is similar to reporting the alcohol content in articles about brands of beer. Alcohol is both a source of calories and a toxin. There are a vast number of studies on its effects on humans, but it is unlikely that sources could be found in medical literature for the alcohol content of each brand and it seems reasonable to provide this information provided we do not tell people for example that light beer is healthier than strong beer.

TFD (talk) 01:37, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Tying into that, it's also rather difficult to separate MEDRS and food topics in this venue (much to the chagrin of folks who aren't overly fond of MEDRS at the moment I acknowledge). Take pesticides for example. We can report that system A has X amount less pesticide than system B. What if X is a biologically irrelevant amount for that pesticide though? We do need to assign weight to content, and at least in this context, we'd need toxicological information to do that (i.e. medical related information). It's a very slippery slope trying to include one without the other. It can be done, but it takes some very carefully crafted wording, and it some cases it may not be feasible without unintentionally implying medical information. Even with agricultural, nutritional, toxicological, etc. journals, we'd still need to be wary about some of the main things MEDRS points out like issues with primary literature. Either way, since we're talking about food (which affects health in various ways) content about organic food is almost always going to be weighted by medical information to varying degrees, or at the very least scientific research in the other fields we're mentioning. With all that, I guess the general question is if there is something in this topic that is distinct from medical content? I'm not seeing anything too distinct unless we're talking about certain historical information or ecological information (which can lead into toxicology again), but when it gets down the nuts and bolts, I'm not seeing what the specific issue is with MEDRS in this topic. Is that the main question we should be addressing here? What specific parts of MEDRS that we don't already have in WP:SCIRS or WP:RS are at issue here? Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:24, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

The slippery slope is that MEDRS is abused here to keep all kinds of perceived health claims out of the article. To the point that even chemical comparisons have been removed as being health claims. Sometimes it gives me the eerie feeling that when Monsanto claims that Agent Orange is perfectly safe, it is believed straight away. But a claim that Agents Orange is dangerous, should be backed up with thousands of sources but 95% is rejected immediately as unreliable, for instance because the sources are Vietnamese. The Banner talk 07:36, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't know why you are talking about Agent Orange here - nobody says it is not dangerous and it has nothing to do with Organic. As for the rest, I will ask you the question I have asked before, and that you haven't answered yet: why does anyone care about chemical differences between organic and conventional food? Please do answer... I'll have another thing to say about sourcing chemical difference claims, when this part is done. Jytdog (talk) 11:57, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Just an example from something clearly dangerous (ask the Vietnamese) but still in use for what I call chemical food production. The Banner talk 14:58, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

this is part of what is very difficult in these conversations about food. people have very strong opinions but they are based on half-truths and misunderstandings and stubbornly so, to the point where I can only think there is either willful ignorance going on or the purpose is to spread bullshit (in the Harry Frankfurt sense of "speech intended to persuade, without regard for truth). but the truth matters. Agent orange is NOT used in food production anywhere in the world; NOBODY says it was safe. Agent Orange was comprised mostly of two chemicals, 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. The second component, 2,4,5-T, often had traces of dixoin in it, from the manufacturing process, and it is the dioxins that appear to have caused the horrible, horrible damage that resulted from widespread spraying of Agent Orange. 2,4-D actually entered the market as an herbicide before it was used as a component of Agent Orange, and has remained in use, ever since. There are a lot of inflammatory websites out there screaming AGENT ORANGE about 2,4-D. They are wrong, and way too many people have swallowed that bullshit and are scared or angry. I am sorry that you swallowed it Banner. Lies are poison. Jytdog (talk) 15:15, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually he has a good point. Absence of (conclusive) evidence is not the same as evidence of absence. Just because conventional science has difficulty coming to any conclusive health claims about organic food, doesn't in any way detract from the evidence, yet not conclusive evidence, that there actually are health and safety benefits. This wiki article is using MEDRS written in such a way as to create the impression that there is no health or safety benefits. That's wrong. That's a backwards slant. What you have is evidence of health and safety benefits, but benefits that are difficult to confirm conclusively due to the difficulties of setting up and funding trials dealing with the complexity. Anyone reading this wiki article would get the opposite impression. Also to address TFD, You said "The ethical issue is that unhealthy people will see a switch to organic food as a possible remedy for whatever illness they may have instead of seeking medical treatment." Your argument is a false dichotomy. Changes in diet are often a PART of medical advise. It in no way means a person should or would use one to the exclusion of the other.Redddbaron (talk) 13:04, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

please consider the principle of how health claims work - which is a huge, huge issue in Wikipedia. in conventional medicine, we don't consider that something works, until we have solid evidence in hand that the affirmative case (this IS safe and effective enough) has been proven. until it is proven, it is held in doubt and not acted on. think about all the "snake oil" salesmen out there -- this is actually why the FDA and other regulatory agencies were created - to protect the public from snake oil salesmen who claim "Doc Frank's magical elixir - cures baldness, gout, and the common cold!". Efficacy. Nowadays, you have to prove it, before you can claim it. (Later, after the thalidomide incident, the laws were changed, so you also have to prove that your treatment is safe enough, as well). This is the general principle. It is not a false dichotomy. And it is actually how science works generally - you make a proposition - a hypothesis - and you don't say it is True until you prove it. And so with anything health related, we don't actually say "X does Y" unless we know it does. So until we can say that eating organic food actually is more healthy, we don't say it. That is the general principle and there are tons of advocates who come to WIkipedia pushing all kinds of bullshit - magnet therapy, energy medicine - all kinds of snake oil. We need to keep Wikipedia consistent -- you only get to make health claims if there is definitive evidence per WP:MEDRS that those claims are valid. If you want to knock that principle down here, it goes down everywhere. Does that make sense? Jytdog (talk) 13:46, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

It does make sense, but you are working it backwards. There is no evidence that the industrial model of agriculture provides the same high quality of food that organic methods do. And much evidence (though not conclusive) it has health and safety issues. Yet over the past several decades in Western society we have bought that "snake oil" without any proof what so ever it is healthy or safe.Redddbaron (talk) 14:18, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

nobody is saying that conventional food is more or less healthy than anything. i don't know what you are talking about. Jytdog (talk) 14:32, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I am talking about using MEDRS improperly to create bias in the article. The article is written in such a way as to use MEDRS exactly backwards. As if the industrial model of agriculture is the baseline and/or norm and organic methods are the "snake oil". When actually organic is closer to the baseline or norm, and industrial methods of food production are the "snake oil" that was rashly adopted without adequate evidence of safety.Redddbaron (talk) 14:46, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

if you want to make any claims about health you need MEDRS sources to do it. It doesn't matter if the claim is that organic is more healthy than conventional, or that conventional is less healthy than organic. Right? Jytdog (talk) 14:51, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Where are these health claims that require MEDRS? All I see are the opposite. I see MEDRS cites used to create a negative bias, without any mention of any health claims to counteract. Did I miss them? Should I carefully read the article again? All I see are the MEDRS used negatively to argue with the air, because any mention of any potential health claims have been carefully excluded. For example: You could say that the Haughley Experiment made health claims for industrial agriculture being unhealthy, and note the results, and then follow that with MEDRS citations that show the methodology used doesn't reach the standards of modern science, and thus are inconclusive. But instead you have the MEDRS citations without posting the evidence they are attempting to potentially confirm (but failed). That causes the article to have a substantially prevalent negative bias (toward organic food production methods). As I said, the wikipage is using MEDRS exactly backwards. It reads like a propaganda blog. The whole article is fundamentally flawed.Redddbaron (talk) 15:17, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Above I asked you to provide specific examples of specific language actually in the article, that you think is causing bias. You didn't do it there, and I still have no idea what you are referring to (Instead of assuming bad faith, please know that I don't live in your head and cannot know what parts are setting you off). With the Haughley experiment, you seem to talking about some hypothetical... ("you could say...") which is again not helpful. (with respect to that, if you are talking about the content you added to the Perceptions section, the issues there had nothing to do with MEDRS.). So really, you continue to make these broad and vague complaints and you are not communicating anything clearly, that I can respond to. The actual article is right there. Why don't you copy/paste something concrete that I can actually react to, or propose something concrete that I can react to. Actually this is pointless. I am frustrated and am giving up trying to understand what is upsetting you guys for now and regret that I wasted my time trying. When you have some clear, actionable points, please make them. Jytdog (talk) 15:30, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I did make specific examples. In particular this one:"There is no scientific evidence of benefit or harm to human health from a diet high in organic food...". Not only is that statement factually incorrect (there is evidence, but the evidence is inconclusive, see above), it has no need to be there at all, because no health claims were made on the wikipage. Should a health claim be made, then it would be proper to cite that as an opposing view for NPOV and MEDRS requirements, but that is the first sentence of the section. There is no health claim in that section, thus no need to note that science is unable to confirm it conclusively. So you have the negative side of the debate and controversy without the positive side. Thus the bias. To remove the bias you either need to remove that completely, or add the evidence there are health and safety problems with the industrial model that organic food production avoids and then note the problems with industrial Ag are inconclusive currently.(only because as soon as the health and safety problems become conclusive, they are removed from the industrial model)Redddbaron (talk) 15:57, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Inconclusive evidence is equivalent to saying there is no evidence. Either something is inconclusive, or there is evidence of something. When scientists find conclusive evidence (i.e. no major confounding factors) then we mention it here. If it's inconclusive, there isn't appropriate evidence to support the idea. Nonscientists tend to have issues with this very topic (i.e. Null vs alternative hypothesis), so this isn't an uncommon mistake. The language you cited is pretty much in line with how scientists would describe the state of research with the above in mind. Also keep in mind there is no inherent problem with having negative or critical content when it is valid. That's part of assigning due weight under WP:NPOV. NPOV does not mean content is 'balanced' in terms of having equal amounts of positive or negative contentKingofaces43 (talk) 16:27, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

You are incorrect in you summary of science and evidence. An easy example is gravity. There was evidence that gravity affects objects independent of mass. Early experiments showed this. However, it wasn't conclusively proven until confounding factors were isolated like wind resistance and buoyancy etc... Then the early evidence was proven conclusively. In no way should the early evidence, though inconclusive, be consider not evidence at all. It was evidence, but inconclusive. In a similar way there is evidence that industrial methods of agriculture do actually pose health and safety risks. However, until those those health and safety problems are proven conclusively, typically they are allowed to remain part of the industrial ag model. Later when they actually are proven to be a health risk, only then are they removed. Good examples of removed practises include meat byproducts being fed to herbivores causing BSE/CJD and certain pesticides like DDT being removed due to consensus they can cause various safety and health problems. There are more that haven't been removed yet. For example there is lots of evidence antibiotic resistant pathogens are evolving in the CAFO system. There is even evidence some of those pathogens have escaped the CAFOs and caused food poisoning that is difficult to treat and can cause death. But apparently according to the biased one sided MEDRS citations used in the wiki article, there is no safety or health risk. Or said differently, there is no conclusive evidence eliminating subtherapeutic antibiotics from the food supply, (so that antibiotic pathogens can't evolve) provides a benefit......yet. Each outbreak with it's associated deaths will however bring that issue closer to consensus.Redddbaron (talk) 17:25, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

RedBaron:

* please provide a MEDRS compliant source that demonstrates that the statement, "There is no scientific evidence of benefit or harm to human health from a diet high in organic food...", is factually incorrect. If you cannot, please explicitly withdraw that claim and please do not raise it again until you have a source. I understand that you believe it; we are not talking about belief here.

• we make it clear in the Perception section, that there is a perception that organic food is more healthy. In the factual part of the article, we provide the science on that, where we: a) describe the state of the science on chemical differences; b) provide the state of the science on health differences. The structure is clear. The "claim" is made in the perceptions section. The science is stated in the descriptive section. The statement in the science section is rigorously neutral. To the extent that the two of you keep pushing for non-neutral and explicitly positive statements that are not supported by appropriate sources, and to remove well-sourced, NPOV statements supported by unimpeachable sources, I will start to treat them as the POV-pushing that they are increasingly appearing to be. You are rapidly losing my assumption of good faith that you are here to build an encyclopedia.
• Further, Redbaron, above you wrote "Unfortunately I do have my own work and any agriculturalist's busy season is the growing season." IF you have a financial conflict of interest with regard to the topics of organic food and organic farming, please declare that COI and follow the guidelines for editors with a COI. Thank you. Jytdog (talk) 17:37, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I took a risk in opening this section, as it somewhat violates the WP:TPG as not being directly about sources and content. Again, I regret doing that, as it has become an open forum on "organic" vs 'conventional" and an abuse of my good faith in opening it. So again, I am done participating in this discussion and suggest that everyone stop as well. We are way outside the WP:TPG. Completely frustrating. Jytdog (talk) 17:40, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Just my little blurb on interpreting scientific research in the hope that it helps Redddbaron in the future with this topic and I'm done here as well. Inconclusive evidence means it is not sufficient for claims for the purpose of Wikipedia or science in general. In scientific circles, inconclusive means you do not have evidence to make a claim. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, so we don't report on ideas until we have conclusive evidence of them. If something is conclusive, we report on it. If it's not, we indicate there is a lack of sufficient evidence for the claim if we mention anything about it at all. The issue is that science is always a working process. Early evidence and inconclusive findings typically lead down a path where no difference is found, or the idea being checked out just doesn't work. That's why scientists typically reject papers with inconclusive findings when it comes to peer review, and Wikipedia especially doesn't entertain inconclusive findings. If you'll want to argue against that, this is not the place. Beyond that basic background, this is not the place to be educating editors about how scientific research is done to this degree. It appears we've come to a natural consensus in this topic since the discussion hasn't pointed out specific content issues in the article, so I'm done spending time on this one. The opportunity as given to voice specific concerns, and this has turned into a forum instead. It's probably best to close this discussion and work on specific content rather than continue this particular section. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:08, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/62/6/1517S.full.pdf

Interpret this how you wish, but it is quite relevant to this discussion. "PROBLEMS WITH CLINICAL TRIALS FOR STUDIES OF PREVENTION OF CHRONIC DISEASES By their nature, clinical trials are limited in the subjects, substances, and outcomes that can be tested. This makes them inappropriate vehicles by which to test hypotheses involving multifactorial diseases of long latency and with multiple, interacting nutrient effects." Redddbaron (talk) 22:43, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Nutrients

I almost hesitate to raise this issue given how unhappy some of the editors above are with the current state of the article, but I believe the use of the heading "Nutrients", or at least the inclusion of some of the information in that section under the heading "Nutrients" is at variance with the common definition of a nutrient.

Webster's defines a nutrient as a substance required for the maintenance of life. I am not aware of any study providing compelling data that phenolic acids, flavanones, stilbenes, flavones, flavonols, anthocyanins, phenols or vaccenic acid meet this definition. To the best of my knowledge, most of these substances have not even been rigorously shown to have a beneficial effect. Whether omega-3 fatty acids are considered nutrients is unclear to me (see below, some fatty acids are nutrients, but I haven't found a list of them yet (updated: these appear to be essential)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18044188 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3982418/pdf/BMRI2014-404680.pdf

The textbook "Introduction to Human Nutrition" lists the following classes of nutrients: carbohydrates, fats and oils, proteins, minerals, vitamins, and water.

Goodman and Gilman do not provide a succinct definition of "nutrient", but they say there are about 40 of them, and list these as including energy components (carbohydrates, fats, protein), sources of essential amino acids (proteins), essential unsaturated fats, minerals and vitamins.

Harrison's Internal medicine defines a nutrient as a substance "not synthesized in sufficient amounts by the body, and which therefore must be provided in the diet". These are listed as including proteins, fats, carbohydrates (energy sources); vitamins, minerals, and water. More specifically, the list is enumerated as including 9 essential amino acids, several fatty acids, glucose, 14 vitamins, dietary fiber, choline, minerals, electrolytes, and trace elements.

Neither antioxidants as a group nor individual compounds with putative antioxidant effects are listed as nutrients by any authoritative source I am aware of. I'd suggest breaking these out into a separate section entitled "antioxidants" with a caveat that the health benefits of antioxidants are not firmly established. Formerly 98 (talk) 16:50, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the term nutrient is being misused here. I noticed this before too, but let it be for the time being. Easiest thing might be to rename the section to something more general. It might be difficult to find accurate terminology that encompasses everything too though. Just making it a 'Nutrients, antioxidants, etc.' type of heading seems like a mishmash too though, so any thoughts on preferences? Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:13, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Good point. They are called "non-nutrients." But some non-nutrients are beneficial. TFD (talk) 17:33, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Here is a good example that is applicable to this article. ALA-EPA-DHA This could possibly be defined as a nutrient by some of the definitions above, even though we can synthesis some EPA and DHA. That is because we are unlikely to be able to synthesis enough long term. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9637947 and especially men http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12323085. But the n-6:n-3 ratio in our diet also has an effect. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22515943. How this applies to organic as opposed to CAFO produced is that n-6:n-3 ratio is radically altered by the rearing system.

http://www.csuchico.edu/grassfedbeef/research/documents/sources/lipids/Garcia%202008.pdf http://www.csuchico.edu/grassfedbeef/research/documents/sources/lipids/Extensive%20Fatty%20Acid%20Retail%20Beef%20Kraft%202008.pdf http://www.csuchico.edu/grassfedbeef/research/documents/sources/lipids/Nuernberg%20Article%20Lipid%20catagory.pdf Redddbaron (talk) 23:39, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Here is a study Qualitative and Nutritional Differences in Processing Tomatoes Grown under Commercial Organic and Conventional Production Systems. http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/datastore/234-857.pdfRedddbaron (talk) 23:50, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd suggest Nutrients and Antioxidants as separate categories. But I am a hair-splitter by nature. Formerly 98 (talk) 23:57, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Should be a decent approach to try for now. Better to make the distinction now and see how future content fits in. After a quick glance this shouldn't be a concern, but any foreseeable issues with a non-nutrient that's not an antioxidant? If that won't be an issue, we should have out bases covered. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:42, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

What about carotenoids, flavonoids, or other phytonutrients that can affect human health?Redddbaron (talk) 00:54, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

concerns about bias....

Redbaron and Banner, you have each said that you feel the article is biased. Would you please point out specific language or content in the article that you feel is biased? If the bias is from lack of something, would you please identify what is lacking? For now, am just looking for concise identification, so the concerns are named... thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:14, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

In general, the article is far too negative. There is far more positive news available, like about health effects, but the MEDRS-guys rejects everything what is not conform their strict medical guidelines, even reliable sources from well known and reliable agricultural institutes/universities. The Banner talk 17:55, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Banner. On MEDRS, that is a general issue that has been discussed here before. I would be happy (really I would) to discuss it further in a different section, or on your Talk page or mine, if you are open to talking. But here, I am trying to get specific things listed for consideration that could be actionable now. It would be most useful if you could hold off on listing issues related to your interpretation of MEDRS, pending another round of discussion on that elswhere... thanks. Jytdog (talk) 18:10, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

And protection mode switches on... The Banner talk 19:01, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I opened this section to get specific issues raised. Your issues with MEDRS are general and I explicitly offered to discuss them - just in a different section. You can throw out cynical commetns, or you can actually discuss things. IF, that is, you are open to actually discussing things (I have asked you several direct questions about this in the past, which you didn't answer, and I would be happy to ask again). However if you are just going to be sarcastic, I will not have much to say. Your call. Look, I will even open a section for you.....Jytdog (talk) 19:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The article reads like an anti-organic blog. The perceptions section that I am working on is a great example. A claim (not properly referenced) that states the public perception is that organic is "safer, more nutritious, and tastes better than conventional food", but instead of discussing why organic food actually is "safer, more nutritious, and tastes better than conventional food" and/or why the public knows this, it is just used as an excuse to post the industrial food counter argument. Nearly every paragraph in the whole article has similar structure and flaws. It's almost as if the whole wikipage is a criticism section on organic food. Just look at the first sentence under Health and safety, "There is no scientific evidence of benefit or harm to human health from a diet high in organic food..." They don't even bother making the claim that it is safer and more healthy and already tearing down that unstated claim! further on same thing. "With regard to the possibility that some organic food may have higher levels of certain anti-oxidants, evidence regarding whether increased anti-oxidant consumption improves health is conflicting." here again, no discussion of why the research indicates health benefits, but a claim they are wrong!" It's like the article is structured in a way that prevents any positive claims for organic food, yet does allow every criticism of those claims without even making the case in the first place. A very similar logic fallacy as the strawman fallacy (though not exactly). Another example is the earlier section I edited. By not including the pasture rule, the article avoids hundreds if not thousands of scientific studies showing the health and safety benefits of pastured animal products. So I changed that first. Later when I have time I will deal with the "meat" of the article ;P including well documented references. Then any dispute over that science will at least be in context. We have already discussed how the bias in this wiki page is spreading and has caused the organic farming page to be biased as well, and unfixable until this page is fixed first. Right now the vast majority of the article has no context, just criticism.Redddbaron (talk) 19:42, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

This is impossible to respond to. I am trying to open a way to communicate, but if you are going to present wall of text/general arguments, there is no where to go. With your permission, I can try to break down what you write above, into discreet, actionable points to discuss... Jytdog (talk) 19:47, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Try this first. Use your sandbox if you need to. Take out every critical statement or statement there is no difference between organic food and food produced by our conventional agricultural models and take them out of the article and place them in a discreet "criticism section". See what you have left. That should make the bias very very clear, very specific, and point at ways to fix it.Redddbaron (talk) 20:01, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

sigh. i give up on this effort. I am going to see if banner or anybody else wants to discuss MEDRS. If that doesn't go any where, I have a third idea about how to go forward, and will try that. Jytdog (talk) 20:12, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The point is more that you guys focus so much on details, that you completely fail to see the bottom line. The article is fundamentally flawed and, as Reddddbaron calls it, an anti-organic blog. The agricultural viewpoint is nowhere in the article. And it are farmers and growers who produce organic food, not medical scientists. The Banner talk 21:28, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Is this an unbiased credible source? A Report from the American Academy of Microbiology? http://academy.asm.org/images/stories/documents/MovingTargets.pdf Because on pp 35-36 it says: "Antibiotics were introduced as additives in feedstock almost as soon as they were discovered. This practice has broadly affected human health..." Redddbaron (talk) 02:22, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

content and sources for taste

About this set of edits:

• "Taste is subjective and thus hard to quantify. So ultimately it is the consumer that decides if organic raised food tastes better to them or not. " This is just bland generalization. Deleted it.

Bland generalization maybe, but written that way on purpose for NPOV, Unlike the rest of the paragraph which had a decidedly negative POV. You want to take it out, fine, but replace it with something NPOV.Redddbaron (talk) 17:42, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

i ended up keeping something like it and sourced it to daley. Jytdog (talk) 17:46, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

• This "However, the composition and quantity of certain things in foods that affect flavor, like soluble sugars, lipids, phenolic compounds, and brix, are affected by organic production methods." is generally true and worth saying. However as the source that was brought states, all production methods effect flavor. The the source about manipulating the content of meat through diet (Dikeman) says nothing about organic methods per se and talks about all kinds of things, including distinctly non-organic methods like hormones.

Exactly. Hormones are not organic, and that changes the meat. It changes a lot of things, but taste is one of them. All you need to learn from the source is there is a measurable difference without making a claim that one or the other tastes better (or that there is no difference) to maintain NPOV.Redddbaron (talk) 17:29, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I removed the following sources:

• PLoS tomato article as it is WP:primary

I contend that although primary, it was not misused and fits wiki standardsRedddbaron (talk) 18:02, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

• the Mother Jones blog because a) it fails WP:INDY (as RedBaron has noted many times, Mother Jones has been a longtime advocate for organic methods); b) it is a blog - it is not a reliable secondary source and not what we should use.

It is Mother Earth News, not Mother Jones. And while Mother Earth News is an advocate for Organic food (and many other issues), I did not transfer the bias into the wiki page. Mother Earth News would claim it tastes better. I simply stated that it was different and let the consumer decide. PS. This is not "just a blog" It is the online version of a periodical with 1/2 a million circulationRedddbaron (talk) 18:02, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

thanks for the correction, I was wrong. same issues apply, as you noted. Jytdog (talk) 18:44, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

• the Wisconsin cheese blog source because again, it is a blog. That blog is discussing this report, which if we were going to use anything about this, is what we would use. But this source should not be used, since a) it is WP:primary, and on top of that; b) not published in a peer-reviewed journal, and c) is primarily WP:PROMO for the Wisconsin dairy industry.

The study is indeed for the Wisconsin Dairy industry, but it is a study in how that industry might change their practices from what they are now, so as to produce a better tasting product. Quite different from advertising promo designed for the public.Redddbaron (talk) 18:02, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

On the other hand, this source (Daly, on properties of grassfed beef) - seems great, and there is more we could use this for, which I will do today. Jytdog (talk) 17:06, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

CSU has many many more studies on that page. I listed 3 of them just above on this talk page, but no one used them.Redddbaron (talk) 18:02, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Again all your changes taken as a whole have restored the negative bias to the taste paragraph. Seems YOU and not ME is the one treading on the WP advocate rules in this case. My edits were NPOV exclusively, carefully avoiding any claims organic tastes either better or worse, simply acknowledging that verifiable chemical changes in the composition of the food does affect flavor. Even when the sources I used claimed this made the products taste better, I carefully left those comments out of my edits. Your edits quite the opposite. Redddbaron (talk) 18:28, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I am going to say two things, one last time. Last time. 1) Content needs to be based on reliable sources. 2) Please discuss content, not contributors. That is the last time I will say either of those things. Going forward, I will ignore complaints that are not backed by reliable sources. Jytdog (talk) 18:44, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with negative content per WP:NPOV. A common mistake for new editors is that they believe NPOV means the article must be neutral. That is not the case, but rather it must written from a neutral point of view. There is an important difference in the two if you read NPOV and relevant guidelines. Wanting content changed simply because it is negative is a violation of NPOV. At this point I highly suggest slowing down because it looks like you're having a few issues with some of Wikipedia's core policies and guidelines. We can help to a point, but this has become a recurring issue that we really can't be spending too much time on and article talk page. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:35, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

The paper on grass-fed beef does not mention organic farming. "Laura's Lean Beef" for example is grass-fed but not organic. You need a source that connects them. TFD (talk) 18:37, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I thought the same thing, but I was trying to work with RedBaron, to give him ~something~. Please feel free to delete the source and content based on it. Jytdog (talk) 18:44, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

You both are correct. Your source is the "pasture rule" which is a requirement for organic production, but not a requirement for industrial production. The fact that someone might use some organic methods, but not use other organic methods has little bearing on whether organic methods affect the quality of the food produced. The vast majority of studies quantifying those differences will investigate each method separately, because attempting to investigate too many brings in confounding factors....ie Was it the growth hormone and/or steroids that affected quality or was it diet that affected quality? Turns out both, but you need separate studies to confirm and quantify each.Redddbaron (talk) 19:38, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Also, organic farmers tend to use different breeds. OTOH, farmers in Northern states may feed cattle hay in winter, and farmers have no control over what grazing cattle choose to eat. There are lots of variables and we need reliable sources that discuss them and draw conclusions, but none have been presented. TFD (talk) 20:10, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

That is simply wrong. I have been posing citations. I posted 5 citations with one tiny 2 sentence change to taste and promptly got the edit removed. But hey, you want to discuss?

Here are 7 on carcass quality: http://www.csuchico.edu/grassfedbeef/research/meats.shtml

Here is 2 dozen on lipid profiles, I'll use them because CSU was kind enough to remove the paywalls. There are hundreds, maybe thousands more. The effect of diet on meat quality is VERY well studied.: http://www.csuchico.edu/grassfedbeef/research/lipids.shtml

after you read those 20+ studies Here is your review of health benefits: http://www.csuchico.edu/grassfedbeef/research/health-benefits.shtml

Then another 50 to 60 health attribute citations all paywalls removed by the same university : http://www.csuchico.edu/grassfedbeef/research/health-lit.shtml

That's over 100 citations from an accredited State University website...just one...... In almost every agricultural university in the whole country you can find similar. (although not all Universities were kind enough to list with paywalls removed) I was not exaggerating one bit. I am not advocating either. All I ask for is the wiki page reflect a NPOV instead of reading like a low quality industrial ag propaganda blog.Redddbaron (talk) 02:24, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Quality or quantity? From a quick glance these are primary research studies, and so not really usable. To save time, what would you say the strongest source on your list is? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 12:57, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

not sure why Alexbrn crossed out his comment, except that maybe he too is getting tired of this WP:IDHT. Almost all those sources are WP:PRIMARY and we don't use those in Wikipedia. Also, the article you cite about "health" is about nutrients, not health. I think we should all take a breather here and come back in a while. Jytdog (talk) 01:39, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Factors Affecting Nutritional Content of Organic Foods

"Determining the potential nutritional superiority of organic food is not a simple task. Numerous factors, apart from organic versus inorganic growing, influence the amount of vitamins and phytochemicals (phenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, etc.) in a crop. These factors include the weather (affecting crops year-to-year), specific environmental conditions from one farm to the next (microclimates), soil condition, etc. Another major factor not taken into account in published studies was the length of time the specific plots of land have been working using organic methods. Since it takes years to build soil quality in a plot using organic methods and for the persistent pollutants in the ground to be reduced, this can significantly affect the outcome of comparative studies. The importance of these difference factors is apparent from a review of the recent studies examining the nutrient content in produce."Kjayh (talk) 00:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

ok, so besides this being copyvio (that is right on the border of fair use, please never paste something longer than that anywhere in WP). are you suggesting content from this be added to the article? i hesitate to use this as a source for content on the quality of studies. Jytdog (talk) 00:55, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I think that is great information to add to the article, it shows that there are many other contributors to the quality of organic foods other then the method of farming. Kjayh (talk) 01:18, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Grass fed beef

I removed mention of grass fed beef, because grass fed beef does not appear to be the same as organically produced beef. I am wondering why this was added, and continues to be reverted back into the article, as the sources appear to talk about a different topic. Yobol (talk) 15:51, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Just for a little clarification if it helps, grass fed is a component of organic beef, but not the whole picture. You can have grass fed, but not organic though. I can see why it would be tempting to place such material in this article, but if it was going to be included anywhere, it would have a better fit in a broader article about beef cattle and how they are raised in regards to finishing (e.g., beef and beef cattle, which could use some work anyways). That's where grass-fed information would be relevant. I think the removal here is appropriate since this information isn't specific to organic beef, and the if and how to include it in other articles is probably best figured out there. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

So we should use a source that says organic farming typically uses grass feed and which briefly mention what effects that has. And the same thing with other organic products. TFD (talk) 20:48, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking for content (or updating a beef page to include the grass-fed process, and just wikilinking to it). I think the briefness overall is important here. We could talk a little more about about the animals being grass fed over at organic farming since that page is describing the process, but here it should be a matter of just saying they are grass-fed and focus on what is unique to organic food and not the process. That would also mean avoiding attributing qualities that are due to grass fed as something due to specifically being organic food. Either way, I'm taking a mini break from editing, so I’m just including this as my two cents on what a good direction looks like and will let other folks figure out what actual edits should be for now. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:35, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

All organic certification boards have a pasture rule. These are not the only requirements for organic, but it is one requirement. Grass fed is a component of all organic produced beef, without exception. Feed makes a difference in taste, nutrients and quality of animals products, also without exception. Dismissing the relevant qualitative difference production methods have is not educating people about the differences in organic food. It is cleverly hiding it IMHO.Redddbaron (talk) 21:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Per the USDA here, "Grass-fed animals receive a majority of their nutrients from grass throughout their life, while organic animals’ pasture diet may be supplemented with grain. Also USDA regulated, the grass-fed label does not limit the use of antibiotics, hormones, or pesticides. Meat products may be labeled as grass-fed organic." In other words, not all organic beef is grass fed, and not all grass fed is organic. To be more precise, while there is some overlap, they are distinct categories, so we should not pretend like they are the same. If all organic meats are grass fed by definition, then coming up with a separate "grass-fed organic" category would be redundant. As it is not, they are not the same. Yobol (talk) 21:49, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Last comment since I was still around, but my whole point was that grass-fed is part of a larger process people use than just organic production (there are non-organic grass-fed operations). That's why careful attribution is needed to avoid making it seem like some trait is due to the meat being organic when in fact it's simply due to being grass-fed (as you stated, feed makes the difference). It's all about proper attribution of causation. A classic example is a "study" that showed crime rates increased as ice cream sales increased. It could seem like ice cream causes crime, or criminals want ice cream after committing crimes by that presentation, when in reality it was because both increase during summer months. In this case, the nuance is going to be making sure that grass-fed (i.e., summer) is attributed as the main causal factor, and things that correlate along with that like organic production aren't given undue weight. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:56, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes it is true that there is such a thing as "industrial organic" which only uses the absolute minimum requirements for time on pasture. Whereas confinement operations are not required to have any pasture at all. This disparity is discussed in "The Omnivores Dilemma". It is also true that anyone raising food at the minimal requirements will only show minimal improvements in quality. Make sense? Remember, the certification boards were not set up to teach organic production methods to farmers, they were set up to prevent industrial growers from fraudulently using the term "organic" as a marketing ploy, deceiving the consumer, without actually changing their production methods much. Pasture raised IS an organic method of production however. That's why all organic certification boards have a pasture rule. But "grass fed organic" means it is better than just the minimum requirements.Redddbaron (talk) 22:09, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Which means, by definition, they are different standards, and we should not be conflating grass fed meats in the organic food article, as they are not the same. Sources discussing difference with grass fed beef belong in a different article. Yobol (talk) 22:17, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

NO It doesn't mean that at all. It means all organic production includes grass fed. It is required by all organic certification boards. Just because it is not required to be 100% grass fed doesn't mean it isn't grass fed. Organic beef is REQUIRED to be grass fed.Redddbaron (talk) 22:21, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Here's how the USDA defines "grass fed" (see here):

"Grass (Forage) Fed – Grass and forage shall be the feed source consumed for the lifetime of the ruminant animal, with the exception of milk consumed prior to weaning. The diet shall be derived solely from forage consisting of grass (annual and perennial), forbs (e.g., legumes, Brassica), browse, or cereal grain crops in the vegetative (pre-grain) state. Animals cannot be fed grain or grain byproducts and must have continuous access to pasture during the growing season." As we saw in the previous USDA link I provided, organic meats' "pasture diet may be supplemented with grain". In other words, organic meats do not automatically meet "grass fed" criteria. There is a rule that organic meats must have access to pasture, but they can be supplemented with grain, which means that not all organic meats meet "grass fed" criteria, by definition. Yobol (talk) 22:34, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

You are making an improper synthesis. I posted 2 sources including USDA in the article which shows the pasture rule. AND improperly changing the article on a subject already discussed. The links are http://organicrules.org/custom/differences.php?id=2g and http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/nopaccesstopasture Now if you don't happen to understand the pasture rule, I suggest you watch this vid so you won't be confusing either yourself or anyone trying to use wikipedia as a reference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyu9-_TExRg That should clear up your confusion.Redddbaron (talk) 22:50, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

"Grass fed" meats "cannot be fed grain or grain byproducts". Organic animals' "pasture diet may be supplemented with grain". By simple logic, the organic standards != grass fed standard, and contrary to your assertion, organic beef is NOT REQUIRED to be grass fed, per the USDA. Please address these simple facts. Yobol (talk) 22:55, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

It absolutely is required for organic to be grass fed. It isn't required 100% by the usda but it is required. Heck even though the language you linked to appears to infer grass fed means 100% grass fed. That isn't even true. It is 99%, and can include other forages that have been approved, such as brassicas, (discards from cabbage brocolli and cauliflower etc... production. You'll not find many absolutes in the real world. But the important thing to note is that while all organic beef is "grass fed" as their primary diet, there are other regulations like antibiotics synthetic hormones etc... So there are rare producers that would raise on pasture but also inject antibiotics and/or metabolic modifiers (mostly dairies). So yes, it is possible to raise "grass fed" animals that are not certified organic, but it is not possible to raise organic beef without feeding them on grass.Redddbaron (talk) 23:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

The point is not if they are "fed grass at some point in their life", but using the definition of "grass fed" by an objective standard such as the USDA. By USDA standards, "organic" beef is NOT REQUIRED to be "grass fed". Period. Full stop. Yobol (talk) 23:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Yobol is dead on. As I acknowledged above, I should not have allowed the source about "grass-fed" in. This article is about organic food. The source (a very good review article! - a secondary source) is about grass-fed beef. Those are different sets. They are definitely overlapping sets, but they are not identical. Unfortunately the source on grass-fed beef doesn't say anything about whether the meats they discussed were organically produced or not, so the source has no place here. (in fact, in a few places, the grass-fed review article talks about just "finishing" livestock on grass..) Jytdog (talk) 23:53, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

It's an equivocation. You are using a marketing guideline sense of the phrase to ignore the feeding study use of the phrase.Redddbaron (talk) 15:06, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

please, please stop being accusatory. When you do an experiment comparing X and Y to find out if there are any differences between them, you want to make sure that X is really "X" and not, say, a mixture of X, A, B, and C. You also want to make sure that X is really X, and not Z. This article is about organic food - that is what we what to understand and describe. We have no way of knowing in this case if the meat being studied is X (organic). So we can't use the source. That's my perspective. If there is something i am missing in the article that signals really clearly to you that the source is about organic, please point out to me where that is. i might be missing it. Jytdog (talk) 15:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

It's about reductionism in science. Even if a product is a mixture of X,A,B,C a those additional confounding factors are factored out to get meaningful results. However, in marketing guidelines, those additional ABC factors can not be ignored. Hence the equivocation in using a marketing definition for a scientific study. All organic beef and dairy production requires the primary source of nutrition for the animals to be forage based...ie commonly known as "grass fed". And you can do scientific studies on the quantifiable differences in meat quality between feeding forage vs feeding grain as the primary nutrition. I showed many of those studies. The fact that there is slightly different criteria and requirements to market a product between "organic grass feed", "organic", and "grass fed" is an issue the scientific studies do not address. They have reduced the issue to only the specific quantifiable effects feeding forage as opposed to feeding grains as the primary food source.Redddbaron (talk) 16:11, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

sorry if i misunderstanding this but i understand that for meat to be organic, the animals have to be a) not treated with drugs more than is medically necessary and b) raised on organic food. Is that correct? If so, what in the article says that the meat tested came from un-drugged animals, and that the fields where they grazed were not treated with chemical fertizilers or pesticides; and c) that before they were finished on grass, they were fed with organic feed? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 16:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

That is not correct. The PRIMARY defining factor of organic beef is forage, referred to as "the pasture rule". Those other issues like drugs, metabolic modifiers, pesticides and organic feed are secondary additional requirements. In order to claim those secondary requirements also have a quantifiable effect on meat qualities, maybe even canceling the forage effects studied, you would need to cite this.Redddbaron (talk) 16:48, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Sources for my understanding of organic standards for meat:

• US organic standards (all three things)
• [holefoodsmarket.com/blog/organic-meat-what-does-organic-really-mean restatement of same from Whole Foods
• FAO, same - see page 19ff.

what are your sources that the only thing that matters is pasturing (and that it doesn't matter if the pasture is organic or not?) Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 17:23, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

this is pretty important. redddbaron you are making the claim that if feed my cow tons of antibiotics and growth hormone, but finish it on pasture, meat from that animal is meaningfully "organic". Likewise if I raise a calf on feed containing antibiotics, ground up cow waste products, and GMO soy, but finish it on grass, meat from the cow is meaningfully organic. Likewise, if I fertilize my pasture and spray it with weedkiller and finish my cow on that pasture, the meat is meaningfully organic. I will be surprised if you find a source that says that. I doubt you think that. And since the source says nothing about any of that, we have no idea if the meat is meaningfully organic. Right? Jytdog (talk) 17:31, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Not claiming that at all. Not even close. In fact the opposite. Organic beef production requires pasture forage in all life phases beyond weaning. This requirement is called the pasture rule. Organic has additional requirements, but those additional requirements do not cancel the pasture rule. The citations I gave regarding "grass fed" vs "grain fed" ...therefore apply to organic beef. (unless you can show somehow that the additional requirements somehow negate the quantifiable nutritional benefits derived from forage vs grains.)Redddbaron (talk) 18:05, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I am not saying anything "cancels out" the pasture requirement. I totally get it that organic requires pasturing. (really, i do!) Again, the grass-finished cows (and they are only grass-finished, from what i could gather) could well have been loaded up with antibiotics and hormones and thus the meat from them falls way, way outside the organic standard. Likewise the calves could have been raised on GMO and meat products. You are not addressing that. It is like asking you if you like a song, and playing you only the bassline and demanding you give an answer for the whole song. it could be the vocals are dead awful. you just don't know. Likewise other aspects of raising the cows in the published paper could have dramatically violated organic standards. We don't know. so we can't use it to make claims about organic beef. Jytdog (talk) 19:37, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

The recent start-up of the conversation seems to be veering off course. I believe we already have consensus above that the source was specific to grass-fed beef, and that if it was going to be considered anywhere, that should be it should actually be in an article or section about grass-fed beef. You can have organic and non-organic grass-fed beef, so this doesn't appear to be the level of article at which we should be including the specific source. For instance, we wouldn't say in every cattle breed article that the breed has hooves. We leave that for the cattle article and don't attribute having hooves as something specific to the breeds, but rather to being an ungulate. In this case we have a detail we cannot ascribe to specifically being organic, so it seems like this conversation should have stopped long ago. Sounds like it's time to move on to other content. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:26, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

You may have assumed consensus, but that is not the case. Your consensus was based on an equivocation logic error, and thus not valid.Redddbaron (talk) 18:30, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

redddbaron i am trying to work with you and address your concerns, but please be aware that WP:CONSENSUS is not unanimity. Jytdog (talk) 18:49, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Unless you are trying to assert that only organic cattle are grass-fed (which I don't believe you are), then we've reached the conclusion of this conversation long ago. Remember the point of an article talk page is to address specific content solutions. When a solution has been proposed like was done above and generally agreed upon by most editors because of its reasoning grounded in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, that's when you have consensus. There's comes a point where even if you think you are right, the community has moved on. You're still relatively new to editing in contentious discussions, so I'm trying to cut you some slack, but there's a time to drop the WP:STICK and find a new horse to hop on too. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:41, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

No I am not asserting that all grassfed beef is organic. I am asserting that from the feeding study POV, the other confounding factors were factored out and the feeding studies only address the feed and the effect feed has on the nutritional qualities of the product, not other issues. All organic is pastured (grass fed) but not all pastured is organic. Now the %s of the feed do vary slightly by organic certification board, it is incidental. The PRIMARY feed for all the organic beef production is required to be grass fed. Although there is an exception allowed for short term small supplemental grains, this can never be the primary feed source. If it is, the cattle must be tagged and separated, or if the whole herd, then none can be sold as organic..even if the grains were organic. They would be labeled something else. For example. Lets say a drought hit and the pasture simply couldn't support a herd...it is unreasonable to force the farmer to starve his cows. So he would typically supplement with grains and hay...then hopefully later when rains came he would finish them on grass. But they still couldn't be sold as organic if the grain supplements ever exceeded certain limits. A farmer could finish them on grass though and sell it as grass finished. Or if the grain supplements were small enough, the organic rancher could apply for a waiver as long as he could finish on pasture. Bottom line is all these exceptions waivers and clauses are not anything to do with a feeding study. Certification boards set regulations to prevent grain fed beef from marketing itself as organic. It is to prevent marketing fraud. The actual organic method of raising beef organic is on pasture. This has a quantifiable effect on nutritional qualities as compared to the other model of beef production which is to fatten on grains in a feedlot. That's what the feeding studies show.Redddbaron (talk) 08:19, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

you have not directly addressed what i and others have written about this and i am not going to repeat myself again. if you address it, i will be happy to reply. Jytdog (talk) 09:23, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

No offense intended, but the arguments here SOUND like ya'll never raised a cow in your life. Lets simplify down to the crux. Organic beef is raised on grass, all the rest of the beef in the market place is finished in a feedlot. There may theoretically be a few other options, but the margins are so thin, that's how it is done. And because of how it is done, the nutritional content of organic beef is significantly different in those things measured in the feeding trials I posted on the difference in feedlot and grass. Does that simplify it for y'all?Redddbaron (talk) 14:01, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

this is a simple thing. you keep saying that grass-fed beef = organic beef, and that is just not true. There is an intersection between "grass fed beef" and "organic beef". they are overlapping sets, but they are not identical. Grass fed beef could be treated with drugs, the calves could be fed non-organic feed, etc. You are not addressing with that. I have nothing more to say until you do. Jytdog (talk) 14:17, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I did address that, it is an equivocation to use scientific senses of the term grass fed and then apply marketing definitions. Also while it is POSSIBLE to raise grass fed beef and not be certified organic, You could theoretically spray those pastures with chemicals and pump the beef full of expensive antibiotics etc... it isn't done. There is no need for it. Don't need all those expensive inputs to raise a cow on pasture. Organic gets a premium price. Why would someone spend more to get less, when he can spend less to get more? And even if it was done, there is no citations here showing it would cause a nutritional difference in the product. Like I said sounds like some theorectical argument from fantasy land made by someone who never raised a cow, that has nothing to do with what farmers actually do to raise food.Redddbaron (talk) 19:27, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

ok, this is the first time I have heard you saying straight out, "it isn't done". If you said that before and I didn't hear you, I apologize. Now I need to ask you to provide a reliable source that says that. {I respect your knowledge, but that is not enough for WP :) } Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 20:04, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

i gotta add here, that even if you find one, I or others may still say your argument falls prey to WP:SYN because the source on meat that you want to use doesn't explicitly say that the cows from which the meat came were raised organically, .... but I am trying to work with you. let's see what a source you bring says about the "it isn't done" thing. Jytdog (talk) 10:36, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Phytonutrient Content

"In the last 30 years the importance of the phytonutrient content of foods has been established. These compounds, including carotenoids, flavonoids, and other polyphenols, have been the focus of mush study, and many are now provided as dietary supplements. Flavonoid molecules are potent antioxidants. The carotenoid lycopene has been shown to help reduce cancer risk. The anthocyanin compounds in berries have been shown to improve neuronal and cognitive brain functions and ocular health and protect genomic DNA integrity. Because of the health benefits of phytonutrients, they have been the focus of much recent research on the nutritional value of organic foods."Kjayh (talk) 00:47, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

again, this is bordering on copyvio. again, are you suggesting that content from this be added to the article? i defintely will not this article as a source for anything health related. we have more recent, and more respected reviews that say that health effects are not proven, and per WP:MEDRS older, lower quality sources cannot override newer, higher quality sources. Jytdog (talk) 00:57, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Kjayh please slow down!! you are edit warring over content that violates copyright - please stop and talk. you clearly know how to use the talk page. Jytdog (talk) 01:05, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

would you be open to adding a section on phytonutrient since they are shown to be in organic foods, and they have a important impact on health and wellness as it is stated in the sections I posted aboveKjayh (talk) 01:21, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

This wikipedia thing is a bit more complicated than you think. First did you read the actual article, namely the Organic_food#Nutrient section? Also, did you read what I wrote just above, about MEDRS? Did you read MEDRS? thanks Jytdog (talk) 01:35, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Abusing MEDRS to censor any positive benefits to the nutritional qualities of organic food again? You should realise this war will go on forever until an educated realistic balanced content exists. As long as the page remains a propaganda piece for industrial agriculture and completely censors any benefit at all to organic food, these wars will continually pop up.Redddbaron (talk) 04:48, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

please comment on content, not contributor. please strike. there is nothing about content or sources, to respond to. Jytdog (talk) 13:50, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Look, food is not medicine. Neither is the broader category nutrition. But food and nutritional content of that food is all about health. Unfortunately any editor ..me or any other, in this case Kjayh, who talks about and puts any information about the quantifiable differences that can be found in organic food and the related health benefits that quantifiable difference can potentially make, it gets immediately removed. Now, to be fair, I know why. There is a whole lot of misinformation and exaggerated claims in the wider organic movements. I get that. But Kjayh didn't try to put exaggerated claims, nor did he use misinformation. That means instead of reversing his edits, they need reworded to fit wiki guidelines. But either way it is an abuse of MEDRS to pretend health related articles relating to ordinary food is the same as medicine. Therefore using restrictive MEDRS level criteria of content and citations is an abuse of MEDRS. In other words using medicine criteria on food articles where inappropriate is a form of censorship. That's my opinion. The copyvio> Sure but the solution to copyvio is rewriting the content, not simply removing it. Oh and btw. Again, this is about censorship of content. There is absolutely nothing here about contributors per se. It's all about the content of the wikipage. Nothing personal.Redddbaron (talk) 14:39, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

again, not responding to personal attack. please stop doing that. people can disagree about - and people can misunderstand - our policies and guidelines, with absolutely no bad faith involved. if you tried harder to listen and talk, this would move farther and faster than it will if you don't focus on the issues and instead make personal attacks. It is a mistake that many new editors make. Please focus on the issues, the key one of which is the difference in how we interpret MEDRS. To be honest I don't think you have ever slowed down enough to really read it and understand it. Most of what you say about it and your selection of sources do not reflect an accurate understanding of what it actually says. I know you have work on your land to do, but you are choosing to spend time on WP, so you really need to take time and engage with the guideline, and engage with other editors in good faith discussions about how to use it. Please slow dowwn and work with me and other editors who see this differently than you. Jytdog (talk) 14:57, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

MEDRS describes content that relates to health, not just medicine. When you start making implications about nutrient differences, you are getting into health territory. Regardless though, the policies and guidelines we've pointed out to you specify why we reach for secondary sources for scientific content in general especially. Content you want isn't being removed because it is positive about organic (or negative for that matter either). It's because we need reliable sources and to assign due weight (i.e., what is the source actually saying and has it been accepted by the scientific community?). That means something very different on Wikipedia than what you seem to be interpreting, so again, please slow down and review what we have for guidance (namely WP:RS, WP:MEDRS, and WP:SCIRS). The issues with your edits have been rather straightforward and grounded in those areas, and going on about industrial ag and censorship is largely irrelevant here. If you're having trouble seeing where one of your misunderstandings in interpreting a specific source happened, we can discuss that here, but a general conversation of understanding study design, inference, etc. might be better suited for a user talk page. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:31, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

And to my opinion MEDRS is misused to keep valuable information out of articles, especially "non-mainstream medical" articles. Every time something positive crops up, it is shot down with as argument "failing MEDRS". No matter what respectable university or magazine published the info. Bang, gone. The Banner talk 20:50, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

What The "Organic" Label Really Means

I was wanting to see what you all thought about adding this sub-section either under the 'Public Perception' or 'Legal Definition'... If you are open to adding this section I would paraphrase and reword some of it. I think this would be a great section to add because most people do not know what the Organic USDA seal means.

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has established an organic certification program that requires all organic foods to meet strict government standards. These standards regulate how such foods are grown, handled and processed. Any farmer or food manufacturer who labels and sells a product as organic must be USDA certified as meeting these standards. Only producers who sell less than $5,000 a year in organic foods are exempt from this certification." "Products certified 95 percent or more organic display the USDA sticker. If a food bears a USDA Organic label, it means it's produced and processed according to the USDA standards and that at least 95 percent of the food's ingredients are organically produced. The seal is voluntary, but many organic producers use it. Products that are completely organic — such as fruits, vegetables, eggs or other single-ingredient foods — are labeled 100 percent organic and can carry a small USDA seal. Foods that have more than one ingredient, such as breakfast cereal, can use the USDA organic seal or the following wording on their package labels, depending on the number of organic ingredients: ·100 percent organic. Products that are completely organic or made of all organic ingredients. ·Organic. Products that are at least 95 percent organic. ·Made with organic ingredients. These are products that contain at least 70 percent organic ingredients. The organic seal can't be used on these packages"Kjayh (talk) 15:00, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

There is already content much like that in the last paragraph of the Definitions section, just before the list of countries. Jytdog (talk) 16:49, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Organic Food

I think adding a little overview about organic farming in the first section would be beneficial to the viewers. Right after it says "Organic foods are produced using methods for organic farming." I suggest we add the following: "Organic farming can be defined as "a system that is designed and managed to produce agricultural products by... using, where possible, cultural biological and mechanical methods, as opposed to using substances, to fulfill any specific function within the system so as to: maintain long-term soil fertility; increase soil biological activity; ensure effective pest management; recycle wastes to return nutrients to the land; provide attentive care for farm animals; and handle the agricultural products without the use of extraneous synthetic additives or processing in accordance with the Act and the regulations in this part."Kjayh (talk) 16:02, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

american running is not a reliable source for information about farming. And there is already a "see main" at the top of that section where readers can all the detail they want about organic farming. Jytdog (talk) 16:51, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

okay I just thought that it may be beneficial to the viewers if we added in just a brief summary regarding organic farming, so they would know what it all entails and did not have to find that information out by going to a different wikipedia article.Kjayh (talk) 18:00, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Customer Safety

"The food industry does all that it can to change its foods with preservatives, additives, dyes, flavoring, colorings, and texturing with chemicals so they look as desirable for purchase and consumption as possible. The government has banned a number of food additives, mainly because of the implications of cancer-causing effects, though it has done so reluctantly and very slowly. In agriculture, today's crops yield their bounty with the aid of chemicals in the form of artificial fertilizers and herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and other pesticides."Kjayh (talk) 16:50, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

This makes health claims, but is not sourced to a reference that meets the requirements of WP:MEDRS, which is the guideline for all health-related content in WP. Thank you for talking by the way! Jytdog (talk) 16:53, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

The passage does not make health claims, but fails rs because it is an editorial.[1] Furthermore, I do not see its relevance. Some people buy organic food because they think they are avoiding the toxins used in conventional food production. We can certainly say that, provided we also mention that mainstream science does not see any danger. Also, this is only one of the reasons some people choose organic products. TFD (talk) 19:04, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

"cancer-causing" is a claim about health. Jytdog (talk) 19:07, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Saying that the government banned an additive because of the "implications of cancer-causing effects", is not a claim about health, but a claim about government actions. Using your interpretation, we would have the delete the article Great Famine (Ireland) because it is not sourced to any medical journals and infers that food is a source of nutrition. TFD (talk) 19:29, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

not worth arguing about. we both agree the proposed content doesn't fly. Jytdog (talk) 19:55, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, technically there is a claim about health being made in there as too. It's sure notable when governments do something, but they can often make choices that are on the WP:FRINGE side of things too. If someone really wanted to include that government X has a stance on topic Y, then it needs to given thought under due weight. That would mean in some cases specifying that the stance is supported by the government even though the science says otherwise. At least in your example, it would be an issue of deciding whether to even include the content, or include it with some qualifiers about what the science says. It's not always possible to look at claims from a government isolation of the relevant field. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:57, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

To my opinion, the statement is true but the relevancy for this article is somewhat doubtful. On the other hand, the following discussion shows nicely how the "keep it out of the article"-policy works. The Banner talk 21:37, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

The fact is that the U.S. government has banned additives found to be harmful. The quote however implies that there are dangerous additives that the government has not banned and therefore conventionally produced food should be avoided. Wikipedia articles however should not imply anything. TFD (talk) 21:53, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Organic Trade Association as a Source

The website referenced states that the OTA's purpose is as follows"

"The Organic Trade Association (OTA) is the membership-based business association for the organic industry in North America. OTA’s mission is to promote and protect organic trade to benefit the environment, farmers, the public, and the economy. OTA envisions organic products becoming a significant part of everyday life, enhancing people's lives and the environment.

OTA represents businesses across the organic supply chain and addresses all things organic, including food, fiber/textiles, personal care products, and new sectors as they develop. Over sixty percent of OTA trade members are small businesses."

As advocates for "Organic" businesses, they cannot serve as a reliable source for the statement that "Natural is not the same as organic". They are talking their book when they make statements of this type.

Formerly 98 (talk) 02:03, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

In that case you should also silence the opponents... The Banner talk 02:06, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

There nothing in the purpose that says "to misrepresent information." The fact that they are sre advocates is an issue of neutrality, rather than reliability. This is a pretty uncontroversial statement anyway. TFD (talk) 02:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Advocacy groups generally aren't considered reliable sources for content like this. If it were something that had a lower burden for weight, opinions from advocacy groups can be stated as such, but not in this case. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:34, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Labels

Unfortunately, user:Formerly 98 is edit warring, engaging in unfriendly behaviour and whitewashing of inconvenient information. In fact he is edit warring over the following statement: Overall, the label "organic food" has more meaning than does the label "natural food."

It is not the first time that I have to complain that the article is seriously POV due to the permanent removals of any positive facts.

I admit that I reverted an unsourced statement, just to be able to add sources. But even with three sources it is straight removed. How many sources do tou want then, Formerly 98? Are even universities not trustworthy? The Banner talk 02:15, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, let's start by striking the personal attacks and accusations in violation of WP:GF and WP:TALK. When you have done that we can discuss the article. Formerly 98 (talk) 02:18, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Just start with explaining why it has to be removed in violation of WP:NPOV. The Banner talk 02:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Guys, the statement is far from controversial. There are several existing references that support it at the natural foods article. It's widely known that the organic label has at least some teeth to it whereas "natural" means almost nothing legally. Although I do not plan to spend a bunch of time amassing more references for the statement, it is obvious that the ledes of the two articles should mention each other, from an ontological standpoint, because in terms of critical thinking, if you cannot state why they are not the same thing, then you must ask why they aren't covered in one and the same article. Separate but linked articles ontologically means either (1) separate but related concepts or (2) an ontological error called content forking. Obviously in this instance, having separate articles is valid. Well OK then—state how they compare or contrast, and link their ledes accordingly. This is not all that subjective or complicated. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:10, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

And by the way, if anyone tries to keep the ledes from mentioning, comparing, or contrasting each other, then I will just stick a {{distinguish}} hatnote, or some other relevant hatnote, above them. There will be critically minded hyperlinking either way. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:20, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

whatever is going on in the natural foods article is going on there. in this article, there is no content about in the body about difference in "meaning" (whatever that means) between the two, and sticking an unsourced, vague statement in the lead of this article makes no sense. of somebody wants to develop some well-sourced content in the body of this article about the difference in "meaning" then it might make sense to include that in the lead of this article, if it is important enough in the overall article. the WP:LEAD is just a summary of the article. the body comes first. Jytdog (talk) 04:31, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

There are several issues with the proposed addition.

• The original source was by its own admission an advocacy group for organic food producers.
• The meaning of the proposed addition is not clear. What exactly is meant by the 'the term "organic" has more meaning that 'natural'"? Are you referring to how it was grown, statutory definitions, or differences in health implications? If the latter you will need a WP:MEDRS compliant source.
• Third, as Jytdog points out, the lede is supposed to summarize the body of the article.

Formerly 98 (talk) 06:30, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog, you are well aware that there is a difference between "natural" and "organic" and there are laws in the U.S. about using the label "organic." Instead of pretending that you are unaware of the difference, just find a better source. TFD (talk) 07:03, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I think this is what Banner is attempting to discuss. Here is a (very brief) blurb from the FDA on what the term natural means (http://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/transparency/basics/ucm214868.htm) and here is what the USDA says about food products labeled as organic (http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid=organic-agriculture.html) as well as a brief commentary from a MEDLINE-indexed review (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4025038/). The United States' EPA also briefly discusses the meaning of organic here (http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/food/organics.htm). Here is a specific page from the USDA comparing/contrasting various terms of this nature (e.g., natural, organic, cage-free, free-range, humane, etc.) http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateC&navID=NationalOrganicProgram&leftNav=NationalOrganicProgram&page=NOPConsumers&description=Consumers&acct=nopgeninfo TylerDurden8823 (talk) 08:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Formerly 98, we are discussing food labels and the reliability of those labels. That has nothing to do with health claims and certainly not with the often misused WP:MEDRS. The Banner talk 11:37, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes this is not about health. This is about basic editing, namely WP:VERIFY, WP:OR, and WP:LEAD. If you want content in the article about the difference in labels, add sourced content to the body. If the resulting content rises to the importance that it should be in the lead, add a summary to the lead. Basic WP editing. Jytdog (talk) 13:13, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

For your info: Mr. Formerly 98 removed a sentence with three sources. Not with an explanation but with a warning that I can be blocked. The Banner talk 17:18, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

really, you think "organicisworthit.org" is a good source? come on. the nutrition.org and the tufts source seem pretty good. I think some content in the body like" "The food label "natural" does not mean the food is organic." Then it would be closely tied to the article. I will add that. and yes you were edit warring. hopefully this lays the matter to rest. Jytdog (talk) 18:00, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that was an error on my part, I did not read carefully as you had described your edit as a reversion. So I apologize for that. On the other hand, your accusations of a "whitewash" (of what exactly?) remain on this page in violation of Talk page guidelines. Please correct this. Also please note that my comment that the addition of new material requires consensus was a second valid argument against your edit. You were repeatedly adding material that had been removed by two other editors. Formerly 98 (talk) 18:32, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Why should I? You have already brought me to AN/I, so let us see how that ends up. The Banner talk 00:19, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Banner you have been asked several times to stop the personal attacks. I wasn't going to weigh in at ANI with difs, now I will do. Jytdog (talk) 00:21, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Food nutrient levels falling

Why does the article not mention that nutrient levels have dramatically declined in industrially grown foods in the last 50 years ?[2] Or is it there, and I have missed it? MLPainless (talk) 11:41, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

That is not a reliable source for scientific information WP, and I would take it with a grain of salt if I were you. It is news hyping a primary source, which may or may not be found useful by the scientific community. That is why we wait for review articles - why every policy and guideline about sourcing call us to use secondary sources, not primary sources. Jytdog (talk) 13:33, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

In addition to what Jytdog said, the main reasoning I've been seeing in the literature that could reasonably cause a decrease in certain nutrients (though folks aren't going so far to make the claims above) is just because they aren't being selected for during breeding. That would have nothing to do with conventional vs. organic at all since it relates to breeding, which is done with all crops. Kingofaces43 (talk) 14:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Here is a link to the abstract. Google scholar shows 184 cites of the article,[3] we can see if the view is generally accepted. Of course it relates to conventional v. organic farming, because the reason these breeds were chosen is that they are suited to intensive farming. TFD (talk) 19:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

TFD, I'm not seeing where you're relating that article to organic (are you?). I don't see see any mention of organic farming at least, but just differences in garden crops over time. That paper is at least making the standard argument I've seen pretty often that it's a combination of selecting for yield where the plant spreads the nutrients out more (lower density) and genetic variability. [4] They also state that organic growing methods are unlikely to reverse the trend. It's a primary study though with some caveats mentioned that make it a little iffy from the reliability standpoint for Wikipedia (standard confounding of location, variety, etc.), so I'll be curious to see what reviews citing it say. I'm not sure it'd really be a topic for here though. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:09, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Whether or not the study mentions organic food, it is cited in many secondary sources about organic food, and we can cite them. I am not prejudging what they say, but the decline in the nutritional value of food has helped spur the organic industry. TFD (talk) 20:25, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I have the 2004 article and would be happy to send it to anybody who wants to see it. Davis included a lot of caveats in it. He writes: "The apparent overall decreases for some nutrients are interesting and potentially of concern, but like Mayer and Johnson, we urge caution about their interpretation." and talks a lot about the limitations of the study.. and strange things in the data about apparent increases in nutrient levels in some foods. Granting that the there is something real going on, he speculates about possible reasons for it, providing two main hypotheses (a quote follows):

• "1) Downward pressure on the acquisition or synthesis of many nutrients, caused by decades of selecting cultivars for other resource-limited traits such as yield, growth rate and pest resistance. Selection for yield especially, may enhance the carbohydrate-water fraction in vegetables, without fully proportionate increases in other nutrients. Selection for yield probably has operated most intensely in the last half-century, but certainly not exclusively.
• 2. Unpredictable genetic variability among cultivars large enough to explain our observation of sometimes increased levels of nutrients."

• Continuing on his line of speculation in #1, and thinking about this article, it would be interesting to know what seeds are used in organic farming, especially for vegetables (the subject of the study). I don't know if organic growers use different cultivars than conventional farmers. I don't believe that is covered here or in organic farming.
• I'll end by quoting the passage from the article where Davis directly addresses "organic": "To the extent that our genetics-based hypothesis may contribute toward the apparent general declines found by us and Mayer [1], those declines are unlikely to be reversed by environmental approaches such as organic growing methods, as suggested by some [2,3,5]. Instead, we would need to consider older, lower-yielding cultivars, or attempt to develop new varieties selected for both high yield and high nutrient density."
• That is what this source actually has to say on "organic" matters. Jytdog (talk) 21:05, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I also want to note that I just checked and the article currently has very recent reviews on the nutrient/chemical composition of organic food. Can re-check them to see if they say anything about this matter. (we are talking about a 10 year old primary source). Jytdog (talk) 21:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

As far as I know organic growers do use different varieties. Quite often heirloom varieties that can cope better with adverse conditions without artificial fertilizers or other chemicals. And no hydroculture. The Banner talk 21:55, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Since it is a primary source, we would not normally use it, but could use secondary sources that cite it. I imagine the significance of the report is that nutrition levels have declined, rather than their ideas about what should be done. BTW any idea when Round-up ready "older, lower-yielding cultivars" are coming out? TFD (talk) 21:58, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

In fact, nature is already developing Round-up-restisting varieties. So in a couple of years chimical growers need so much chemicals, that organically grown vegetables simply get cheaper to produce. Or better, chemical production will become more expensive per unit produced than organic production per unit will cost. The Banner talk 22:04, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Banner, WP:NOTFORUM. That is not constructive contribution.Jytdog (talk) 22:11, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

LOL. Another thing you don't want to hear. I was, by the way, responding on the discussion above about cultivars, especially the sentence I don't know if organic growers use different cultivars than conventional farmers.. But, if it is not a place for discussion, why don't you tap TFD too? The Banner talk 22:37, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry, what content are you proposing or source are you discussing in your comment above? Jytdog (talk) 22:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The purpose of my edit was to explain and clarify something so you could learn from it. The Banner talk 02:38, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

• OMG, what a bunfight! This is not the collegiate atmosphere wikipedia promotes. It's more like warfare and lawyering. Turning to content again, it's well established that organic farming methods, although a little less productive than industrial farming, are more sustainable in the long term (retains organic matter and carbon in the soil, decreases erosion and runoff etc). While this would seem to be a topic for organic farming, it should also be mentioned in this article because ethical concerns about the sort of food one consumes is paramount to many people. The concepts of soil carbon sequestration and erosion are not on the page, AFAIK. Why not? MLPainless (talk) 02:51, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

In general I'm seeing mentions being made here of "facts" and things "well-established" about organic food, without sources being put on the table. I think everybody here should know by now that on Wikipedia that's just a waste of time. Are there good sources on this topic that Wikipedia isn't reflecting? if so, what are they? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 04:53, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

If you follow the link I supplied above to the organic farming article, you'll see the "facts" I stated substantiated. MLPainless (talk) 12:16, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

This article used to have a lot of content about organic farming that was not in sync with the content in the organic farming article. A year or two ago we went through and sorted the content, so that content related to farming was in that article, and content related to the actual food produced with organic farming is in this article. These sorts of problems crop up a lot and need this kind of meta-editing so that readers aren't served with contradictory information. The scope of this article is the food itself - what it is like, the market for it, etc. We could do something like copy the lead of organic farming here, per WP:SUMMARY, if folks really want information about that here.Jytdog (talk) 13:44, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Reasons for organic standard, customer reasoning -- POV

The existing text has an unusual, editorial, and fairly limited perspective on Organic Food. What is left out most definitely creates a POV problem. For example:

Public Perception Section-- there is information about false perceptions (some) people may have, but there is nothing concerning perceptions about wildlife and environmental impacts, farm worker health, antibiotic resistance, animal confinement, etc.

Health and Safety Section -- there is information about false perceptions concerning consumer safety, but there is nothing about the health and safety of workers in the field.

And so on. --- There certainly might be a balanced way to discuss the issue of organic/conventional, but as it stands, inadvertantly or not, this article clearly reads as a strong POV editorial beating down a limited set of false perceptions and failing to recognize more widely held issues and perceptions on organic food. Over all, I"m not sure why a more descriptive entry on organic food, might serve the community better. It would be pretty simple to state in a sentence or two that there are many reasons consumers may choose organic food, some (but not all) of which might be based on misconceptions. That controversy I think belongs elsewhere. Does every consumer product wikipedia entry get swamped with descriptions of consumer misconceptions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgran (talk • contribs) 08:13, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

An encyclopedia relays accepted knowledge, not "perceptions" (other than as they are treated in RS). If there are good sources not being used, please suggest them. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 08:21, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

The existing entry has a section titled "public perceptions" that I was referring to -- and there is plenty written in scientific journals on actual wildlife and environmental impacts, farm worker health, antibiotic resistance, animal confinement, etc. If you want to reference it all (with or without a description of consumer perceptions) you will have book. I'm with you though, the entry should be descriptive of the main topic, and leave out perceptions/misperceptions completely. It should certainly leave it out if it is incomplete and one-sided.Tgran (talk) 08:33, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

It should treat it in accord with its treatment in the best sources. If that's one-sided, Wikipedia will be too. That's neutrality. But again, this discussion isn't going to go anywhere without some sources on the table. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 08:43, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Tgran The article isn't locked or anything. Please feel free to improve it. Please note that content about the way the food is produced is discussed in organic farming - this article has been focused on the food itself and that article, on how it is produced, with each of their respective benefits, perceptions etc. So please don't duplicate or contradict what is there - instead please consider WP:SUMMARY. Please mind Wikipedia:Controversial_articles#Raise_source_quality and please make sure sources you bring discuss perception - discussions of perception too easily turn into WP:COATRACK for claims about reality, so please mind that too. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 14:53, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Information can be added about why people would choose organic food. Do you have any good sources about it? TFD (talk) 15:39, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

some of this is discussed in the article already- that is what the perception section focuses on. Jytdog (talk) 16:02, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I cannot find much. The only reasons given that anyone would purchase organic food addressed in the lead are health and taste. The taste claim is not adequately sourced as no page nos. are given. None of the other reasons are mentioned. The overall impression is that people who buy organic food do so because they irrationally believe it is safer and more nutritious. Nothing about environmental concerns, animal welfare or human welfare. TFD (talk) 02:33, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The initial writing of this section gives even more reason for the restoration of the NPOV tag.David Tornheim (talk) 08:14, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree that the tag should be restored. The sourcing in the article is solid, but the framing of the issue is skewed. One correctable aspect of the article is that some statements made in the article implicitly assume that the reader has a certain perspective, and that this perspective needs to be challenged. Readers will come to the article with all sorts of preconceptions, and it is npov to single out a specific set of preconceptions in this way, that is implicitly. For neutrality, I propose rewriting the implicit assumptions of perspective as clear responses to public perceptions. Statements about organic food's being no more healthy than conventional and no better tasting than conventional are a response to specific public perceptions, and as such should be placed in the public perception section. This is not the only issue, but indicative of a wider npov concern.Dialectric (talk) 12:44, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with your claims about the motivation of me or anybody else, and rather than focus on tag or not tag, how about proposing concrete changes? I am very open to discussing concrete changes. With regard to content about health, these are claims subject to MEDRS, and the article communicates what reliable sources state. It is simple. The Talk page discussion keeps getting driven by fans of organic who strongly believe that organic food is more healthy, but beliefs do not drive WP content - content is driven by sources. But like I said, very open to seeing content proposals, or (of course) NPOV< well sourced content edits. Jytdog (talk) 12:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC) (striking Jytdog (talk) 13:13, 20 March 2015 (UTC))

To whom are you replying? I see no statements regarding motivations of any editors. An article can have npov issues without ascribing those issues to specific editors.Dialectric (talk) 13:04, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't want this to turn into a distraction, so I will strike and will answer elsewhere if you like. I'd like this to focus on suggesting content to improve the article, rather than hypotheses about why the current content may be flawed. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 13:13, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

mention of non-gmo

Heirloom is non-gmo, and I believe organic is also non-gmo, unless organic's definition changed. Organic and heirloom would get the benefits that non-gmo has. There isn't mention of non-gmo in this or related articles, unless I missed it, which is an issue. Surprisingly, there isn't an article on non-gmo, . Perhaps I'll look into finding sources for such article. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 03:42, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

We only need an article on gmo. Vegetables, fruits, and grains that people buy and eat are never gmo. TFD (talk) 04:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for asking.

• In the "Legal definition" section, the article says " Foods claiming to be organic must be free of artificial food additives, and are often processed with fewer artificial methods, materials and conditions, such as chemical ripening, food irradiation, and genetically modified ingredients."
• In the "Organic meat production requirements", the article says "Irradiation, and genetic engineering are not allowed with organic animal production"Jytdog (talk) 13:03, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for that. I skimmed the legal definition section and kept missing it, until you pointed it out. Thank you.

Organic and heirloom get the qualities of non-genetically modification. Is there any other label that is also included in being non-gmo (aside from the non-gmo label)? It might be only those three. I'll use a template, instead of proposing a new article on non-gmo (at least for now). - Sidelight12 ^Talk 18:26, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

i am sorry but I don't know what you are talking about with regard to "qualities of non-genetically modification" nor the rest of it. If you are talking about food labelling, that varies from country to country. Some countries require food with over X% GM ingredients to be labelled as " and others don't. Some countries allow "GMO free" or the like, and some don't. (see Regulation of the release of genetically modified organisms for the main article on this). Outside of most organic certification systems excluding GM ingredients, the only other non-GMO label project I am aware of, is the The Non-GMO Project. Jytdog (talk) 18:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Never heard of hybrids and crossing? The Banner talk 10:39, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

i don't know what you are commenting on, Banner. if you are commenting on what i wrote. the OP's point was unclear to me and i was trying to sort it out. food made from traditionally bred plants (which include hybrids) have no special label indicating that. Jytdog (talk) 17:52, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Just a small comment since I'm not sure where the question was meant to go either, but all crops still undergo traditional breeding methods such as crossing even if they have undergone some transgenic process at some point. I'm not seeing where any distinction would be made with that in this conversation. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:11, 4 April 2015 (UTC)