The Greens oppose the CPRS not because it is too weak, but because it will point Australia in the wrong direction with little prospect of turning it around in the timeframe within which emissions must peak, says Senator Christine Milne.
The national poker machine party, organic food no healthier
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The national poker machine party. There’s a rough justice really whenever the Anti Pokies Party Senator Nick Xenophon is responsible for thwarting the plans of the Rudd Labor Government for the Labor Party in Canberra is one of the nation’s big beneficiaries from poker machine revenue. Up until now the cash generated from the machines has gone into the coffers of the local Australian Capital Territory Branch but the prospect of a multi tens of million dollar jackpot has seen the Federal Labor authorities start muscling in. The windfall pokies payout will come from taking advantage of a provision in the constitution of clubs trading as a company under a Canberra Labor Clubs banner that makes the Labor Party, rather than the individual club members who put their hard earned through the machines, the beneficiary of any profits that result from a sale. Last year directors of these Labor Clubs determined that the best interest of the company (effectively the local Labor Party branch) would be served by finding a buyer and the Party pocketing the lump sum. Given the political difficulties for the ACT Labor Party of being the Government determining such matters as who can have poker machines and under what terms while being the Territory’s biggest poker machine operator there was an element of good sense in that decision. The election of Senator Xenophon to represent South Australia had just made it more so. The Labor Club directors — a majority appointed by the ACT Labor Party Branch — went through the process of getting legal and financial advice and ended up negotiating seriously with the local territory division of the CFMEU trade union which too is a big clubs operator under the Canberra Tradies name. With the deal on the verge of being done something prompted the officers of the Federal Labor Party branch to stick their bib in. An interest in getting its own hands on the $25 million was clearly apparent but some of my informants say there was a great deal of resentment from the right wing members of the Federal Executive that the left leaning CFMEU would emerge as a winner from the deal as well. Threats of federal intervention were made with real vigour when a figure was noted in some of the legal advice that the value of the clubs being sold was nearly $45 million rather than $25 million. Now finding a market price for licensed clubs is no easy matter because the purchaser has to have some semblance of being a not-for-profit organisation. A shortage of potential buyers makes the market a relatively thin one as the Labor Clubs found. An added complication comes from the directors also having to deal with the interests of club members - as distinct from, and as well as, the beneficiaries of a sale. The unsuccessful tender of the right wing National Union of Workers for around the same figure as offered by the CFMEU fell at that hurdle as the cash component was only some $10 million with the rest of the $20 million to be paid from future profits. The whole sale process has now turned quite ugly with Federal Labor strong arming local ACT Labor into putting things on hold but the directors of the Canberra Labor Clubs refusing to do so. The directors have in their mind that the Australian Securities and Investment Commission expects them to act in the company’s best interests, even if this may not be in your own interests, and even though you may have set up the company just for personal or taxation reasons.” The ACT branch’s administrative committee, with the support apparently of the Federal body, has now ordered the directors the Party has on the Club Board to change their mind when they meet again next week. If they refuse to do so they are threatened with the sack although that would involve ASIC in having to make some very interesting decisions about the obligations of directors and attempts by third parties to prevent those directors from acting in the best interest of their company. I am sure that the lawyers are ready and waiting to see how much of the $25 or $50 or however many millions they can carve off before anyone else gets a dollar. And surely Senator Nick will soon decide that this is just the kind of Labor skulduggery that should see the light of an investigation by a Senate Committee. An organic food con brings on MacDonalds. I’m feeling a bit cheated this morning. I have got into the habit of buying organically grown vegetables despite the considerable extra cost over the standard alternative. I had somehow convinced myself that the price was worth paying before of the extra good they would do my ageing body. And what do i find when I do my morning survey of the world’s press. This headline all over the London Daily Telegraph: “Organic food has no added nutritional benefit, says Food Standards Agency - Expensive organic food is no better for you than conventionally-grown farm produce, according to the Government’s food watchdog.” In shock and horror I quickly moved to the quoted academic journal from the story derived in the hope that there was some cruel misinterpretation of the real findings. Alas there was no joy in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The authors of “Nutritional quality of organic foods: a systematic review” — Alan D Dangour, Sakhi K Dodhia, Arabella Hayter, Elizabeth Allen, Karen Lock and Ricardo Uauy — had been quoted correctly. I bring you the evidence that has left me so depressed I am going out to buy MacDonalds:
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15 Comments
Re: An organic food con brings on MacDonalds
Isn’t the key benefit of organic foods that they ‘don’t contain’ nasties, eg pesticides, and antibiotics, rather than that they are more nutritious? I suspect the study’s authors were looking for the wrong benefits.
Also look at the farming and animal husbandry methods used by organic farmers. These are generally much better for the environment than conventional farming.
Yes Matthew Read, I was wondering why the researchers were looking for values of nitrogen and phosphorus, rather than residuals of organochloride pesticides, heavy metals, and bioaccumulation of polychlorinatedbiphenyls.
I am also concerned by the seemingly flexible use of ‘nutrient quality’ and ‘nutrient content’, how are those two terms defined and how are they interrelated because they are definately not the same thing?
The final sentence is telling “The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods.” - which is precisely why organic accreditation schemes seek to invoke and promote production methods that aren’t wholly related to massive inputs of pesticides, herbicides and other artificial supplements (GM) to various agricultural practices.
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2009.28041v1 link to research paper.
Why do we need the label organic?Couldn’t the foods just be labelled “ge inside” I’ve read that the companies say this costs too much to re label but couldn’t the law be if you change the design of your label and it contains ge then you must include this on the new label
Nutrition aside, often organic produce is just of a higher quality in terms of appearance and taste. It’s the reason I buy free-range/barn laid eggs rather than cage eggs - they’re a superior product.
The sustainability benefits are also difficult to overlook. I’d be interested in research comparing the ecological effects and environmental practices of conventional farming compared to organic.
And yet, having said all that, there are a pretty large number of questionable assertions out there about the safety or health benefits of various types of food. It’s hard to know what comes from truthiness and what comes from actual evidence.
More research thatt consists of nothing but collating existing articles.
A quote from Asimov’s Foundation to explain my feelings
Hardin remained silent for a short while. Then he said, ‘When did Lameth write his book?’
‘Oh- I should say about eight hundwed yeahs ago. Of cohse, he has based it lahgely on the pwevious wuhk of Gleen.’
‘Then why rely on him? Why not go to Arcturus and study the remains for yourself?’
Lord Dorwin raised his eyebrows and took a pinch of snuff hurriedly. ‘Why, whatevah foah, my deah fellow?’
‘To get the information firsthand, of course.’
‘But wheahs the necessity? It seems an uncommonly woundabout and jopelessly wigmawolish method of getting anywheahs. Look heah now, I’ve dot the wuhks of the mastahs- the gweat ahchaeologists of the past. I wigh them against each othah- balance of the disagweements- analyze the conflicting statements- decide which is pwobably cowwect- and come to a conclusion. That is the scientific method. At least’- patronizingly- ‘as I see it. How insuffewably cwude it would be to go to Ahctuwus, oah to Sol, foah instance, and blundah about, when the old mastahs have covahed the gwound so much moah effectually than we could possibly hope to.’
Organic farming was never about “super nutrition”. Seems like they have missed the point. Now it’s being brayed about on the radio, that “eating organic doesn’t make you healthier”. Seems like the media is going to miss the point too.
Cameron, I buy free range eggs because I like to fantasise about happy chickens. When I have watched the free range hen, I see a contented and absorbed bird scratching about in the dirt as per what comes natural to her. A caged bird never seems to have that contented or absorbed attitude.
I think it is like eating food cooked by someone who doesn’t care. I would rather eat food made by someone who was paying attention to what they were doing and taking the time to consider the flavour of the meal they are about to serve. Not, say, idly mixing up a few random ingredients while staring longingly out the window, thinking about something else.
Robbie- and fair enough too! I guess I was just putting a purely pragmatic point of view. I’m no particular fan of animals suffering unnecessarily. Having said that, I wouldn’t go so far as to say the previous happiness of my food worries me very much. To relate to your analogy, I’d like someone to care about the food I was cooking because it’s likely to make the food better. I’d also rather they weren’t having a miserable time in the kitchen.
These comments are making me feel better. If only I hadn’t succumbed to that Maccas!
Awww Richard … just consider an occasional macca outburst as boosting your immune system. I’ve had the occasional outburst at you too, but still keep reading your Chunks. You can support organic farming, and I can support ageing journos, and we can all enjoy a free range egg. Hold your head up high today, someone thinks you’re noble.
Maccas - that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!
I hate to write impolite or snide blogs, but really, Australians are getting as dumb as Americans; and a certain type of green-yuppie Brits are even worse. Doesn’t everyone do some basic science and biology in high school anymore? I couldn’t begin to guess why anyone with a brain/education would imagine organic food should have more nutrition. And actually the only food that still looks like the usual stuff but which will have seriously more nutrition will be GM! Such as golden rice that has Vitamin-D (or its carotenoid precursors that give carrots their colour and a slight golden-yellow to the rice grains) engineered in and could alleviate blindness in tens of millions of desperately impoverished people around the world.
The use of the term organic is mostly a con. How can the consumer possibly be sure of its real provenance? The price differential combined with the gullibility of some of the public mean a huge pressure on some suppliers to fudge it — those little labels cost nothing.
Instead of being so distracted by the organic thing we should be aiming to improve agricultural and animal husbandry in general, with real enforceable laws and labels that mean something.
Fair points, Michael James, and for the record, I didn’t find you all that rude.
I think the ACCC has made some recent noises about checking the provenance of free range eggs? Apparently, there are more being sold in supermarkets than we have free range hens to lay them, so someone is not telling the truth. I do hate being lied to about this, because it interferes with my idle fantasies.
As for the study, it was funded by something called the UK Food Standards Council. Perhaps they are less inclined to check the standards of accumulated poisons, as they are not technically considered “food”? That’s a wild guess, not anything insightful. Like you, I cannot fathom why these clever scientists went ahead with such meaningless research.
More seriously, the UK also have a government agency devoted to ensuring the “organic” in organic produce really is as described. Some friends over there told of how they had to let their old conventional farm lie fallow for five years before they were permitted to start farming organically. That permit was only issued after their soils had been exhaustively tested for any yucky residues. They then had to be inspected every quarter to make sure they hadn’t slopped into any short cuts. I felt I could trust the UK’s labelling as a consequence, but do not know how it is done here.
It is interesting that the AJCN article chose only to look at ‘conventional’ nutrients (zinc, phosphorous and whatnot). The news that these nutrients are not affected by organic v non-organic farming methods is not new. What the article failed to look at, however, is the health promoting and often chemoprotective phytochemical compounds of these foods, which have demonstrated increases in organic foods. this is hardly surprising when you consider that these same compounds often form part of the plants own protective measures against pests - their ‘immune system’ if you will. And although the levels of fat in many of these products does not change, the fatty acid profile (good fat to bad fat ratio) often does. These may be related to farming practises rather than organic status (a free ranging, exercising chicken is undoubtedly producing healthier muscle for meat or eggs than a sedentary one - would you rather eat an athlete or a couch potato?) but are we arguing over semantics?
Anyway, surely the nutrient levels are not why people choose buy organic food. Most organic farming bodies encourage sustainable farming techniques, contain less possibly harmful (and extensively understudied) chemical residues and provide a better a deal for small farmers. Regulation and cost of the ‘label’ and ‘branding’ of organic foods may be problematic but even if these foods are only equally as nutritious shouldn’t these other benefits mean they ought to be encouraged anyway?
Sure Michael James, lets begin with compulsory labelling of everything that uses genetically modified ingredients in manufacture. Then we move to organic labelling and ethical farming and agriculture practices.