15 ms·

Expert reaction to organic food nutrition study

65 points by alexfarran 12y ago

falcolas 12y ago
> The paper also reports a decrease in protein, nitrates and fibre in the organically grown crops, which may be undesirable, and which are maybe unsurprisingly not referred to by the authors in their advocacy of organically grown produce. Hmm. I think this is important, and something I certainly overlooked in the initial hype.
- PeterGriffin2 12y ago
  If there's a decrease in both protein and fibre, what is there an increase of to compensate for it? There has to be "more" of something per unit of mass.
  - dangrossman 12y ago
    Carbohydrates and dry matter, among other things. The full paper is currently linked on the front page of HN and has a table.
  - Istof 12y ago
    I don't know but "conventionally mass-produced" produces tend to be bigger and tasteless... that might have something to do with growers selecting them for the "wrong" trait (gene) [0]. Tomatoes being the best example; they are much better when bought at my local farmer's market (as opposed to buying them at Walmart). 0: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112648268/scientists-find-gene-behind-ripe-tasteless-tomatoes/ http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112648268/scientists-f...
    - crazytony 12y ago
      Tomatoes are a terrible example. Ripe tomatoes damage very easily so tomatoes going to grocers are picked green and then reddened by exposing them to ethylene gas. This minimally affects flavor but causes the tomato to appear "ripe". If buying from farmers (not distributors) at your farmers market then those tomatoes were most likely ripened in the field then picked rather than gassed which is why they taste much better.
      - jqm 12y ago
        I worked on a commercial tomato farm before. You are both right. What you get in grocery stores is a green tomato that has been gassed so the flavor isn't the same as truly ripe tomato. Also, the varieties planted that are good for mass productions, packing and shipping aren't necessarily the best tasting varieties.
  - tgb 12y ago
    Water would be my first guess.
kevingoslar 12y ago
Unfortunately, all the responses are pretty negative and feel selective. The responding authors always criticize details, sometimes even around implied intent rather than factual content, while carefully omitting core parts of the original paper's findings. For example, nobody even cares to agree that organic food has significantly lower pesticide residues, which I think is a pretty agreeable positive effect of organic produce, and one of the cornerstones of the argument for organic foods. This affects not only the health of consumers (around which there can be an absolutely healthy debate despite the fact that less poison is probably almost always better here), but also impacts the environmental footprint of farming. There are also loads of straw-man arguments, which further undermines the trust in the credibility of the responders. The OP never denied that eating more fruits and vegetables - organic or not - is better than eating none at all. All that the paper did was publishing findings about the differences between organic and non-organic produce. I don't think antioxidants or phenolic compounds were framed as essential nutrients, and besides that non-essential nutrients do have effects on the consumer's wellbeing and health as well. A truly unbiased response would feel more balanced. It would welcome certain findings, rounding out the picture with additional facts that might change certain conclusions drawn from the data, and add contradicting data found on a similar scale of research to the conversation. Such a straight and drastic dismissals of the paper in its entirety, however, based on carefully selected details, feels motivated by external factors beyond science or neutral dialog.
- drakaal 12y ago
  The health benefits of Organics are often less about the process and more about the seeds. Heirloom tomatoes as an example tend to be smaller, and squishier, and more flavorful. The smaller means you can't produce as many per acre. The squishier means you lose more in shipping. The Tastier often accompanies more nutritious. The Pesticide issue is two fold. (same with herbicides) You could dust your plants with arsenic and call them Organic. That would work well, (and is used in certain organic farms often for strawberries) but the residue would be more harmful even in lower amounts than say a Coal-Tar Pesticide (basically an artificial flavor sprayed on to mimic the smell of a predator, or the flavor of something an insect doesn't like) Organic != Safe Traditional != Dangerous My biggest concern is that we cannot produce enough food via organic farming to feed everyone. If we move too much of the market to Organics, we may end up like the places where 40% of their income goes to food, instead of 4% that we currently enjoy in the US. My secondary concern is that too many people think "all-natural" or "organic" means safe. NightShade is an all natural herb. Doesn't mean I should brew tea of it and have it at bed time.
ricardobeat 12y ago
In their statements they all ignore the question of environmental impact, pesticides, worker health, etc, which are the strongest reason to buy organic (and not because the food has magical properties).
- yabatopia 12y ago
  Exactly, for us the main reason to buy organic is we don't like the concentrated industrialized production of regular food. We care about sustainability, environmental impact, working conditions, treatment of animals, etc. A carrot is a carrot, it's the story behind the carrot that matters.
  - specialist 12y ago
    Yup. Also, I vote with my dollars, preferring local, small business, cash transactions.
bellerocky 12y ago
I don't think anyone in my family eats organic foods. Many of the older generation have lived into their 90's and 80's. My grandparents are in their 80's now. Would their parents have lived into their 100's had they eaten organic food? They weren't sickly miserable people all their lives. I just don't get the ultra-health kick. My take is to stop worrying about your food so much and eat whatever satisfies your hunger, just not too much. Micromanaging our diets is this generation's yogurt enema.
- pyre 12y ago
  The way that food is produced now differs significantly than the way it was produced even 50 years ago. To use the lives of your relatives that lived into their 80's and 90's as 'proof' that no one needs organic food is disingenuous, regardless of the existence (or lack) of health benefits to eating organic food. As an example, did your 90-year-old relatives eat Monstano-engineered "Round Up-Ready" corn for a majority of their lives? If not, then how can you claim that their lives have any bearing on the current situation?
  - bellerocky 12y ago
    50 years ago they were spraying crops with DTD and other terrible pesticides. If you don't remember, soldiers in the Spanish American war suffered more casualties from the terrible food they were given than from combat[1]. The industrial revolution started more than 90 years ago and industrialized agriculture is not a new phenomenon. I was thinking about this post this morning and wondering if the ultra-longevity origanic food types would cut off their testiciles if it was shown that you could squeeze out a few extra years of life if you did it early enough. This micro-managing of food eaten is obsessive, although I think half the people writing comments are actually conspiracy crazed about Monsanto and other big companies who must be out to get them (which is not to say that big companies are not screwing over people or small farms, they probably are). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_beef_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_beef_scandal
coldtea 12y ago
Of course a lot of the "experts" are on the payroll of big food corporations. It's difficult to have independent science in this day and age on matters where billions are at stake. There is of course bias on the other side as well (e.g ideological), but nothing trumps actual, solid, business interests as a bias.
- pg890432 12y ago
  And the experts are also on non profit and large research universities, including the university that published the study (University of Newcastle). What's your point?
  - coldtea 12y ago
    I made my point already. A lot of the experts are on the payroll of the food industry. They work directly on it, or their research is funded by it. The same way there was tons of tobacco industry sponsored studies in the seventies, that said it was all OK. The same way studies on sugar were downplayed. A university (research funds aside) doesn't have the kind of multi-billion interests a whole industry have. Their researchers have other shit that can interfere with their research (e.g the need to churn out papers to stay afloat, or the desire to write a controversial paper to make their names known), but nothing that trumps hard multibillion monetary interests.
mixologic 12y ago
I would think we would be better at spotting sock puppets. "Expert reaction?" More like paid schill: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/about-us/funding/ http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/about-us/funding/ Syngenta? Croplife? BASF?
- pg890432 12y ago
  Well, that list also includes the University of Newcastle (the same university that published the aforementioned study). In addition to the University of Newcastle as a funder, there are also these: University College London, University of Bristol, University of Cambridge, University of East Anglia, University of Oxford And these - Institute of Mental Health, Institute of Physics (IOP), Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), Institution of Civil Engineers, Institution of Engineering and Technology (The IET), Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) And many more like - National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), National Institute for Health Research, National Nuclear Laboratory, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Nature Are they all shills too?
- jqm 12y ago
  I can just about guarantee you those companies couldn't care less about a few 10 thousands of people eating a little organic food. It's not a threat to them and they simply don't care enough to put out sock puppets. This lack of caring actually gives the new hippie-science disregarding (or whatever you want to call it) authors like Micheal Pollan more air time because nobody calls them on it when they get out of bounds of good science. Nobody writes sensational books about the over-hype and under evidence of the benefits of organic farming nor the dangers of un-regulated and un-inspected food production. The amount of anti-science junk regarding food production I see posted on HN is stunning given that this is supposed to be a group of intelligent rational people.
  - pyre 12y ago
    All you've basically done is attempted to marginalize a group of people ("couldn't care less about a few 10 thousands of people"), while calling them out for being 'wrong.' In addition, you've attempted to call out HN as being the negation of a "group of intelligent rational people" because they don't share your views. On top of that, you've in no way told us why all of these people are wrong, other than "the people that know the real truth have better things to do than explain it to you."
elouisyoung 12y ago
this article is fucking trash
pistle 12y ago
Quick, somebody put together the app that does some Bayesian work to score people and their quotes, research, funding, etc. to show on a scale where their tendencies would be expected to be for a given next statement. Let's get META!!! on meta-analyses. What's interesting is the turf battles going on over what I would say are details vs the "news you can use." Industrial agra => :P tasting + less desirable enviro impact. Alt agra => less offputting, better enviro impact, but big hand waving around potential to be capable of scale and affordable for current and future population. I get a sense there's this looming dread of having to deal with someone saying, "We can't survive (or will have a bad time) as a species if we sit back and slurp big agra, but we can't realistically keep everyone around/afford it if we try to help everyone eat 'correctly/safely'." If the organic path is the moral path, is it OK to allow food costs to increase substantially? Is it OK to disallow the big agra calories and nutrients which likely enable subsistence for those unable to fight over spots for their Teslas and Priuses at Whole Foods?
- politician 12y ago
  "Deer: Predation or Starvation" [1], is an exercise many may remember from high school biology class. In the exercise, the implicit goal is for students to recognize that the deer population shrinkage was a good and natural outcome leading to balance and that balance is good. There are various problems with the exercise though; for example, we only see a few years of "balance" with the implication that it continues forever. Replace wolves with food costs, and deer with humans. We would expect the Industrial Agra crowd to be "pro deer", and the Alternate Agra crowd to be "pro balance" while Industrial Agra itself is "pro wolf". I find it interesting that if you're interested in rising human populations, then you're coupled to rising food prices no matter what. In other words, consumption of organics is non-linearly related to rising food prices and orthogonal to morality. [1] http://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/predator_prey_graphing.html http://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/predator_prey_graphi...
  - pistle 12y ago
    Big agra has been able to shrink the cost per calorie at a rate which has kept food costs in check, so I'm not sure I can allow the assumption of increased costs being a given. We can talk portion of costs, relative costs, or per capita... there could be advances that enable a new green revolution... if you would just pray at the altar of big agra and wear your nitrate and phosphate filters according to the directions. :)
aaron695 12y ago
Organic is a toxic anti-science religion. Do we really need an article explaining how organic is not better for you? Do people on HN really think that could be true? I'd like to think not. If you go to an organic farmer and explain that this method using chemicals has been prove better and harmless through science they won't do it because they are fundamentalists. I'm amazed by the tolerance of the organic religion by the scientific community.
- Retric 12y ago
  Pesticides have not been proven harmless, just acceptably harmful. Much like how lead is bad for you but some lead in drinking water is accepted. There is a similar issue with GMO food. Everything out there might be safe, but there is little research done before new strains enter mass production so some caution is reasonable even without demonstrated harm. PS: IMO, anything still considered safe after 30 years is probably ok but organic / non GMO is a reasonable catch all for that kind of a track record.
  - jqm 12y ago
    Some pesticides are pretty harmful some are really not. There are many unrelated types of compounds we are talking about here... from severe (and generally now banned) biocides like Methyl Bromide gas all the way to a light camomile tea solution. It's like your dad saying "drugs are bad!" then proceeding to drink a six pack. Dose and type mean everything. Not all pesticides are dangerous to man nor the general environment.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - specialist 12y ago
      Some pesticides are pretty harmful some are really not. The burden of proof is on the advocates of pesticides. I'm utterly exhausted by the endless hair splitting and PR campaigns. As a consumer citizen, I do not have the resources or wherewithal to determine which pesticides might be acceptible. When negative information is routinely buried, such as the brouhaha over honey bee colony collapse disorder, I've completely lost my patience and confidence in agribiz and its captured regulators. They can all rot.

65 points by alexfarran 12y ago

> The paper also reports a decrease in protein, nitrates and fibre in the organically grown crops, which may be undesirable, and which are maybe unsurprisingly not referred to by the authors in their advocacy of organically grown produce. Hmm. I think this is important, and something I certainly overlooked in the initial hype.

PeterGriffin2 12y ago
If there's a decrease in both protein and fibre, what is there an increase of to compensate for it? There has to be "more" of something per unit of mass.
- dangrossman 12y ago
  Carbohydrates and dry matter, among other things. The full paper is currently linked on the front page of HN and has a table.
- Istof 12y ago
  I don't know but "conventionally mass-produced" produces tend to be bigger and tasteless... that might have something to do with growers selecting them for the "wrong" trait (gene) [0]. Tomatoes being the best example; they are much better when bought at my local farmer's market (as opposed to buying them at Walmart). 0: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112648268/scientists-find-gene-behind-ripe-tasteless-tomatoes/ http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112648268/scientists-f...
  - crazytony 12y ago
    Tomatoes are a terrible example. Ripe tomatoes damage very easily so tomatoes going to grocers are picked green and then reddened by exposing them to ethylene gas. This minimally affects flavor but causes the tomato to appear "ripe". If buying from farmers (not distributors) at your farmers market then those tomatoes were most likely ripened in the field then picked rather than gassed which is why they taste much better.
    - jqm 12y ago
      I worked on a commercial tomato farm before. You are both right. What you get in grocery stores is a green tomato that has been gassed so the flavor isn't the same as truly ripe tomato. Also, the varieties planted that are good for mass productions, packing and shipping aren't necessarily the best tasting varieties.
- tgb 12y ago
  Water would be my first guess.

kevingoslar 12y ago

Unfortunately, all the responses are pretty negative and feel selective. The responding authors always criticize details, sometimes even around implied intent rather than factual content, while carefully omitting core parts of the original paper's findings. For example, nobody even cares to agree that organic food has significantly lower pesticide residues, which I think is a pretty agreeable positive effect of organic produce, and one of the cornerstones of the argument for organic foods. This affects not only the health of consumers (around which there can be an absolutely healthy debate despite the fact that less poison is probably almost always better here), but also impacts the environmental footprint of farming. There are also loads of straw-man arguments, which further undermines the trust in the credibility of the responders. The OP never denied that eating more fruits and vegetables - organic or not - is better than eating none at all. All that the paper did was publishing findings about the differences between organic and non-organic produce. I don't think antioxidants or phenolic compounds were framed as essential nutrients, and besides that non-essential nutrients do have effects on the consumer's wellbeing and health as well. A truly unbiased response would feel more balanced. It would welcome certain findings, rounding out the picture with additional facts that might change certain conclusions drawn from the data, and add contradicting data found on a similar scale of research to the conversation. Such a straight and drastic dismissals of the paper in its entirety, however, based on carefully selected details, feels motivated by external factors beyond science or neutral dialog.

drakaal 12y ago
The health benefits of Organics are often less about the process and more about the seeds. Heirloom tomatoes as an example tend to be smaller, and squishier, and more flavorful. The smaller means you can't produce as many per acre. The squishier means you lose more in shipping. The Tastier often accompanies more nutritious. The Pesticide issue is two fold. (same with herbicides) You could dust your plants with arsenic and call them Organic. That would work well, (and is used in certain organic farms often for strawberries) but the residue would be more harmful even in lower amounts than say a Coal-Tar Pesticide (basically an artificial flavor sprayed on to mimic the smell of a predator, or the flavor of something an insect doesn't like) Organic != Safe Traditional != Dangerous My biggest concern is that we cannot produce enough food via organic farming to feed everyone. If we move too much of the market to Organics, we may end up like the places where 40% of their income goes to food, instead of 4% that we currently enjoy in the US. My secondary concern is that too many people think "all-natural" or "organic" means safe. NightShade is an all natural herb. Doesn't mean I should brew tea of it and have it at bed time.

ricardobeat 12y ago

In their statements they all ignore the question of environmental impact, pesticides, worker health, etc, which are the strongest reason to buy organic (and not because the food has magical properties).

yabatopia 12y ago
Exactly, for us the main reason to buy organic is we don't like the concentrated industrialized production of regular food. We care about sustainability, environmental impact, working conditions, treatment of animals, etc. A carrot is a carrot, it's the story behind the carrot that matters.
- specialist 12y ago
  Yup. Also, I vote with my dollars, preferring local, small business, cash transactions.

bellerocky 12y ago

I don't think anyone in my family eats organic foods. Many of the older generation have lived into their 90's and 80's. My grandparents are in their 80's now. Would their parents have lived into their 100's had they eaten organic food? They weren't sickly miserable people all their lives. I just don't get the ultra-health kick. My take is to stop worrying about your food so much and eat whatever satisfies your hunger, just not too much. Micromanaging our diets is this generation's yogurt enema.

pyre 12y ago
The way that food is produced now differs significantly than the way it was produced even 50 years ago. To use the lives of your relatives that lived into their 80's and 90's as 'proof' that no one needs organic food is disingenuous, regardless of the existence (or lack) of health benefits to eating organic food. As an example, did your 90-year-old relatives eat Monstano-engineered "Round Up-Ready" corn for a majority of their lives? If not, then how can you claim that their lives have any bearing on the current situation?
- bellerocky 12y ago
  50 years ago they were spraying crops with DTD and other terrible pesticides. If you don't remember, soldiers in the Spanish American war suffered more casualties from the terrible food they were given than from combat[1]. The industrial revolution started more than 90 years ago and industrialized agriculture is not a new phenomenon. I was thinking about this post this morning and wondering if the ultra-longevity origanic food types would cut off their testiciles if it was shown that you could squeeze out a few extra years of life if you did it early enough. This micro-managing of food eaten is obsessive, although I think half the people writing comments are actually conspiracy crazed about Monsanto and other big companies who must be out to get them (which is not to say that big companies are not screwing over people or small farms, they probably are). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_beef_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_beef_scandal

coldtea 12y ago

Of course a lot of the "experts" are on the payroll of big food corporations. It's difficult to have independent science in this day and age on matters where billions are at stake. There is of course bias on the other side as well (e.g ideological), but nothing trumps actual, solid, business interests as a bias.

pg890432 12y ago
And the experts are also on non profit and large research universities, including the university that published the study (University of Newcastle). What's your point?
- coldtea 12y ago
  I made my point already. A lot of the experts are on the payroll of the food industry. They work directly on it, or their research is funded by it. The same way there was tons of tobacco industry sponsored studies in the seventies, that said it was all OK. The same way studies on sugar were downplayed. A university (research funds aside) doesn't have the kind of multi-billion interests a whole industry have. Their researchers have other shit that can interfere with their research (e.g the need to churn out papers to stay afloat, or the desire to write a controversial paper to make their names known), but nothing that trumps hard multibillion monetary interests.

mixologic 12y ago

I would think we would be better at spotting sock puppets. "Expert reaction?" More like paid schill: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/about-us/funding/ http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/about-us/funding/ Syngenta? Croplife? BASF?

pg890432 12y ago
Well, that list also includes the University of Newcastle (the same university that published the aforementioned study). In addition to the University of Newcastle as a funder, there are also these: University College London, University of Bristol, University of Cambridge, University of East Anglia, University of Oxford And these - Institute of Mental Health, Institute of Physics (IOP), Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), Institution of Civil Engineers, Institution of Engineering and Technology (The IET), Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) And many more like - National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), National Institute for Health Research, National Nuclear Laboratory, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Nature Are they all shills too?
jqm 12y ago
I can just about guarantee you those companies couldn't care less about a few 10 thousands of people eating a little organic food. It's not a threat to them and they simply don't care enough to put out sock puppets. This lack of caring actually gives the new hippie-science disregarding (or whatever you want to call it) authors like Micheal Pollan more air time because nobody calls them on it when they get out of bounds of good science. Nobody writes sensational books about the over-hype and under evidence of the benefits of organic farming nor the dangers of un-regulated and un-inspected food production. The amount of anti-science junk regarding food production I see posted on HN is stunning given that this is supposed to be a group of intelligent rational people.
- pyre 12y ago
  All you've basically done is attempted to marginalize a group of people ("couldn't care less about a few 10 thousands of people"), while calling them out for being 'wrong.' In addition, you've attempted to call out HN as being the negation of a "group of intelligent rational people" because they don't share your views. On top of that, you've in no way told us why all of these people are wrong, other than "the people that know the real truth have better things to do than explain it to you."

elouisyoung 12y ago

this article is fucking trash

pistle 12y ago

Quick, somebody put together the app that does some Bayesian work to score people and their quotes, research, funding, etc. to show on a scale where their tendencies would be expected to be for a given next statement. Let's get META!!! on meta-analyses. What's interesting is the turf battles going on over what I would say are details vs the "news you can use." Industrial agra => :P tasting + less desirable enviro impact. Alt agra => less offputting, better enviro impact, but big hand waving around potential to be capable of scale and affordable for current and future population. I get a sense there's this looming dread of having to deal with someone saying, "We can't survive (or will have a bad time) as a species if we sit back and slurp big agra, but we can't realistically keep everyone around/afford it if we try to help everyone eat 'correctly/safely'." If the organic path is the moral path, is it OK to allow food costs to increase substantially? Is it OK to disallow the big agra calories and nutrients which likely enable subsistence for those unable to fight over spots for their Teslas and Priuses at Whole Foods?

politician 12y ago
"Deer: Predation or Starvation" [1], is an exercise many may remember from high school biology class. In the exercise, the implicit goal is for students to recognize that the deer population shrinkage was a good and natural outcome leading to balance and that balance is good. There are various problems with the exercise though; for example, we only see a few years of "balance" with the implication that it continues forever. Replace wolves with food costs, and deer with humans. We would expect the Industrial Agra crowd to be "pro deer", and the Alternate Agra crowd to be "pro balance" while Industrial Agra itself is "pro wolf". I find it interesting that if you're interested in rising human populations, then you're coupled to rising food prices no matter what. In other words, consumption of organics is non-linearly related to rising food prices and orthogonal to morality. [1] http://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/predator_prey_graphing.html http://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/predator_prey_graphi...
- pistle 12y ago
  Big agra has been able to shrink the cost per calorie at a rate which has kept food costs in check, so I'm not sure I can allow the assumption of increased costs being a given. We can talk portion of costs, relative costs, or per capita... there could be advances that enable a new green revolution... if you would just pray at the altar of big agra and wear your nitrate and phosphate filters according to the directions. :)

aaron695 12y ago

Organic is a toxic anti-science religion. Do we really need an article explaining how organic is not better for you? Do people on HN really think that could be true? I'd like to think not. If you go to an organic farmer and explain that this method using chemicals has been prove better and harmless through science they won't do it because they are fundamentalists. I'm amazed by the tolerance of the organic religion by the scientific community.

Retric 12y ago
Pesticides have not been proven harmless, just acceptably harmful. Much like how lead is bad for you but some lead in drinking water is accepted. There is a similar issue with GMO food. Everything out there might be safe, but there is little research done before new strains enter mass production so some caution is reasonable even without demonstrated harm. PS: IMO, anything still considered safe after 30 years is probably ok but organic / non GMO is a reasonable catch all for that kind of a track record.
- jqm 12y ago
  Some pesticides are pretty harmful some are really not. There are many unrelated types of compounds we are talking about here... from severe (and generally now banned) biocides like Methyl Bromide gas all the way to a light camomile tea solution. It's like your dad saying "drugs are bad!" then proceeding to drink a six pack. Dose and type mean everything. Not all pesticides are dangerous to man nor the general environment.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - specialist 12y ago
    Some pesticides are pretty harmful some are really not. The burden of proof is on the advocates of pesticides. I'm utterly exhausted by the endless hair splitting and PR campaigns. As a consumer citizen, I do not have the resources or wherewithal to determine which pesticides might be acceptible. When negative information is routinely buried, such as the brouhaha over honey bee colony collapse disorder, I've completely lost my patience and confidence in agribiz and its captured regulators. They can all rot.