Hi Klaus,
The thread started with the mail from Laurel Hopwood on a study in the
Journal of Nutrition, showing differences between organic and
conventional samples.
I am not after proving or claiming organic being more healthy. I was
just wondering what causes the difference and used the data of sprouting
to explain why I think in the direction of seeddevelopment as a
possible cause. My hypothesis was that plants under good conditions
(without the stress of all kind of pesticides) produce seeds that reach
more of their potential.
To answer your question on minerals: no, I do not know if anybody says
that more minerals means more healthy. What I understand is that all
minerals and trace-elements have a function in different quantities, and
that all substances can become toxic if taken in too large quantities.
However, the figures of vitamins, minerals, amino-acids, enzymes and
trace-elements in sprouts and seedlings indicate a highly nutritional,
efficient and economic way of feeding people and live-stock, which also
can play an important role in case of disease. Having said that, I know
full well that we live in a fast-food society, which moves in the
opposite direction.
Dr. Bordeaux-Szekely long time ago made a very clear distinction between
regenerating and degenerating foods. Where sprouts belong to the first
category, the big macs etc. go into the second. Ann Wigmore has done an
outstanding job on developing the knowledge on regenerating living-foods
further.
Clearly, for financial- pharmaceutical and foodindustry interests, all
knowledge and insights on medicinal foods have largely been ignored in
western societies.
Therefore, I do not agree with you that we should leave healtheffects to
the nutraceutical-people. All (western) medicinal foodsystems and
schools I have been reading about in the past 15 years without exemption
use organic foods and stress that point and also stress the point of
taking a wholistic view. Nutraceuticals come from the very industry
complex which ignored all information on regenerating whole foods!
Nutraceuticals are developed by the industries where the foodpart has
been promoting all these junk foods the past fifty years being a main
cause of all kind of degenerative diseases which are than more or less
healed by all kind of medicines (if not surgery) from the pharmaceutical
part.
I will not very quickly put my trust there.
wytze
Klaus Wiegand wrote:
> hello wytze,
>
> >As promised, some data on mineralchange in sprouting seeds. Source
> is a
> >French book: "Decouvrez les graines germees" (discover sprouted
> grains)
> >from 1983 by M. Cayla.
> >He gives for wheat the following figures:
> > Phosphorus:
> >Magnesium Calcium
> > whole grain 423mg%
> >133mg% 45mg%
> >sprouted grain 1050mg% 342mg%
> >71mg%
> >
> >In oats he found an augmentation of Calcium of 300-350%
> >
> >Unfortunately, most of the sprout-research has focused on vitamins
> and
> >amino acids.
>
> no, i think: fortunately! why does the above looks to me like "cold
> fusion in the test tube" and written in another mail "transmutation
> in the beanfield" ?
>
> >One interesting figure concerns provit A in rice Carotene in rice
> >increases from 0,3mg in unsprouted rice to 4mg/100g in seedlings
> of seven
> >days. (I do not know how riceseedlings taste and whether they are
> used as
> >food anywhere.)
>
> you are surprised by the rise in carotins ? i hope not really,
> because carotinoids buildup during photosynthesis and are the
> antenna pigments, which by absorbing light between the
> wavelenghts of 400-500 (or was it 550??) carry this energy to the
> chlorophylls. more chlorophyll in the plant ->> more carotins...
>
> while an increase in SOME minerals certainly would be an
> improvement for human health (if only people ate this food),
> calcium and especially phoshorus are no minerals we do lack.
> calcium loss by bone degeneration has another reason than
> undernourishment of thast mineral. too much of these two even
> tends to be dangerous. an overall increase in *trace minerals* in
> organic food would be the REAL improvement compared to
> conventional food.
>
> so question a) who says, that more minerals are correlated with
> more healthy ?
>
> and do you really believe, that organic food would increase the
> contents of several minerals ten- or even elevenfold ??? (like
> once stated here).
>
> to all organics: don't argue with health claims. this will be the
> future problem for producers of nutraceuticals. let THIS problem
> about the degree, from which on a food can be claimed "healthy", be
> THEIR problem. you do organic food no favor by exaggerating and
> claiming unproven and unprovable things.
>
> want another cold fusion in the test tube ??
> here we go, this time from university guys !!!
>
> Could cunning chemistry keep carbon in
> check?http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/nsci-ccc012600.html
>
> 26 JANUARY 2000 AT 14:00 ET US
> Contact: Claire Bowles
> claire.bowles@rbi.co.uk
> 44-0-207-331-2751
>
> New Scientist
>
> Could cunning chemistry keep carbon in check?
>
> An enzyme that breaks down alcohol in the liver could be used to
> recycle carbon, rather than pumping ever more into the
> atmosphere, say chemists in Illinois. They have developed a more
> efficient way of turning the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into
> methanol using the enzyme.
>
> Invented by Bakul Dave and Robyn Obert of the Southern Illinois
> University in Carbondale, the process effectively reverses the
> chemistry of burning. It promises to be a highly efficient way to
> produce methanol, a clean-burning fuel that can be used to power
> cars. What's more, if the energy needed to drive the process came
> from sources that don't generate CO2, this fuel could be produced
> and used without adding to the greenhouse effect.
>
> To make methanol, the liver enzyme and two bacterial enzymes are
> embedded in a sponge-like, glassy material, which is placed in
> water. When CO2 is bubbled through the water, one of the
> bacterial enzymes, formate dehydrogenase, converts CO2 into
> formic acid. Then another, formaldehyde dehydrogenase, transforms
> the formic acid into formaldehyde. Finally, alcohol
> dehydrogenase, which normally helps our livers to detoxify
> alcohol, completes the reaction by turning the formaldehyde into
> methanol. Each of the enzyme reactions is reversible, so to drive
> the process in the right direction, the Illinois team adds a
> fourth, electron-donating ingredient called nicotinamide adenine
> dinucleotide (NADH).
>
> The spongy glass, a substance called a silica sol-gel, is the key
> to the reaction's success. It contains millions of microscopic
> pores that act as mini-reactors. By mixing the enzymes with the
> liquid gel, Dave and Obert successfully locked them into the
> structure. "When it solidifies, the enzymes get trapped," says
> Dave. "The enzymes can't get in or out, but the small reactants
> can," he says. So CO2 and NADH can get in, and methanol can
> diffuse out.
>
> To make the process practical, the NADH will have to be recycled
> by constantly replenishing the electrons it feeds to the enzymes.
> Dave and Obert say this might be possible if the sol-gel is made
> from materials which conduct electricity and feed electrons back
> into the system. "The idea is that you'd feed in current
> directly," says Dave. Ole Kirk, a senior researcher at the Danish
> enzyme manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, says that regenerating NADH in
> this way is feasible. NADH is extremely expensive, but if you
> could recycle it, he says, this would not be a problem.
>
> If Dave and Obert can solve the remaining problems it might be
> possible to recycle the CO2 from, say, power stations. But this
> would be pointless if as much CO2 were produced in generating the
> electricity needed to drive the reaction.
>
> ###
>
> Author: Andy Coghlan
>
> New Scientist issue 29th January 2000
>
> PLEASE MENTION NEW SCIENTIST AS THE SOURCE OF THIS STORY AND, IF
> PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO :
> http://www.newscientist.com
>
> Source: Journal of the American Chemical Society (vol 121, p 12
> 192)
> ------
>
> no problem with mentioning NEW SCIENTIST, it's always a pleasure
> to me to debunk such idiotic conclusions ???
>
> "If Dave and Obert can solve the remaining problems...". tell
> me: where do these fools in lab coats get the energy for the
> replenishment of the enzymes from ?? from nowhere ??
>
> ----------------------
>
> let us instead stay honest and straight, like i saw it in the
> masterpiece telephone interview by chuck benbrook or the
> statements from mark ritchie, which i found in "the corporate
> reapers" (by chance i also have the article of dale o. wilson jr.
> as corresponding author with s. krishna mohan in seed technology
> (unique seed quality problem of sh2 sweet corn my desk).
>
> THESE are the people we need to oppose things like found in the
> following contrast programmes:
>
> "Novartis plays down GMO crop sowing survey" [338] - "Novartis
> AG played down results of a Reuters survey on Thursday suggesting
> U.S. farmers planned to scale back their sowing of genetically
> modified crops, saying it had seen no switch so far away from its
> modified Bt corn," reports Reuters.
>
> [338] http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000113/84.html
> -----
>
> "Modified corn, soy seeds still selling - firms" [336] - "Early
> seed sales for 2000 crops show U.S. farmers are buying about as
> much genetically modified corn and soybean seed as a year ago,
> according to spokesmen for three major seed companies," reports
> Reuters.
>
> [336]
> http://newsnet.reuters.com/cgi-bin/
> basketview.cgi?b=rcom:health&s=nN13571967
> -----
>
> "The Great Egg Panic" [474] - "New government proposals
> designed to check salmonella poisoning could force routine
> pasteurization or irradiation of the American egg supply.
> However, the plans are derided as political window dressing by
> some of the nation's leading specialists in salmonella and eggs.
> They challenge the plans' root assumptions, from characterization
> of the pathogen, to numbers of people supposedly sickened, to
> what should be done that could actually improve food safety,"
> reports The Los Angeles Times.
>
> [474] http://www.latimes.com/food/20000105/t000001225.html
> -----
>
> CHALLENGE of the day: "Hudson Institute Agriculture Scholars
> Challenge Organic Food Industry's Misstatements" [361] - The
> Center for Global Food Issues Director Dennis Avery rebuts the
> organic food industry's "damage control" efforts just days after
> its leaders were questioned extensively on ABC's 20/20.
>
> [361] http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0214-
> 108.html
> ---
>
> and here the reasons, why the above CANNOT be the true and only
> view of things:
>
> "US farmers desert GM crops" [302] - "The first firm evidence
> has emerged that the bio-tech food revolution is in retreat in
> its heartland - the vast cornfields of the American Midwest
> where the overwhelming bulk of the world's genetically
> engineered crops are grown. US farmers have just finished buying
> seed for the coming growing season, and early studies suggest
> that a significant proportion are abandoning GM," reports The
> Guardian.
>
> [302]
> http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,137582,00.
> -----
>
> "Exposed: the great organic food rip-off" [483] -
> "Supermarkets are taking advantage of the huge demand for
> organic food by charging grossly inflated prices, according to
> the most extensive survey of its kind to date. Customers
> shopping at the big-name retailers are being asked to pay 60 to
> 70 per cent more for organic meat, vegetables and other foods
> than for the ordinary equivalents. In some cases, the difference
> is far greater; organic potatoes in one high street supermarket
> last week cost 285 per cent more than the non-organic kind.
> Thanks to BSE and the GM food scare, demand has risen for
> produce farmed organically, without chemical pesticides and
> fertilisers. Sales are expected to reach ú1bn a year by 2002.
> Organic production costs are a third higher, but the new survey
> reveals that the average price difference on the shelves is
> double that," reports The Independent.
>
> [483]
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Environment/2000-02/
> organic060200.shtml
> -----
>
> klaus
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