Brian Fredericksen wrote:
>   
>>
>> Drawing my thoughts from Micheal Pollans new book the Omnivores Dilema there has been a 
>> unprecedented increase in processed corn and soybean byproducts consumption in the US diet 
>> since the 1970's. While companies laugh all the way to the bank my guess is 2/3 of our population 
>> has been hoodwinked into thinking they are getting "healthy" snacks, "natural" meat/poultry/dairy 
>> products that in reality contain a fraction of the nutrients they did 30 years ago. 
>>
>> The fact is , is that real and or clean food is a becoming a relic of the past and as such commands 
>> higher prices in todays world. 
>>     
We are moving rapidly from fact to ideology. One book does not represent 
the accumulated research of all science. Without reading the book, all 
you need to know is the shift from cane sugar to corn syrup probably has 
more to do with it than anything else. Pinning anything on soybeans it a 
bit much since most science shows soy to be a good food.

(I just checked a review from the Washington Post, part of which reads:  
High-fructose corn syrup sweetens everything from juice to toothpaste. 
Even the alcohol in beer is corn-based. Corn is in everything from 
frozen yogurt to ketchup, from mayonnaise and mustard to hot dogs and 
bologna, from salad dressings to vitamin pills. "Tell me what you eat," 
said the French gastronomist Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, "and I will tell 
you what you are." We're corn.) Boy am I good. Most of these activist 
books start with something we can agree on, like corn syrup is bad, but 
it is the solution that causes problems. They leap from corn syrup to 
all of agriculture. Use a single data point.

A fairly non-biased source like Consumer Reports which is not in any 
corporate pocket, tests all kinds of foods including meat and poultry 
for problems and finds both good and bad in both commercial and organic 
products.

But it is the level of that good or bad that is important. We can test 
now and find contaminates that we were unable to detect in the past 
because they were in such small quantities. They were fine then and are 
fine now. If you want to go back to real organic farming, there are 
plenty of third world countries where that is practiced and you will die 
much earlier eating that "healthy" food.

Can I make a modest request, that we keep the list closer to beekeeping 
than earnestly held beliefs that are more appropriate to other venues?

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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