Talk:Organic food

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)

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)