Tag Archives: Apple

Most Organic Food Is A Waste Of Money.

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MONEY-SAVING TIPS FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS.

The only thing that I buy in the organic section of the supermarket are strawberries. Strawberries grow on the ground, they are sprayed with a lot of chemicals, their skin is thin and very porous, and we eat the skin. I will pay a little extra for organic strawberries, but most organic food is just a complete waste of money. Frankly, I can’t even figure out what the word ‘organic’ means when it comes to some foods. Like – what is organic seafood? I have never been able to figure that one out. For example, what is organic Pacific salmon. I’ve seen that on restaurant menus here in Berkeley, but what is it? All Pacific salmon comes out of the Pacific Ocean, whether it is wild caught or farm raised, and there is a lot of junk in the Pacific Ocean – including radioactive junk from Japan. It seems to me that the only difference between organic Pacific salmon and regular Pacific salmon is the price. Think carefully about buying organic food. Go online and find out which organic foods make sense, and which are just a waste of money. Most of them are. I know a lot of people in the chocolate business, and they all say that organic chocolate is a complete waste of money. I don’t know a single person in the chocolate business who buys organic chocolate for his own consumption.

SOME MYTHS ABOUT ORGANIC FOOD.

Myth: Organic food tastes better. I know people who swear that they can taste the difference between organic and non-organic foods, but blind taste tests conducted at many universities have consistently found that people cannot tell any difference in the taste or appearance of organic vs. non-organic foods. The fact that organic food costs more (and often a lot more) doesn’t mean it tastes or looks any different than conventionally produced food.

Myth: Organic food is healthier. Maybe organic food is healthier for you, but there is no evidence of that. For over 50 years, scientists have been looking for evidence that organic food is healthier than conventional food, but there is still no good evidence that people who eat organic food are healthier or live longer than people who don’t.
 
Myth: Organic farms pay and treat their workers better. Sadly, that is also not true. The USDA organic label tells you nothing about the wages or working conditions at an organic farm. Workers at organic farms are just as likely as other farm workers to be underpaid, harassed, exploited, and cheated by their employers. Michael Pollan says: “If organic consumers went to those places (organic farms), they would feel they are getting ripped off.”

Myth: Organic food is pesticide-free. This is the most widely-held myth about organic food. An apple can be sprayed with a variety of powerful pesticides and still be labeled organic as long as those pesticides were on the approved list from the U.S. Organic Standards. But organic pesticides can be just as harmful to your health and the environment as inorganic ones. ‘Organic’ does not mean ‘safe’ or ‘good for you.’ Plants produce lots of toxic chemicals. For example, potassium cyanide can be extracted from a number of organic sources, including apricot pits and apple seeds, but that doesn’t mean that organic cyanide is good for you or safe to eat.
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P.S. – The majority of my current tenants are chemistry graduate students. They tell me that potassium cyanide is definitely not good for you, regardless of whether it came from an organic or inorganic source.

Does Making iPhones Really Drive People To Suicide?

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The short answer is ‘No.’

All iPhones, iPads, and iPods are made in China at factories owned by Foxconn Corp. Foxconn is a Taiwanese-based company with factories all over the world. In China, Foxconn employs 1,000,000 people, making them the biggest private employer in the country. Foxconn makes products for many other companies besides Apple. Kindles, PlayStations, and Wiis are also made in China by Foxconn.

foxconnYou may have heard stories that working conditions at Foxconn factories are so stressful that the employees are driven to suicide. Photos of suicide nets around Foxconn factories regularly appear in newspapers and magazines around the world. And indeed, there have been suicides. In 2010, 18 Foxconn employees committed suicide on the job or at an employee dorm. In order to reduce the number of suicides, Foxconn now requires every employee to sign a pledge not to commit suicide on the job.

While every suicide is a tragedy for both the individual and his family, we are talking about 18 suicides a year at a company that employs 1,000,000 people. The critical question is this – is this a high or a low rate of suicide? By Chinese standards, it is a very low rate. It is important to remember that suicide rates in Asia are relatively high compared to suicide rates in the West. Here are the suicide rates per 100,000 people in various countries.

South Korea 32
Japan 23
China 22
United States 12
Germany 10
Australia 10
Great Britain 7
Italy 6

Suicide rates vary a lot within the United States. In California, the rate is 9. In Alaska and Nevada, the rate is over 20.

Foxconn employs 1,000,000 people in China; therefore, if the suicide rate for Foxconn employees was the same as the suicide rate for the population of China as a whole, you would expect the number of Foxconn employee suicides to be 220 a year; however, the known number of Foxconn employee suicides is under 20 a year. There may be other Foxconn employee suicides that we don’t know about. After all, China is not an open society with a free press. However, no one has ever produced any evidence that the suicide rate for Foxconn employees is greater than that of the general population of the country. If you have any such evidence, send it to me. I’d like to see it.