Round Up and Grains

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BlackStrap
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Round up and Grains

Post by BlackStrap »

Hey there all;

Thought I would share an experience, and hopefully someone can shed more light on this.
If it's been discussed before, my apologies.

My local feed store owner and I have an understanding, he knows i'll occasionally by grain from him, and we've sat down and talked about 6 row barley vs 2 row the different wheats and rye grains. Last time I was in he told me to stop back mid to late February...He has a new supplier, for barley designed for malting, and thought maybe it would be better for me. He let me borrow the booklet of grain and seed choices from that company, and I did a lot of googling on some of the terminology. Ended up calling the seed company and talked to the representative, and found out the barley and wheat grains listed are not for animal or human consumption These grains are treated, by means chemicals and GMOs that make these grains resistant to bugs and weed killers (RoundUp). These grains to be grown and harvested before fit to consume.

I'm pretty sure these grains would be easy to malt, but not sure what kind of a product, or how harmful using them could be?

Would really enjoy some of you alls input or this.

Thanks, Remember be Safe & Have Fun
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Round Up and Grains

Post by Butch27 »

Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:15 am Whomever you talked to did not inform you correctly. There are no approved GMO'd cereals other than corn. So barley, wheat, rye, etc, are all non-GMO. GMO's are also harmless to consumers, so its not something to worry about if buying corn or sugar beets - most of which are GMO'd.
I'm going to give you that, as I have no concerns about GMOs for our purposes.
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:15 am Glyphosate (roundup) is not used as a seed treatment either - it's half-life following application is far too short lived to be useful for that use, plus adding a weed control agent to a seed doesn't make any sense (fungicides and insecticides are what are typically used in seed applications).
I will also give you this one.
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:15 am Glyphosate is also less toxic to humans than is table salt, so worrying about it is unnecessary - you'll find far more toxic compounds used on "organic" cereal production than glyphosate.
Glyphosate has a skull and crossbones on it, table salt does not. Glyphosate has a class action law suit against it for causing cancer, table salt does not. Salt is a naturally occurring compound, glyphosate is not. Humans have been using salt for thousands of years with very few ill effects. It can have some negative effects for those prone to high blood pressure but those effects can be pretty much totally reversed by taking the salt out of one's diet. Salt intake has also been linked to heart disease and stroke. However salt is still benign enough that "The U.S. Dietary Reference Intakes state that there is not enough evidence to establish a Recommended Dietary Allowance or a toxic level for sodium (aside from chronic disease risk). Because of this, a Tolerable Upper intake Level (UL) has not been established; a UL is the maximum daily intake unlikely to cause harmful effects on health." Quoted from https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritions ... nd-sodium/
Over the thousands of years that salt has been used it's benefits have far out weighed any drawbacks.
Glyphosate (brand name RoundUp) has a less than 50 year track record and has already been shown to cause cancer.
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:15 am
When seed is treated, by law, the treatment coating must be brightly coloured to make it apparent and obvious that the coating is there - these seeds are usually bright orange, red, or purple in colour. If your grain looks like grain, its not treated.
For the most part this is true other than the fact that to the untrained eye (the colour is not always painfully obvious) and to those that do not know what the colour means or what the true colour of the grain is supposed to be, mistakes could be made.
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:15 am Seed used for planting is not tested for human or animal consumption, and therefore it cannot be sold as such. Testing showing that cereals are free of pesticides is required in most countries before they can be sold for human or animal use - seed for planting is simply not tested, but that's not the same as saying its unsafe. Seed is generally sourced from the same fields/farms as human/animal approved versions, so unless its treated it is likely safe. Farmers generally don't know until harvest whether their seed will be of malting grade (the best grade), seed grade, food grade, feed grade or industrial grade (those are listed in order of value), and as such generally treat their fields as though they were producing food/malting quality goods, in the hopes of reaching that grade. Above-legal thresholds of pesticide residue immediately gets your crop decertified for any use but seed or industrial grade, so farmers tend to be quite careful about ensuring they don't treat too close to harvest to ensure that they have the best chance of meeting a higher (and therefore better paying) grade. I'd also add that few farmers sell seed for planting purposes, as most of planting-grade seed is produced on-contract to a seed producer, and usually requires specialized pollination management that is hard for most farmers to achieve.
The bottom line is that farmers will do whatever they can to maximize profits. Many, not all, will push the limits when it comes to pesticide use. They will use higher doses than recommended, use tank mixes that are not approved, use chemicals that are not approved for their area, harvest too soon after desiccation, etc, etc. Not all commodities are tested for pesticide residue and much slips through.
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:15 am As for malting, malting grade would be best, followed closely by seed quality. The same properties which make grain good for one (protein composition/percentage, starch content, and uniformity of seed size/shape) also makes it good for the other. As you move into the other grades it becomes a bit more of a crap-shoot, as the selection process becomes a little less stringent. You could end up with a bag that gives malt with massive diastatic power, and the next bag of the same grade from the same supplier may have poor diastatic power. They all will malt - but your yield and the ability of the malt to convert additional adjuncts can vary greatly....
No arguments here.

The bottom line for me is that if it is not certified for animal or human consumption, do not use it for alcohol production unless you are burning it in your race car.
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by Warthaug »

Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 am
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:15 am Glyphosate is also less toxic to humans than is table salt, so worrying about it is unnecessary - you'll find far more toxic compounds used on "organic" cereal production than glyphosate.
Glyphosate has a skull and crossbones on it, table salt does not.
Actually, glyphosate does not have a skull and crossbones on it - it has environmental hazard and corrosion markings.

In comparison, sodium chloride (table salt) carries an irritant symbol.

Those links above also include the toxicity (LD50's and the like) - glyphosate is safer across the board.
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 amGlyphosate has a class action law suit against it for causing cancer, table salt does not.
Firstly, there have been many lawsuits about the failure to regulate table salt - here's one example. Secondly, lawsuits mean nothing in terms of establishing safety - all it means is you have a lawyer of questionable ethics and a charismatic complainant. Safety is established by trials and monitoring, both of which show glyphosate to be as safe as table sale in terms of human toxicity.
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 amSalt is a naturally occurring compound, glyphosate is not.
And? Cyanide is also a completely natural compound...I would strongly encourage you not to consume that.
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 amHumans have been using salt for thousands of years with very few ill effects.
Excess salt intake is estimated to contribute to about 20% of deaths in the USA. But sure, "few ill effects" :crazy:
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 amGlyphosate (brand name RoundUp) has a less than 50 year track record and has already been shown to cause cancer.
No, actually it hasn't. The UN's decision to classify it has a carcinogen was highly controversial, and that recommendation goes in the face of every other regulatory body in the world's analyses. The agriculture health study - which has tracked exposure and disease rates in 57,310 pesticide applicators (e.g. people with high exposure) found no evidence for increased cancer compared to the general population. The studies which were used as the basis of the UN's decision, in contrast, were much smaller (a few hundred people) and had signs of poor design or analysis - e.g. people exposed to the lowest levels of glyphasate were reported to have the highest rates of cancer. If something is truely carcinogenic that dose response should run the opposite - more carcinogen = more cancer.
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 am
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:15 am Seed used for planting is not tested for human or animal consumption, and therefore it cannot be sold as such.[...]
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 am The bottom line is that farmers will do whatever they can to maximize profits. Many, not all, will push the limits when it comes to pesticide use. They will use higher doses than recommended, use tank mixes that are not approved, use chemicals that are not approved for their area, harvest too soon after desiccation, etc, etc. Not all commodities are tested for pesticide residue and much slips through.
Wow, way to insult all of the farmers on the planet. I sure hope you don't buy anything we produce, given your low opinion of us. Its also an increadibly ignorent and uninformed position...not surprising given your other comments in your reply. The fact that you have to demonize farmers to make your point pretty much shows that you have no evidence for your claim.

Here's how it really works:

Farmers do want to maximize profit. Spraying extra chemicals doesn't get you there. Chemicals are expensive, crops are cheap. As an example, around here corn sells for $3.50 to $5.50/bu, and you get ~180 bu/acre ($600-$900/acre gross, assuming a good growing year). Seed to plant an acre runs about $95 to buy, and costs about half that again to plant (diesel for the tractor, wage for the driver, etc). Pre-season you fertilize the field - about $80/acre if you're fortunate like us* to have access to free(ish) manure and merely need to substitute; it can be up to double that if you have to purchase everything. $20/acre in crop insurance, same again for hail insurance, and ~$20/acre in land tax (or double that if leasing the land). To take the crop off costs about $10/acre (mostly wages and diesel), and another $45 to dry it for sale. Most buyers require you to deliver your crop to their silo, which for us ranges from ~$30 to $70 per acre (depending on where we're driving it too). We use no-till farming, but not everyone can, so some farmers need to add in a tilling session (or two) as weed control before planting - about $10/acre for wages + diesel. That's also before the lease or purchase payments on the farm equipment. This can vary a lot, but on our farm averages out at $80/acer (can you tell I'm doing taxes right now?). So, not including any crop treatments, you've made a gross profit of $600-$900/acre, and your expenses are between $500 and $600. And that's also before business and income tax, which thankfully are based on net income and not gross.

The cost to spray an acre with glyphosate is about $15, and in a good year we only need to treat twice (three times in a bad year) - a pre-treatment to prevent weeds from germinating, and a treatment mid-summer to suppress wind-blown weeds that infiltrate onto the field. Add to that $5 for gas/wages, so $20/treatment or $40/year. We also need to treat with an antifungal twice - the first is sprayed on its own (and is damned expensive, $40-ish per acre); the second gets applied along with glyphosate. We buy seed that is pre-treated with insecticide, and one year in three that's all we need, but in bad years we may need to spray once. The cost of this is highly variable as we use targeted spraying (meaning that the agent used is matched to the pest, and only the affected part of the field is sprayed), but on the low end is $5/acre + fuel/wages and may be up around $15/acre on the high end.

Then there are incidental costs - fence repairs, tractor repairs, oil changes, hydraulics issues, irrigation fees, etc. End effect is that, on average, we make $8 to $9 profit per acre (again, before income/business taxes), and that's high compared to most cash croppers. Average per-acre incomes from cereal farmers are typically around $5/acer.

Now what happens if we spray a glyphosate solution that is 20% stronger than its supposed to be formulated? That's an extra $3/acre, or about a third of my profit. We'd also risk "burning" our crop, reducing yields, which would further reduce profits. An extra round of spraying? In a good year that's 25% our profit. In a bad year, its closer to 50%. Why not go organic and avoid it all...because it doesn't work that way. You loose about a third of your productivity per acre, the sprays (and yes, organic farmers use sprays) are more expensive, and the market is smaller. At the end of the day the profit is about the same, assuming you can get the 10%-20% premium that organic crops sometimes (but not always) pay.

Edit: to clarify, we farm our farm as part of a larger farmers cooperative. I do the taxes for the whole cooperative. My wife and I do not grow corn ourselves, so the 'we' in this is the royal 'we', not me specifically. We (as in my wife and I) are predominantly animal breeders, vegetable farmers, and producers of "value added" products.

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Re: Grain Caution

Post by tubbsy »

I agree with everything Bryan says. My family are wheat and barley growers and I spent years working on the farm.

Here in Australia, seed grain is innoculated against bacteria and microbes which can affect the grain when it is germinating. You can spot innoculated seed by the pink dye used.

No farmer of sound mind would use more chemi als than needed. If anything, farmers will use the minimum required. Glyphosphate is used a few weeks after germination to suppress any emergent weeds that could steal moisture from the crop. Depending on the weed growth, it may also be applied later in the growth period. We've never sprayed our crops once the crop has started drying out.
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by Warthaug »

We're (again, royal 'we') trying a new approach this year and using a drone with a spectral cameras to identify regions of our fields that need fertilizer or pest control sprays. Goal is to avoid spraying areas that don't need it. The field we trialled last year only used half the pesticides and 3/4rs the fertilizer of the other fields, and performed just as well. With luck, we may be able to reduce total chemical inputs across all categories (fertilizer, insecticide, herbicide, fungicide, and watering) by half. Drone costs as much as a nice car, but even at a 25% reduction in spraying would pay for itself within 5 years.

Kinda runs contrary to how 'butch' thinks farms work.
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by Birrofilo »

@Warghaug

It is absolutely true that farmers can have an interest in using excess chemicals. And they can have an interest in solving problems in an illegal way. Your mileage and costs may vary, and can be different from other farmers' mileage and costs.

Recently in Italy 238 terrains have been sequestrated and 152 persons have been put to trial (infraction to the penal code) exactly for that (march 2019).

https://www.lifegate.it/moria-di-api-fr ... -pesticidi

The dimension of the case is such that it is not the mistake of a single person, but a "system".

Buy your grains from a reputable source. A well-known malter will refuse grains which have excess residues or which are questionable in any case. A well-known malter has a reputation to defend and will trust but check.
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by MartinCash »

I don't believe the frequency of dodgy, unscrupulous people in the farmer population is any higher than among grain merchants, maltsters and feed stores.

BTW I think in years of distilling, I have once used some flaked corn that was intended for brewing and approved for human consumption. Every other batch of grain or molasses I've used has been feed grade with big warnings that it is not for human consumption.

@Butch27 I don't know what sort of farmers you hang around, but every farmer I know cares a lot about the quality of their produce, since it is their brand.
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by dunluce »

Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 am
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:15 am Glyphosate is also less toxic to humans than is table salt, so worrying about it is unnecessary - you'll find far more toxic compounds used on "organic" cereal production than glyphosate.
Glyphosate has a skull and crossbones on it, table salt does not. Glyphosate has a class action law suit against it for causing cancer, table salt does not. Salt is a naturally occurring compound, glyphosate is not. Humans have been using salt for thousands of years with very few ill effects. It can have some negative effects for those prone to.......................Glyphosate (brand name RoundUp) has a less than 50 year track record and has already been shown to cause cancer......
Sorry, but did you miss the part where Warthaug is a microbiology professor who studies the effects of farm chemicals?

Would love to see any kind of scientific evidence to back up any of your claims.

And as for lawsuits..... :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
In 1991, Richard Harris sued Anheiser-Busch for $10,000 for false advertising. Harris (no relation to the above-mentioned burglar) claimed to suffer from emotional distress in addition to mental and physical injury.

Why? Because when he drank beer, he didn't have any luck with the ladies, as promised in the TV ads.

Harris also didn't like that he got sick sometimes after he drank. The case was thrown out of court.
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by tiramisu »

This looks like fun..

Is there any corn left north of mexico that is not GMO?

This has me reading Agriculture Canada documents on supported pesticides for feed grains.
and cross-referencing MSDS.

I worked in an agricultural pesticides plant in my youth. It made me just a bit nervous.
Learned not to touch my hands to my face very quickly as there wasn't really anything that
we mixed that wasn't toxic at full strength.

I won't be shocked if Glycophosphate turns out to be correlated non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in farmers who bathe in it.
It was an incredible improvement to the alternative, DDT, used up until 1972.

methiocarb is interesting; used on corn as a bird repellant on seedlings and for slugs and snails.
Wierd and interesting toxicities; These modern pesticides that kill off the bees nervous systems make me a bit nervous.
On the plus side methiocarb doesn't stick around in the environment long,

Found this pdf that I haven't consumed yet.

SURVEY OF PESTICIDE USE IN ONTARIO, 2013/2014
Estimates of Pesticides Used on Field Crops and
Fruit and Vegetable Crops
https://www.farmfoodcareon.org/wp-conte ... l-2013.pdf

image.png
It seem like some of the chemicals in use today are taken up by the root and washing/rinsing
doesn't really do much.

I live in Canada and we truck in the fresh produce much of the year so I sometimes have little control over what is available.
I recognize that without scientific farming you have to pick which half of the people you are going to let die. The resulting monocultures seem like painting yourself into the corner. I recognize that this conjecture is based on the idea that diversity provides more robust resistance to disease and pestilence and often good breeding produces superior results (science).

I am relatively wealthy (compared to those that cannot afford adequate food or clean water) so I get to choose
what I eat occasionally.

I would generally prefer not to distill and concentrate my petrochemicals into my ethanol where possible.
Another gross simplification. Adding heat and solvent may result in interesting byproducts. Darned if I know
what happens when you cook this stuff at moderate heat in the presence of ethanol.

Without a degree in agriculture with a double major in organic and petro-chemicals I am pretty
sure that I have no hope of knowing exactly what is "safe".

Any industry professionals willing to comment with the usual disclaimers?
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by dunluce »

tiramisu wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:29 pmIs there any corn left north of mexico that is not GMO?
By the strict definition, all corn is GMO - an organism that was genetically modified. It originated from teosinte.
F1.large.jpg
Modified by line breeding, which is genetic engineering. Nowadays everyone wants to use the definition that something has to be genetically engineered "in a laboratory setting".
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by Berserk »

tiramisu wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:29 pm Darned if I know
what happens when you cook this stuff at moderate heat in the presence of ethanol.

Without a degree in agriculture with a double major in organic and petro-chemicals I am pretty
sure that I have no hope of knowing exactly what is "safe".
My thinking is that getting a few ppm of something that might be carcinogenic into my drink where 40% already is a Group 1 Carcinogen (ethanol) won't make much difference for my longevity.

NB: not an industry professional. Just grown up on a farm.
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by The Baker »

If it has been poisoned to kill insects I won't use it.
Can get by fine without doing that.

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Re: Grain Caution

Post by Warthaug »

tiramisu wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:29 pm Is there any corn left north of mexico that is not GMO?
In terms of strains, most are not GMO. In terms of acreage, most (>90%-ish) is GMO. Nearly all of the GMO strains (as well as the bulk of field acreage) is corn intended for processing - e.g. for making corn oil, corn sugar, starch, etc, and most of that is GMO. Sweet corn (the stuff you buy on the cob, or in a can) is generally not GMO'd, although there are a few Bt (insect resistant) strains out there. There is, to date, no GMO'd popcorn strains.
tiramisu wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:29 pm It seem like some of the chemicals in use today are taken up by the root and washing/rinsing
doesn't really do much.
The neonics are taken up by roots and are not removed by washing - that's literally the point of them; they make the plant toxic to some species of leaf eating or sucking insects. Humans lack the gene targeted by neonics, and a number of foods we eat (as well as tobacco) contain natural nicitinoids. The evidence that they hurt bees is not great - mild cognitive impairment is seen in lab settings, but that doesn't seem to translate to field trials or observational trials. Neonics have been largely phased out in Ontario, and the effect on honey bee losses was zero. While far from a scientific survey, I've lost more bee hives this winter (50% so far - worst winter ever) than in any year previously, and yet, no neonic treated seeds were planted within flight range of my bees.
tiramisu wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:29 pmThe resulting monocultures seem like painting yourself into the corner. I recognize that this conjecture is based on the idea that diversity provides more robust resistance to disease and pestilence and often good breeding produces superior results (science).
The concerns over monocultures are somewhat overstated (and mis-stated). There are more breeds/strains of common crops available today than in the past, with a huge diversity in traits such as drought tolerance, mildew resistance, temperature tolerance, insect resistance, and so on. This means that the likelihood of crop failure to factors such as disease or environmental disturbances is lower today than pretty much any previous time in human history. Likewise, thanks to modern genetics, plant breeders know what genes provide these various traits and can breed (or gene edit, or GMO) to introduce them where needed. So the concerns raised about crop stability are somewhat misguided.

There are very legitimate concerns about the impact of monoculture on local populations of insects, birds and small animals. Insects struggle due to the loss of their native food sources, birds from the loss of the insects as well as seeds/fruits from their natural food sources, and the same for small animals. When you clear a field of a crop, everything that was feeding off of that crop is now in a food desert. This isn't a new issue, but the ability of modern farming to use what was previously marginal lands means that the former green spaces that acted as refuges for these animals are now being lost. Most modern farmers are aware of this and maintain green spaces and networks (connected green spaces) - some jurisdictions even have programs which offer tax incentives to do so. Likewise, there are legal restrictions on factors like how closely you can till/plant/spray next to a water source, which indirectly has created a lot of new green spaces on what was formerly farm land. Unfortunately, there isn't any real good solution to this - the need for food (and cheap food) is higher now than any time in the past, and monoculture approaches allow you to maximize the production per unit of land. The only other option requires more land be cleared to use less intensive forms of farming, which IMO, would be a greater loss than current practices.

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Re: Grain Caution

Post by Warthaug »

The Baker wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 4:37 am If it has been poisoned to kill insects I won't use it.
Can get by fine without doing that.

Geoff
You'll be hard pressed to find any plant-based food product that hasn't been treated with an insecticide at some point in its growth. Even organic farmers are proliferate users of insecticides. You simply cannot get profitable yields without them.
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by Butch27 »

I can already see that this is one of those cases where there is just no common sense left in this world. When somebody is willing to make an argument that a man made chemical that is designed to kill is less toxic than common table salt and others are willing to listen and agree to that argument just because the person making the argument has a certain piece of paper in his back pocket, then the world has gone mad. A "bean counter', financial or data, can generally twist numbers to give a favorable argument for his or her purposes.
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:31 am
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 am
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:15 am Glyphosate is also less toxic to humans than is table salt, so worrying about it is unnecessary - you'll find far more toxic compounds used on "organic" cereal production than glyphosate.
Glyphosate has a skull and crossbones on it, table salt does not.
Actually, glyphosate does not have a skull and crossbones on it - it has environmental hazard and corrosion markings.
I went looking at labels online and the skull and crossbones has disappeared since I have had anything to do with the product and I will have to concede that the product is now mislabeled. I suspect that this is due to an extreme lobby backed with a lot of money from chemical companies, farmers and other interested parties.

Table salt has no such powerful lobby

Even if the skull and crossbones has been removed, it should not have been. Here are some words from your own reference site on this page. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compou ... ty-Summary

4.1Toxicity Summary HelpNew Window
IDENTIFICATION AND USE: Glyphosate isopropylamine salt is a white odorless powder that is commonly used as a herbicide to control broadleaf weeds and grasses, in many food and non-food crops. It is an active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. HUMAN EXPOSURE AND TOXICITY: Clinical experiences with patients exposed to Roundup either accidentally or through deliberate ingestion have been reported by investigators. Symptoms resulting from dermal exposure incidental to the use of the product included periorbital edema and chemosis of the eye, cardiovascular effects (tachycardia and elevated blood pressure), swelling and paraesthesia at the site of dermal contact and prolonged skin irritation. Deliberate ingestion resulted in more severe effects, including lethality from apparent respiratory and cardiac arrest. In glyphosate-containing herbicides abdominal pain with nausea, vomiting, and/or diarrhea are the most common manifestations of acute poisoning. These may be mild self-resolving, but in severe poisoning there may be inflammation, ulceration, or infarction. Severe diarrhea and recurrent vomiting may induce dehydration. Gastrointestinal burns and necrosis occurs with high doses of concentrated formulations and may be associated with hemorrhage. Extensive erosions of the upper gastrointestinal tract are associated with more severe systemic poisoning and a prolonged hospitalization. Severe poisonings by glyphosate-containing herbicides manifests as hypotension, cardiac dysrhythmias, renal and hepatic dysfunction, hyperkalemia, pancreatitis, pulmonary edema or pneumonitis, altered level of consciousness, and metabolic acidosis. These effects may be transient or severe, progressing over 12 to 72 hours to shock and death. The mechanism of hypotension may relate to both hypovolemia (fluids shifts and increased losses) and direct cardiotoxicity. Deaths following ingestion of Roundup alone were due to a syndrome that involved hypotension, unresponsive to iv fluids or vasopressor drugs, and sometimes pulmonary edema, in the presence of normal central venous pressure.


Here are some excerpts from a Roundup label and information pamphlet.

2021-02-23Roundup1.JPG
The label still has the signal word "CAUTION" on it.


2021-02-23Roundup2.JPG
"Poison if swallowed" would suggest to me that a skull and crossbones would be appropriate.


2021-02-23Roundup3.JPG
Hmm, it would seem that they do not want you breathing it, touching it, or allowing grazing animals to eat it and yet people go swimming in the salty ocean all the time with no ill effects. Many now use salt in their pools rather than chemicals.


2021-02-23Roundup4.JPG
2021-02-23Roundup4.JPG (20.82 KiB) Viewed 2193 times
If it is so benign, why should the containers not be used for other purposes. After all we are in the age of recycling and their is no better form of recycling than repurposing and reusing something in it's present state. HD is a community where many operate on a tight budget and are always on the lookout for free or inexpensive items that they can use for their craft. Perhaps you could ship them some of your empty glyphosate containers and they can use them as fermenters. Or at a minimum you can show us some pictures of you using them as fermenters.

Try as I might, googling or even walking over to my kitchen cupboard and pulling out a couple containers of commonly used salt, I could not find any warnings, period.



Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:31 am In comparison, sodium chloride (table salt) carries an irritant symbol.

Those links above also include the toxicity (LD50's and the like) - glyphosate is safer across the board.
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 amGlyphosate has a class action law suit against it for causing cancer, table salt does not.
Firstly, there have been many lawsuits about the failure to regulate table salt - here's one example. Secondly, lawsuits mean nothing in terms of establishing safety - all it means is you have a lawyer of questionable ethics and a charismatic complainant. Safety is established by trials and monitoring, both of which show glyphosate to be as safe as table sale in terms of human toxicity.
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 amSalt is a naturally occurring compound, glyphosate is not.
And? Cyanide is also a completely natural compound...I would strongly encourage you not to consume that.
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 amHumans have been using salt for thousands of years with very few ill effects.
Excess salt intake is estimated to contribute to about 20% of deaths in the USA. But sure, "few ill effects" :crazy:
Salt may have some harmful effects if people over indulge, most of which are reasonably reversible if people change their diet in a timely fashion. Cancer caused by glyphosate on the other hand, not so much. Just because glyphosate has a powerful lobby saying that it does not cause cancer does not mean that it doesn't.

And of course salt is required for nervous system and other bodily functions, glyphosate is not.
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:31 am
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 amGlyphosate (brand name RoundUp) has a less than 50 year track record and has already been shown to cause cancer.
No, actually it hasn't. The UN's decision to classify it has a carcinogen was highly controversial, and that recommendation goes in the face of every other regulatory body in the world's analyses. The agriculture health study - which has tracked exposure and disease rates in 57,310 pesticide applicators (e.g. people with high exposure) found no evidence for increased cancer compared to the general population. The studies which were used as the basis of the UN's decision, in contrast, were much smaller (a few hundred people) and had signs of poor design or analysis - e.g. people exposed to the lowest levels of glyphasate were reported to have the highest rates of cancer. If something is truely carcinogenic that dose response should run the opposite - more carcinogen = more cancer.
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 am
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:15 am Seed used for planting is not tested for human or animal consumption, and therefore it cannot be sold as such.[...]
Butch27 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:31 am The bottom line is that farmers will do whatever they can to maximize profits. Many, not all, will push the limits when it comes to pesticide use. They will use higher doses than recommended, use tank mixes that are not approved, use chemicals that are not approved for their area, harvest too soon after desiccation, etc, etc. Not all commodities are tested for pesticide residue and much slips through.
Wow, way to insult all of the farmers on the planet. I sure hope you don't buy anything we produce, given your low opinion of us. Its also an increadibly ignorent and uninformed position...not surprising given your other comments in your reply. The fact that you have to demonize farmers to make your point pretty much shows that you have no evidence for your claim.
I said "many" not all. Some do it through laziness and do not read the entire pamphlet. Some misread or do not understand the pamphlet. Some do it out of sheer greed but many, many pesticides are misused. When someone says the word "farmer" people still seem to envision this idyllic fantasy of Old McDonald's Farm. For the most part that just does not exist anymore. Certainly not in the developed world. Farming is big business and the bottom line is king. Farmers will do whatever to maximize profits and cheat as much as they can so as to not pay any taxes. Run to town on personal errands with farm plates and colored fuel in the tank, write off their internet bill when 2% is used for farming related matters and the rest is for watching Netflix, etc. As a mechanic I wasn't even allowed to write off my tools or work boots.
Warthaug wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:31 am
Here's how it really works:

Farmers do want to maximize profit. Spraying extra chemicals doesn't get you there. Chemicals are expensive, crops are cheap. As an example, around here corn sells for $3.50 to $5.50/bu, and you get ~180 bu/acre ($600-$900/acre gross, assuming a good growing year). Seed to plant an acre runs about $95 to buy, and costs about half that again to plant (diesel for the tractor, wage for the driver, etc). Pre-season you fertilize the field - about $80/acre if you're fortunate like us* to have access to free(ish) manure and merely need to substitute; it can be up to double that if you have to purchase everything. $20/acre in crop insurance, same again for hail insurance, and ~$20/acre in land tax (or double that if leasing the land). To take the crop off costs about $10/acre (mostly wages and diesel), and another $45 to dry it for sale. Most buyers require you to deliver your crop to their silo, which for us ranges from ~$30 to $70 per acre (depending on where we're driving it too). We use no-till farming, but not everyone can, so some farmers need to add in a tilling session (or two) as weed control before planting - about $10/acre for wages + diesel. That's also before the lease or purchase payments on the farm equipment. This can vary a lot, but on our farm averages out at $80/acer (can you tell I'm doing taxes right now?). So, not including any crop treatments, you've made a gross profit of $600-$900/acre, and your expenses are between $500 and $600. And that's also before business and income tax, which thankfully are based on net income and not gross.

The cost to spray an acre with glyphosate is about $15, and in a good year we only need to treat twice (three times in a bad year) - a pre-treatment to prevent weeds from germinating, and a treatment mid-summer to suppress wind-blown weeds that infiltrate onto the field. Add to that $5 for gas/wages, so $20/treatment or $40/year. We also need to treat with an antifungal twice - the first is sprayed on its own (and is damned expensive, $40-ish per acre); the second gets applied along with glyphosate. We buy seed that is pre-treated with insecticide, and one year in three that's all we need, but in bad years we may need to spray once. The cost of this is highly variable as we use targeted spraying (meaning that the agent used is matched to the pest, and only the affected part of the field is sprayed), but on the low end is $5/acre + fuel/wages and may be up around $15/acre on the high end.

Then there are incidental costs - fence repairs, tractor repairs, oil changes, hydraulics issues, irrigation fees, etc. End effect is that, on average, we make $8 to $9 profit per acre (again, before income/business taxes), and that's high compared to most cash croppers. Average per-acre incomes from cereal farmers are typically around $5/acer.

Now what happens if we spray a glyphosate solution that is 20% stronger than its supposed to be formulated? That's an extra $3/acre, or about a third of my profit. We'd also risk "burning" our crop, reducing yields, which would further reduce profits. An extra round of spraying? In a good year that's 25% our profit. In a bad year, its closer to 50%. Why not go organic and avoid it all...because it doesn't work that way. You loose about a third of your productivity per acre, the sprays (and yes, organic farmers use sprays) are more expensive, and the market is smaller. At the end of the day the profit is about the same, assuming you can get the 10%-20% premium that organic crops sometimes (but not always) pay.

Edit: to clarify, we farm our farm as part of a larger farmers cooperative. I do the taxes for the whole cooperative. My wife and I do not grow corn ourselves, so the 'we' in this is the royal 'we', not me specifically. We (as in my wife and I) are predominantly animal breeders, vegetable farmers, and producers of "value added" products....
As I said before a good bean counter can twist the numbers to his or her will. Here are about the first numbers I came up when Googling. They look to be a far cry from yours.
2021-02-22.JPG
021-02-22CPC2.JPG



You, your wife, your co-operative, the chemical companies, the politicians and the rest of the interested parties can smear as much lipstick as you want on the pig called glyphosate, it is still going to be a pig.

I stand by my assertion that glyphosate is more toxic than table salt.
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Re: Grain Caution

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Butch27 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:23 am I stand by my assertion that glyphosate is more toxic than table salt.
I agree with you, but what do I know, I only have a degree in Economics...

Yet I agree with Warthaug that I have never heard of genetically modified barley.

The general caveat with all those substances is that whenever we say that a certain substance, at a certain concentration, or a certain level of residues, is not toxic (or is acceptably toxic, let's say as much as natural toxins produced by the plant) for human consumption, we say this as a best guess, within the limits of our forcefully scarce knowledge.

The effect of plants as we know them in nature are known since the mists of time. The effect of natural toxins produced by plants are much more easily studied.

But when a new molecule enters our environment, and our plate, the long-term consequences of it can be hard to detect from laboratory experiments and other limited tests. There always is a risk of something not working as we think.

This is a common risk also with drugs. We certainly need them, they can be extremely useful, but we must never forget that adverse effect can be detected much after their approval and introduction into the market.

In organic farming we know what we have in our plates. The chemical substances which are allowed in organic farming are used since many decades and, for good and bad, are well-known, there is no surprise to be had from sulphur given to the vines or from copper fungicide given to tomatoes.

When a new molecule is introduced in our meal, we must always consider a degree of uncertainty.

When an organism is modified genetically, that organism is new and might produce new substances which we don't know.

Innovation in this field always comes with some risk. I am not for demonizing it but I also am against thinking that there is no risk because a certain substance is approved by a relevant authority.
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Re: Grain Caution

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Butch27 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:23 am I can already see that this is one of those cases where there is just no common sense left in this world.
No, this is a case where reality conflicts with your beliefs, and you are struggling to find ways to rationalize them.
Butch27 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:23 am When somebody is willing to make an argument that a man made chemical that is designed to kill is less toxic than common table salt and others are willing to listen and agree to that argument just because the person making the argument has a certain piece of paper in his back pocket, then the world has gone mad. A "bean counter', financial or data, can generally twist numbers to give a favorable argument for his or her purposes.
LOL, you can't argue the toxicological data I provided to you, so you're stuck with demeaning my hard-earned degree, decades of experience, and rejecting math of all things.
Butch27 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:23 am I went looking at labels online and the skull and crossbones has disappeared
It didn't disappear - it was never there.
Butch27 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:23 am Even if the skull and crossbones has been removed, it should not have been. Here are some words from your own reference site on this page. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compou ... ty-Summary

4.1Toxicity Summary HelpNew Window
IDENTIFICATION AND USE: Glyphosate isopropylamine salt is a white odorless powder that is commonly used as a herbicide to control broadleaf weeds and grasses, in many food and non-food crops. It is an active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. HUMAN EXPOSURE AND TOXICITY: Clinical experiences with patients exposed to Roundup either accidentally or through deliberate ingestion have been reported by investigators. Symptoms resulting from dermal exposure incidental to the use of the product included periorbital edema and chemosis of the eye, cardiovascular effects (tachycardia and elevated blood pressure), swelling and paraesthesia at the site of dermal contact and prolonged skin irritation. Deliberate ingestion resulted in more severe effects, including lethality from apparent respiratory and cardiac arrest. In glyphosate-containing herbicides abdominal pain with nausea, vomiting, and/or diarrhea are the most common manifestations of acute poisoning. These may be mild self-resolving, but in severe poisoning there may be inflammation, ulceration, or infarction. Severe diarrhea and recurrent vomiting may induce dehydration. Gastrointestinal burns and necrosis occurs with high doses of concentrated formulations and may be associated with hemorrhage. Extensive erosions of the upper gastrointestinal tract are associated with more severe systemic poisoning and a prolonged hospitalization. Severe poisonings by glyphosate-containing herbicides manifests as hypotension, cardiac dysrhythmias, renal and hepatic dysfunction, hyperkalemia, pancreatitis, pulmonary edema or pneumonitis, altered level of consciousness, and metabolic acidosis. These effects may be transient or severe, progressing over 12 to 72 hours to shock and death. The mechanism of hypotension may relate to both hypovolemia (fluids shifts and increased losses) and direct cardiotoxicity. Deaths following ingestion of Roundup alone were due to a syndrome that involved hypotension, unresponsive to iv fluids or vasopressor drugs, and sometimes pulmonary edema, in the presence of normal central venous pressure.
And? Any chemical at sufficiently high dose (even water or oxygen) causes toxic responses.

Table salt carries quite similar toxicological information - you refused to read that part of the pubchem site, but that doesn't magically mean that toxicological data is not there. Since you're unwilling to look at it there, I'll post it here for you:

Ingestion of this compound [sodium chloride] may cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, muscular twitching, inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, dehydration and congestion (dehydration and congestion can occur in most internal organs, particularly the meninges and brain). Death may occur from respiratory failure secondary to an acute encephalopathy. ACUTE/CHRONIC HAZARDS: This compound may cause eye irritation. When heated to decomposition it emits toxic fumes. (NTP, 1992)
Butch27 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:23 am Salt may have some harmful effects if people over indulge, most of which are reasonably reversible if people change their diet in a timely fashion. Cancer caused by glyphosate on the other hand, not so much. Just because glyphosate has a powerful lobby saying that it does not cause cancer does not mean that it doesn't.
Repeating a thing does not make it true. The evidence linking glyphosate to cancer is weak, and there is far stronger data indicating no link. And contrary to your claims, there is (also weak) data linking table salt to cancer - nasopharyngeal cancer specifically. Evidence for that is about as robust as the evidence linking glyphosate to cancer.
Butch27 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:23 am As I said before a good bean counter can twist the numbers to his or her will. Here are about the first numbers I came up when Googling. They look to be a far cry from yours.
2021-02-22.JPG
021-02-22CPC2.JPG
Those are projections, not actual values. They also miss several major expenses including wages, which for any farm over a few hundred acres (e.g. what one family can operate) is a major expense. All of the other values are nearly identical to the ones I posted.

Maybe you should try reading the things you post before you post them...
Butch27 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:23 am You, your wife, your co-operative, the chemical companies, the politicians and the rest of the interested parties can smear as much lipstick as you want on the pig called glyphosate, it is still going to be a pig.

I stand by my assertion that glyphosate is more toxic than table salt.
Insults and ignorance do not make an argument, and while you're free to believe in any myths you want, they do not replace reality.
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Re: Grain Caution

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Warthaug. I challenge you or anyone from the glyphosate lobby to take a used glyphosate container and use it to store or process food that you or the person from the glyphosate lobby will consume yourselves.

I am willing to take any food grade container that has been used to store only salt, granular or dissolved in potable water, no other unknown substances, and use it after it has been emptied (no washing or rinsing) for storing and processing food and then consume it myself.
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Re: Grain Caution

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Butch27 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:23 am I stand by my assertion that glyphosate is more toxic than table salt.
The problem with your post is that you are not comparing like-for-like. The quantity of glyphosate that the consumer ingests is tiny compared to the exposure of the farmer dealing with concentrated, solutions in industrial quantities. Eat 500g of sodium chloride and I'm reasonably certain that you'll experience some side-effects, including many of those written on the glyphosate label.

That being said, I'm all for an organic farming solution. Round here we buy direct from farms that practice "reasonable agriculture". Meaning that while not organic, they treat with chemicals only when necessary and not routinely.

GMOs do not add any risk in so far as the genes added are known, and their effect tested. The biggest problem is that a large part of the GMO work was doen to make the crops resistant to the chemicals being sprayed which allows you to increase the dose and kill more weeds faster. Which ultimately increases the quantities in the environment and the consumer.
Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 5:04 am Unfortunately, there isn't any real good solution to this - the need for food (and cheap food) is higher now than any time in the past, and monoculture approaches allow you to maximize the production per unit of land. The only other option requires more land be cleared to use less intensive forms of farming, which IMO, would be a greater loss than current practices.
Actually there is a third way that you mentioned yourself. Most GMO corn is grown to be processed. And I believe that a signifcant amount is also grown as cattle feed. Eating less meat reduces the amount of feed required and in turn, reduces the land used as a food source for those cattle. Meat is an inefficient way of acquiring nutrients. No need to go completely vegetarian, but if your cattle farm is buying in feed then it is not viable. I have two farms within 10km of my house that are entirely (or very close to) self-sufficient. But you have to pay a little more for the meat which in turn means you eat a little less for the same money.

Processed corn is even worse. Despite what we might have come to feel, we don't actually need corn syrup. If you look up a recipe for any processed meal, you will probably not find corn syrup. It's a feedstock to simplify industrial food processing, not an important part of your diet.

So buy less meat, and stop eating processed foods, and you remove 90% (by your account) of corn production. That's a lot of land that can be rewilded, or repurposed into market gardening style production which reduces the monoculture and provides a more diverse environment (which anecdotally, reduces pest problems because they are more naturally contained).
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Re: Grain Caution

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Birrofilo wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:57 am
Butch27 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:23 am I stand by my assertion that glyphosate is more toxic than table salt.
I agree with you, but what do I know, I only have a degree in Economics...
Toxicology is not a matter of belief, it is a measurable phenomenon. The acute and chronic toxicity of glyphosate is well studied (as is acute and chronic toxicity of table salt), and the values are very well established as are the risks. Acute toxicity of glyphosate (the LD50) ranges from 1.5 to 5 g per kilogram of body weight (exact dose depends on route of ingestion), acute toxicity of salt is between 0.15 to 3 g per kilgram of body weight (again, lethal dose depends on route of ingestion. With LD50's higher = less toxic (e.g. you can be exposed to more without dying).

Not supposition, not belief, just simple numbers derived from experimentation with animals and observations of chance intoxication by humans.

Long-term toxicity is a;ways harder to establish, but glyphosate has been around for 50 years giving lots of time for observational studies to establish a link. And here too, salt is more deadly. Its link with hypertension and cardiovascular death (one of the things we study in my lab, btw) is well established; lowering your intake from US average consumption to the recommended intake reduces 25-year mortality by 20%. In contrast, we struggle to find any meaningful link between glyphosate exposure and any heath condition.
Birrofilo wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:57 amThe general caveat with all those substances is that whenever we say that a certain substance, at a certain concentration, or a certain level of residues, is not toxic (or is acceptably toxic, let's say as much as natural toxins produced by the plant) for human consumption, we say this as a best guess, within the limits of our forcefully scarce knowledge.
Actually, we can. There is literally two (arguably three) entire fields of medicine that deal with just this - toxicology, pharmacology and epidemiology. Either exposure increases some disease above background levels (which would indicate toxic effects), or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, that is evidence of non-toxicity at that level of exposure.
Birrofilo wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:57 amThe effect of plants as we know them in nature are known since the mists of time. The effect of natural toxins produced by plants are much more easily studied.
Nope, you've fallen into a common logical fallacy of the "appeal to antiquity". That something has been around for a long time does not mean that we understand it; nor does something being new preclude understanding it. Indirectly, I'm involved in studies looking at natural products (and probiotics) for treatment of a range of diseases. You'd be amazed at what is discovered daily in terms of toxicological (and pharmacological) aspects of plants consumed by humans for millennia.

Whether a product is natural or man made, or old versus new, has no impact on our ability to study its toxicology.
Birrofilo wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:57 amBut when a new molecule enters our environment, and our plate, the long-term consequences of it can be hard to detect from laboratory experiments and other limited tests. There always is a risk of something not working as we think.
Gee, if only there was an entire field of science dedicated to identifying effects of things in populations, instead of in a lab...

...oh wait, there is. Its called epidemiology.
Birrofilo wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:57 amIn organic farming we know what we have in our plates. The chemical substances which are allowed in organic farming are used since many decades and, for good and bad, are well-known, there is no surprise to be had from sulphur given to the vines or from copper fungicide given to tomatoes.
Oh, do I have bad news for you. This is not what organic farming means. All that organic farming means is that the farm inputs come from natural sources - e.g. are isolated from plants, minerals that are mined, etc. There are very new chemicals and compounds used in organic farming for which minimal long-term toxicological data is available. Bt, as one example. And, on average, the chemicals used are more toxic than the "new" chemicals used in conventional agriculture and the residue levels are often higher in the food on the shelf.
Birrofilo wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:57 am When an organism is modified genetically, that organism is new and might produce new substances which we don't know.
This is completely false, and a biological impossibility to boot. If it were true, no life today would exist in its current form, as horizontal gene transfer (the "natural" movement of genes between unrelated species) has been a critical part of the evolution of every organism on earth*.

*Fun fact - you have more genes in you acquired by horizontal gene transfer, largely from retroviruses (about 8% of your genome), than you have "human" genes inherited from your ancestors (~2% of you genome).

The genetic code is universal - place a DNA sequence into any organism, and that organism will translate it into the exact same amino acid sequence. Everything after that is simply physics. The amino acid "chain" made by reading the DNA into protein folds into a functional protein. That folding is driven by thermodynamics, meaning the same protein will fold the same way whether its in a bacterium, a plant, you, or a test tube. The resulting protein's function is enternly dictated by the resulting 3D shape, and will recognize whatever chemical it operates on based upon the 3D structure of that chemical (like a key into a lock). Again, those are invariant things dependent solely on chemical bonds and electron orbitals.

In other words, a protein won't magically start catalyzing a new chemical reaction because its in another organism. At worst, the new organism will lack a cofactor or other component required by that new gene to work...at which point the new gene doesn't do anything and just sits there.
Birrofilo wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:57 amInnovation in this field always comes with some risk. I am not for demonizing it but I also am against thinking that there is no risk because a certain substance is approved by a relevant authority.
Nothing in life is without risk. Its about balancing risks, and being aware of how to assess them. Just look at your statements above - you're unaware of how toxicity is measured and monitored, how risks are identified in populations, how organic vs conventional farming works, how genes work, etc - and you've come to some incredibly incorrect conclusions based on those mis-understandings.
Last edited by Warthaug on Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Grain Caution

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Toxicity is not an indicator of carcinogenicity. Ignoring the conjecture over the classification for now, Glyphosphate is classified as Group 2A by the IARC, the same classification as red meat. Is a big juicy T-Bone steak classified as toxic to you?
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by Warthaug »

NormandieStill wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:35 am GMOs do not add any risk in so far as the genes added are known, and their effect tested. The biggest problem is that a large part of the GMO work was doen to make the crops resistant to the chemicals being sprayed which allows you to increase the dose and kill more weeds faster. Which ultimately increases the quantities in the environment and the consumer.
That is not at all how GMO's work. Roundup-ready crops can survive exposure to glyphosate, which would otherwise kill them. This allows glyphosate (which is relatively non-toxic, works better, and has a short environmental lifespan compared to its alternatives) to be used in place of older chemicals. The net effect is that the risk presented by the chemicals used (to people and the environment) is reduced.

The other major class of GMO are Bt-expressing plants. These make their own insecticide (and one which is harmless to humans - you don't even have the gene it works against), and as such, these crops can often be raised without any insecticide addition what-so-ever. End effect is that on these crops the total amount of chemicals sprayed is less (in terms of total mass used).
NormandieStill wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:35 am
Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 5:04 am Unfortunately, there isn't any real good solution to this - the need for food (and cheap food) is higher now than any time in the past, and monoculture approaches allow you to maximize the production per unit of land. The only other option requires more land be cleared to use less intensive forms of farming, which IMO, would be a greater loss than current practices.
Actually there is a third way that you mentioned yourself. Most GMO corn is grown to be processed. And I believe that a signifcant amount is also grown as cattle feed. Eating less meat reduces the amount of feed required and in turn, reduces the land used as a food source for those cattle. Meat is an inefficient way of acquiring nutrients. No need to go completely vegetarian, but if your cattle farm is buying in feed then it is not viable. I have two farms within 10km of my house that are entirely (or very close to) self-sufficient. But you have to pay a little more for the meat which in turn means you eat a little less for the same money.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work large-scale. What is not often appreciated is how important animal agriculture is to the remainder of the agricultural system. Most of what comes off the field - irrespective of the crop - is not human food. The bulk of what comes off the field (cabbage may be an exception to this) are things like stalks, chaff, cobs, roots, leaves, and the like. This is the material that is fed to animals - grain/corn is generally restricted to finishing animals the few weeks before slaughter - and the manure is then used to return those nutrients back to the soil. Direct composting is impractical as its quite expensive and energy intensive if you want a turn-around within a farming season. It also involves a lot of expensive infrastructure that is not cost-effect (anaerobic digesters and the like).
Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 5:04 amProcessed corn is even worse. Despite what we might have come to feel, we don't actually need corn syrup. If you look up a recipe for any processed meal, you will probably not find corn syrup. It's a feedstock to simplify industrial food processing, not an important part of your diet.
It is also a byproduct of processing the corn for oil and other products. Better it be used than tossed away.
Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 5:04 amSo buy less meat, and stop eating processed foods, and you remove 90% (by your account) of corn production. That's a lot of land that can be rewilded, or repurposed into market gardening style production which reduces the monoculture and provides a more diverse environment (which anecdotally, reduces pest problems because they are more naturally contained).
Not really. Keep in mind that very little of the corn grain (the human-edible part) is used as animal feed (in the US, its about a third of total corn production. The portion fed to animals is mostly the cob and silage (fermented corn stalks). The remaining 2/3rds of corn grain itself is used for human food (whether processed or whole), oil, and industrial purposes such as bioethanol and bioplastics. Those uses do not go away because people stop eating meat, and so your recovery of acreage will be rather small. And removing meat from out diet necessitates increased acreage of pulses and other high protein plant sources. So you're not going to "free up" much land reducing meat consumption, you simply replace one crop with another. Moving to a market-style farm is not a recipe for higher yields (FWIW, we run a large market garden and I'm well aware of the irony of my statement). Even with vegetables, monocropping produces higher yields per acre than does mixed crops, and are also less difficult (and therefore less expensive) for farmers to manage.

There are no easy solutions here - if there were, we'd have nothing to discuss.

PS: I'm having fun here, but are we risking running afowl of the mods? We've gone pretty deep into the proverbial weeds.
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by Butch27 »

Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:12 pm ... Long-term toxicity is a;ways harder to establish, but glyphosate has been around for 50 years giving lots of time for observational studies to establish a link....
DDT was around for about 98 years before it was essentially banned but not entirely in the US in 1972. When companies have invested large amounts of time and money into the development and marketing of their products it can take a lot of time for common sense to take hold and persuade governments to go against their powerful friends and their lobby to allow the gravy train to continue to roll. It is all about the money. Which, I believe why you seem to be so invested in it.

I reiterate my challenge:
Warthaug. I challenge you or anyone from the glyphosate lobby to take a used glyphosate container and use it to store or process food that you or the person from the glyphosate lobby will consume yourselves.

I am willing to take any food grade container that has been used to store only salt, granular or dissolved in potable water, no other unknown substances, and use it after it has been emptied (no washing or rinsing) for storing and processing food and then consume it myself.

Ignoring my challenge does not mean that it does not exist.
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by NormandieStill »

Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:33 pm That is not at all how GMO's work. Roundup-ready crops can survive exposure to glyphosate, which would otherwise kill them. This allows glyphosate (which is relatively non-toxic, works better, and has a short environmental lifespan compared to its alternatives) to be used in place of older chemicals. The net effect is that the risk presented by the chemicals used (to people and the environment) is reduced.
Granted, I used the wrong terms. In my defence it's been 20+ years since my Biochemistry degree and I'm a little rusty. The reality is that chemical use has incresead over time, and is more universal. This has gone hand-in-hand with the increasing mechanisation of farming.
Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:33 pm Unfortunately, that doesn't work large-scale. What is not often appreciated is how important animal agriculture is to the remainder of the agricultural system. Most of what comes off the field - irrespective of the crop - is not human food. The bulk of what comes off the field (cabbage may be an exception to this) are things like stalks, chaff, cobs, roots, leaves, and the like. This is the material that is fed to animals - grain/corn is generally restricted to finishing animals the few weeks before slaughter - and the manure is then used to return those nutrients back to the soil. Direct composting is impractical as its quite expensive and energy intensive if you want a turn-around within a farming season. It also involves a lot of expensive infrastructure that is not cost-effect (anaerobic digesters and the like).
A balanced system is optimised by the presence of some animals. Chickens and pigs are good for turning over ground. Cattle provide direct fertilisation. All can be used in an advanced crop rotation system. But unless you are truely blinkered, you cannot hope to claim that modern agricultural practice in the western world is a balanced system. Our cultural desire / expectation for meat to be included in every meal requires a technological solution to meat production. The wastage from farming is far from sufficient to fulfill our current requirements for meat.
Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:33 pm It is also a byproduct of processing the corn for oil and other products. Better it be used than tossed away.
OK. So we keep it as a byproduct. This is not the same as growing corn to produce it. And corn oil? <pauses to google it>. Interestingly you don't see corn oil in supermarkets in France. Sunflower, Olive and Rape Seed are the staples here. It might be an ingredient in special frying oils, but I confess to never having heard of it before.
the number of animals
Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:33 pm Not really. Keep in mind that very little of the corn grain (the human-edible part) is used as animal feed (in the US, its about a third of total corn production. The portion fed to animals is mostly the cob and silage (fermented corn stalks). The remaining 2/3rds of corn grain itself is used for human food (whether processed or whole), oil, and industrial purposes such as bioethanol and bioplastics. Those uses do not go away because people stop eating meat, and so your recovery of acreage will be rather small. And removing meat from out diet necessitates increased acreage of pulses and other high protein plant sources. So you're not going to "free up" much land reducing meat consumption, you simply replace one crop with another. Moving to a market-style farm is not a recipe for higher yields (FWIW, we run a large market garden and I'm well aware of the irony of my statement). Even with vegetables, monocropping produces higher yields per acre than does mixed crops, and are also less difficult (and therefore less expensive) for farmers to manage.
Note the section of your quote that I've highlighted. So that's 1/3 of the land used for corn production that could be eliminated were agricultural animal use balanced. According to wikipedia that would be 32,000,000 acres of land. While I'm happy to agree that certain agricultural practices cannot be economically scaled a look at any home garden, be it a small veg patch or a small holding will show that there is a hard limit to the number of animals that can be usefully raised on a given surface area. At some point you have to start shipping in resources. It's fairly simple maths ultimately.
Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:33 pm There are no easy solutions here - if there were, we'd have nothing to discuss.
There are no politically easy solutions. There are easy solutions. A parallel exists in the motor industry. In europe there is a big push towards electic vehicles. But simply replacing combustion engines with electric motors cannot solve the problem. The easy solution is to reduce car usage. That means a greater, more coherent public transport network, rethinking town planning and working habits, and disincentivising private car ownership. It's perfectly doable, but in most countries the political will to impose this on the population simply doesn't exist.

There are simple solutions to the food production "crisis" but they involve major social change, which requires either constant campaigning and messaging from the state, or forced change through subsidy modifications and taxes.

Fundamentally you can feed more people from 10 acres of arable land than you can from 10 acres of livestock land. And I'm aware that not all land can serve both purposes, but any time your arable land is being used to subsidise livestock production elsewhere it's "wasted". There is no problem with feeding all of humanity. There is a problem with trying to feed everyone a meat-rich, heavily processed diet. (Which is incidentally not as healthy. Those epidemiologists you referenced earlier have been trying to raise awareness of this for many decades already!)
Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:33 pm PS: I'm having fun here, but are we risking running afowl of the mods? We've gone pretty deep into the proverbial weeds.
Me too. Worst case it could perhaps be shoved into the Off-topic section. I'm new here but while it remains civil, I see no reason to shut it down. :-)
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by BlackStrap »

Warthaug wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 4:33 pm
PS: I'm having fun here, but are we risking running afowl of the mods? We've gone pretty deep into the proverbial weeds.
Me too. Worst case it could perhaps be shoved into the Off-topic section. I'm new here but while it remains civil, I see no reason to shut it down. :-)
I've been following the post, but remaining silent. I appreciate everyone being civil, although there seems to be quite a bit of passion in the posts.
I am learning from the "debate" and although most of it is technical for my vocabulary. (google can be good for learning definitions)

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Re: Grain Caution

Post by Butch27 »

Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:33 pm ..... Not really. Keep in mind that very little of the corn grain (the human-edible part) is used as animal feed (in the US, its about a third of total corn production. The portion fed to animals is mostly the cob and silage (fermented corn stalks). The remaining 2/3rds of corn grain itself is used for human food (whether processed or whole),....
I'm not sure how they silage where you are from but I don't believe that they do not include the grain portion. After the grain portion is harvested they may feed the leftovers to cattle but that is not silage.
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Re: Grain Caution

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Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:12 pm
Actually, we can. There is literally two (arguably three) entire fields of medicine that deal with just this - toxicology, pharmacology and epidemiology. Either exposure increases some disease above background levels (which would indicate toxic effects), or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, that is evidence of non-toxicity at that level of exposure.



You seem to have a fideistic attitude toward that human product that we call science, and which is fallible as all human endeavours. Often good or very good, but always prone to mistakes and re-evaluation.

Pharmacology ends up re-weighing side effects in pharmaceutical compounds many years after those are on sale (Vioxx comes to mind at the moment, or Aulin).

Toxicology, epidemiology lack reliable data because they cannot use men the way rats or dogs can be used in a laboratory. It's all statistics, and I know statistics enough to think like Disraeli about it.

Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:12 pm Nope, you've fallen into a common logical fallacy of the "appeal to antiquity". That something has been around for a long time does not mean that we understand it; nor does something being new preclude understanding it. Indirectly, I'm involved in studies looking at natural products (and probiotics) for treatment of a range of diseases. You'd be amazed at what is discovered daily in terms of toxicological (and pharmacological) aspects of plants consumed by humans for millennia.
I don't agree in this sense, that we may know better certain mechanisms now, but the overall effect on the population is known. You say: "Either exposure increases some disease above background levels (which would indicate toxic effects), or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, that is evidence of non-toxicity at that level of exposure. " This kind of exposure is much better known for a tomato as-is, than for a tomato with some modern treatment for which we don't have centuries of experience.


Whether a product is natural or man made, or old versus new, has no impact on our ability to study its toxicology.


Again, our ability to study the "toxicology" of a product is also based on the statistical base. We have much more data for natural cultures than for modified cultures or for chemical substances that don't exist in nature. It's an inescapable problem, whenever something "new" arrives on our field, plate etc. we can only begin collecting "data" (scientific, empirical, statistic) from that moment. Things don't always work as expected and this is shown only after a large number of person is exposed to a substance for a large number of years in a large number of circumstances.

This is completely false, and a biological impossibility to boot. If it were true, no life today would exist in its current form, as horizontal gene transfer (the "natural" movement of genes between unrelated species) has been a critical part of the evolution of every organism on earth*.

*Fun fact - you have more genes in you acquired by horizontal gene transfer, largely from retroviruses (about 8% of your genome), than you have "human" genes inherited from your ancestors (~2% of you genome).

The genetic code is universal - place a DNA sequence into any organism, and that organism will translate it into the exact same amino acid sequence. Everything after that is simply physics. The amino acid "chain" made by reading the DNA into protein folds into a functional protein. That folding is driven by thermodynamics, meaning the same protein will fold the same way whether its in a bacterium, a plant, you, or a test tube. The resulting protein's function is enternly dictated by the resulting 3D shape, and will recognize whatever chemical it operates on based upon the 3D structure of that chemical (like a key into a lock). Again, those are invariant things dependent solely on chemical bonds and electron orbitals.


This shows again your fideistic approach to science. If the world was as easy as you suppose, we would have foreseen the mad-cow disease, and we would have foreseen that, given a certain food, cows react by producing strange badly-formed proteins which, in turn, are harmful in the long run and not only to the cow, but also to the human eating the cow (which was shocking to me to discover because I would expect a protein to be just digested by my organism).

I don't know how familiar you are with diseases like the Corea of Huntington. This is an illness which is produced by a toxic protein which is produced by certain persons, who have a certain genetical "modification", or "trait", and which damages your nervous system many decades into your adult life. This is something which begins to be better understood only in recent years. It's a deadly poison produced by your own body.

An OGM might, in hypothesis, produce some kind of strange proteins which we cannot see now and which will cause harm to our organisms some decades in the future of regular consumption.

Besides, it is to be seen whether, when you modify and organism, you can exactly hit only that genes that you think you hit and modify them exactly the way you want. "Error of copy" are always possible and actually happen continuously (as in nature, one might say, but with different mechanism and therefore maybe more unpredictable). Modern mRNA vaccines are judged, quality-wise, on how many replication errors there are in the "spikes" that you inject in your arms. The effect of the well-formed mRNA molecule is known. But there invariably are badly-formed mRNA molecules. Reality differs from theory.

Nothing in life is without risk. Its about balancing risks, and being aware of how to assess them.

I fully agree, but in this as in other realms of life, in order to balance risks one must be first aware of them. And after being aware, the way I balance my risks will be different from the way you balance yours. It's a personal choice. "Science" does not exclude risks and does not exclude the underestimation of risks.
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Re: Grain Caution

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Warthaug wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:12 pm
Actually, we can. There is literally two (arguably three) entire fields of medicine that deal with just this - toxicology, pharmacology and epidemiology. Either exposure increases some disease above background levels (which would indicate toxic effects), or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, that is evidence of non-toxicity at that level of exposure.
You seem to have a fideistic attitude toward that human product that we call science, and which is fallible as all human endeavours. Often good or very good, but always prone to mistakes and re-evaluation.

Pharmacology ends up re-weighing side effects in pharmaceutical compounds many years after those are on sale (Vioxx comes to mind at the moment, or Aulin).

Toxicology, epidemiology lack reliable data because they cannot use men the way rats or dogs can be used in a laboratory. It's all statistics, and I know statistics enough to think like Disraeli about it.

Nope, you've fallen into a common logical fallacy of the "appeal to antiquity". That something has been around for a long time does not mean that we understand it; nor does something being new preclude understanding it. Indirectly, I'm involved in studies looking at natural products (and probiotics) for treatment of a range of diseases. You'd be amazed at what is discovered daily in terms of toxicological (and pharmacological) aspects of plants consumed by humans for millennia.

I don't agree in this sense, that we may know better certain mechanisms now, but the overall effect on the population is known. You say: "Either exposure increases some disease above background levels (which would indicate toxic effects), or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, that is evidence of non-toxicity at that level of exposure. " This kind of exposure is much better known for a tomato as-is, than for a tomato with some modern treatment for which we don't have centuries of experience.


Whether a product is natural or man made, or old versus new, has no impact on our ability to study its toxicology.


Again, our ability to study the "toxicology" of a product is also based on the statistical base. We have much more data for natural cultures than for modified cultures or for chemical substances that don't exist in nature. It's an inescapable problem, whenever something "new" arrives on our field, plate etc. we can only begin collecting "data" (scientific, empirical, statistic) from that moment. Things don't always work as expected and this is shown only after a large number of person is exposed to a substance for a large number of years in a large number of circumstances.

This is completely false, and a biological impossibility to boot. If it were true, no life today would exist in its current form, as horizontal gene transfer (the "natural" movement of genes between unrelated species) has been a critical part of the evolution of every organism on earth*.

*Fun fact - you have more genes in you acquired by horizontal gene transfer, largely from retroviruses (about 8% of your genome), than you have "human" genes inherited from your ancestors (~2% of you genome).

The genetic code is universal - place a DNA sequence into any organism, and that organism will translate it into the exact same amino acid sequence. Everything after that is simply physics. The amino acid "chain" made by reading the DNA into protein folds into a functional protein. That folding is driven by thermodynamics, meaning the same protein will fold the same way whether its in a bacterium, a plant, you, or a test tube. The resulting protein's function is enternly dictated by the resulting 3D shape, and will recognize whatever chemical it operates on based upon the 3D structure of that chemical (like a key into a lock). Again, those are invariant things dependent solely on chemical bonds and electron orbitals.


This seem to show again a fideistic approach to science. If the world was as easy as you suppose, we would have foreseen the mad-cow disease, and we would have foreseen that, given a certain food, cows react by producing strange badly-formed proteins which, in turn, are harmful in the long run and not only to the cow, but also to the human eating the cow (which was shocking to me to discover because I would expect a protein to be just digested by my organism). But the fact is, we don't know exactly how a substance will interact with a body. Our models did not foresee cows to be poisoned by "scientifically safe" cattle feed.

I don't know how familiar you are with diseases like the Corea of Huntington. This is an illness which is produced by a toxic protein which is produced by certain persons, who have a certain genetical "modification", or "trait", and which damages your nervous system many decades into your adult life. This is something which begins to be better understood only in recent years. It's a deadly poison produced by your own body if you have a certain sequence of genes (let' say, 39 repetitions you are OK, 40 repetitions you could be ill or not, 41 repetitions you will develop the illness in your adult or old life).

An OGM might, in hypothesis, produce some kind of strange proteins which we cannot see now and which will cause harm to our organisms some decades in the future of regular consumption. We cannot "model" exactly, given the huge amount of genes of a creature, the exact consequence of each gene.

Besides, it is to be seen whether, when you modify an organism, you can exactly hit only that genes that you think you hit and modify them exactly the way you want. "Errors of copy" are always possible and actually happen continuously (as in nature, one might say, but with different mechanism and therefore maybe more unpredictable). Modern mRNA vaccines are judged, quality-wise, on how many replication errors there are in the "spikes" that you inject in your arms. The effect of the well-formed mRNA molecule is known. But there invariably are badly-formed mRNA molecules, and the "message" that they produce is not what is expected. Reality differs from theory. "Stuff happens". The function of a huge number of genes, for any creature, is unknown, and the consequence of a modifcation of a sequence is unknown as well. We don't know everything. Our science is imperfect, our technology is imperfect, too.

Nothing in life is without risk. Its about balancing risks, and being aware of how to assess them.

I fully agree, but in this as in other realms of life, in order to balance risks one must be first aware of them. And after being aware, the way I balance my risks will be different from the way you balance yours. It's a personal choice. "Science" does not exclude risks and does not exclude the underestimation of risks.

And let's not dwell inside the can of worms of whether science is really positive, neutral, objective, or is instead heavily influenced by ideological, religious or cultural beliefs, or economical interests. You can find "scientific proofs" in the '50 that marijuana pushes people to commit homicides, and you can find "scientific studies" in Nazi Germany about the superiority of certain races, and you can find "scientific proof" in our age that, if you have an antibody of a certain unknown and never-seen virus, you will certainly get the illness in the next 5, or 15, or 25, or 50 years. You can find tons of scientific studies about coffee being good for you and coffee being bad for you, etc. You are being fed, now, the "science" that is also the result of present-moment cultural structures, need, fears, prejudices etc.

As a side note: a book that I might quote if you are interested says that there is great statistical evidence that alcohol consumers live longer than teetotallers. Yet, modern medicine more and more treats alcohol as some kind of poison, and even people in this forum believe that, because it comes from "scientists".
Last edited by Birrofilo on Tue Feb 23, 2021 3:18 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Grain Caution

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Regarding the mods. Of course we're watching... topic rings with a certain awareness. Perhaps a bit off topic, but nothing here is against the rules, and although a bit sharp in places, it's mostly civil. That's all I do to evaluate threads. Good job, enjoy your stay everyone.
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Re: Grain Caution

Post by dunluce »

I find it funny that certain "beliefs" are not tolerated, and yet others are. For instance, several times I have seen members here mention things like no one cares what you believe or think, it's the solid evidence that matters. Like running a still unsupervised....or what happens in a reflux column.

But yet we have a huge discussion from a self-professed mechanic who is discounting all the science behind Warthaug's arguments...and people who support that.

There's a reason for the scientific method, and NONE of the resulting has to do with what someone "believes" or "thinks".
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