I hope you all had a good weekend, and that 2009 is off to a good start for everyone. I made this amazingly good vegan mac n cheese for dinner tonight, and wanted to share it with my readers. Even if you’re not vegan, potatoes and carrots are cheaper and milk and cheese. And better for you. And it really did taste good. I used flax oil in place of the margarine, and didn’t have any shallots, so I just omitted them. Give it a try and see what you think.
One of my readers sent me a link to an article Trent at The Simple Dollar published yesterday (thanks for the heads up, April!) If you haven’t already seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s about the new consumer protection laws that go into effect next month requiring that all products for kids under 12 be tested for (and be free of) lead and phthalates. Apparently, it includes used items too, which will be a huge problem for thrift stores and consignment stores that market kids’ stuff. I can see both sides of this. I am a stickler about avoiding chemicals. I got rid of all of our household chemicals and switched to baking soda and vinegar to clean pretty much everything. I buy organic food 99% of the time, and never buy processed food with added chemicals. I don’t have any non-stick cookware, and store all of our food in glass containers. We use cloth diapers for our son (and wash them with non-toxic soap, baking soda, and vinegar) and one of the reasons we do so is because we don’t want the chemicals that make disposables so absorbent anywhere near his little behind. So I can understand the sentiment behind this law. But I think they’re taking it too far. And I hope that our thrift stores don’t really have to stop selling used clothes for kids. My family shops there because we just can’t justify buying brand new clothes that will only be worn for a few months before they’re outgrown. But what about families that shop at thrift stores because they truly can’t afford any other option? (I’ve been in that boat too, although it was before we had a child). What do you think about this law?
In the Frugal Blog Network,
Tight Fisted Miser shares some things that you should get for free. And stock trades are on his list. Oops – we’ve been paying ten bucks a pop through Ameritrade. Not that we make trades often, but when we do it’s not free.
Frugal Zeitgeist just inspired me to clean my house. I will get going on this tomorrow. If I deep clean one room per day (and that should probably involve moving furniture and dismantling the dust bunny drifts that make their way under our couches) I can have it done sometime next week.
Almost Frugal has a helpful post for anyone with an Etsy shop who needs to know how to market it.
Not Made Of Money explains the perils of consumer debt.
The Frugal Duchess has an article about ways to cut home technology costs. I like that “avoid bundles” is included in the list. Bundles are often advertised as a way to save money, but if you don’t need something, you’re not saving money by getting it at a discount.
moneyloveandchange says
The consumer protection laws also have the potential to shut down many Etsy sellers who make children’s products. Although I see the benefits to the laws, exceptions do need to be made.
For more information, check out
http://www.etsy.com/storque/craftivism/handmade-childrens-items-unintended-consequences-consumer-pr-3056/
AnnJo says
You seem to have gone to great lengths to avoid chemicals, as if all chemicals are bad. But at the risk of sounding rude, this is simply irrational, and irrationality is not compatible with frugality.
Everything is chemical, in the sense that it has a chemical composition. The vinegar (acetic acid) and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) you use to clean with are chemical cleaners.
I can’t think of any chemical that is not toxic to humans at some dose, and yet plenty are BOTH necessary and toxic, depending on dosage (think dihydrogen monoxide – water, ferrous sulfate – iron, citric acid – Vitamin C, sodium chloride – salt, etc.)
I’m not a chemist and I’m sure this is vastly oversimplifying, but basically all food is organic or it wouldn’t serve as food and yet it all contains traces of inorganic elements, some of which we need, and some of which we don’t.
You say you don’t buy processed foods with “added chemicals.” Unless you’re buying an empty box, that can’t be true. Whatever’s in there is a chemical, and probably has the addition of salt, sugar or some other preservative or stabilizer also.
There’s a widespread superstition that food labeled “organic” is somehow nutritionally better or safer than food without that label, but I’ve searched for credible scientific evidence that this is both true and meaningful and haven’t found any.
By meaningful, I mean for example, if an “organic” carrot has X micrograms of some pesticide in it and a conventionally grown carrot has 2X micrograms (twice as much) but the level at which that pesticide is a risk to humans is 2000x micrograms, then the difference is not meaningful.
Most vegetables have pesticides “built in” to survive, and the species chosen as crops tend to be the ones with the highest levels of pesticides, since they have higher yields.
Since foods labeled “organic” cost between 10% – 100% more than foods not carrying that label, if you really are buying 99% of your food with that label you are overpaying tremendously on groceries, which is not frugal at all.
The whole “organic” foods movement reminds me of a book written about 150 years ago, called “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” about the various fads and superstitions that occasionally sweep the populace. Centuries ago, everybody knew there were witches who consorted with the devil, and the big issue was how to figure out who they were.
I went to Costco yesterday, and was dismayed that with each visit, more of the staples I rely on were labeled “organic” at twice the price. And some of it was just crazy: “Organic” Toaster Pastries? Puh-leeze!
I happen to shop frugally as a matter of habit, not necessity, but I feel sorry for the people who have no choice but to be frugal, as they are priced out of the healthful benefits of fruits, vegetables, and staples like beans and rice, (as they are being priced out of clothing for their children) by nothing more than superstition. Like the millions of Third World victims of malaria who could have been saved by DDT but were sacrificed to soothe the tender feelings of Western envirnmentalists, the “organic” foods and anti-“chemical” movements will be to blame for a lot of suffering.
FrugalBabe says
@AnnJo: I respect your opinion, but I couldn’t disagree more. Yes, everything is a chemical. But while you can drink vinegar and suffer no ill effects, the same is not true about a bottle of mildew remover with bleach. It’s nice to know that as our son starts crawling and opening cabinet doors, we don’t have to worry about what he’s going to find under the sink. I used to use synthetic chemical cleaners and found that I would have a headache every time I cleaned the bathroom. That is never the case now that I use baking soda and vinegar.
My family hasn’t had a single incident of illness of any type in nearly four years (no headaches, no colds, no flu, nothing at all). I am 100% convinced that the reason for this is because we avoid toxic chemicals, eat unprocessed organic food, and don’t eat sugar (or any synthetic sugar replacements – the only sugar we eat is in the form of fruit).
As for organic food, we have two reasons for eating this way, and they are equally important to us. One is that we refuse to eat synthetic pesticides, fertilizers and anything that is genetically modified. There has not been enough research done on GMOs and we prefer to opt out of being test subjects. But the second reason we eat organic is because we’re “voting with our dollars” in terms of what companies and farmers we wish to support. We choose to support farms that use sustainable farming methods like crop rotation, composting, multiple crops at one time, etc. rather than factory farms that spray synthetic chemicals, plant miles of wheat or soybeans or corn, and let the toxin-filled irrigation water from their fields wash into nearby streams and lakes. We know that we’re paying more for this food, but we see it the same way that a religious family might look at tithing – we’re doing our part to make the world a better place, and to us that’s money well spent. We’re frugal in every other aspect of our lives, and that allows us to be able to support sustainable, organic agriculture. To me, frugality is about mindful use of money – conserving it in as many areas as possible in order to be able to spend it in the areas you see as most important. That will vary from one person to another, but for my family, food is by far the most important category.
I agree that organic toaster pastries are ridiculous. But that’s because I think that toaster pastries in general are ridiculous and would never buy them – organic or not. An overly processed food made with refined flour, sugar, food coloring, etc. is never going to find its way into our house, regardless of whether the ingredients are organic. The vast majority of our grocery purchases are vegetables and fruit, either fresh or frozen. We rely on Costco for frozen veggies and fruit, but will only buy the organic varieties. They used to carry an organic triple berry blend, but a while ago they switched to a conventionally farmed version, and we haven’t bought it since. As far as food in boxes, we buy pasta (organic, whole grain) and that is about it. We also buy pasta sauce, but we buy brands that contain only ingredients you would find in your kitchen (no preservatives, food coloring, etc.) So it is indeed true that we don’t buy food with “added chemicals”. I have no problem with foods that contain natural pesticides that have evolved over time and help the plants survive. But I absolutely have a problem with eating something that Monsanto cooked up 15 years ago to kill every bug it comes in contact with. Our hydroponic garden became infested with tiny whiteflies last month. We ordered a container full of ladybugs, set them loose in the garden, and the whiteflies are gone without any toxic chemicals being sprayed onto our food.
This is the route my family has chosen to take. It’s a very conscious choice for us, and highly rational. Just the fact that we’ve had no illness whatsoever since we began eliminating synthetic chemicals from our lives is enough to motivate me to continue living this way for the rest of my life. And if we have to pay more to do so, that’s fine with us. We’d rather have a 14 year old TV and second hand clothes and be able to spend our money on unprocessed organic food. As for the cleaners, baking soda and vinegar (I buy them in bulk at Costco) are a lot less expensive than little spray bottles of synthetic chemical cleaning products. So our cleaners are both frugal and non-toxic. Our son’s diapers are another example of how our desire to eliminate toxic chemicals often leads to the frugal solution. We made all of his diapers from recycled fabric, and spend next next to nothing to clean them (and nothing at all to dry them). We’ve saved a significant amount of money compared with the cost of buying disposable diapers and wipes.
Frugality and environmental consciousness are equally important to us, and we work hard to balance them. We’ve come up with a solution that works for us – frugal living in other areas so that we can afford organic food, and skipping over-priced processed food and restaurant meals.
David says
AnnJo – if someone gave you the choice of two apples – one organic and pesticide free, and one covered in fertilizer and pesticide, you would pick the toxic one? Seriously? Really?
If so, good luck with that thinking, and I am thankful that the chemical industry still has people “on their side” who somehow believe that toxic chemicals are OK to ingest, even though study after study has proven that wrong. Personally, my health is worth way more than a few extra dollars is – but each to their own. My guess is that you work for DuPont or Monsanto or something.
Joanna says
AnnJo, you bring up an interesting issue. Your priorities are different than Frugal Babe’s, and, honestly, that’s OK. Isn’t the goal of being frugal and being out of debt to free up resources so that you can put resources towards what’s actually important to you?
For some, that means being frugal just to make ends meet so one spouse can stay home with kids. For others, it means to give away a large chunk of their income towards causes that matter to them. For others, it means saving money so the family can travel together. For others, it means saving in one area to free up money in the grocery budget to buy organic. (or, in my case, local) food. For most, it’s some combination of the above. We “vote with our dollars” and spend on what’s important to us (“Where our treasure is, there our heart will be also”?). It’s going to be different for each family, and that’s OK. It’s important to Frugal Babe for her family to be kept from synthetic chemicals. It’s important to me to source some of my food locally, and to not shop at Walmart. We all have different priorities, and our dollars vote in different ways.
NCN says
Now that I’m losing weight and focusing on my health, I’ve begun to focus on the foods that I eat and where they come from. I try to buy produce that is grown locally, and I can’t wait for the spring / summer when I can go to the farmers market.
That being said, do you ever worry that our fear of non-organic foods will scare people away – and actually push them towards even LESS healthier alternatives? For instance, if I say that there are traces of pesticides on an apple… Are there folks who will forgo that apple – and the organic alternative (because of the higher cost) – and eat a bag of gummie bears, instead? Wouldn’t a well-washed regular apple be far better than the gummie bears? Personally, I just wash all of our fruits and veggies really well, buy organic and local when possible, and hope for the best…
Janelle S says
Here’s a bit more fodder to inform AnnJo:
“Early results of a 12 million pound, 4-year EU study on the benefits of organic food suggest that some of them, such as fruit, vegetables and milk, are more nutritious than non-organically produced food and may contain higher concentrations of cancer fighting and heart beneficial antioxidants.” http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/86972.php
“Forty New Studies Published in Last Six Years Provide a Firm Foundation for Some Clear-cut Answers: Yes, Organic Plant-Based Foods ARE More Nutritious, and Provide on Average a 25% Nutrition Premium” http://www.organic-center.org/news.pr.php?action=detail&pressrelease_id=22
Also, no one is arguing for the abolition of synthetic chemicals. Some are useful and help promote human well-being. BUT (and this is a very big but), our current approach is very short-sighted. Most chemicals are not comprehensively tested for potential health impacts on the most vulnerable (babies and developing fetuses) and only a handful of the existing 80,000 have been tested for synergistic effects (but we are exposed to complicated mixtures of chemicals all the time). And, this is just the tip of the iceberg of flaws.
While chemicals are an inherent part of life, the 200 industrial chemicals found in the cord blood of newborn babies – chemicals that didn’t exist a couple generations ago – shouldn’t be there.
FrugalBabe says
@NCN: Yes, a well-washed apple is far better than a bag of gummy bears, even if the gummy bears are organic (is there such a thing?) I think that the first priority should be to eliminate processed food (like gummy bears) and move towards eating fruits and veggies. Then, if you can afford organic, go for it. For a lot of years, we couldn’t afford organic, so we bought conventionally farmed produce. We always stayed away from processed and prepared food even before we were able to fit organic food into our budget. You bring up a good point, and I hope that the awareness about organics isn’t driving people away from produce all together if they can’t afford organics.
AnnJo says
David, I’m a semi-retired divorce lawyer and the closest I get to a chemical company is a cousin I see once a decade or so, who used to teach organic chemistry at UC-Davis. However, even if I did work for a chemical company, it would not render what I had to say invalid. Biased, yes, but not necessarily untrue. Attacking the messenger implies you have no good arguments against the message. You obviously have an anti-corporate bias, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are wrong about corporations’ desires for profits sometimes getting in the way of their customers’ welfare.
I don’t know what you mean by “covered in fertilizer and pesticide” but if you mean conventionally grown, the answer to your question is I would choose whichever were less expensive, assuming they were otherwise comparable in terms of bruising, freshness, etc.
I would never eat any apple (or any other produce) without washing it, no matter how it was grown. Salmonella is in the intestinal tract of birds that fly over organic fields, too, and tired farm workers will take a poop or fail to wash their hands after taking one, whether they work for an “organic” farmer or otherwise. In fact, the risk of e-coli is higher with organic foods, due to the heavy use of manure for fertizer.
Frugalbabe, I congratulate you on your family’s good health, but concluding that it is a result of eating “organic” is a logical fallacy called post hoc ergo propter hoc (after something therefore because of it). I don’t eat “organic” foods, but also have not had a cold, flu, etc., for years, never get headaches, etc. I’m approaching 60, and my cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure and heart functions are all very healthy. I just had my first colonoscopy – all well. Using your logic, I could claim that my good health is BECAUSE of my refusal to eat “organic” foods. That would be the same logical error. So many things influence health, including genetics, that it takes a very carefully designed study to tease out the effect of any one variable, and that work, for “organic” food, hasn’t been done. Since the “organic” food industry is now a multi-billion dollar one and very well connected in academia and government, that alone tells me something.
As for your child drinking vinegar with no ill effect, which he could not do with bleach, that is entirely because of the dosage. The vinegar we use at home is diluted to make it safe to drink, while the bleach is not. Sufficiently diluted bleach is safe to drink, and in fact is added to most water supplies in order to make them safer, while industrial strength vinegar, sometimes used as an “organic” herbicide, has to be handled with gloves and great care.
As I was trying to say, dosage is everything, and the “dose” of pesticides, herbicides and fertiizers that we get with washed conventionally grown produce are tiny fractions of the dose that would be required to cause us harm.
You have obviously given your stance on “organic” foods a great deal of thought, but forgive me for saying this – that doesn’t make it rational. The Inquisition gave a great deal of thought to how to identify witches, but that didn’t make their actions any more rational.
We are all entitled to our own opinions, thank goodness, until all of the sudden, superstition makes its way into legislation, which is where this whole topic started. And then we all end up paying a heavy price.
You have a lot invested psychologically in your beliefs, as we all do, but I challenge you to consider the possibility that everyhthing you have learned about this may be wrong, especially if you have not made a concerted effort to look into the contrary point of view. When the “organic” movement started I was in my 20s, and was sold on it until, over the years, I saw that for all its proponents’ almost religious fervor and its growing commercial success, concrete scientific support for it failed to materialize.
My biggest concern is that as this superstition spreads, it will have a devastating impact on the health of the poorest people in our country and abroad. Just as the ban on DDT killed an estimated 60 million people, when its environmental goals could just as easily have been met by better instruction in its proper use, the current climate of chemophobia is going to cause a lot of harm, for very little good.
Thank you for your courtesy in allowing me to challenge your view. May you stay in the best of health and have a wonderful New Year.
FrugalBabe says
AnnJo, I’m curious as to why you consistently put the word organic in quotation marks. When the word is applied to food, it’s strictly regulated (this is not the case for things like personal care products, although I would like to see that change in the future). If you see the word organic on food, it means that the food was not genetically modified, and no artificial pesticides or fertilizers were used in its production. This is different from say, the word natural, which doesn’t have much meaning at all, since it’s not regulated.
Congratulations to you too on your good health. I know for a fact that I used to get headaches when I used commercial cleaning products, and never have them with baking soda and vinegar. I attribute our health (three people, not just myself) to a wide variety of factors. We work to minimize stress, we exercise daily, we avoid toxic chemicals whenever possible (not just in our food) and we eat a diet comprised mostly of veggies, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains, and fruit. I breastfeed our son several times a day and will continue to do so until he’s at least two (assuming he doesn’t wean himself before then) in order to give him the strongest immune system possible.
I will readily admit that I am biased against Monsanto. Their development of the “terminator gene” isn’t doing the world any favors:
http://www.ethicalinvesting.com/monsanto/terminator.shtml
Beyond that, I believe companies have a right to pursue profits, but not if doing so involves damaging our shared resources – things like water, air, and soil.
Mike @ TheThriftyLife says
Frugal doesn’t simply mean cheap. A frugal decision in this case may be the difference between eating organic and choosing to be healthier and therefore having lower healthcare costs over your lifetime. Or choosing to eat junk food, or food with added chemicals and preservatives and suffering the costs(literally) of not being healthy – higher insurance, higher medical bills, sick more, etc.
The act of being frugal isn’t about saving cash and spending less. It’s about making wise decisions and choosing to be conscious about the resources you’re using. Purchasing cheap food is not necessarily cheap when you consider the cost of not shopping locally or supporting local growers. You’re consuming resources when that cheap item is trucked across the country, packaged excessively and made cheaply by cheap labor standards.
You mention challenging your current beliefs, I think you should challenge yourself on the subject of cheap and look at the real cost of the things you consume.
On the subject of chemical pesticides vs natural ones. There are natural alternatives, but chemicals are cheap and marketed and they make lots money for the corporations who make them. Humans have been growing and harvesting food for thousands of years successfully, how long have chemical companies been around? We can do it without man-made chemicals and we should support those growers who choose to do so.
AnnJo says
Frugalbabe, I put quote marks around the word organic in relation to food because chemically, all plant and animal food is organic. To say that foods grown the way you describe are organic implies that foods grown differently are not. So what are those? Inorganic? That would clearly be false under the traditional scientific definition of inorganic. Non-organic? That too is false, since those foods are chemically organic.
Maybe I read too much George Orwell at an impressionable age, but I find it difficult to accept the perversion of language to force people to think in a politically correct way.
Mike@TheThrifyLife,
I agree with you completely about the difference between cheap and frugal. And I accept that YOU BELIEVE “organic” foods lessen health care costs, which I don’t believe. Whichever one of us is wrong, the error defeats that person’s frugal goals, right?
If I told you that a certain incantation said over your food every day, for which you had to pay a premium of 30% of the food’s costs, would preserve your health, I hope you would expect me to prove that, wouldn’t you? And wouldn’t you be concerned if so many gullible people bought into that story that food prices started climbing dramatically? Even if you yourself could easily afford the extra cost, if you had any social concern for the poor, wouldn’t you be worried that they are being priced out of a healthy diet in order to satisfy those who believe in the incantation?
Again, I remind you that previous scientifically unsound emotional overreactions like the DDT ban have KILLED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. This issue deserves the most serious and open-minded study, because either way PEOPLE WILL DIE. If conventionally grown foods are as dangerous as you believe them to be, people’s health is at risk. But if you are overreacting, people’s health is also at risk.
We are all entitled to our opinions, but wrong opinions have serious consequences, not always just for ourselves.
I really have no personal stake in this, other than a desire not to see foolish fads hurt vulnerable people. I can easily afford to buy “organic” if that ends up being all that is available. But there are plenty of people who can’t, and I have enough of a social conscience to not want to see people suffer unnecessarily.
David says
“I would choose whichever were less expensive, assuming they were otherwise comparable in terms of bruising, freshness, etc.”
So your health is less important than spending an extra $.50 for an organic fruit or veggie? Then we will never agree, because I don’t put a price on keeping pesticides and toxins out of my body. Why knowingly eat a product grown with such crap when safer, healthier alternatives are available? No thanks – but you can keep your toxic food, no worries here.
“implies you have no good arguments against the message” – I am curious how not wanting to put toxins in my body to save a dime is not a good argument, but it’s all good – you can choose to do with that food what you wish.
David says
Oh, and some food for thought, no pun intended – “Pesticides are toxic, and they are designed to kill bugs, weeds, rodents, fungi, rot, and other pests – do you really want to eat that stuff? These chemicals have been shown to suppress the immune system, increase the risk of breast and other cancers, disrupt the hormonal system and do reproductive harm.”
http://www.thegoodhuman.com/2008/10/22/which-fruits-vegetables-to-buy-organic/
That is why I buy organic.
AnnJo says
No, David, my health is NOT less important than the money. If you got that from what I wrote, you weren’t reading it for understanding but for contention.
What I’m saying is that I don’t believe my health will be adversely affected by conventionally grown produce, because I have seen no evidence that it will and I’ve looked for it.
David, EVERYTHING is toxic in some amount. Toxicity is DOSE-DEPENDENT. You can poison yourself with too much of the purest water in the world. Any pesticide that can kill a bug can surely kill a human at some dose. But at the dose likely to be present on my conventionally grown apple after I wash it? No. My grandparents ate far “dirtier” food than we do because of heavy pollution where they lived, and they lived into their late 80s (and my grandfather smoked); neither developed any cancers.
I’m not going to go drink the jug of Round-up in my garage, but the amount I sprayed last Fall on the weeds near my strawberry plants is not going to harm me when I pick strawberries there next summer. 15% acidity vinegar would have worked just as well as Round-up, it’s organic, but you’d better not drink a jug of that either.
Do you seriously believe organic farmers use no pesticides? That is not true. They use organic pesticides, which also “kill bugs, weeds, rodents, fungi, rot, and other pests.” And they plant species that have high levels of built-in pesticides. If you won’t eat pesticides, you can’t eat produce.
AnnJo says
Janelle S, I wanted to check the articles you referenced before responding to your comment. Thank you for them. I am always open to contrary viewpoints. I would always rather change my mind than be consistent in my errors.
The first article was a November 2007 preliminary report of findings by an organic agriculture center, promising that the full study findings would be released within the year. I was unable to find that promised study on the organization’s website, which is very strange if it has been produced. But I did find the abstract of an article in a scientific journal that might have been part of it, relating to the antioxidant and fatty-acid profiles of “organic,” low-input and high-input conventionally produced milk.
Superficially, it did not seem to prove the superiority of organic methods, but abstracts are hard to get much info from. I would be suspicious of the study design, in any case, because from the description of the methodology, it is going to be highly subject to researcher bias. The organization conducting the study apparently controlled all the inputs to the plots where the different production methods were being applied, which would make any kind of blind study impossible.
The second article was about a meta-analysis (study of other studies) conducted by The Organic Center. Meta-studies can be tremendously biased, because the outcome is going to be largely controlled by which studies the reasercher chooses to include in its review and what aspect of those studies it chooses to include in its analysis. It did not seem to be published in any peer-reviewed journal. I only skimmed the 50+ page study, but the fact that it had to create 17 rules to allow it to obtain comparison sets where some aspect of the set was non-comparable was not reassuring. It reminded me of the part of the Cinderella story where the older sisters offer to cut off their toes or heel to get their feet in the glass slipper. If you have to work that hard to fit a study into your review, it may not belong there.
I also found it incredible that it claimed there had only been about 97 peer-reviewed studies world-wide since 1980 available to consider for its meta-analysis.
In any event, even with all the bias inherent in an analysis like this, the findings were not spectacular. The “organic” product in matched pairs was superior in some nutrients a little more often than the conventional product (61% to 37%, 2% showing no difference), and then in 59% of the instances, the difference was less than 20%. These are not particularly impressive differences. And of course, that also means that in 37% of the instances, the conventionally grown product was superior (also not by a huge amount). The study also makes it clear that these matched pairs were not studied in the retail context, so retailer selection, freshness, etc., could all affect the nutrient load.
Both of the organizations sponsoring these studies depend for their revenue on the success of the “organic” movement and cannot be considered impartial. This does not make them wrong, but their reports do have to be viewed with the same skepticism that we would apply to a study by Monsanto.
Assuming the Organic Center’s study involved no bias at all (a big assumption for any meta-analysis), it means roughly this:
If you bought 10 organic apples at the store, six would have higher amounts and four would have lower amounts of a small handful of nutrients, compared to the conventional ones sold in the next bin. And the six that had those few higher nutrients would most likely only be slightly superior to the ones in the next bin. If the price were equal, you should buy the organic ones (if you believe this study), but if the price is more than 10% higher, you should just buy 11 conventionally grown apples for the cheaper price and you’d be just as well off.
These studies, of course, don’t address pesticide residues, but the ones I’ve seen also suggest “organic” foods are slightly, but not meaningfully, less contaminated, and for some reason, they tend to measure contamination before washing, so whatever slightly higher contamination might be there before washing may not be there after washing.
Janelle S says
AnnJo- I sincerely appreciate your scrutiny of the studies I offered. All in all, the studies are scant and, as you pointed out, unimpressive to date. But, even if the body of research is small and contentious at this point, small glimmers are emerging that organically grown produce may be more nutritious.
Still, eating a diet loaded with produce raised in any way is likely healthier than what’s become the mainstay of the American diet (junk foods and fast foods).
I’m still curious about how you feel about my other points (e.g. the lack of research on health impacts of synthetic chemicals on the most vulnerable populations, cumulative and synergistic impacts, etc).
Also, while DDT may be beneficial for fighting malaria in developing countries, we are still growing food without it’s magic. How much more could we accomplish without relying on chemicals that kill the soil, contaminate our water, and pollute our bodies? As I said in my earlier post, in agreement with you, chemicals can be good and promote human well-being. What about when they aren’t? What about using a little precaution before we spill them all over our environment? What about green chemistry – that reflects the intelligence of natural systems instead of trying to dominate and destroy them?
Funny about Money says
The fact is that almost every human being in this country has elevated levels of pesticides, flame-retardants, and other carcinogenic or toxic products in their systems. See, for example, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/512466 and, more accessibly, http://www.rense.com/general67/90.htm.
If it’s “superstition” to imagine this is not a good thing and to seek ways to protect one’s children from it, then so be it. Maybe we could elevate it to the level of “religion,” so that honi soit qui mal y pense.
The term organic has a legal meaning when applied to products taken to market and sold to consumers. It’s quite specific. Most of us know what it means, and so it need not be set off with scare quotes.
Tailoring one’s choices in food, clothing, cleaning goods, and living environment to limit known toxins is a lifestyle decision. It is not, given what we know about the risks inherent in many of the additives we find in food, water, and clothing, an unreasonable decision.
Whether it’s effective is another matter.
Nevertheless, citizens who hope it is effective should be allowed to make that decision. Products should be labeled to show what they contain and food should be labeled accurately to reveal how they were grown and prepared. Products that are as free as possible of noxious additives should be made available for those who wish to purchase them, and they should be made available widely and at reasonable prices. This comes under the heading of common sense. Not to say “only fair.”
Speaking of common sense, we know that lead is toxic to children, even in very small quantities. We know that flame-retardant chemicals, which for many years were required by law to be sprayed on children’s sleepwear, are carcinogenic. We know that even nonsynthetic fabrics have been treated with with these products for a long time. (BTW, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is presently recommended that cotton and other nonsynthetics be exempted from the new clothing lead-limit rule: http://www.cpsc.gov/library/foia/foia09/brief/leadlimits.pdf) With this knowledge in mind, it’s hard to escape the sense that buying contaminated children’s clothing second-hand is penny-wise and pound-foolish, in a big way.
Governmental agencies do not institute rules for their own amusement. Nor do they inflict costly and inconvenient changes on manufacturers and retailers for idle entertainment. You can be sure that if the new law got through the maze of requirements and roadblocks thrown in front of such proposals, it was made law for a good reason.
The morons at Trent’s site who, not having bothered to look up the facts of the clothing law, exclaim that their kids have already been exposed to lead and organophosphates and so it doesn’t make any difference whether they’re exposed to more of the stuff are…well, morons. That’s like saying you had a couple of gin-&-tonics before you drove to the bar, and so it should be OK to have a couple more for the road. Dumb and dumber.
Mike @ TheThriftyLife says
Organic food isn’t a fad. People have been growing food without man-made chemicals for THOUSANDS of years. As well, I never said I’m paying a premium. Organic food goes on sale too you know. And there are organic products available locally where I live that are often the same prices as non-organic.
Check out http://www.foodnews.org – They’ve got a nice table there detailing their results of testing different types of produce. Here’s a quote:
Do I want my kid ingesting pesticides regardless of the source? No. So why would I buy food grown with pesticides, that’s been tested and shown to have higher levels of pesticides?
I have a social conscience, but my conscience says put the money in the pockets of organic growers so that they can produce more and drive the cost of organic down further. Additionally, I would rather buy local, organic food and put the money into my local economy.
I do have a personal stake in this. My health and my families health and there are plenty of reasons that I see to buy organic. I’m not really seeing any not to, other than the possibility of sometimes buying cheaper food. Additionally, I’m not overreacting – I’m just buying organically grown food. It’s my choice, so that’s what I do. How is that hurting anyone?
AnnJo says
Janelle S,
My understanding is that it is very difficult to conduct tests for almost anything on newborns and young children. That includes many pharmaceuticals and I’m sure it includes pesticides, food additives, etc., including many things they’ve been fed for generations. And there’s a great deal yet to be learned about food chemistry, human biology and everything else – nobody has any excuse to be bored for the next few hundred years.
My concern is about the subtext in your second sentence. Why this deep yearning for something that, at present, offers only contentious glimmers to advance it?
Why not, instead, glory in the fact that advances in agriculture, including all the bogeymen like GM, more carefully targeted herbicides and pesticides, chemical fertilizers, technology and transportation prevented the massive famines predicted by the doomsayers of the 1970s like Erlich and Brown, who foresaw hundreds of millions of deaths from starvation before the 1990s? (Not that their predictions were particularly credible to me even at the time.)
I am sure we will find out there are some negative consequences to some man-made pesticides, and also to some “organic” farming techniques.
The point I’m arguing for is to avoid the temptation to throw out the baby with the bathwater, to resist prejudice and superstition in our evaluations, and not to get carried away with fads in our thinking.
I don’t know how much we could accomplish, or how much damage we could do, if we stopped relying on chemicals to grow our food, and neither do you. But I get very worried when people start talking about “the intelligence of natural systems.” I’m just not a religious person. I respect science and the scientific method and reason and logic. I don’t believe the only choices are either to worship nature or destroy it (assuming we could).
I’m also no fan of the precautionary principle, a deceptive little sound bite if ever there was one. No individual could survive living life on that premise, and our society can’t either.
Even if we had unlimited resources, which we don’t, we will never develop a risk-free environment. It is not rational to devote enormous resources to low-level threats like the effects of conventionally grown produce on well-fed, well-educated middle-class Americans while ignoring the risk of damage that wide-spread adoption of organic farming methods will do to the poor of our own and other countries.
Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox now, and thanks again for the articles. Happy New Year!
FrugalBabe says
AnnJo, As much as we’ve disagreed here, I do have to agree with you on one point you made in your last comment about “the intelligence of natural systems.” My husband and I are both atheists, and strongly opposed to the idea of intelligent design (repackaged creationism). I don’t think that nature has any grand plan or design in terms of how things work or grow. But I am a strong believer in the painfully slow process of evolution. And one of my main concerns about GMOs and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides is that they are developed very quickly, tested for a very short time span, and then dumped into the environment in large quantities. This disrupts the slow process of evolution, and I’m concerned about what the consequences are or may be. For myself and my family, I’ll always choose organics, which is really just a throwback to how people raised food for centuries before the advent of modern chemistry.
Thanks for livening up the discussion here, and Happy New Year to you too! :)
Funny About Money, you raised some very good points about children’s clothing, which was the original focus of my article. Until now, I’ve actually felt safer having used clothing for my son because I like knowing that his stuff has been washed many times before he gets it. Most of his clothes are hand me downs from my best friend, who uses the same non-toxic laundry soap I use. And the clothes were hand me downs to her as well, so my son is the third baby to wear them. I am not clear about whether sleepwear is still treated with flame retardants (my 2008 copy of “what to expect” says to make sure that your baby’s pjs are flame retardant). But just to be safe, I typically put our son to bed in his daytime clothes. I made a sleepsack for him out of one of my old sweatshirts, and we did buy a new organic mattress for him when he started sleeping in his own crib. If he’s going to spend 14 hours a day on his mattress, I’d rather than it not be full of synthetic chemicals. We installed a smoke alarm in his room (one of five in our 1300 square foot house) and have a fire extinguisher right outside his room. That makes me feel safe, and I’d much prefer that he not be wearing anything treated with flame retardants. With this new law regarding testing of kids items, I’ll feel much safer buying toys for our son (he really only has toys made of cloth or wood up to this point, because I’m nervous about anything plastic).
April says
“Governmental agencies do not institute rules for their own amusement. Nor do they inflict costly and inconvenient changes on manufacturers and retailers for idle entertainment. You can be sure that if the new law got through the maze of requirements and roadblocks thrown in front of such proposals, it was made law for a good reason.”
Yeah, the government is always instituting laws to protect the people. Riiiiight. Nine times out of ten, just follow the dollar.
Look, I don’t know if organic foods are truly better for us, but I know that given the choice, which I’m fortunate to have, I’d rather forgo added chemicals and fertilizers, and keep them out of our soil and water. I do as FB does and vote with my dollars, refusing to support the Monsantos and Wal-Marts of the world. Not everyone can afford to do so, and I understand that, but we do okay and we’d be willing to give up quite a few luxuries before handing a buck to one of those companies.
I’m also willing to eat less meat and buy free-range, grass-fed, and local. I won’t give one red cent to a factory farm, both for concerns about my health and compassion for the animals.
Janelle S says
AnnJo-
A few last points and then I’m backing out of this one (I don’t think we are going to end up agreeing on anything, but feel I must clarify a few things for future readers).
1. Simply because it is incredibly difficult to understand the delicate developing system of a growing fetus is no reason to forgo attempting it. Already, we are seeing startling increases in many illnesses and diseases – and an even more threatening decrease in our ability to reproduce. The scientific evidence increasingly points to recently introduced chemicals in our environment as main culprits.
2. Precaution simply means we use a little common sense instead of continuing to exhibit endless hubris by conducting a global experiment that is already clearly going awry. As I’ve already said, no one’s saying all chemicals are bad, but some pose more risk than they are worth. I don’t think we can eliminate risk (of course not), but we can do things with a little more forethought. Pesticides and GMOs may have increased global food production, but what’s going to happen when the soil is depleted of all its nutrients, the water is too poisoned to support life, and there’s no more oil to make the pesticides? India and Africa are both seeing resurgences of sustainable farming as they’ve watched their delicate ecosystems collapsing. The United Nations just two months ago called for a global effort to adopt more sustainable farming practices.
3. I never meant to imply that I believed in intelligent design. I believe in evolution, and, as Frugal Babe pointed out, it’s an excruciatingly slow process that we don’t fully understand. Again, it’s hubris for us to think we can “do it better” or facilitate progress by messing with genes.
Anyway, I’m sure we could go at this for decades (many already have been). Thanks for the intellectual discourse.
Lilbet says
I know, I’m entering into the conversation oh so very late, but I wanted to interject a little humor:
Moral of the story of this discussion? Never try to win an argument with an attorney! I was raised by one–it can’t happen. They are schooled in the art and will take a stand and cement themselves onto that stand no matter what.
Case in point: the argument that everything is chemical based. Um, to that I would give a big DUH.
To address the issue discussed above:
Perhaps a “to each his own” will suffice. I, personally, try to find balance in all things. Balance, meaning, use your mind to make the best decision for YOU at all times.
I’m a registered nurse. I also owned a food business and was privy to the meaning behind a lot of terms and was educated in how the food industry uses them to marketing advantage. Organic has become one of those terms and sadly, it isn’t as well regulated as you might think.
A product can have ONE organic ingredient and therefore be called organic. (Cause technically, it is). Free range hens just have to have a door in the barn from which they might possibly freely range, even if it means they have to escape a pen to do so (talk about beak dexterity!) (this one killed me). The list is endless and I don’t have time or space to discuss them all. Suffice it to say that we need to be better educated about where our food comes from and I like to do that by buying locally whenever possible. Although, I do enjoy a good avocado and banana, so being from the frozen tundra, I have to purchase them trucked in.
The states are not united on these terms and, unfortunately, the food industry is able to manipulate this to it’s needs.
What I do, which I find to be a balance of frugality and good sense, is to choose organic items that I know are much safer than the alternative: strawberries, peaches, apples,celery etc. If you peel it and it has a substantial peel such as a banana, you can buy the regular type and be just fine.
My dad was an attorney and had 350 apple trees. He sprayed the heck out of them, mostly because at the time, nobody wanted an ugly apple. I would imagine, if dad were still alive, he would have converted to organic methods–mostly because the financial gain is so substantial, but also because he would have educated himself about the benefits.
This was a very interesting discussion. You are all very intelligent people and are well spoken.
AnnJo is very correct in the importance of reading all sources of information on any given topic AND to make sure you read them with intelligence. If you read a study, be sure to find out who paid for it, who participated in it, and how many people participated–all can affect results.
AnnJo says
I, too, have to bow out of this very interesting discussion in the interests of earning a buck, but will leave behind a short reading list, not about organic foods (scare quotes omitted as a gesture of goodwill), but about thinking and/or risk. Reading these books, some of them decades ago, has saved me a ton of money and a lot of grief and worry, and the list is my present to you for the New Year:
Already mentioned above, Charles MacKay’s 1852 classic, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. It’s still in print in two editions, one focused only on financial stuff and the other unabridged. The unabridged one is the one to get. I’m pretty sure no one who read this book is worrying about their over-leveraged home equity; it’s like a vaccine against fads and mass hysteria, with no worries over mercury preservatives.
Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland is stunning. After reading it, you’ll feel like somehow you just got a 20 point boost on your IQ. When someone walked off with the copy I bought while on a trip to England, I had to order its replacement London. Now it’s easily available on Amazon. If you read it, see if you can pick out the handful of places where the author himself falls victim to irrationality! We’re none of us perfect.
Breaking the Vicious Circle, Toward Effective Risk Regulation, by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (one of the liberal ones, for those who spit on the rest) is a short brilliant meditation on risk management, particularly on the regulation of substances.
Knowledge and Decisions, by Thomas Sowell, helps us understand the value and uses of knowledge in decision-making and regulation, and its costs and limitations. It’s been years since I read it, but, Janelle, it might help answer your question about why we don’t have all the answers you wish we had and probably never will.
Lilbet, I got a chuckle, and there’s some truth to what you say about lawyers. On the other hand, today is something of an exception for me. Since I can get paid $250 an hour to argue (I live in a small town, so low fees), I don’t usually do it for free.
Wilm says
This is such an interesting post.
Certainly getting me thinking :-) (which is always good!)
FrugalBabe – you mentioned that you and your husband are strongly opposed to the idea of intelligent design. That intrigues me – why would someone be opposed to even the IDEA that our world has been designed. Just sparked my interest!
The responses to this post have certainly got me thinking about organic/non-organic foods.
Cheers< Wilma
FrugalBabe says
Hi Wilm, thanks for stopping by. I agree – this one has generated a lot of passionate comments, and that always makes things more interesting.
As far as intelligent design, we don’t believe in any type of creator, and we like to see scientific proof before we believe something (yes, even in the case of synthetic chemicals on food). There’s never been any sort of scientific proof for a creator or design in the natural world. We wouldn’t care one way or the other except that proponents of intelligent design tried to get their agenda pushed into public schools to be taught alongside evolution in science classes. I don’t mind if it’s taught in a course about religion, or in private schools. But it has no place in a science classroom in a public school. When that happened (it was a few years ago in Dover, PA) my husband and I started donating money to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and to the ACLU. People are welcome to have whatever religious views they like, but they are not welcome to teach those views in public schools. I’ll admit that the debacle in Dover marred my view of the intelligent design movement, and I probably wouldn’t feel so strongly about the issue if it weren’t for that case.
Wilm says
Thanks for that – I was being nosey I guess, but it did interest me :-)
I certainly understand what you mean about wanting scientific proof before believing things. I feel similarly about evolution being taught in schools – it’s only a theory, but is taught as fact.
Cheers, Wilma
FrugalBabe says
Wilma, When used by scientists, the word ‘theory’ has a much different meaning than when it is used in casual conversation. Scientific conclusions have to have solid factual, mathematical, and experimental support in order to be called theories.
http://www.fsteiger.com/theory.html
Jay says
“it’s only a theory, but is taught as fact.”
Oh no, the “just a theory” thing drives me nuts! Like fb said, a “theory” in scientific terms is different than what lay people use the word for, which actually translates to “hypothesis.”
So, yes, scientifically speaking – evolution is a “theory” (which has evidence that can be studied using the scientific method) and Intelligent Design is an “untestable hypothesis” (which cannot be studied using the scientific method and cannot be taught as science).
AnnJo says
I popped in here to see if our earlier discussion had continued, and find it has taken a fascinating turn.
I agree completely with what Jay says.
Personally, though, I think that teaching about intelligent design (f it were politically feasible) would be one of the best ways of demonstrating the special attributes of science. I hasten to add that it is not because I believe in I.D. – it is indeed an untestable hypothesis. But for that reason it is a wonderful teaching tool to show what science can and can’t do. Science, being the realm of natural laws, cannot either prove or disprove the existence of supernatural beings, who definitionally are outside the realm of nature and not subject to its laws. But the efforts of intelligent design advocates offer many examples of the confusion between the scientifically unknown (those questions which science has not yet answered but conceivably could) and the scientifically unknowable (the realm of the supernatural).
I’m comfortable with the idea that the burden of proof is on the proponent of the existence of God, and that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, which is lacking. The fact that this effectively renders many important questions either unanswerable or potentially depressing(such as, What is the meaning of life?) doesn’t particularly bother me simply as matter of temperament. Therefore I’m an atheist.
But it doesn’t trouble me that many people find the lack of answers to such questions uncomfortable and allocate the burden of proof differently or choose a different standard of proof.
Not everyone has the time, inclination, intellectual training and talent to explore deeply such issues, and taking a default position that “I’ll believe what most people have traditionally believed” is a perfectly logical position to take if you’re short on those things and temperamentally unsuited to existential angst.
Also, some very brilliant people, like C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton and Thomas Aquinas, have been very good advocates for the existence of God, and although they did not persuade me, I respect the intellectual power of those arguments.
I do feel that atheists can afford to be much more tolerant than many are today, and disagree with the positions of the ACLU and AUSCS.
Unlike religious people, we do not believe our immortal souls are at risk for a wrong decision on religious matters. That’s why I can’t get behind the efforts to strip the public square of all references to God, just because it might be intellectually disagreeable to me.
As long as those references are generic enough to offend only atheists (or agnostics), my position is, so what?
Freedom from being offended by other people’s foolishness is not a constitutionally protected right. Truth be told, I’m much more offended by the vast economic ignorance taught in our public schools, and even by the chronic public misuse of apostrophes or the oxymoron “free gift,” than I am with “under God” in the Pledge, and as far as I’m concerned, I have an equal right to be protected from all those things, namely, none.
The only people who should have standing to challenge a religious display under the First Amendment are those who can show that, theologically, the display forces them either to give up civil rights (like voting or common use of public property, for example) or violate the commandments of their faith, putting their souls at risk. No atheist or agnostic can ever make that claim since we have no theology. So, fellow atheists, lighten up! We can afford to humor believers, and we should.
FrugalBabe says
AnnJo, welcome back! Until a few years ago, I agreed with everything you wrote. I was a big believer in the idea of ‘live and let live’ and didn’t particularly care whether there were references to religion in secular life. But my views changed as I watched religiously-driven conservatism start to make inroads into public policy. The president’s stance on stem cell research, the efforts to integrate ID into science classrooms in public schools, the lack of basic rights for gay Americans…
Fundamentally I have no problem with the words “under God” in the Pledge. It means nothing to me, so it doesn’t bother me. But when religion starts to influence secular public policy, then it becomes an issue for me.
I agree that the ACLU and AUSCS can seem a bit extreme sometimes. But I think that’s because they are standing up for the rights of a minority group, and without their intervention I have no doubt that religion would be more entangled with out laws and policies than it is today. I’m thankful for their work, and both of those organizations will continue to get our support.
In most aspects of life, I think that your advice about lightening up is exactly right. But as long as issues like Prop 8 in California are on ballots and able to pass thanks in large part to the involvement of a tax-exempt church (in and of itself it’s a problem to have the rights of a minority determined by a majority vote), I will continue to be an outspoken proponent of the separation of church and state.
Jay says
“The only people who should have standing to challenge a religious display under the First Amendment are those who can show that, theologically…”
AnnJo – I thought you said you were a lawyer? I expect more of your knowledge of the Constitution than that. Even if nobody ever got “offended” by our government show of support for one, some, or all religions, it’s not legal.
I’m thankful there are people in this country that stand up for the constitution – it’s too bad they have to do that. Take a look at the middle east to see what would happen if they all took your advice to “lighten up.”
Maybe religious people could “lighten up” and quit trying to push their religion on others via the government. They have beautiful churches with nice waterfalls out front, they have nice displays out in front of their house at Christmas, they come knocking on my door from time to time, they send me stuff in the mail, they somehow have access to the internet to make websites, they have universities with good football teams, they have their own TV stations…
You know what, now that I think of it, you’re right – I guess I could spare some tax $$ to help them spread their message. :)
AnnJo says
Frugalbabe,
When you say that public policy should not be driven by religious ideas, what do you mean? That only atheists should be allowed to vote? Since most religiouns have elaborate ethical systems, any religious person’s political views are going to be informed by their religious beliefs. How could it be otherwise? Even most atheists today owe their ethical systems mostly to our indoctrination in Judeo-Christian ethics.
Most of our laws were originally driven by religious views – the abolitionists and civil rights movement are good examples. Are you saying they should have shut up and stayed home because their political views were shaped by their religious ideals? The whole notion of human rights advanced by the Declaration of Independence was based on a view of humans as creatures of God with rights inalienable by government.
Some thoughts on the specific cases you mentioned:
Stem cell research – In a democracy, we elect people to decide how to spend and how not to spend our tax $. If politicians get elected who oppose spending tax $ on embryonic stem cell reseach, even if the reason for their objection is religious, I’m not sure how that is an abuse of anyone’s religious freedom, as long as they don’t ban the research itself. There are huge pools of money in the private sector and in individual states that will ensure that reseach gets done. Not everything has to be done with federal dollars, and we’d have a lot less social and political conflict (and probably lower taxes, too), if government spent tax $ only on things that had wide approval among the citizenry and couldn’t be funded any other way.
Integrating ID into schools: As I said in an earlier comment, the only way I would want it integrated into the science curriculum would be to show how it is NOT science, and since that’s unlikely, I agree it should be kept out. I will point out, however, that there are a great many things taught in public school as “fact” that cannot be proven scientifically, that are espoused by their proponents basically on faith, and that are taught without adequate exposure to contrary views. They should be kept out too, but I’m not holding my breath.
Basic rights of gay Americans. OK, I’ll take a chance that you’ll actually read this and try to understand what I’m saying, not just jump to a conclusion.
I’m assuming by this phrase you mean government-recognized same-sex marriage, since the other kind is already permitted.
It is not clear to me that the right to have government recognition of our marriage to whomever we wish really IS a basic right. Yes, I’m familiar with the Loving v. Virginia case, but I think the ban on interracial marriage overturned in that case involves a different sort of principle.
The fact is that there there are plenty of people we can’t marry, and still wouldn’t be able to marry even if gay marriage were allowed.
As a woman, it is true that right now I can’t marry another woman. I also can’t marry ANY man, if I already happen to be married to one, unless I divorce the current one. I cannot marry a man, if he already happens to be married to someone else unless he first divorces his spouse.
Why am I not allowed government sanction of simultaneous marriages to multiple spouses? Tradition. There is no rational reason other than that. Are my basic rights being violated? Being something of a libertarian, I think maybe so, but then again, in a democracy, the government recognition of marriage is probably going to reflect the views of the citizenry about what kinds of marriages are best for society, and that’s going to mostly be traditional.
I also can’t marry my brother (if I had one), my son, my father, my uncle, and various other relatives, and if gay marriage were allowed, I still wouldn’t be able to marry the equivalent female relatives. Why not? Tradition. (Yes, there are some public health issues involved, too, but we don’t impose other genetic bars, so why that one?) Does that violate my basic rights?
I think gay people should be granted the privilege to marry by law, but unless it is a basic right to marry ANYONE we want and as many of them as we want, and have all our marriages recognized by the government, then I don’t see how it can be a basic right of gay people to have their marriages recognized by the government until a majority of the voting public thinks it is a good idea.
(I DO think it is everybody’s right to marry whomever they want, just not to have that marriage recognized by the government.)
Jay, I’m not a constitutional lawyer and, from your comment, I’m pretty sure you aren’t one either. Here’s why:
A government’s “show of support” is not necessarily the same thing as an “establishment” of religion, which is what the First Amendment proscribes. And whether any particular “show of support” is an illegal establishment of religion is, with all due respect, not for you to say, or me. Under the Constitution, that is the exclusive province of the U.S. Supreme Court.
I am certainly free to say what I think it OUGHT to be, and as I said, when it comes to displays, neutrality AMONG religions seems more important constitutionally to me than whether secular persons are offended by merely being reminded that there are religions.
If I’m ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, I’ll come back here and post it, so you can let your Senator know to oppose me.
I hardly think the Middle East is an example of tolerance for religious diversity, which is what I advocate. I have religious friends whom I’ve persuaded to be more tolerant of atheists (not really a very hard task these days, actually); it’s only fair I return the favor by advocating more tolerance toward them.
Mike @ TheThriftyLife says
AnnJo, I think you need your own blog. There’s enough writing here for a month full of posts!
AnnJo says
Mike@TheThriftyLife,
You’re right, Mike, and I apologize to FrugalBabe. I did kind of get carried away here.
FrugalBabe says
AnnJo – no need to apologize! It makes this much more interesting when people have differing viewpoints. You write very well and obviously do your homework. You’re welcome to comment on here anytime. But I agree with Mike – you need a blog! :)