high brix vs. organic (was Grains Good as Gold)

[Guest guest]

>>so it seems our first concern should be *soil fertility* and the

>brix index

>>of our foods rather than whether they are organic, fermented, raw or

>>grass-fed. the rest should follow...

>

>Suse - I loved your note,

hmmm...i must admit that is my favorite misspelling of my name. LOL! it's

much closer to the ballpark than all the other misspellings i usually get on

this list. <weg>

BUT, I don't think you can get truly

>hi-brix food outside of an organic management system.

i disagree. do you think, for example, that you cannot get high brix foods

out of a biodynamic system? see further comments below.

I know that

>many goose the brix with nutrient sprays, but if you are building

>brix from the ground up, then you are going to need living soils.

hmmm...that would be a concern. i bet they might be quite different than

high brix foods that are products of high fertility soil. and yes of course

the soil needs to be living, not dead. but conventionally-defined " organic "

soil is not the only living soil on the planet.

You

>can't have living soils and poor poisons on them also, of course.

right, but the poisons wouldn't be necessary in the first place if the soil

were high fertility, thus the brix index would be high and the plants would

be resistant to pests, bad weather, etc.

i think you may have misunderstood my point so let me clarify - i wasn't

saying that conventional monocultural crops laden with pesticides and/or

herbicides are superior to organic plants. not at all. i was (and am) saying

that concentrating on maintaining high_fertility_soil, and thus

high_brix_food, supercedes worrying about whether you're meeting " organic "

standards (whatever they may be at any given time or place). IOW, i think

it's more important to concern oneself with what's IN the plant (nutrients),

rather than what's NOT in it (poisons), because if it's high brix...

a) it will provide you the nutrients you need to be healthy and

disease-resistant yourself and to detoxify poisons that get into *your*

system...

and

it won't absorb as much of the poisons as a low brix organic plant would

in the first place, due to its superior health. so you are getting less

toxins from the high brix non-organic food than the low brix organic food.

not that i'm advocating poisons either! just that they are not as important

a concern as a high brix rating. below is an interesting post on this

subject to the brix talk list from rex harill - the brix page website owner.

(thanks michael for sending it to me :-) the list messages are open to the

public so i'm assuming it's ok to crosspost them:

--------------------------------

From: RH <brixman@w...>

Date: Tue May 6, 2003 6:26 am

Subject: Sacrilegious thoughs about Holy Organic

Below are a few words from this website...

<URL: http://www.mercuryin.es/milliontonneclub/ORGANIC%20GARDENING.htm >

" Standard Brix levels have been worked out for most crops, ranging from

" Poor " at around 5% to " Excellent " at 10% +. "

" It's common with monoculture produce to have Brix values as low as 3%,

compared with organic produce invariably at 10% or higher. "

=====================================

Statements like the above make me cringe. Does anyone here want to go with

me to the local Holy Organic store and take a few brix readings? My

experience has been that Holy Organic produce RARELY measures " 10% or

higher. "

I love when Chi comes on this newsgroup now and then to point out that [my

paraphrase] " It ain't so much anything toxic put on your food as the

everyday lack of true nutrition built in that will hurt you in the long

run. "

Does that mean I condone pesticides? Hell, no! What I am against is food

of such poor quality that it requires pesticides to save it from Nature's

clean up crew long enough for it to be harvested. It's really absurd to

think that our ordinary agriculture rescues lousy quality food and then

expects such trash to support building of healthy human bodies.

What I support is the growing of food so healthy that pesticides are simply

not needed. I want food that will not rot, but that will easily digest. I

want to see an agriculture that stops using pesticides mainly because there

is no need to waste money on them and the poisonous junk then sits unsold

on the toxic chemical companys' shelves. Trying to play pesticide police

by demanding Holy Organic is a waste of energy.

I have repeatedly posted Dr. Andersen's findings that high-brix food grown

in toxic-laden soil will have LESS pesticide than low-brix Holy Organic

food grown in pristine pesticide-free soil. All living things have the

power of selective absorption. Heck, life would never have started without

that power. A simple illustration is when, say, we need calcium in our

bodies. Our organism will work overtime to recover calcium from whatever

is passing through us. If the food is calcium-rich, the job is easy and

the organism goes on to other tasks. However, if there is a calcium

shortage, the organism may struggle and end up using varying amounts of

some other substance in calcium's place.

The above is a classic case of where toxic substances and poor-quality

substituted building materials get in the door. This is why so many

American children of today need braces: there wasn't enough calcium to fill

out their jaw wide enough to have space for the genetically-sized teeth. I

suggest you watch those same children shy away from football because their

under-built bones hate impact with kids who have stronger calcium-rich

skeletons.

It works about the same way with plants. Give them what they need and they

will increase their brix. Cheat them of that and they will take in what

they really shouldn't. Low brix is the result and increased toxicity comes

right along with that.

It's simple in my mind: quit worrying whether something is Holy Organic and

concentrate instead on whether it has any nutrition or not. A brixmeter is

mighty handy for that.

And then again maybe I'm just an insane man raving out here in the land

Wilderness.

Regards,

Rex Harrill

--------------------------------

>And it comes down to this: YOU ARE WHAT YOU ATE ATE

i couldn't agree more!

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg

Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Mid Coast Maine

http://www.westonaprice.org

----------------------------

" The diet-heart idea (the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause

heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our times. " --

Mann, MD, former Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt

University, Tennessee; heart disease researcher.

The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics

<http://www.thincs.org>

----------------------------

[Guest guest]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 23:11:27 -0500

" Suze Fisher " <s.fisher22@...> wrote:

>i think you may have misunderstood my point so let me clarify - i wasn't

>saying that conventional monocultural crops laden with pesticides and/or

>herbicides are superior to organic plants. not at all. i was (and am) saying

>that concentrating on maintaining high_fertility_soil, and thus

>high_brix_food, supercedes worrying about whether you're meeting " organic "

>standards (whatever they may be at any given time or place). IOW, i think

>it's more important to concern oneself with what's IN the plant (nutrients),

>rather than what's NOT in it (poisons), because if it's high brix...

Ahhhh.....man oh man....if only Chi were still on this list. He would be

proud of the legacy he has left <bsg>

>a) it will provide you the nutrients you need to be healthy and

>disease-resistant yourself and to detoxify poisons that get into *your*

>system...

>

>and

>

> it won't absorb as much of the poisons as a low brix organic plant would

>in the first place, due to its superior health. so you are getting less

>toxins from the high brix non-organic food than the low brix organic food.

Here! Here!!

Abolish the FDA!!

http://tinyurl.com/25nu8

" They told just the same,

That just because a tyrant has the might

By force of arms to murder men downright

And burn down house and home and leave all flat

They call the man a captain, just for that.

But since an outlaw with his little band

Cannot bring half such mischief on the land

Or be the cause of so much harm and grief,

He only earns the title of a thief. "

--Geoffrey Chaucer, The Manciple's Tale