RE: what is BRIX? (was: high brix milk versus *raw* milk)

[Guest guest]

Suze-

>It's the only way to actually

>KNOW the quality of the food you eat. everything else is just educated

>guessing,

I think you're getting a bit over-enthusiastic there, Suze. Brix is a

measurement, and just like any other measurement, it's not absolutely

certain what it reveals. The ability to goose the brix of a food by

spraying the plant with, basically, sugar water, right before harvesting

hardly inspires the sort of absolute confidence you seem to have. I'm not

suggesting brix measurement isn't useful, either, just that we need to keep

some perspective.

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[Guest guest]

>>It's the only way to actually

>>KNOW the quality of the food you eat. everything else is just educated

>>guessing,

>

>I think you're getting a bit over-enthusiastic there, Suze. Brix is a

>measurement, and just like any other measurement, it's not absolutely

>certain what it reveals. The ability to goose the brix of a food by

>spraying the plant with, basically, sugar water, right before harvesting

>hardly inspires the sort of absolute confidence you seem to have. I'm not

>suggesting brix measurement isn't useful, either, just that we

>need to keep

>some perspective.

hey paul,

actually i think you are *under-enthusiastic* :-) the fact that some

unscrupulous producers goose their brix by spraying sugar water is for all

intents and purposes irrelavant. we are talking about testing our local

farmers' produce, pasture and milk. now i suppose if they wanted to, our

local farmers could go out and spray their 10, 20 or 100 acres of

pasture-land and crops with sugar water, but let's get real. they're not

going to do that. secondly, as far as i know, most producers of commercial

veggies and fruit (with the exception of citrus produces i'm told) don't

routinely spray sugar water. thirdly, and most importantly, the fact that

some producers might spray sugar water in no way negates the fact that high

brix foods are nutritionally superior (save for the ones sprayed with sugar

water) to low brix foods. keep in mind that high brix plants are resistant

to pests, produce sturdy pest-resistant offspring and abundant yeild, are

associated with high fertility soil and produce food superior in taste.

animals on high brix feed are also healthier and more resitant to disease.

i stand by what i said, and suggest you get some more " perspective " by

reading up on brix. a good place to start is http://www.brixpage.com and

BrixTalk/

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]

Suze-

>actually i think you are *under-enthusiastic* :-) the fact that some

>unscrupulous producers goose their brix by spraying sugar water is for all

>intents and purposes irrelavant.

No it's not, because it indicates a deficiency in the measurement. If you say

> It's the only way to actually KNOW the quality

> of the food you eat. everything else is just

> educated guessing,

you're saying that brix readings are an absolute measure of food

quality. The fact that you can goose them with sugar sprays is by itself

sufficient to disprove that assertion, but there are further drawbacks,

such as the fact that brix readings are ONLY useful relative to other brix

readings of the exact same strain of the exact same food. Not only can

honey not be compared to apples, Granny s cannot be compared to

Winesaps -- and different varieties of Granny s can't be compared to

each other either! Furthermore, brix measures total dissolved solids. As

anyone in chemistry can tell you, that's not very illuminating by

itself. Those solids can be any old darn thing.

That said, obviously brix is useful -- when all else is held equal. But

you're not measuring actual food quality, just a possible implication of

relative quality.

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