
The Vegetable Detective - joahua
http://craftsmanship.net/the-vegetable-detective/
======
shanusmagnus
I'm kind of alarmed at how not-alarming people are finding this. The idea that
eating the foods we most need to eat for health will result in heavy metal
poisoning via a vector about which there is no regulatory control or even
awareness is a pretty big deal.

~~~
dllthomas
I hope someone more serious is looking into it (or has already done so) but my
alarm is checked by the crack-pot flags this guy's raised for me. Most
obviously that he tries to demonstrate P(A|B) by testing P(B|A) - if you don't
understand basic statistics, your conclusions are suspect.

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dllthomas
_" To test this link, Hubbard started playing a little game. Whenever the
clinic would send him someone with the kind of chronic problems associated
with thallium, or any other complaints that were hard to pin down, Hubbard
would scribble kale on a little note-card and turn it face-down on his desk.
After a short work-up, he’d ask the patient to list his or her favorite
vegetables. Over and over, people would mention the crucifers, especially
kale. Hubbard would nod, say he expected as much, then show them the note-card
on his desk to prove it."_

Compelling.

What are the odds things would turn out any different with the rest of the
population of Marin?

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bwblabs
I stopped reading after this sentence:

 _" One kale sample reported thallium at 1.14 ppm, nickel at 20 ppm, and
aluminum at 120 ppm. (As has been widely reported, aluminum is often suspected
as a cause of both autism and Alzheimer’s disease.)"_

It's pretty controversial claim that aluminum is related to Alzheimer's
disease [http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/controversial-
claims-r...](http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/controversial-claims-risk-
factors)

~~~
randomdestructn
Not sure why you're being downvoted for this comment. That was one of the red
flags for me as well.

"Often suspected" is a deliberately misleading and alarmist way to present the
current scientific data on the relationship between aluminium and Alzheimer's
disease.

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theseatoms
Is there good information available regarding soil nutrient density for the
plants that we eat? I've seen surprisingly little discussion of this topic in
the healthy eating community, which I assume is due to lack of data.

My layman's understanding is that the nutrient density of the soil is equally
(if not more) important to the "healthiness" of vegetables than the particular
species of plant itself. It's almost common sense, on some level.

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ekux44
Snopes argues this article should be disregarded for lacking rigorous data.
[http://m.snopes.com/kale-not-safe/](http://m.snopes.com/kale-not-safe/)

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gohrt
I realize that most readers are innumerate, but this sort of bombshell
reporting really calls for numbers and a proper statistical analysis.

~~~
dllthomas
It's not just the readers that are innumerate, unfortunately.

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shanev
Every food pretty much follows a Gaussian curve in terms of benefit. There's
an ideal amount, with too little being bad, and too much being bad. All plants
have some form of natural toxin as a defense against being eaten. Even
broccoli has oxalic acid which can lead to kidney stones in high amounts.
Cooking helps mitigate these, as well as sourcing from an organic farm or your
back yard. But it's always safer to eat a variety of vegetables, so you
distribute whatever toxins each one has, natural or man-made, and get varied
nutrients. There's no silver bullet.

~~~
dllthomas
_" sourcing from an organic farm or your back yard"_

Sourcing from your back yard (and to a lesser degree, a single farm; and to a
still lesser degree a single geographic region) means you're not eating
veggies grown in a variety of soil compositions, even if you are eating a
variety of plant species.

The most extreme way this can fail (that's common enough to note) is if the
soil in your back yard is high in lead.

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Gys
'A molecular biologist is finding what could be dangerous levels of heavy
metals in plants like kale, often called the “queen” of the vegetable kingdom.
And they’ve shown up the most in organic varieties.'

Seems as if there is no food ingredient that is really safe, always ?
Something that can be trusted to be healthy whatever.

~~~
gweinberg
Why would there be? Plants weren't put here for our benefit any more than
animals were. It would be an astonishing coincidence if the optimal diet
consisted of any one thing. Unless it was maybe breast milk.

~~~
DennisP
Although the problem here isn't the plants themselves, it's heavy metal
pollution.

~~~
dmschulman
In addition to the misguided notion that somehow, someway, vegetables sold as
organic are vastly superior to vegetables grown and sold in any other
condition.

~~~
dribnet
I don't think you read the article - the metals were the direct result of
fertilizer which would not be allowed in organic farming. The catch is that
the fertilizer (coal ash) was used to grow corn and soybean animal feed (which
cows can't even digest properly, but that's another story...) and then the
manure of those cows went to organic farms - so the purported vector of attack
was indirect.

I'm no cheerleader of organics and think it's foolish that GMOs are by
definition non-organic. However, I buy them when I can primarily because of my
concerns with pesticide and fertilizer overuse.

~~~
dmschulman
_The catch is that the fertilizer (coal ash) was used to grow corn and soybean
animal feed (which cows can 't even digest properly, but that's another
story...) and then the manure of those cows went to organic farms - so the
purported vector of attack was indirect._

That's exactly my point though, organic farming is not a closed system no
matter how much the public might desire to believe it is. There are some
tenants of growing organics but it's not standardized nor systematic. I
believe it is potentially deceiving in the worse cases. Of course the issue at
hand is not organic farming but instead cruciferous veggies such as kale and
broccoli but I only mention the idea because it's an integral part of
Hubbard's "perfect storm":

 _" Now, Hubbard had what he often calls “a perfect storm”: contaminated
vegetables, misleadingly pushed on the public as nutritious—and clean—leading
to misdiagnosed ailments. “Where does this list end?” he wrote in one of his
numerous messages emphasizing these points. “There is undoubtedly a series of
similar perfect storms at work in other heavy metals and our food supply,
including infant/baby foods, pet foods, and beyond.”"_

~~~
swsieber
But if everyone grew "organic" food, then it would be moot point. A full
organic system is a better than a full non-organic system. So while current
organic food might be contaminated through side channels, making more of our
food production 'organic' would be be beneficial - not because organic food is
great nutritionally in and of itself, but because having more of it benefits
the food system.

That said, I don't eat much organic food. However, this article has made me
want to eat more organic food.

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branchless
I often wonder what water high water-content fruits like strawberries have
been subjected to. An interesting article but I don't think I'll knock
broccoli on the head just yet.

