As Carolyn mentioned copper is not all that effective

Yes, I mentioned that in the other thread and also mentioned that there was increasing concern about accumulation of Cu in the environment, which you've taken much further in your post.

Carolyn

"As a nutritional chemist I strongly believe that we should mainly eat foods that were part of our ancestor's diet ..." [Joachim]

Well then, as a descendent of Slavic ancestors, should I be overly concerned about my indordinate fondness for roasted turkey and boiled corn (maize) on the cob? Please don't tell me to go back to oxtail and barley soup :::gag:::

Bill

If I'm 3/64 Native American does that mean that I can continue to eat my tomatoes and corn?
----------------------------------------------
I wholeheartedly believe we should exercise caution in what we put on our soil, plants, and air in order to "control" the environment and reshape it to the way we think meets our needs. Even when we think we understand it all, our limited minds cannot predict the long-term impacts.

I can only offer anecdotal evidence. My grandfather, and later one of his sons, grew potatoes commercially all their lives. They sprayed with copper sulfate, which apparently was effective because they had healthy fields and good crops. He, my grandmother and their five children lived into their 90s (three children still living) and none of them ever showed any diminishment of mental capacity. All of this despite handling copper sulfate and consuming large amounts of their own potatoes every day.

However, if you are of European descent and wish to have the diet of your ancient ancestors, I recommend acorns. They were an essential part of the early European diet. Try different oak trees to find the more tasty ones. Some have a lot more tannin bitterness than others.

Jim

I see GW continues to attract outrageous, nonsensical, and misinformed conspiracy theorists and assorted organic nuts.

Here are the FACTS:

This document is created from the CDA UK publication of the same name.
We CanÂt Live Without It

Copper is one of a relatively small group of metallic elements which are essential to human health. These elements, along with amino and fatty acids as well as vitamins, are required for normal metabolic processes. However, as the body cannot synthesize copper, the human diet must supply regular amounts for absorption.

How Much Copper In Your Body?

The adult body contains between 1.4 and 2.1mg of copper per kilogramme of body weight. Hence a healthy human weighing 60 kilogrammes contains approximately a tenth of one gramme of copper. However, this small amount is essential to the overall human well-being.
How Does It Work?

Copper combines with certain proteins to produce enzymes that act as catalysts to help a number of body functions. Some help provide energy required by biochemical reactions. Others are involved in the transformation of melanin for pigmentation of the skin and still others help to form cross-links in collagen and elastin and thereby maintain and repair connective tissues. This is especially important for the heart and arteries. Research suggests that copper deficiency is one factor leading to an increased risk of developing coronary heart disease.

Do We Get Enough?

Until recently, it was generally believed that most people consumed adequate quantities of copper. However, modern research has shown that this is not the case. In the United Kingdom and the United States for example, many typical meals have been analyzed for their metals content. According to recent surveys, only 25% of the US population consume the amount of copper a day estimated to be adequate by the US Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Typical diets in the US provide only about half of this amount and some diets in mainly industrialized countries contain less than 40% of the recommended dietary allowance. In the United Kingdom, it is now recommended that the daily intake should range from 0.4mg/day for 1-3 year old children to 1.2mg/day for adults. In addition, more recent studies are suggesting that there are serious doubts concerning the adequacy of diets containing less than lmg copper/day for adults.

I see GW continues to attract outrageous, nonsensical, and misinformed conspiracy theorists and assorted organic nuts.

Barkeater, Joachim has posted here as long as I've been posting here, although not very often, and does have very strong opinions that he presents to folks here. That I will say. And his posts usually lead to lots of comments, that is true.

Carolyn, raised on a farm where my father used all sorts of noxious things back in the 30's thru 50's b'c at the time they weren't considered noxious. He lived until age 78 and died in 1985 of complications from Parkinson's Disease. Mom lived until age 86 and died in 2000 of her second heart attack, secondary to diabetes. I seem to be OK, that's a self assessment, LOL, and as a kid I too was exposed to all that dad used on the crops and in the orchards.

Barkeater, not to take it out of context, but you might be considered outrageous and misinformed. The same could be said of me.

I have to agree in general terms with Joachim that excess copper can be a major problem. For comparison, vitamin a is a deadly poison. But we have to have a small amount of it to live. A similar statement can be made for copper, too much is a poison, but we need a small amount to live.

My big problem is so called organic users who spray copper in excess. I have been able to grow tomatoes some years with no sprays at all and other years with only one or two sprays for disease. I don't like the "spray once a week no matter what" ethos.

P.S. if you want to do your tomatoes a big favor, give them some micronutrients and feed them some organic material. 1 level tablespoon of boron and 1/8 pound of soluble zinc to 100 feet of tomato row is enough. Dolomite lime supplies magnesium which tomatoes also need. Rabbit manure is an outstanding source of just about everything a tomato needs to grow. Pay attention to the health of your plants and you won't have as many problems with disease.

Fusion

Yes, I originally planned on using the word "theories" instead of "conspiracy theorists" in that sentence, and my thinking became sidetracked by another current thread.

barkeater you should not criticize others since you have your own conspiracy theory, that involves name calling posters who do not agree with you.

hoosiercherokee, indeed, "Corn is one of the most common food allergens. Since the vast majority of processed foods utilize corn products, it can be quite a challenge to eliminate all traces of corn from your diet" (from e-how). Did you get the message?
Jim, potatofarmer? Maybe the effects would have shown up if they pursued an academic career?
Search the internet enough and you will find articles that recommend eating copper pipes.
As for some responses to a serious issue I guess we have copper poisoning here already, quote:
"When the personality is not fully integrated or the copper becomes too high, negative traits show up. These include spaciness, racing thoughts, living in a dream world, naiveté, childishness, excessive emotions, sentimentality, a tendency to depression, fearfulness, hidden anger and resentments, phobias, psychosis and violence".

I ate a penny when I was a child ;-) I'd swallow another if I though it would help me give you my two cents worth.

Water, btw, drunk in excess, will kill you too.

I think everyone is discussing real vs ideal. The reality is that as a race, we've survived our agricultural excesses. And it is these agricultural excesses that have allowed us to survive. On a global scale it becomes difficult to debate the use of inexspensive anycides that have delived viable crops that have staved off rampant malnutrition and starvation in desperate regions. Nowadays, it is not toxins or lack of food that increases death from malnutrion or consumption-effected disease, it is a breakdown in the food distribution chain.

trudi_d :" I ate a penny when I was a child ;-) I'd swallow another if I though it would help me give you my two cents worth.-------------"
LOL

Almost all drinking water goes thru copper pipes.

dcarch

Okay ... I get the copper connection.

But, even after reading up on the "corn" controversy, I remain unconvinced there is huge peril associated with folks of say northern European or sub-Saharan African decent eating squash, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, and beans.

I agree that global nutritional concerns trump all these other theoretical hysterics.

Bill

In the United Kingdom, it is now recommended that the daily intake should range from 0.4mg/day for 1-3 year old children to 1.2mg/day for adults..

Hmmm, very interesting doctor. I wonder what the RDA of Cu++ ion is for members of the Vulcan species. It would be logical to suggest that it is significantly greater than that for HomoSapiens.

Reg

worry over ingrediants in food

> = actual affect of ingrediants

?

Well, Plot, if worry causes excessive gas, and you already have a belly full of beans ... I'd think it would be a symbiotic relationship :::brrrrrrp:::

So here goes a fool who cannot resist gathering the inevitable enmity.

Born in 1935, I can vividly recall the 60's, 70's, and 80's
when at the urging of the nutritionalists I and my family gobbled up pound upon pound of trans fat laden margerine
in leau of the deadly natural product butter. Having crippled the dairy industry, the nutritionists forged on
to the poultry business, discovering that eggs contained deadly quantities of cholesterol.

Almost without exception, every foodstuff that I have ever enjoyed--red meat, coffee, liver, barbeque, white bread, candy, cake, pie, chocolate, soda pop, beer, wine, booze,
typically grown agricultural products as vegetables, fruits,
grains, cheese, milk, etc./etc./etc. ad nausium has been declared toxic and unsuitable for human consumption by the food police.

As we age most of us accumulate a modicum of wisdom regarding what is good for us, what is bad for us, what we should do more of or less of, and what we should absolutely avoid. And we also change in various ways to be able to
ignore some parts of our accumulated wisdom, so some of us smoke, drink too much, race cars in the rain at night, or whatever, and at one time or another I have done all these things.

Here are small thing I have learned: Disinformation, faulty or partial data, lies, exagerations, or minimizations of truth, will harm me most every time, perhaps severely-perhaps only in a trivial way. There is only one way out of this life. If I don't eat I will likely get hungry and possibly sick. I have not yet died of eating.

True science is based on fact-often fact and truth are
most difficult to distill from experience. Though science may sometimes be guided by a fortuitous accident or a conjecture IT AIN'T BASED ON OPINION!

I have been nursing the same 3 lb bag of copper hydroxide along now for over 8 years. At my present occasional usage rate it looks like I'll make another 8 to 10 years. I don't know how much gardening I will be doing when I'm 82. One notes a bluish film on fruit skins (very visable on tomatoes) upon usage. I wash this off.

Larry, you and I are about the same age, I'll be 68 next June, and I hear you loudly and clearly and enjoyed your post so very much.( smile) As I said above, I was raised on a farm where all sorts of now considered bad stuff was used, but here I am close to 68, my mother died at 86 from a heart attack secondary to diabetes and my father, the farmer, died at 78 due to complications of Parkinson's Disease, and all of us were exposed to lots of stuff that was considered bad stuff at that time.

********

(Here are small thing I have learned: Disinformation, faulty or partial data, lies, exagerations, or minimizations of truth, will harm me most every time, perhaps severely-perhaps only in a trivial way. There is only one way out of this life. If I don't eat I will likely get hungry and possibly sick. I have not yet died of eating.)

And I haven't died of eating anything yet, either, so while I do try to watch it a bit b'c of my diabetes and b'c that disease messed up my HDL and LDL values, I pretty much eat what I want to and most folks know that the basis of my diet is Dark Bittersweet Chocolate. LOL

(True science is based on fact-often fact and truth are
most difficult to distill from experience. Though science may sometimes be guided by a fortuitous accident or a conjecture IT AIN'T BASED ON OPINION!

Amen. And now putting on my scientists hat, b/c I was one during my professional career, I agree that science is based on fact, and that's fact as a result of doing experiments in a certain way with a certain population and it doesn't always represent what the story is for a very heterogeneous population who might have, for instance, genes that can influence this or that as regards metabolism of many things ingested or inhaled.

(I have been nursing the same 3 lb bag of copper hydroxide along now for over 8 years. At my present occasional usage rate it looks like I'll make another 8 to 10 years. I don't know how much gardening I will be doing when I'm 82. One notes a bluish film on fruit skins (very visable on tomatoes) upon usage. I wash this off.)

I'm not nursing any bags of anything, especially the Bordeaux mixtures dad used to use nor the parathions or malathions but I do think that if I were electing to use something for fungal diseases I might tip my hat more towards sulfur rather than copper if I weren't using Daconil. Just my own personal opinion, as all opinions are.

Carolyn

Dear Larry,
You are absolutely right. Trans fat laden margerine has and will continue to kill people prematurely by the millions. Let me point out that I am not one of your American nutritionists, in fact I don't even want to talk to these people with miserable bachelor academic credentials, following guidelines set forth by their "American Dietetic Association" which is basically preaching the wisdom of big (processed) food corporations. I am a nutritional chemist and had to study for my degree for 8 years at the University of Berlin. Unlike American nutritionists I know how margerine is made and if anybody knew what they were eating they would puke. A roach is more intelligent about eating healthy. Put a blob of margerine on your windowsill and it will still be there in 2 years untouched by any insect. So if margarine was so bad for you where are your lawyers, why has nobody appologized including your American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, The Harvard Institute etc., all advocating to eat margerine instead of butter? As a member of the Weston Price Foundation my fat hero is Dr. Mary Enig. She was the first to fight the vegetable oil/margerine industry for promoting rancid fats. You would be well advised to read what this foundation stands for, click on the link below. Fortunately Europeans have always been suspicious of junk food science spread in America. Every single modern trend is a killer:
Low fat - absolut rubbish and responsible for the high degree of diabetes in your country. Fat slows the absorption of sugar into your blood.
Low Sodium - Again killing millions of people prematurely and responsible for millions of people suffering from astma and high blood pressure. Sodium in balance with Potassium is the most important mineral to stabilize your blood pressure.
Drink milk for Calcium - what a joke, milk will deplete your body of vital Magnesium and CAUSE osteoporosis. US milk is full of puss, eat French cheese where puss count is regulated.
Pop multivitamins and rest easy when eating junk food - people on multivitamins are 10% more likely to die early vs. people who don't take multi-vitamins.
Eat soy - good luck, you need it.
etc. etc.
By the way beer is healthy but make sure it's additive free. I lecture at community events, my theme is "Challenging politically correct nutrition". You get the picture.

Here is a link that might be useful: Weston Price Foundation

Your rantings have NOTHING to do with GROWING TOMATOES at this point, and now you are also promoting some outside "organization', both in violation of the Garden Web posting policy.

Please post any further rants where they are appropriate, such as: sanitarium.france.com.

I didn't know cheese was poisonous! What am I gonna leave for Santa?

T--clutching her microwave-cooked bowl of healthy non-instant oatmeal made with diet margarine, mock sugar, preserved raisins and skim milk. Burp. I will stick to my ribs and I can glow in the dark at the same time.

ROTFL! Trudi, you are causing me to snort my butterscotch toffee coffee with milk. LOL! Pennies and oatmeal will never present the same visuals to me again. :)

LOL! I just read your location as EColi--too much current news for me ;-O

Years back, when we were young, my parents had arranged for us to be sent science kits each month from Edmond Scientific. My brother recieved a kit which had balloons and small metal balls. I don't remember what is was supposed to teach, but he was inflating a balloon that had the balls in it and well--we all know balloons--there was a back blow and the air shot back into my brother along with the metal balls which went down his throat and into his stomach. Decades later I got an early morning phone call from my brother who just HAD TO TELL ME that to his complete suprise and obvious delight--with a klip-klip-klip-kerplunk--the balls had finally, ehem, exited his body.

I am sure we all have or know brothers of this calibur. He did, btw, grow up to be a metalurgist and rocket scientist.

Decades later I got an early morning phone call from my brother who just HAD TO TELL ME that to his complete suprise and obvious delight--with a klip-klip-klip-kerplunk--the balls had finally, ehem, exited his body...

trudi_d 7, now I suppose that is a case of extreme anal-retentive behavior. I would presume his apt/house exhibits an impeccable state of cleanliness.

Reg

Joachim, I remember your vicious attacks on me three years ago when I expressed an opinion regarding 'purple calabash' tomatoes. I will never forget the verver and sheer mindless assault on my character you exhibited simply for expressing an opinion. I really hoped you had gotten some kind of mental help at an institution since that time. Apparently not. If you believe every American is stupid why do you live in America? Please move back to the motherland and don't subject us to your rancid drivel.

The idea of going back to what our ancestors ate is an interesting one. I remember asking my father what vegetables they ate in the winter in the old country (Russia/Poland/Ukraine/...) and he remembered clearly that they had onions, beets, sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers, potatoes and.....that's it. No leafy greens, no fresh fruit, nothing that couldn't be stored in a root cellar or salted. Speaking for myself, I'm happy to be living at a time when I can get fresh fruit and veggies the year round.
On a broader note, the success of the human race can be attributed largely to our ability to eat just about anything available. if our ancestors were picky about their food, we would have gone the way of the dinosaur.

Copper?
Next time you're at the drug store (or perhaps you have some at home?) check the ingredient label on just about any vitamin/mineral suppliment - source of copper = copper sulphate.
Also, next time you're in the feed store, check the ingredient label of any feed (except sheep/lamb) and you'll see copper sulphate listed.
Not saying that it's good, just that it's there...