Toxins And The Food Chain

Liam

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Mar 16, 2016
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Australia
I have been thinking about a specific issue on toxins and the food chain and have kind of found conflicting information in this area.

On the Peat side, it seems his views are that animals provide a beneficial function in filtering out toxins and unwanted substances:

"The nutrients produced in the cow's rumen are selectively absorbed into the cow's bloodstream, where the liver can further filter out any toxins before the amino acids and other nutrients are absorbed by the udder to be synthesized into milk."- Milk in context: allergies, ecology, and some myths

As i understand it, drinking milk is preferable to vegetables (leaves and grass) because you are essentially leveraging of the filtration of the animals from which you are consuming their products.

However, there is a conflicting line of thought that would indicate the further up the food chain, the more toxins accumulate in the tissues of animals (particularly predators), implying that you should eat at the bottom of the fod chain (vegetables, or at least things like oysters. This theory seems particularly relevant for seafood, but i imagine it would also work as there would be contaminants in soil.

Can anyone offer an insight into this issue? is it that predators are all you should avoid, and since ruminants have significantly different digestive systems, their products are safer? Or does this mean maybe due to the widespread contaminants, its better to eat at the bottom of the food chain?

Happy to elaborate further if needed. Thanks.
 

Herbie

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Ruminants are safer because they have four stomachs which protects their tissue from whatever they eat where as non ruminants only have one stomach and their tissues reflect directly what they eat so the pigs and chickens get fed grains so they tend to be higher in pufa. where lamb and cow fat tissue is mainly saturated.

Small fish are good like shell fish because they are low in the food chain and do not accumulate toxins and metals like tuna and swordfish because these fish are larger and higher in the food chain. if the shrimp accumulates a tiny amount of mercury then gets eaten by a small fish which accumulates a little bit more mercury but then it gets eaten and the next fish has its mercury as well as its own then gets eaten and so on it goes up the food chain. Pregnant women cannot eat tuna or sword fish today because of the mercury levels and its apparently come from the emissions of coal fire power plants across the world. Tony Robbins said he almost died recently because he was eating a lot of tuna and swordfish and wasn't aware of the mercury poisoning risks. Shell fish are highly mineral dense and another reason to consume them.

Seeds have toxins which are to prevent predators from breaking them down through the digestion process which when the animal excretes them the seeds can germinate and so the plant species can spread its seed literally around the place for example birds fly around different areas and keep the plants genetics spreading. Nuts and leaves have toxins as well for protection and need to be well cooked to break them down or avoided all together like look at goitrogens in cruciferous vegetables and nightshade vegetables.

Conventional farming these days uses a lot of synthetic nitrogen phosphorous and potassium as a fertiliser and all kinds of insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides because they don't respect the earths natural systems and de nourish the soil by continually using the same fields over and over and raping the land for the dollars. The soil has to be alive with microorganisms called humus which is created by worm excrement and the worms eat and break down dead plant matter, the microoragnisms act as an immune system for the plants and allow the plants to take up nutrients as these microorganisms transport or convert nutritions to be bioavailable to the plant and all the chemicals put in the soil kills the microorganisms and so the plants become weak and get attacked by all kinds of predators and malnourished. Worms don't survive the chemicals. Animals and humans rotting in the soil create nutrients. Rudolph Steiner figured it all out and created the biodynamic farming its very interesting and contrasting to conventional farming methods of today. There is a doco called one man one cow one planet... gives you a look into the benefits of that method. The majority of plant food today doesn't have the nutrients that it should and comes with added toxins.

So when Ray says milk is very safe it makes sense to me because its all filtered by the cow and the processing methods are of a high standard of the dairy industry. the grass the cows eat isn't sprayed because there is no need to from what I've seen.

Its a matter of specifics in your question, in some cases its better to eat a food which is at the bottom and another at the top but where Ray is and where we all seem to be is researching single animals and plants looking at them from nutrients, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, production methods, toxins, hormones its goes right in from all angles of environment. I feel its necessary as there is so much confusion and conflicting opinions and hidden information when it comes to food today.

I try not lumping things in right or wrong left or right but people seem to think and speak in this manner more often and want the black and white answer but its always shades of grey so balance is achieved.
 
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Liam

Liam

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Joined
Mar 16, 2016
Messages
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Location
Australia
Ruminants are safer because they have four stomachs which protects their tissue from whatever they eat where as non ruminants only have one stomach and their tissues reflect directly what they eat so the pigs and chickens get fed grains so they tend to be higher in pufa. where lamb and cow fat tissue is mainly saturated.

Small fish are good like shell fish because they are low in the food chain and do not accumulate toxins and metals like tuna and swordfish because these fish are larger and higher in the food chain. if the shrimp accumulates a tiny amount of mercury then gets eaten by a small fish which accumulates a little bit more mercury but then it gets eaten and the next fish has its mercury as well as its own then gets eaten and so on it goes up the food chain. Pregnant women cannot eat tuna or sword fish today because of the mercury levels and its apparently come from the emissions of coal fire power plants across the world. Tony Robbins said he almost died recently because he was eating a lot of tuna and swordfish and wasn't aware of the mercury poisoning risks. Shell fish are highly mineral dense and another reason to consume them.

Seeds have toxins which are to prevent predators from breaking them down through the digestion process which when the animal excretes them the seeds can germinate and so the plant species can spread its seed literally around the place for example birds fly around different areas and keep the plants genetics spreading. Nuts and leaves have toxins as well for protection and need to be well cooked to break them down or avoided all together like look at goitrogens in cruciferous vegetables and nightshade vegetables.

Conventional farming these days uses a lot of synthetic nitrogen phosphorous and potassium as a fertiliser and all kinds of insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides because they don't respect the earths natural systems and de nourish the soil by continually using the same fields over and over and raping the land for the dollars. The soil has to be alive with microorganisms called humus which is created by worm excrement and the worms eat and break down dead plant matter, the microoragnisms act as an immune system for the plants and allow the plants to take up nutrients as these microorganisms transport or convert nutritions to be bioavailable to the plant and all the chemicals put in the soil kills the microorganisms and so the plants become weak and get attacked by all kinds of predators and malnourished. Worms don't survive the chemicals. Animals and humans rotting in the soil create nutrients. Rudolph Steiner figured it all out and created the biodynamic farming its very interesting and contrasting to conventional farming methods of today. There is a doco called one man one cow one planet... gives you a look into the benefits of that method. The majority of plant food today doesn't have the nutrients that it should and comes with added toxins.

So when Ray says milk is very safe it makes sense to me because its all filtered by the cow and the processing methods are of a high standard of the dairy industry. the grass the cows eat isn't sprayed because there is no need to from what I've seen.

Its a matter of specifics in your question, in some cases its better to eat a food which is at the bottom and another at the top but where Ray is and where we all seem to be is researching single animals and plants looking at them from nutrients, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, production methods, toxins, hormones its goes right in from all angles of environment. I feel its necessary as there is so much confusion and conflicting opinions and hidden information when it comes to food today.

I try not lumping things in right or wrong left or right but people seem to think and speak in this manner more often and want the black and white answer but its always shades of grey so balance is achieved.
Thanks for you detailed and informative response! It certainly helped to clarify this issue further.
 

jyb

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So when Ray says milk is very safe it makes sense to me because its all filtered by the cow and the processing methods are of a high standard of the dairy industry. the grass the cows eat isn't sprayed because there is no need to from what I've seen.

Depends on the country. In some places poor cows eat corn and you buy their milk in a heavily processed form at the store, where dairy products are the most contaminated food in the whole food range in terms of phthalates. Some posters report poor health when drinking milk, I always assume it is because they buy store milk as some animal studies show inflammation when using processed milk specifically.
 
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Herbie

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I agree, it is difficult to make broad statements. I tried some biodynamic milk once and it didn't taste good its important what the cows eat. In Northern Europe the milk has more A1 then and the the warmer climates have more A2.
 

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