Birds turn their beaks up at organic food

Funny thing is I got this article via my Linux news subscription and you perhaps have worked out its nothing to do with operating systems. It does indicate that a lot of people are interested in this subject from all walks of life. Anyhow I thought I would share with ATSers but where would it go, news, fragile earth, - I figured not.

Is organic food everything its advocates claim to be? A new study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture describes an experiment in which the subjects were free from human biases. The authors found that wild birds preferred 'normal' bird food to the organic option. To study this burning issue, the researchers set up pairs of identical bird feeders in over 30 locations around northern England. The feeders contained two types of the same variety of wheat seeds, one organic and one conventional. The researchers then monitored the rate at which each seed was eaten over the course of a few weeks. It was found that the birds preferentially ate the conventional seeds. To make sure that there wasn't something about the relative placement of the feeders, the researchers switched each pair, and found that the birds learned the new location of the conventional seeds and continued to prefer eating from that feeder. The experiment was repeated over a subsequent winter with a different type of seed, but produced the same results. More controlled laboratory trials with canaries found similar preferences for conventional over organic. In an attempt to explain this disparity, the researchers analyzed the seeds and found that the conventional seed contained upwards of 10 percent more protein per seed, most likely due to the use of inorganic nitrogen fertilizers used in conventional farming techniques.

You can find it here but there is scarce information, if you find more please post...
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I assume you have now read the article and it struck me in the first instance that if the birds didn't like organic seed then why should we. There is no doubt that birds eat organic food because there is so much of it around in the wild. After all they wouldn't be here if they hadn't eaten organic foods.

Perhaps then organic food is not really organic but possibly genetically altered food instead.

Your thoughts

MJ2

Perhaps then organic food is not really organic but possibly genetically altered food instead.

Your thoughts

MJ2

This could be the problem but I don't know much about the GM subject. may me modified to resist pests so they don't have to use chemicals. I'm not sure if you can label the food organic if its genetically modified tho.

This is like saying, more people prefer McDonald's over an organic salad. This proves McDeath is better for you than organic vegetables. McDeath is not vile toxic waste made in chemical factories, naturally grown plants are. See? Humans prefer the toxic waste, therefore it must be better for them.

How is organic not "normal"?

They seem to be trying to get the foot in the door for convincing people that "organic" food isn't good. Of course, "regular" food boosted with "chemical" fertilizers (usually something that contains nitrogen) is going to grow better than the non-fertilized food if you planted it in poor soil to begin with. And these "chemicals" usually used as fertilizer in farming are not harmful. It's the pesticides, and then the genetically modified stuff you have to worry about.

If the "normal" food has some component in it that the birds want because it produces a drug-like effect to their system (like msg or aspartame do), then they may come back for it whether it's good for them or not.

New headline:

"Humans prefer addictive drugs over a glass of healthy, clean water... proving water is bad for you and drugs are good!"

[edit on 22-5-2010 by 30_seconds]

reply to post by majestictwo


Some of the chemicals in the Big Corporation food make those foods addictive, that is why those 1 dollar burgers at McDonals are so incredibly addictive, no matter how bad, and their fries. I swear I could not stop eating those for a day back then. They put MSG and some other stuff in there that makes your body become like a drug addict to it.

But it comes with bad side effects, everthing that is addictive isn't neccisarily good for you.

I basically agree with all of you but there is something else wrong here. Ether we have (as some of you indicate) "Fast Food Bird Seed" that has something in it to attract the birds or we have really crap "Real" food or do we really have something else.

In my OP I first thought if GM food grown was distasteful to wild life for some reason then that would improve the growth yields simply because it wasent being pre-eaten. This is something that is required for us to sustain our growing population and so wouldnt it make sense to do this.

Being suspicious I simple thought perhaps this organic seed wasn't organic at all but GM. It would make sense because you simple can't have birds not liking organic foods unless the bird seed was preferable but I can't see anyone spending $$ to do this for a few pet budgies.

They may be missing the obvious. The birds may eat MORE of the conventional simply because the get less nutrition from it and eat less of the organic because there is less issue with nutrition. The other issue is birds raised on the junk, may "prefer" the junk until trained to prefer the other. Lastly, if the study was to be comparable to humans - birds are NOT humans and would render this study a foolish disgrace. But I am glad that people who would otherwise be unemployed have grants like this to keep them off of regular welfare.