Does all organic make them more susceptible to illness

[Tillysmummy]

Hi ladies

Looking for some advice really, I was wondering what you thought of all organic food and whether or not it's linked to bad immunity ? My dd as you probably know from other threads has got tonsilitus now after having lots of other things the last two months. My nanny menioned something about thinking it was because I only gave her organic food. What do you think about this ? I think it is a very strange thought because how can pesticides and chemicals be good for baby ?

Also am just so fed up with her being poorly. Wonder when my baby will ever be well again. In her first 6 months she was very rarely ill but in the last 3 months she has had cold after cold and one thing after another. I am really fed up with it. I wonder if her constant nasal congestion is actually not a cold but an allergy to our cat or something else in the house because she doesn't seem to be really 'coldy' just blocked up and runny nose.

Anyone got any advice for me - everyone thinks it's odd that she's so often unwell the last couple of months and now it's starting to make me worry where before I thought she was just building up her immunity.

Ah Jasper, I know them as well, they lost al of the milking sheep in the F&M. How do you know them, are from our neck of the woods? We rear lamb until it is ready for the butcher/supermarket, we sell all of our lambs live weight. Having over 1000 ewd now and the majority being Scottish Blackface, I don't know what we'll do with the wedder (castrated males) when the ewes are ready for weaning, if we'll sell them off the ewes or fatten them before selling them. The taste of lamb usually depends on the breed, but mostly what they have been reared on, milk and grass is the best, but for the likes of us who lamb early in the year, we feed our lambs pellets to get them to put the weight on to catch the spring market. Actually we've been clipping our ewe hoggs today, and managed to get them in before the bloody rain came on again!!!! The total system of farming has had to change since F&M, the ways of farming before will not work now, as we have 21 day standstill in operation, as in if we move animals onto our farm then we cannot sell anything for 21 days after, not unless it is going direct to the slaughterhouse. Farming, should, really be more direct to the consumer, i.e. meat straight from farmer to purchaser cutting out the middle men who have their pound of flesh before the consumer gets it. But, there are so many rules and regulations now with regards to hygiene and FSA, the many small suppliers are not able to compete with the bigger companies, which is wrong, as jobs in small rural communities are being lost as a result. Feels some days as if we are on a hiding to nothing, never mind off to feed the calves and give the wee ones their milk. After that DD school show, and have my tea at some point tonight.

Hi Tigger
I know you're right but how can you tell? I just think that organic meat is more likely to be raised in a humane way. Having said that have bought meat in our local London farmers market from a producer who says all his animals are free range and have a decent (if rather short) life! I don't buy ordinary chicken any more because the way that most of them are kept makes me feel sick. Ditto pigs in sheds. Is there any way of telling if meat is humanely raised without buying organic? And what about BSE? Would be glad to read any advice on this.

Tigger, my former inlaws are from Kirkcowan aso that's where my knowledge of Wigtownshire comes from. The Cairnsmore folks were friends of mine via my ex dh so sadly i have not seen them in several years but I still hear how they are getting on through the grapevine.
One of the sadder aspects of divorce is losing a lot of lovely friends

Jasper, without wishing to give to much away here, I am born and bred Kirkcowan!!!!!! Who are you ex outlaws?

Aloha, you can't really tell what way animals have been raised, the only way to tell if they have been produced is by buying you meat from a butcher, who, if you asked by law should be able to tell you where the animal was born and raised, and if the meat is Farm Assured. Farm Assurance means that the farm is kept up to excellent standards, both of our farms are Scotch Qulaity Assured.

BSE, meat and bone meal from other animals has not been in animals feeding for some years now, and the incidences of BSE in Britain, expecially Scotland are reducing quite considerably each year. All of our cows and young heifers are bred from cows that are from farms that are BSE free, and this farm was free when my dad had it as well, even both our bulls come from BSE free herds. We also used Quality Assured Feed Merchants, these merchants are screened at regular intervals as to the contents of the feeding stuffs for sheep, cattle etc. The present system of cattle passports mean that you can see where an animal was bred and where it has come from. They are trying to move into this scheme for the sheep as well, but, I don't know if this will work, we are at present using a tagging system when the sheep move of one holding and go through a market they are tagged to indentify where they have come from and when they arrive at the destination as Licence has to be sent to the local DEFRA (SERAD in Scotland) so that they know where that sheep have gone.

In theory animals for fattening purposes should be finished off grass which is the most natural way, but some breeds need a bit of a push and feeding using barley and dark grains and various other ingredients is the best and most natural way as there are grass nuts in the feeding as well. We fattened a lot of cattle last year due to F&M restrictions, we are not doing it this year as we are moving to having more cows and less bulls and bullocks, and get a bit more production from our own farm instead of having to go out and buy in other cattle.

If you want any other info then I'll ask the other half if he can help, with any questions you may have.

Before I forget, no animals over 30 months are put into the food chain because BSE has not been found in any animals under 30 months of age. A bit silly as if an animal is 1 or 2 days over 30 months then they go the incinerator and are burned for very little money.

Aloha, I agree that animals are often held in terrible conditions (while not actually being prepared to give up eating them!) However, as well as "organic" there's also "free-range" or "outdoor-reared". I've seen pigs being reared in woodlands, which is their natural habitat. Also, be aware that "organic" means different things in different countries, hence the organic meat from Sweden in Safeway! In general the level of animal welfare is much higher in the UK than it is in continental Europe (eg, tethered stalls for sows have been illegal in the UK since 1999, but are still used in Holland/Denmark, so you're better off buying British bacon from an animal welfare point of view, organic or not.) It makes me so mad when I see foreign meat cheaper than British & try to buy British when I can. I read that subsidies are available from the EU if the national government matches the amount with its own money, but that the British government won't do this. Could you throw any light on this Tigger?
IMO, meat may taste better if you get it from a butcher, as he may use different breeds/cuts etc depending on what it's being used for. When I worked in the industry, the pigs we killed were fattened up as quickly as possible, and then used for a range of products (for delivery to retailers). But it probably depends on the skill of the butcher.

Must admit though that I'm much more concerned about the issues of over-packaging and "food miles" than I am with organic status. Who really needs strawberries in February, especially when they taste of nothing! I agree with GillW about buying things in season - it's just a case of re-educating yourself about what vegetables belong to which season.

(Have adopted an alter ego to comment on things in which I have a professional interest. )

Hi Tigger
Well, I wouldn't mind a bit of your beef! It's true, I should stop buying my meat in the supermarket (I don't even like supermarkets) and concentrate on the local farmer's market when at least I can quiz the bloke selling about the provenance of his meat. I was interested in what you said about the feed merchants - glad to hear that's properly regulated now. It's such a shame that some dodgy farmers have damaged the public confidence so much but we non-agricultural folk don't know what to look for. Maybe we need more info on The Archers instead of blasted Kate reappearing!

Foodie, there is £540 million in the treasury which is for the Rural Businesses including farmers, of which Margaret Beckett has to make a case to the Chancellor to see if can prove that WE need it!. Subsidies as provided mainly from Europe, and the Government here provides so much of the money. The subsidies are now moving towards Land Area payments instead of the headage basis that we are in at the moment, that menas getting rid of the farmers who buy hundreds of cattle each year, claim the subsidy and then sell them on again, if I am right I think any one farmer can claim 180 bullocks in one year, but a lot of farmers now have more than one farm trading so they can make 180 claims on as many different business names as they like.

Subsidy was ORIGINALLY introduced in the form of the Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowance, for those who have Hill Farms with cows, this was introduced for the farmers to use the money to pay for the feeding etc during the winter that they had fed to their cows. This has now been replaced by the Less Favoured Area Payment which is now based on the hecterage you claimed on your IACS Form for that year, it is beneficial to some farmers and some are now worse off. Also the subsidy paid on bullocks and cows in to in theory feed them, their is no subsidy on Heifers that have not bred any progeny. It is all quite complicated at the moment as there are cross checks being done by BCMS at Workington, which is proving to be a bloody nightmare for some of us, including us, as they reckon that a home bred Charolais Cross bull didn't move onto here until the day before he went to the slaughterhouse!! What a carryon I had getting it sorted out at my local SEERAD office.

At times in farming it seems as if everything is against you when they bring out yet another regulation with regards paperwork or various other things, that is why many of the older generation are leaving and so many of the youngsters are not coming forward. If things do not improve, there will be NO skilled manual workers or manual business people like farming and other farming related industries.

As you have said Tie Stalls for Sows are still used in the countries where most of the cheap bacon comes from, why do we have to adhere to regulations when other countries don't? Although tie stalls are completely horrendous things and should have been banned years ago. As a friend once said "Europe makes the rules, we adhere to them and France and its cronies don't bother their arse" What really annoys me though is that the public DO NOT know what is really going on farming, all they see is the Cows falling about all over the place with BSE, in fact most cows who have BSE become very subdued! Also the cow on the programme where she was falling about, wouldn't have done so if she wasn't walking across smooth concrete with a couple of inches of cow scitter on it, as it becomes very slippy, a disgrace that it was shown in that light.

Off now calves to feed and family as well!!

Tigger does the name Tarff House mean anything to you?

Jasper, yes it does! Your ex MIL used to have a shop in a nearby town didn't she? I know exactly who you are meaning, do you know many people from Kirkcowan?

I know this is off the subject a bit but quite a few people seem to have discovered recently here that they know each other in real life. I often wonder whether any friends, ex bosses, relatives etc are here unknown to me, does anyone else? I suppose going to a meet up is the only way to find out...

Actually www, I recently discovered quite by chance that someone I know in real life has started posting here. Hello that someone, glad you've found mumsnet!

Being fair to that someone, they couldn't get hold of me easily to say they were on here.

I recognised 2 'real life' friends on here on the same day.. I admit I changed my name, but I also posted on the 'Missing' board to one of them to warn her that I had recognised her, so that she could change her name if she wanted. (The other already knew that I post here, I recommended the site to her a long time ago).
It was a very strange feeling, as I had just asked for some 'mumsnet support' as I thought I may bave had a miscarriage and I hadn't mentioned it to any of my 'real life' friends. And then I saw my friend announcing her pregnancy on mumsnet...which will be due the same time as the babe I'm not having.

When I went on holiday to the med last year, I was really surprised at how many parents knew of mumsnet and visited the talk boards. One was already an occasional poster, and the other is the 'someone' I mentioned earlier. As you say, pamina, its just six degrees of separation.

Tigger to protect the innocent I will send you a message via mumsnet and we can chat without boring the pants off everyone else!
This is a fascinating coincidence - Iwonder if we have met in real life!

I have recognised someone I vaguely know (a friend of a friend!) who posts on Mumsnet and feel rather awkward as I now know considerably more about her life than she would probably want me to know - and she doesn't know that I know! (Complicated isn't it?) I'm never sure whether to confess to her.

Wotcha tigermoth! Yes, it 's spooky when worlds collide. Several threads have recently been geographically close to my neck of the woods and I often wonder if mums I see at the nursery post here, or were in my ante-natal group.

Yes, Bettys, I know what you mean. I get the same feeling when I attend PTA meetings round here. Nice to see you online!

I agree with Star, AnnieMo - you've made it sound as though you think she has been too revealing, and that's not a comfortable thought for a lot of people on here, I'd have thought. Why not drop her a line via [email protected]?