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  • From: "Kieran or Donna" <redherring@tnaccess.com>
  • To: <nafex@egroups.com>
  • Subject: Re: [nafex] Re: Organics, was Cedar Rust Revisited
  • Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 11:19:27 -0500

Thank you Lon, for the information. That sounds much less noxious than I
had expected. True it is a problem for some people, but at least it is a
simple and relatively harmless chemical. While on the subject of pesticides
on grapes, I'm curious about what you think about this:
The March issue of ACRES USA has an interview on flouride with chemist
Albert Burgstahler. I will quote him here: " I myself, with a student, did
a study on...fluoride in California wines. We examined some 20 or so wines
and found that certain wines were above the recommended max of 1 ppm. To
ship outside the US, they're supposed to stay below 1 ppm fluoride, and
Europe has banned the import of wines exceeding that level, but they have
made a concession to let it go higher....I asked why this happened to the
wines and was told that all the existing pesticides had lost their
effectiveness on the leaf eating insect larvae of the vineyards, so they've
had to turn to cryolite, or sodium hexafluoraluminate, which is also used in
the aluminum industry to make the molten bath for the electrolysis of
aluminum oxide. I asked why the larvae didn't develop a resistance to
cryolite, and I was told that when the chemical gets into their stomachs, it
releases hydrofluoric acid and chews the daylights out of their stomachs.
He was pretty candid about this. Washing the grapes thoroughly would be a
difficult problem. We also looked at raisins and found that certain
varieties were high in fluoride."
My comments: My son the chemistry grad student said the chemical they are
using is really bad stuff. From what I understand of raisin drying, washing
before drying is out of the question. In fact, did any of you see a
miniseries years ago called "Fresno" about 2 rival raisin empires? It was a
satire on several series popular at the time (Dallas, etc) In a horrifying
scene the patriarch has received a call in the middle of the night saying
there is trouble with the raisin dehydrator. We see him go into the
dehydrating room, a hand slams the door and locks it, a scream issues from
within, we are left to imagine the consequences....
>From what I have read, a machine drives down the rows of grapevines laying
down a strip of brown paper. Farmworkers clip the bunches and drop them
onto the paper, where they dry in the sun. Then the machine comes along
again and takes up the paper and raisins. The raisins are taken into the
packing plant where the stems and ants are blown off them by compressed air.
Knowing that made the TV version even funnier to me. Donna

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>
To: <nafex@egroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2000 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [nafex] Re: Organics, was Cedar Rust Revisited


> The material used in grapes is a pad containing sodium bisulfite. It
breaks
> down and releases sulfur dioxide to "fumigate" the grapes and keep them
from
> spoiling. It would obviously generate sulfites, which, of course, many
> people are sensitive to.
> ----------
> >From: "Kieran or Donna" <redherring@tnaccess.com>
> >To: <nafex@egroups.com>
> >Subject: Re: [nafex] Re: Organics, was Cedar Rust Revisited
> >Date: Wed, May 24, 2000, 12:23 PM
> >
>
> > And to bring the story around to fruit, in case you don't personally
> >know anyone (I do) whose child has gone into convulsions after eating
grapes
> >on the way home from the grocery, there is some kind of fumigant used on
> >grapes nowadays. The stores have instructions to open the boxes and let
> >them stand open for 2 hours before putting them on display, but that
doesn't
> >always get done. My reaction to all this is, "But this is supposed to be
> >FOOD."
> > Donna
> >
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >Best friends, most artistic, class clown Find 'em here:
> >http://click.egroups.com/1/4054/0/_/423498/_/959198070/
> >------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Old school buds here:
> http://click.egroups.com/1/4057/0/_/423498/_/959205929/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>


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Old school buds here:
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