Rex:
>However, if you're saying that you know for sure 'string-bean' soak water is not
>particularly harmful to other plants, I'll take your word for it as I've never
>experimented with that.

Tom:
Don't know about string bean soak water, but my housplants thrive on
soak water from mung beans, wheat, sunflower, barley, sesame, etc.

Rex:
>BTW, can you give a lead on the statement that dry land seeds may contain
>measurable gibberelic acid?  My thought is that gibberelic acid is contained
>naturally in seaweeds.

Tom:
Try Biosis database, or Medline if you can't access Biosis.


Rex:
Re: Merritt Island, Florida
>Sorry, but the truth
>was that they had junk, too.  I then asked around for "who has the best oranges"
>and got various pointers.  All the leads led me to junk.

Tom:
The fruit I ate primarily came from non-commercial, organic or unsprayed
plants. Merritt Island has thin soil, on top of coquina limestone - very
high mineral content for the trees, once the roots hit the limestone
(which is fairly shallow in places).

Also, the fruit I ate came from Merritt Island south of the Pineda Causeway -
not the area you checked, per your description. The household fruit is
much better than the commercial, of course.

Rex:
>My plans are to re-visit Merritt Island soon.  I'll be checking to see if my
>poisoned friend is alive.  Tom, if you, or any others, would care to share the
>names of any groves you think have superior fruit, I'd be glad to anonymously check
>them and report back here.  I don't make scenes: I simply buy fruit and quietly
>test it back at the car.

Tom:
No commercial fruit - try the households south of the Pineda Causeway. I
had friends and sources, but have not lived there since the early 80's.
The fruit I got from there was simply incredible. Can you believe
grapefruit that were sweeter than any/all California *oranges*, and
limes that were as sweet as regular (store bought) grapefruit? Oranges so
sweet you can drink only a little juice. Mangoes bursting with flavor
(store mangos are pathetic in comparison), sweet papayas that were
fantastic...

The commercial groves there, like elsewhere, are producing lower quality
fruit. However, one can - with searching and luck - get home-grown
fruit that is much better. Also, the excuse that "all-raw" or fruitarianism
will fail unless one gets fruit of impossibly high quality, indicates,
if the claim is true, just how impractical such dietary regimes are
in the real world. As much as we would like to, most cannot grow their
own foods, and testing everything with a Brix meter seems impractical
to some of us.

Tom Billings