Our Healthy Mind and Bodies group met again last week and I felt it was a rousing success. We had a dozen women there, great food and great discussion.

Scott whipped us up a fresh fruit smoothie to show off the Vitamix, and we also had a taste-test that proved very eye-opening. Carolee, my fabulous friend who coordinated this whole thing, brought conventionally grown and organically grown plums, apples, and cucumbers to see if we could tell the difference. She also brought locally grown green beans so we could compare them to the standard green beans that are shipped long distances. And finally, she scrambled up some regular eggs as well as some free-range, cage-free, organic, etc. etc. eggs.

Personally, I could definitely taste the difference between the organic and conventional (without knowing which was which ahead of time) but I didn’t have a strong preference one way or the other. My preference varied from food to food, and probably was because the particular plum or apple had a different taste, and not due to the farming methods. I happened to prefer the conventional plum but the organic apple, for instance. Other ladies seemed to agree and most of us were surprised to find out which group was the organic group.

However, for me personally, the eggs were night and day different. I found the organic eggs to be much “eggier” and have a better color, texture and a much richer flavor. The other eggs tasted watered-down by comparison. The difference was undeniable, but again, individual preference causes some ladies to favor the conventional eggs.

We moved on to a well-led discussion on why some people choose organic and whether those choices really “play out” the way we intend. Carolee prepared a really thorough hand-out and was kind enough to email it to me so I could include it in this post. I think everyone came away from this with a new perspective on organic, and many women found the “dirty dozen” (see hand-out) particularly significant.

Click through to see our discussion in all its glory. :)

Definition of “Organics” in the U.S.

Effective 21 October 2002, all agricultural farms and products claiming to be organic must be guaranteed by a USDA-approved independent agency to be meeting the following guidelines:

  • Abstain from the application of prohibited materials (including synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and sewage sludge) for 3 years prior to certification and then continually throughout their organic license.
  • Prohibit the use of genetically modified organisms and irradiation.
  • Employ positive soil building, conservation, manure management and crop rotation practices.
  • Provide outdoor access and pasture for livestock.
  • Refrain from antibiotic and hormone use in animals. (I pointed out here that this encourages farmers to give animals access to more fresh air and to crowd them less, because they can no longer rely on antibiotics to keep the animals alive until slaughter time.)
  • Sustain animals on 100% organic feed.
  • Avoid contamination during the processing of organic products.
  • Keep records of all operations.

(Organic food is more expensive, as a general rule, so we took the perspective of “why might I pay more for it”?)

Examples of Organic Food Claims

  • Better for you
    • Contains less pesticides – pesticides obviously kill things, they will kill you
    • Safety levels are based off of a 150 pound man, not your 20 pound strawberry-loving child. Smaller person, more relative toxin-load (I added here that your toddler will eat fewer strawberries than an adult, in all likelihood. But, the point still stands of children still growing and developing so they’re more susceptible to toxins and hormones.)
  • Better for the environment
    • Run-offs of fertilizers and pesticides into the water are harmful
    • Decreases exposure to farmhands to the toxins
    • Organic farms have “44 per cent more birds in fields and more than five times as many wild plants.”
  • Tastes Better
    • Because the fruit and vegetables are given their own time to grow in healthy soil, it makes sense that they would be bursting with flavor. And the same applies to meat, it’s not pumped full of hormones, making it more tender and tastier to eat.

Discussion

Better for you

  • A new book just published in the US, The Truth About Organic Foods by Alex Avery, provides a thorough examination of available evidence. The conclusion is that organic food is no healthier than ‘conventional’ food produced by industrial methods – and also argues that the claim of organic food to be better for the environment is suspect. As Avery, a trained plant physiologist and biologist now working for the Hudson Institute said, nobody has been putting the other side of the story on organic: ‘The “organic utopian” myth has become a serious roadblock to agricultural progress and some of the organic food industry’s main claims were simply smoke and mirrors and religious dogma.’
  • In a paper published in October in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a team from the University of California, Davis, demonstrates that organically grown tomatoes have significantly more vitamin C than conventional tomatoes. Even so, the same study shows no significant differences between conventional and organic bell peppers or other produce.
  • RE: Toxins. Most of our food does not contain residues of these chemicals. Of the minority of food products that still contain traces of pesticide, Avery provides some perspective: ‘[T]he pesticide residue data are a testament to our technical prowess in detecting incredibly tiny traces of specific chemicals in foods. Note that the synthetic pesticide residues… are consumed in microgram quantities, or one-millionth of a gram.’ Given that we tend to buy fruit and veg by the kilo, he notes: ‘Remember, this is equivalent to one penny in $10 million, or one inch in 16,000 miles!’ the minute quantities involved in pesticide residues mean the same chemicals are harmless in food. There is no evidence of anybody ever dying or falling seriously ill from eating food carrying traces of man-made pesticides.
  • The best review of the evidence, a paper by Woese et al in 1997, concludes that it is very difficult to conclude anything at all. ‘Conventional’ foods contain more pesticide residues and more nitrates – hardly surprising given their greater use in conventional agriculture. But overall, the authors note: ‘With regard to all other desirable nutritional values, it was either the case that no major differences were observed in physico-chemical analyses between the products from different production forms, or contradictory findings did not permit any clear statements.

Better for the environment

  • The environmental case for organic mainly rests upon the pollution caused by producing agricultural chemicals and cleaning up after them. It is certainly true that producing fertilizers in particular uses energy and this inevitably means fossil fuels. But the production of chemicals is only one part of the energy used in putting food on our plates. As a recent article in the Economist notes, many of the assumptions made about what is the most ‘green’ way to supply food are simply wrong. It suggests that big supermarkets, with highly efficient logistics, are arguably ‘greener’ than trying to feed the nation through local farmers’ markets.
  • organic is a marketing category, not an ecologically pure alternative to conventional food. Most organically grown food is packaged and processed, undercutting environmental benefits and health claims. In addition, organic farming uses massive amounts of non-renewable energy to process, package and ship organically grown food all over the world.
  • Organic isn’t sustainable: According to a more recent estimate, if synthetic fertilizers suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth, about two billion people would perish.

If You Want to Buy: things to know

  • A new study of US Department of Agriculture data conducted by Washington, DC-based Environmental Working Group that says particular fruits and vegetables contain substantially lower amounts of the pesticides and contaminants routinely found in conventionally produced items. Fewer chemicals equals lower health risks, making these purchases smart ones. Based on thousands of samples, the nonprofit research group came up with the “dirty dozen” — vegetables and fruits that have high pesticide residuals, even after washing. They are apples, bell peppers, celery, cherries, imported grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach and strawberries .
  • Take seafood, for instance. Consumer Reports cautions that any seafood labeled “organic” is meaningless, as the USDA has no standards for seafood. As ABC News medical editor Dr. David Katz puts it, “You can’t really control what gets into fish… If there are chemicals in the ocean, they’re going to be absorbed into that fish and there is no way to tell how much is in there. So labeling any sort of seafood as organic is a bit misleading.” And paying more for “organic” seafood is just dumb.
  • Other labels are misleading too. If a product carries a label that says “natural” or “all natural,” don’t mistake it for being organic. CR warns that the claim of being “natural” cannot be verified. In addition, there is no USDA standard defining either categorization, save for meat and poultry. Equally meaningless are the animal-product labels “free-range” and “free-roaming.” All they mean is that the animal in question had access to the outdoors for some undetermined period each day. “In other words,” the report says, “if a coop door was open for just five minutes a day, regardless of whether the chickens went outside, the animals’ meat and eggs could legally be labeled ‘free-range.’”

Maybe the ideal is to buy local- organic or conventional, see www.localharvest.org

Organic food safety is under increasing scrutiny in the US, with reports of organically grown produce being implicated in Escherichia coli 0157:H7 outbreaks in 2006. In the wake of these revelations, the top US fresh salad processor now refuses to buy lettuce and spinach from farmers who use composted manure as fertilizer, a decision specifically targeting organic farmers, because the few conventional farmers using manure can switch to synthetic fertilizer.

This unwavering attack can be grating—even to those not particularly sympathetic to the organic cause—and certainly not easy or enjoyable reading for those inclined to believe organic is indeed a better way. But no one can deny the legitimacy of the scientific evidence presented to challenge the organic assumptions and assertions. One comes away with the uncomfortable feeling that maybe the whole organic movement is the biggest consumer scam ever perpetrated on the population .

Other Links: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1595245,00.html
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/15/060515crat_atlarge

End hand-out, begin Anne’s personal point of view

I love the idea of sustainable farming and the ideal of eating local produce in season. I think that, in general, it allows the food to ripen in the ground/on the tree/ etc. thus making it more nutritious and delicious. Picking a fruit green and shipping it to another country certainly tends to cut down on the flavor of the food and I suspect the nutrients weren’t as high to begin with and likely deteriorated over the time it takes to ship. (If you’ve ever grown tomatoes in your backyard or picked berries yourself, you know what I mean by delicious.) :)

I hate that there are now organic fruit loops, and that people automatically assume organic is healthy. No, broccoli is healthy no matter how it’s grown (but rinse well before eating).

Honestly, my ideal world is pretty close to this: Farm Fresh to You. It’s a local farm that happens to be organic and delivers a box of farm-fresh produce once a week to your house. It’s jammed with a variety of fruits, veggies and herbs. Basically, whatever they are growing on the farm at that time. They deliver a huge box to SmugMug every week, as well as a box each to two of my brothers and my parents. This box gets my brothers eating leeks and fennel and beet greens, along with the best apples and berries you can imagine.

I think there are lots of farms with good, sustainable farming practices who don’t shell out the money to get certified organic or who don’t quite qualify because some part of their process uses something not strictly authorized by the USDA as “organic”.

I’ve recommended this book before, but I’m going to do it again here because it’s so good. Read Omnivore’s Dilemma for an impartial look at what goes on at a typical conventional farm, a “big organic” farm, and a sustainable, smaller farm. It’s eye-opening and definitely gave me a better idea of what foods I wanted to buy for my family.

Thanks for a great meeting ladies! Special thanks to Carolee for the really great discussion and taste-tests.