Food For Thought: Organic Food Worth Buying

The organic industry is running into some growing pains, reports this AOL piece -- especially when it comes to compliance monitoring (e.g.,  making sure that foods are being randomly tested and violators' products are immediately pulled from shelves).  Does that mean that one shouldn't buy organic?

Consider one recent study that demonstrated the potentially significant health benefits of organics -- avoiding what's NOT in them.

And at least one peer-reviewed study has shown that organic foods offer a potential benefit in what they don't contain. 

It was conducted in 2008 by Chensheng Lu, then a professor at Emory University's School of Public Health and a leading authority on pesticides and children, who took as his subjects a group of children living on Mercer Island, a wealthy suburb of Seattle.

Over the course of a year, Lu, now at Harvard, fed 21 children ages 3 to 11 conventional fruits, vegetables and juices from nearby grocery stores for five days at a time. Then the kids were switched to organic foods.

Twice daily on multiple days in each of the four growing seasons, he tested their urine and saliva. When the children ate conventional food, markers of organophosphates -- the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II -- appeared in the biological samples. None was found when the children were eating organic.

"The transformation is extremely rapid. Within eight to 36 hours of the children switching to organic food, the pesticides were no longer detected," Lu said at the time.

"Once you switch from conventional food to organic, the pesticides (malathion and chlorpyrifos) that we can measure in the urine disappears. The level returns immediately when you go back to the conventional diets."

Lu is repeating the study in two different communities. The exposure levels observed in Lu's study were lower than the levels that the Environmental Protection Agency regards as safe. But many public health experts and advocates believe those levels are in fact not safe, especially for children.

That's pretty striking.  In addition to the peace of mind I get from avoiding nasty pesticides (and doing my part to help keep them out of the environment), I also find many organic products taste better. Furthermore, I have seen research detailing how they contain greater levels of several important vitamins, including powerful anti-oxidants.  A new book details many of these benefits, which are also summarized in this Planet Green piece...

Read more>>

More on the subject from Planet Green>>
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New Book Touts "Shocking" Reasons to Eat Organic

A new book describes the many environmental, health and safety benefits of organic foods.  As reported on The Early Show:

Matt Bean, a senior editor of the magazine, spelled out many of those benefits on "The Early Show" Tuesday.

Although organic food is more expensive than conventional food, Bean says making organics a part of your diet can have a big impact on your health and that of your family.

From the book, Bean says, "We discovered ... some pretty shocking and convincing arguments" for going that route.

Health Benefits of Organic Foods:

• More Nutrients: Studies show that organic foods may have increased levels of nutrients like antioxidants than conventionally grown foods

• Fertility Health: Pesticides found in conventionally grown foods have been shown to reduce fertility

• Immune System Protection: The chemicals in non-organic foods may also harm your immune system, leaving you more susceptible to illness and some forms of cancer

• Hormones and weight gain: New research has shown that some agricultural chemicals could actually be making you fat by interfering with your hormone levels.

• Unknown effects of GMOs: Many people are concerned about genetically modified foods, especially since many of them have never been tested on humans. Organic foods are never genetically modified.

Given findings like this out there, there's also an element of 'peace of mind' that comes with eating organic -- especially when grown in our own garden (I'm proud of the food I grow, and it tastes great!) and purchased at local farmers' markets (supporting our local organic growers and green economy).

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Pollan Shoots Down Organic Myths at Grist Event

Here's an enjoyable read from Grist detailing comments from Michael Pollan and Tom Philpott about how we can make our food system more sustainable.

(S)ophisticated organic ag does exist.  Pollan disputed the idea that organic techniques are anti-technology.  Philpott agreed, pointing out that renowned farmers Joel Salatin and Will Allen use advanced technology to produce organic food—it’s just not the type of technology that Big Ag promotes and profits from.

Asked what the Obama administration is thinking on ag—sometimes veering in the direction of progressive change, other times whipping back toward the agrichemical status quo, as Philpott puts it—Pollan said the admin appears to be playing both sides of the street. Pollan related an anecdote in which the president implied that there needs to be a popular political movement for sustainable food before he can make big change—and suggested to his wife that this might be her issue. 

As CV Notes readers will know, improving the sustainability of our food system is one area that holds tremendous promise for improving the health of both people and ecosystems.

What do we do?  We buy organic fruits and veggies, triple-certified coffee (Organic, Shade-Grown & Fair Trade), grow our own organic garden and plant native wildflowers to attract pollinators, visit the farmer's market whenever we can, capture rain water and use it to water house plants and garden, when we buy beef it's organic and grass-fed, and more...  We also yearn to have our own chickens -- soon enough...

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Integrating Organic and Sustainable Agriculture Into Climate Policy

Much of the attention on sustainable land management practices that can help reverse global warming has focused on the CO2-absorbing potential of forests.

What about the role of sustainable agriculture practices that are known to sequester carbon in the soil?

According to this piece:

Fortunately, many of the measures that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions or sequester carbon in the soil will also make agriculture more resilient to extreme weather patterns, such as the current drought. Cover cropping, composting, conservation tillage, organic fertilization and other best management practices will increase the amount of soil organic matter, reduce erosion, conserve water and enhance fertility. This, in turn, will help increase crop productivity and drought and pest resistance in the face of an increasingly dry and hot climate. According to a January 2009, ground-breaking study by University of California at Davis researchers, these practices, when combined, will generate significant greenhouse gas reduction benefits, primarily through carbon sequestration.

Unfortunately, none of these measures were adopted or promoted in California’s climate change strategy.

Read the rest of the article here...

As I've noted time and again, climate change solutions offer a multitude of opportunities for improving the efficiency with which we do things like produce and use energy and manage land. 

Followers of this blog will know that many of the sustainable agriculture practices that help to sequester CO2 also have multiple additional benefits, from conserving water, soil, and biodiversity to naturally increasing pest and drought resistance. If we're to achieve the goal of 350 ppm CO2 stated by top experts (and advanced by the good folks at 350.org), we simply cannot afford to not have key solutions like this smartly integrated into our climate policies.

Let's hope that California catches this glaring omission from its climate policy and begins to set the example for the rest of the world.