Organic farmer fears trend toward industrial model

Longtime organic farmer Carmen Fernholz frets that the movement could be pulling away from its roots.

“My fear is that organic food systems are moving too much to industrial models that conventional agriculture gives us, with larger and larger farming operations,” the Madison, Minn., farmer said.

It’s one of several themes Fernholz will deliver during his keynote speech this morning at the 24th annual Organic Farming Conference at the La Crosse Center.

The three-day conference, sponsored by the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service in Spring Valley, Wis., has drawn more than 3,000 farmers and organic advocates.

“The organic food system has to be an egalitarian food system — the people’s food system,” said Fernholz, who farms 400 acres in western Minnesota.

“We have to decide what size we want to be. My dad used to say, ’If you don’t know how big you want to be, you’ll never be big enough,’” he said.

If the system follows the industrial agricultural model, he said, “one of the consequences is it will deprive more people of the opportunity to be food producers.”

Although organic farming often gets a rap as being more expensive, “it’s easier to achieve a profitable bottom line, if you do it correctly,” he said. “You can get comparable yields, generally at more of a premium, and generally with less of a capital investment.”

Organic seeds are less expensive, and not buying pesticides and chemical fertilizers saves money, said Fernholz, an organic research coordinator for the University of Minnesota.

“I might invest $5,000 to $10,000 more in equipment” for increased weed management and tillage, he said, “but it will last five, 10, 15 years or more. If I spent $5,000 on herbicides, that would last for just one year.“

At market, he said, “Conservatively, my neighbor might get $14 for soybeans, and I could get $28. It’s a demand thing, and an incentive for organic producers.”

Even though organic food costs more at the retail level, it’s a good health choice for consumers, Fernholz said.

“From a young family’s perspective, the residues of toxicity are taken care of through organic foods,” he said. “I mention younger families because smaller children are more susceptible to toxicity.”

In addition, he said, “Some limited research indicates that organic foods have higher nutritional density.”

The conference attracted more than organic farmers and advocates, such as Patricia Hagen of Onalaska, a dietician with the Women, Infants and Children public health program in Monroe County.

“I wanted to learn more about the food and farming system and also have the opportunity to develop relationships with local farmers,” Hagen said.

Among other things, the WIC program provides checks to families so they can buy locally grown fruits and vegetables, she said.

“As a dietician, I believe strongly in knowing where food comes from,” she said.

As the debate over the cost of organic food continues, she said, “I think organic is becoming more mainstream, and more affordable.

“It’s also an investment in your health,” Hagen said. “It may not be your whole diet, but whatever you can, and it supports local farmers.”

Organic farms, by the numbers

With more than 1,200 certified organic farms, Wisconsin ranks second only to California, which has more than 2,700, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

Washington state is third, at nearly 900, while New York is fourth at about 850, and Oregon, fifth at about 650.

A large portion of the Badger State’s organic farms are in the Coulee Region, with the heaviest concentrations in Monroe and Vernon counties, both of which have more than 60, according to the USDA’s 2011 National Organic Program data.

The program estimates that Jackson and Trempealeau counties have between 31 and 60 certified organic farms and La Crosse, between 11 and 30.

In Minnesota, Winona County has between 26 and 50 organic farms, and Houston County has between 11 and 25, according to the state agriculture department.

View the original article here

Organic food benefits touted

In November 2012, California voters narrowly defeated Proposition 37 — a plebiscite that, if passed, would have resulted in mandatory labelling of genetically engineered foods in that state.

Opponents argued that such a measure would have added billions of dollars to food costs, without providing health or safety benefits. Proponents insisted that consumers have a right to know what’s in their food.

Weighing in with a $660,000 donation to the Yes campaign was Nature’s Path Foods, a Richmond, B.C.-based organic food company that shuns genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

“We think that when people know what’s in their food, they’ll make different choices than when they don’t,” explained Darren Mahaffy, Nature’s Path’s vice-president of marketing, during a presentation at Olds College on Wednesday.

“We know that they want it. We just need to convince government that it’s important.”

Speaking at Organic Alberta’s 2013 conference, Mahaffy said Canadian politicians are receptive to the idea of GMO labelling. But they’re worried that food prices would increase if such a requirement was imposed.

This would not be the case in the long term, insisted Mahaffy, explaining that farmers would simply switch to non-GMO outputs if consumers demanded them.

He also believes the public’s appetite for organic food would jump, bringing with it environmental and health benefits.

“Organics becomes the default safe place to go for consumers.”

Mahaffy also made the case that organic production can be more profitable for farmers than conventional crops.

Yields might be 15 per cent lower, but eliminating the cost of inputs like fertilizers and pesticides would result in a net savings of about $200 an acre, he said.

“When you do move the yield-relative-to-input calculations, boy organics start to look pretty good.”

A huge market potential exists, said Mahaffy, with consumers of all age ranges and income brackets already favouring organic foods.

Many of the attributes they look for when choosing grocery items — pesticide-free, antibiotic-free, few ingredients, no GMOs, no artificial sweeteners and limited processing — are directly related to organic production.

“Those are things that organic can own and differentiate from conventional products,” he said.

More retailers are stocking organic products, added Mahaffy, and consumers are rewarding them with their wallets.

One challenge facing the organic food industry is the public’s lack of understanding about the differences between “organic” and “natural” foods.

That’s because there’s no regulated definition of natural, said Mahaffy.

“This is a problem for us, because if consumers are thinking that natural and organic are the same, the input cost . . . for a natural product is almost exactly the same as for a conventional product, but they’re charging a premium. And the consumer is not necessarily getting the value that they think they’re getting.”

The Organic Alberta conference took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, with about 130 people in attendance and speakers discussing topics related to the production and marketing of organic crops and livestock products.

 

View the original article here

Organic, locally grown food gaining ground in Iowa

Kathleen Stewart (left) and Emma Hornsby, both of Iowa City, choose organic potatoes at New Pioneer Food Co-op in Coralville on Wednesday. From 2008 through 2012, New Pioneer’s purchases from local producers increased 39.86 percent to nearly $1.7 million last year, New Pioneer marketing manager Jenifer Angerer said. (Kaitlyn Bernauer/The Gazette)

Though few hard statistics are available, Iowans’ appetite for organic food and locally raised fruits and vegetables appears to be growing.

“We don’t have real current and accurate data, but my sense is that, yes, we are getting more organic growers and more people raising food for local consumption,” said Maury Wills, bureau chief of agriculture diversification and market development for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

Data for specialty crops “is just not there like it is for commodity crops such as corn and soybeans,” said state horticulturist Mike Bevins.

While the number of farmers markets in Iowa doubled from 2004 to 2009, more recent developments won’t be known until the next USDA farmers market survey is conducted in 2014, Bevins said.

“Specialty crops are a very important part of Iowa agriculture, as they allow farmers to diversify and give customers access to locally grown products,” Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey said Thursday in announcing the availability of $271,000 in grants to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops.

The specialty crops segment is definitely growing in the Iowa City area, according to Jenifer Angerer, marketing manager at New Pioneer Food Co-op with stores in Iowa City and Coralville.

From 2008 through 2012, New Pioneer’s purchases from local producers increased 39.86 percent to nearly $1.7 million last year, Angerer said.

Local produce “is the fastest-growing segment of food production,” said Jason Grimm, food systems planner with the Iowa Valley RC&D in Amana.

Grimm said the Iowa Valley Food Co-op, an online network of producers and consumers in Eastern Iowa, has grown to more than 450 members since it was founded in August 2011.

Restaurants have also recently become an important outlet for locally grown produce, he said.

Grimm, who helps newcomers break into the business, said marketing is more difficult than production.

“You need to start lining up customers before you plant the seeds,” he said.

New Pioneer specializes in both organic foods, which are certified to have been produced in accordance with well-defined natural specifications, and locally grown products, which are often produced with similar care but lack the certification.

‘Fresher is better’

Angerer said New Pioneer customers believe “fresher is better.”

In a farm state that imports 90 percent of the food its residents eat, conscientious Iowans worry about the carbon footprint inherent in transporting food great distances, she said.

They also believe that small-scale production, as opposed to industrial models, is friendlier to the environment, more sustainable and more accountable in an era of food scares involving pathogen contamination, she said.

New Pioneer buys from about 30 local producers with more growers applying each year, said Mike Krough, the company’s produce coordinator.

Maximizing locally sourced products is part of New Pioneer’s mission to support the local economy, he said.

Certified organic food — which can cost as much as one-third more than conventionally produced food — is a much bigger deal in Iowa City than it is in Cedar Rapids, according to Teresa White, farmers market coordinator for the city of Cedar Rapids.

“Iowa City people care more about how food is raised and will pay the price,” White said.

While Cedar Rapids residents value fresh, locally raised fruits and vegetables, they seem less willing to pay the premium commanded by organic produce, she said.

Locally grown produce is the biggest attraction at the new Downtown Farmers’ market, according to Jill Wilkins, who manages the market for the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance.

About one-fourth of the 220 vendors specialize in horticultural products, and they almost always sell out, she said.

Jim Fink, who has operated a 40-acre organic farm near Urbana for the past 20 years, said farming without chemicals is not all that different from the way his parents farmed.

Fink, who said he finds chemicals “disagreeable,” fertilizes his soil with manure from his organically raised livestock and controls weeds through crop rotation and mechanical cultivation.

Fink, who derives much of his income from the sale of beef and pork, emphasizes that his meat is not certified organic, but that is only because he cannot find a meat processor willing to invest the time and money in achieving organic certification.

Fink’s hogs and cattle eat only organic food, much of it produced on his farm, and they thrive without the hormones and antibiotics common to modern meat production.

“I sell it as ‘natural’ and set my prices at the higher end of the market,” he said.

View the original article here

Local, Organic Food Delivery Service Good Eggs Launches In SF To Bring The Farmer’s Market To You

Hey you! Do you live in the San Francisco Bay Area? Do you buy locally grown, organic and sustainable produce? Do you hate fighting the crowds at the local farmer’s market every Sunday just to get the veggies you need for the Shaved Fennel, Radish, and Grapefruit Salad you plan to make for your best friend’s dinner party? Of course you do! And boy have I got a startup for you.

Good Eggs is a new service that delivers organic and sustainable meats, produce, and other goods from locally sourced farms and vendors. There are lots of delivery services that will bring groceries to you, and there are lots of Community Supported Agriculture programs around to connect residents with produce from local farms. But neither does a great job of getting users the stuff they want, when they want it.

On the grocery delivery side, there are few services out there to cater directly to users looking to get organic, sustainable foods. And even if they do, they probably only work with a few local farms. As for CSAs — they’re great if you’re fine with getting a hodgepodge of whatever vegetable or meats are available any given week, but it’s rare that you can pick and choose what you want to match your weekly diet with whatever their farms have harvested.

By contrast, Good Eggs seeks to have all the choice that comes with going to the local grocery, as well as the peace of mind of knowing that all your food is grown without chemicals or farmed using sustainable methods, and all the convenience of getting the stuff shipped from the farm to your door.

It’s done that by aggregating goods from multiple local farms and food producers, and creating a delivery system that can bring together a single order of local foods in under two days. Whether it be seasonal produce, meats or fish, breads and cheese, Good Eggs has a wide selection of products to order from a large group of producers. It even has various ready-to-eat meal options made with organic goods.

Altogether, Good Eggs has about 120 different vendors on its system in the San Francisco Bay Area. The magic of the service, though, is not in getting all of that stuff together in one place — it’s in actually getting the groceries to your door. For that, Good Eggs has built its own delivery infrastructure, including finding a way to collect goods from multiple vendors all in one order, and having its own delivery trucks to take orders to customers directly to customers’ homes.

According to Good Eggs co-founder Rob Spiro, the company started out just providing its software to local organic food vendors as a way to take orders, track inventory, and fulfill direct sales on their own. That pilot launch happened last summer. But what the company found was that the vendors using its software needed help with distribution. So it decided to build the delivery system itself.

Today, that means that rather than going out to the local farmer’s market, you can have those goods brought to you. The company charges $3.99 for home delivery of goods, which is actually pretty cheap by delivery-service standards, and orders are delivered generally about two business days after an order is placed. Good Eggs makes money not just on the delivery fee, but also in taking a small percentage of orders placed through its system with individual vendors.

But all in all, it’s a win-win proposition: Users get the foods they want brought to them, vendors have greater reach and distribution to customers they wouldn’t have had before, and Good Eggs shares in the profits, all the while making the world a more sustainable, delicious place. Yays all around.

Good Eggs was founded by Spiro, who was a co-founder of Aardvark (which sold to Google), as well as Carbon 5 co-founder Alon Salant. The company has a team of 20, with other team members from Google, Yahoo, and various food companies. The startup has raised funding from Harrison Metal, Baseline Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Westly Group, Correlation Ventures, New Island Capital, Max Ventilla and Mitch Kapor.

Good Eggs is a technology company that’s driven by a mission to grow and sustain local food systems worldwide. The company is led by Rob Spiro & Alon Salant, working out of the Mission district of San Francisco. They are currently in R&D mode on their first product.

? View the original article here

10 Foods You Shouldn’t Buy Organic – and 12 You Should

Grocery stores now have entire aisles packed with everything from organic pasta to all-natural soap. Sold at higher prices than conventional products, organic items aren’t produced with synthetic pesticides or chemical fertilizers. They’re also not processed with food additives or irradiation (radiation exposure).

But are the higher prices for these theoretically safer products really worth it? A study by researchers at Stanford University reveals organic products aren’t necessarily more nutritional, nor are they less susceptible to contamination. From their report:

The review yielded scant evidence that conventional foods posed greater health risks than organic products. While researchers found that organic produce had a 30 percent lower risk of pesticide contamination than conventional fruits and vegetables, organic foods are not necessarily 100 percent free of pesticides. What’s more, as the researchers noted, the pesticide levels of all foods generally fell within the allowable safety limits.

Video reporter and Money Talks founder Stacy Johnson has been doing stories on organic food for years. Here’s a news story that aired nationally in 2008 – check it out, then read on for more…

Watch 'Saving Money on Organic Food'.

According to what Stacy said in the video above and numerous other sources, including this Greenopolis article, the thick skins on many fruits and vegetables protect them from pesticides. While pesticides may linger on banana peels, for example, we obviously don’t eat the peels. Many of these products also lack pesticides because they don’t attract as many insects and harmful organisms.

AvocadosBananasPineappleAsparagusBroccoliOnionsKiwiCabbageCantaloupeSweet Corn

Despite the Stanford study’s statement that there’s no indication pesticides on conventionally-grown foods are harmful, many people are still willing to pay extra to avoid pesticides on their food. So where will you get the biggest bang for your organic food buck? Mentioned on the Environmental Working Group’s 2012 “Dirty Dozen Plus” list, these foods are among the worst offenders.

ApplesCeleryStrawberriesCucumbersBlueberries (Domestic)SpinachSweet Bell PeppersPotatoesLettucePeachesNectarines (Imported)Grapes

The “Plus” part of this list includes green beans and kale (collard greens). These items are sometimes contaminated with highly toxic organophosphate insecticides, which are extremely harmful to the nervous system and have been largely removed from agriculture as a result.

In addition to the tools you’d use to save on anything – comparison shopping, buying in bulk, using coupons, etc. – the best way to save on organically grown food is to buy it locally. Local farmers markets and family farms are a great way to get fresh organic food for less and support your local community. See sites like Local Harvest for ideas in your area.

This article was originally published on MoneyTalksNews.com as '10 Foods You Shouldn’t Buy Organic – and 12 You Should'.

View the original article here

No testing procedures in place to assure organic produce is chemical-free, so ... - ABC Action News

Organic produce is supposed to be free from synthetic chemicals and governed with strict guidelines.

But, the I-Team found no established testing procedures are in place.

“USDA Certified” is the label to look for when spending extra money on organic produce.  And that price tag can be 20 percent to 30 percent higher than conventionally grown produce.

Consequently, organics have grown into a multi-billion dollar industry.

Act of 1990:
Organics are overseen by the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990.

It required the United States Department of Agriculture to set up an organics program to oversee processing, distribution and certification. It’s called the National Organic Program.

The program in turn, oversees third party certifiers around the world who give products the USDA Certified stamp of approval. According to the USDA, there are 85 certifying agents who handle about 30,000 operating farms.

Click here to read the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990.

The law also requires a strict examination of "residue testing" for pesticides.

But now, 22 years after the law was enacted, those tests are not happening.

Miles McEvoy heads the organics program for the USDA.

The Office of the Inspector General did an audit of the program in 2010. The report states that the organics program did not establish testing procedures and the certifying agents were not performing periodic residue testing as required by law.

“Congress indicated that certifiers should be doing periodic residue testing and that had never been established,” said McEvoy.

Click here to read the Oversight of the National Organic Program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Our Testing:
The I-Team joined with ten of our sister stations across the country and went to various stores to purchase imported organic produce.

We bought a wide variety with each station buying different products.

Each of the samples from across the country was shipped overnight to the same certified lab in California.
Wil Sumner headed the testing project. He has been a chemist for more than 35 years. Today, he runs his own company.

“By definition, organic does not mean chemical-free. It just means it is grown without the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers,” said Sumner. “It doesn't mean that they are not toxic.”

Our Results:
In all, the lab tested 33 different types of organic produce imported from 11 different countries.

We found 12 percent had pesticide residues with an additional 10 percent having trace amounts.

It is true some farmers use chemicals when they shouldn’t. But more often, contamination comes from the soil where toxic chemicals like DDT were used decades ago. These toxins are not going away anytime soon.

There is also cross-contamination.

“There are a lot of different compounds out there, and they are being used by both groups -- conventional and organic growers. And, these are all drifting in different directions,” said Sumner.

In addition to conventional pesticides blowing onto organic farms, Sumner said cross-contamination could happen in the shipping process. It could also happen in the back room of the store.

Four of our organic produce tested positive for residues. They all came from Mexico.
The lab found a chemical called, Dieldrin in the mini pumpkins we tested and DDD in the yellow squash -- a cousin of DDT. Both are extremely toxic. Both are banned, and both will remain in our soil for decades.

The tomatoes had residue of Spinocyn-A, which is a conventional pesticide recently approved for organics.

All three of the items had small amounts of chemical residue and would be allowed for sale by the USDA.

But, the fresh basil we bought had Metalaxyl in it which Sumner said wasn't legal for organics. He said the Food and Drug Administration would make all retailers pull that product from shelves.  

Periodic Residue Testing:
The good news? The government is finally setting up guidelines for testing.

The I-Team found this memo from McEvoy requiring all third party certifiers to start testing five percent of operating farms both here and abroad. This testing is supposed to start this year.   

The goal:
The new periodic residue testing program will discourage mislabeling and facilitate our oversight of USDA organic products around the world. This will allow us to prevent residues of a wide variety of prohibited substances, thus meeting consumer expectations. Periodic residue testing is an important tool to protect the integrity of USDA organic products around the world.

Click here to read the Periodic Residue Testing of Organic Products memo from the Agricultural Marketing Service.

“How well that's implemented overseas? Can the USDA have the staff over there to make sure it is being run the same? That's the question,” said Sumner.

However, on all produce you buy, Sumner recommends to simply wash your food. That can remove about 50 percent of residues.

Copyright 2013 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Organic food makes people selfish - study - Independent Online

REUTERS

Researchers said the way that organic foods are marketed, using terms such as 'honest', may make buyers less motivated to help the environment in other ways.

Related Stories

London - Buying organic foods may make you less likely to show kindness to others, researchers claim.

This is because using organic products makes people feel more secure about themselves, weakening the urge to act unselfishly, says US psychologist Dr Kendall Eskine.

It also makes them judge immoral behaviour more harshly, his team reports in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

But comfort foods can lead to us being more social and making kinder moral judgments.

The study, at Loyola University in New Orleans, used 62 students in three groups. One was given pictures of organic produce, another images of ice-cream, cookies, chocolate and brownies, and a control group pictures of porridge, rice, mustard and beans.

They were then all asked their views on six moral transgressions ranging from a politician taking bribes to a student stealing books from a library.

Finally, they were asked to volunteer to help a professor in another department.

“Participants who were exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time... and they judged moral transgressions significantly harsher,” said Dr Eskine.

Researchers said the way that organic foods are marketed, using terms such as “honest”, may make buyers less motivated to help the environment in other ways. - Daily Mail

 

View the original article here

Local, Organic Food Delivery Service Good Eggs Launches In SF To Bring The ... - TechCrunch

Hey you! Do you live in the San Francisco Bay Area? Do you buy locally grown, organic and sustainable produce? Do you hate fighting the crowds at the local farmer’s market every Sunday just to get the veggies you need for the Shaved Fennel, Radish, and Grapefruit Salad you plan to make for your best friend’s dinner party? Of course you do! And boy have I got a startup for you.

Good Eggs is a new service that delivers organic and sustainable meats, produce, and other goods from locally sourced farms and vendors. There are lots of delivery services that will bring groceries to you, and there are lots of Community Supported Agriculture programs around to connect residents with produce from local farms. But neither does a great job of getting users the stuff they want, when they want it.

On the grocery delivery side, there are few services out there to cater directly to users looking to get organic, sustainable foods. And even if they do, they probably only work with a few local farms. As for CSAs — they’re great if you’re fine with getting a hodgepodge of whatever vegetable or meats are available any given week, but it’s rare that you can pick and choose what you want to match your weekly diet with whatever their farms have harvested.

By contrast, Good Eggs seeks to have all the choice that comes with going to the local grocery, as well as the peace of mind of knowing that all your food is grown without chemicals or farmed using sustainable methods, and all the convenience of getting the stuff shipped from the farm to your door.

It’s done that by aggregating goods from multiple local farms and food producers, and creating a delivery system that can bring together a single order of local foods in under two days. Whether it be seasonal produce, meats or fish, breads and cheese, Good Eggs has a wide selection of products to order from a large group of producers. It even has various ready-to-eat meal options made with organic goods.

Altogether, Good Eggs has about 120 different vendors on its system in the San Francisco Bay Area. The magic of the service, though, is not in getting all of that stuff together in one place — it’s in actually getting the groceries to your door. For that, Good Eggs has built its own delivery infrastructure, including finding a way to collect goods from multiple vendors all in one order, and having its own delivery trucks to take orders to customers directly to customers’ homes.

According to Good Eggs co-founder Rob Spiro, the company started out just providing its software to local organic food vendors as a way to take orders, track inventory, and fulfill direct sales on their own. That pilot launch happened last summer. But what the company found was that the vendors using its software needed help with distribution. So it decided to build the delivery system itself.

Today, that means that rather than going out to the local farmer’s market, you can have those goods brought to you. The company charges $3.99 for home delivery of goods, which is actually pretty cheap by delivery-service standards, and orders are delivered generally about two business days after an order is placed. Good Eggs makes money not just on the delivery fee, but also in taking a small percentage of orders placed through its system with individual vendors.

But all in all, it’s a win-win proposition: Users get the foods they want brought to them, vendors have greater reach and distribution to customers they wouldn’t have had before, and Good Eggs shares in the profits, all the while making the world a more sustainable, delicious place. Yays all around.

Good Eggs was founded by Spiro, who was a co-founder of Aardvark (which sold to Google), as well as Carbon 5 co-founder Alon Salant. The company has a team of 20, with other team members from Google, Yahoo, and various food companies. The startup has raised funding from Harrison Metal, Baseline Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Westly Group, Correlation Ventures, New Island Capital, Max Ventilla and Mitch Kapor.

Good Eggs is a technology company that’s driven by a mission to grow and sustain local food systems worldwide. The company is led by Rob Spiro & Alon Salant, working out of the Mission district of San Francisco. They are currently in R&D mode on their first product.

View the original article here

Organic Food Fight, Part Two - Pacific Standard

Whole Foods shoppers, take heart: organic produce isn’t a total scam.

Stanford researchers caused a minor scandal in natural-foodie circles last fall when they published a meta-study refuting the nutritional benefits of organic produce. The online commentariat quickly divided into two camps—the vindicated (“I told you so!”) and the aggrieved (“You’re missing the point!”)—and web editors gleefully posted story after link-bait story about the findings.

The big footnote to that research, of course, is that the researchers were focused primarily on organic veggies’ nutritional content and not their small environmental footprint or lack of noxious pesticides. There are plenty of reasons to eat organic—c.f. Michael Pollan’s oeuvre—and not all of them have to do with phosphorus and fatty acids.

An article by Brazilian biologists, published recently in PLOS One, makes a compelling case for the nutritional superiority of organic tomatoes, and (nerd alert!) outlines the biochemical processes responsible for their healthfulness.

The biologists wanted to compare the levels of “phytochemicals” in organic and conventional field-grown tomatoes. Phytochemicals—defined by Oregon State University’s Linus Pauling Institute as “chemicals from plants that may affect health, but are not essential nutrients”—are a bit of a rage these days, among nutritionists and health nuts alike. The bioactive compounds include resveratrol (the red wine wonder drug), flavonoids (antioxidants found in tea, fruit, and dark chocolate), curcumin (an anti-inflammatory found in turmeric), and carotenoids (such as lycopene, whose proposed anti-stroke properties we’ve written about previously).

Phytochemicals only recently went from being an “unknown unknown” to a “known unknown” in the scientific community, which is to say, they’re the topic of much conjecture and little certainty. Still, there’s mounting evidence that they play an important role in mediating—if not mitigating—chronic illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease.

The Brazilian researchers proposed that, because organic tomato plants are exposed to more field stress—in the form of pests, weeds, and nutrient scarcity—than conventional ones, their fruit would likely be “endowed with enhanced nutritional properties,” a kind of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” theory of life in the plant kingdom. If the goal were to grow not just large tomatoes but healthful ones, might a moderately stressed vine produce more phytochemicals and antioxidants than a carefully tended one?

Indeed, the biologists found that, while conventional tomatoes were 31 percent larger and 60 percent heavier than their organic cousins, they were lacking in phytochemicals. Pesticide-free fruit, grown on stressed vines, had significantly higher levels of flavonoids, phenolics, and vitamin C.

“Until recently, the focus has been mainly on yield”—i.e. size, weight, and quantity of produce—“rather than on gustative and micronutritional quality of fresh plant products,” the authors conclude. “This might be all right for staple food, but, as far as fruits and vegetables are concerned, it may be argued that gustative and micronutritional quality matter more than energy supply. Our observations suggest that, at least for fruit and vegetable production, growers should not systematically try to reduce stress to maximize yield and fruit size, but should accept a certain level of stress as that imposed by organic farming with the objective of improving certain aspects of product quality.”

Put rather less prosaically, the greater the stress, the sweeter (and more antioxidative!) the wine.

View the original article here

Even Eating Organic Foods Can Result In BPA, Phthalate Exposure - RedOrbit

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

It seems in the middle of the previous decade, the dangers associated with Bisphenol A (BPA) and, to a lesser extent, phthalates entered into the general consciousness of most Americans. We learned just how pervasive these hormone-mimicking chemicals were in a range of products we relied upon for our convenient lifestyles.

Many people, upon learning of the side effects associated with toxic levels of these “endocrine disruptors,” discarded products like baby bottles, lotions, powders and shampoos in the hopes they could avoid or reverse any damage.

The reason these chemicals earned the moniker of endocrine disruptors had everything to do with the fact they are able to mimic the body’s natural hormones. In laboratory animal tests, excess of these chemicals had been shown to cause reproductive and neurological damage.

So dangerous are these substances that in 2009 the Endocrine Society, a medical group, issued a statement decrying the use of these chemicals for products intended for general public consumption. They believed BPA and phthalates, along with pesticides and other common chemicals, represented a “significant concern for public health” and should, at all costs, be avoided. In their statement, they claimed:

“Although more experiments are being performed to find the hows and whys, what should be done to protect humans? The key to minimizing morbidity is preventing the disorders in the first place. However, recommendations for prevention are difficult to make because exposure to one chemical at a given time rarely reflects the current exposure history or ongoing risks of humans during development or at other life stages, and we usually do not know what exposures an individual has had in utero or in other life stages.

“In the absence of direct information regarding cause and effect, the precautionary principle is critical to enhancing reproductive and endocrine health. As endocrinologists, we suggest that The Endocrine Society actively engages in lobbying for regulation seeking to decrease human exposure to the many endocrine-disrupting agents. Scientific societies should also partner to pool their intellectual resources and to increase the ranks of experts with knowledge about endocrine disrupting chemicals who can communicate to other researchers, clinicians, community advocates, and politicians.”

The recommendation to avoid exposure to these chemicals, according to a recent study, may be far more difficult than simply removing the products from your house. According to lead author of the study, Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana, “Current information we give families may not be enough to reduce exposures.” In addition to being the lead author of the study entitled “Unexpected Results in a Randomized Dietary Trial to Reduce Phthalate and Bisphenol A Exposures”, Sathyanarayana is also an environmental health pediatrician in the University of Washington School of Public Health and at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. She is also an assistant professor of pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine and an attending physician at Harborview Medical Center’s Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit.

The study, published today in the Nature Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, addresses how people may be unable to escape exposure to these chemicals as they are appearing in their diets, even when their individual meals were organic in nature and the foods were prepared, cooked and stored in non-plastic containers. The study also reinforces the notion that the most vulnerable population continues to be children.

It was in previous studies a link was established between prenatal exposure to phthalates and abnormalities in the male reproductive system. Additionally, associations were recognized between fetal exposure to BPA and hyperactivity, anxiety and depression in girls.

The research team, comprised of Garry Alcedo of the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Brian E. Saelens and Chuan Zhou of the UW Department of Pediatrics, Russell L. Dills and Jianbo Yu of the UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, and Bruce Lanphear of the British Columbia Children’s Hospital and Simon Fraser University in Canada, compared the chemical exposures of 10 families for their study.

One half of the participating families were given written instructions on how to effectively reduce their exposure to phthalate and BPA. The instructions given the families were handouts composed by the national Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units. These public health units are comprised of experts on environmentally related health effects in children.

The other half of the study participants were provided with local, fresh, organic food catered in for them. At no point in the preparation, cooking or storage of the food were plastic containers used.

Funding for the study was provided through the Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health located in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences in the UW School of Public Health. There was also grant funding provided by the National Institute of Environmental Health.

Despite the care taken to provide a segregated diet for the families who received the catered foods, the research team was quite surprised after they tested for the urinary concentrations of metabolites for phthalates and BPA. The expectation for the team was the levels of the metabolites would decrease in both the adults and children in these families.

What they found was the complete opposite. The urinary concentrations for phthalates were 100-fold higher than what is typically found in the majority of the general population. The team was able to make this comparison thanks to previous study conducted by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. This program is, itself, funded and operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is designed to assess the health and nutritional status of both adults and children in the United States. In the comparison, they found children in their participant families presented extremely elevated concentrations in their urine.

From here, the researchers then tested the phthalate concentrations in the individual food ingredients that were used in the catered diets. What they found was alarming. Dairy products, like butter, cream, milk and cheese, had concentrations above 440 nanograms/gram. Seasonings like cinnamon and cayenne pepper had concentrations above 700 ng/g. But it was ground coriander, with concentrations over 21,400 ng/g, that was particularly shocking.

“We were extremely surprised to see these results. We expected the concentrations to decrease significantly for the kids and parents in the catered diet group. Chemical contamination of foods can lead to concentrations higher than deemed safe by the US Environmental Protection Agency,” said Sathyanarayana.

The study results allowed the researchers to formulate estimates that an average child, between the ages of three and six years, are typically exposed to 183 milligrams per kilogram of their body weight each day. According to the EPA, the recommended limit is no more than 20 mg/kg/day.

“It’s difficult to control your exposure to these chemicals, even when you try,” said Sathyanarayana. “We have very little control over what’s in our food, including contaminants. Families can focus on buying fresh fruits and vegetables, foods that are not canned and are low in fat, but it may take new federal regulations to reduce exposures to these chemicals.”

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Germany investigates possible organic egg fraud - Reuters

1 of 4. An employee poses for the media with an organic egg in a Natural Foods Store in Berlin November 26, 2008.

Credit: Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch

BERLIN | Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:36am EST

BERLIN (Reuters) - German authorities are investigating possible large-scale fraud by organic egg producers amid increased concern over food industry practices following Europe's horse meat scandal.

The northern state of Lower Saxony, a major agricultural hub, has launched probes of some 150 farms suspected of wrongly selling eggs produced by hens kept in overcrowded conditions under the organic label.

Two other states are investigating a further 50 farms.

"If the accusations (against the farms) are found to be true, then we are talking of fraud on a grand scale: fraud against consumers but also fraud against the many organic farmers in Germany who work honestly," German Farm Minister Ilse Aigner said in a statement on Monday.

She urged regional governments to ensure the full implementation of tough German and EU laws on organic food production, adding that consumers must be able to have full confidence in the labeling of products.

Organically produced eggs cost some 10 cents more than those produced under standard industrial conditions.

Christian Meyer, farm minister in the newly appointed Lower Saxony government, vowed to take a tough line on any farms found to have broken the law.

Organic food is a huge industry in environmentally-conscious Germany, where many consumers are willing to pay extra for eggs, meat, vegetables and other products they believe have been produced organically.

The suspicions of organic egg fraud coincide with the discovery that horse meat was labeled as beef in processed food sold around Europe. The scandal has triggered recalls of ready meals and damaged confidence in the continent's food industry.

Two years ago a European Union-wide health alert was sparked when German officials said animal feed tainted with dioxin had been fed to hens and pigs, contaminating eggs, poultry meat and pork at affected farms.

(Reporting by Gareth Jones; Editing by Noah Barkin)

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High levels of BPA, Other Chemicals Found in Organic Foods --- UW Study - Latinos Post

By Erik Derr | First Posted: Feb 28, 2013 02:17 PM EST

(Photo : Creative Commons/Erik Derr)

Eating organic foods and avoiding plastic containers may not be enough to protect consumers from harmful chemicals in the environment after all, say researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle.

According to a study published in the Nature Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology Feb 27, people are apparently exposed to cancer-causing chemicals --- synthetic, endocrine-disrupting chemicals phthalates and bisphenol A, more commonly known as BPA --- through the food they eat, even if they only consume organics and prepare, cook, and store foods in non-plastic containers.  It was found children could be the most vulnerable to the toxins.

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Previous research has linked prenatal exposure to phthalates to abnormalities in the male reproductive system. Scientists have also discovered a apparent connection between fetal exposure to BPA and hyperactivity, anxiety, and depression in girls.

The UW researchers compared the chemical exposures of 10 families, half of whom were given written instructions on how to reduce phthalate and BPA exposure. The other families received a catered diet for five day of local, fresh, organic food that was not prepared, cooked or stored in plastic containers.

When the researchers tested the participants' urinary concentrations for chemical contamination, they found that, instead of significantly lower traces of the chemical, as they anticipated, the catered families showed much higher concentrations of phthalates and BPA than the group that only received advice on how to avoid reduce chemical contaminants in their food.

The urine sample taken from the catered group showed concentrations of phthalates 100 times higher than the levels found in the majority of the general population.

The comparison comes from a study conducted by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey --- a program of studies managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and designed to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States.

Study researchers estimate the average child aged three to six years old has been exposed to 183 milligrams per kilogram of their body weight per day. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recommended limit is 20 mg/kg/day.

"It's difficult to control your exposure to these chemicals, even when you try," said Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana, who participated in the study. "We have very little control over what's in our food, including contaminants. Families can focus on buying fresh fruits and vegetables, foods that are not canned and are low in fat."

But, added Sathyanarayana, "it may take new federal regulations to reduce exposures to these chemicals."

© 2013 Latinos Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.Get the Most Popular Latinospost Stories in a Weekly NewsletterSponsored trending stories

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US organic-food movement slowly takes hold - Aljazeera.com

The Europe-wide horsemeat scandal has raised concerns about safety standards and food quality in industrial countries.

In the US, some farmers are practicing what they say is a more ethical alternative to mass production, part of a growing organic food movement. 

But while demand for organic meat is rising rapidly, it still represents less than one half of one percent of all the meat sold in the US.

Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds reports from Sonoma Valley, California.

 

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