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Going Organic — Hip or Hype? (2 of 3)

March 29, 2008

Organic products are flying off the shelves. Are they really what they claim to be?

In my last post I promised to return with more information on the safety of organic products. In this, the next article of the series, we will hear two sides on this issue, which it turns out, is not a simple one. 

The premise: Organic products are better for you and safer. Are they? 

Remember that E.coli scare in 2006?  Well, that contaminated spinach that killed one woman and hospitalized 29 other people with kidney failure came from one of the largest organic farms in America, Earthbound Farms. In all, the contaminated spinach made nearly 200 sick in 23 states and Canada. What you may not have heard about were the California children that had to be placed on dialysis with permanent organ damage from the same strain of E.coli O157:H7 after consuming raw, un-pasteurized milk or colostrum from the Organic Pastures Dairy of Fresno.

The irony lies in the fact that these victims were all seeking safer food alternatives. They were promised the health benefits of milk and vegetables produced "the way nature intended."

So what happened exactly? This is where the conversation gets tricky.

"After four generations of innovation in agriculture, harvesting, and now bottling, we know that everything really important (freshness, great taste and good health) still begins in the fields." says Earthbound Farms.

"And it’s the fields that are the problem," cites Canada Free Press writer Judi Mcleod.

As John Miller from the National Review reported in 2004:

"Organic foods may be fresh, but they’re also fresh from the manure fields."

Earthbound fertilizes its leafy vegetables with cow manure.

"Most conventional farmers fertilize their food crops with "chemical" fertilizer, and put their livestock manure on feed crops like corn. Organic farmers reject chemical fertilizer. Instead, they compost raw cattle manure for some weeks, hoping that will kill any dangerous organisms that could contaminate the food. Sometimes it doesn’t," say Hudson’s Center for Global Food Issues Dennis T. Avery and Alex A. Avery.

Furthermore, a study by the Center for Global Food Issues found that although organic foods make up about 1 percent of America’s diet, they also account for about 8 percent of confirmed E.coli cases. (The Center for Consumer Freedom, Jan., 2004).

Meanwhile, the Avery’s believe "our objective should be to get the manure away from our food crops. Organic and natural aren’t safer, or more nutritious: Just more expensive, and far more dangerous."

Did I happen to mention that Bolthouse Farms, which bottles three brands of "organic" carrot juice, included three recalled products that same year? Bolthouse Farms 100% Carrot Juice, Earthbound Farm Organic Carrot Juice and President’s Choice Organic 100% Pure Carrot Juice.  Two Toronto residents were paralyzed after drinking carrot juice that tested positive for a botulism toxin. Four cases of botulism in the United States have been linked to toxic carrot juice.

California grows about $400 million per year in organic produce–and about half of it comes from just five farms.

And now lettuce has been added to the potential E.coli contamination list. Earthbound fertilizes its leafy vegetables with cow manure.

Wow. So that’s a lot of scary information. What’s the flipside to these arguments?

The Flipside

There is another theory that I stumbled upon to how these products could have become contaminated. I don’t want this post to get too long, so I will refer you to another webpage for the intricate details and I will summarize below.

For the details go here:

A California Organic Spinach Farmer: How E.Coli Gets into Bagged Spinach

For my brief summary keep reading…

Andy Griffin, an organic spinach farmer, discusses an alternative theory to the E.Coli contamination theory offered by the FDA for the spinach contamination of 2006.  He says:

Although the victims got sick by eating spinach from a sealed bag it’s wrong to seize on spinach as the culprit in the controversy; it makes more sense to look at the processing and handling of pre-packaged greens in general. Put another way, it’s the harvest procedures that were followed, the pre-washed claim made for the greens, and the bagged environment the greens are in that are the relevant issues, not the specific variety of leafy greens that were actually contaminated at some point during the harvest and post harvest handling.

He puts the blame on a different culprit than manure:

When we harvested baby greens by hand at Riverside Farms the workers dipped their knives periodically in buckets of antiseptic solution to clean them. We were unsophisticated then, compared to the way the industry is today, but we knew that any bacteria on the knife could contaminate the wound in the leaf where it was severed from the plant at the moment of harvest.  …If the cutting blade on a harvesting machine isn’t properly cleaned, tons and tons of product can be contaminated by a filthy blade during the course of the day - Not just tons and tons of baby spinach, but tons and tons of ANY PARTICULAR LEAFY GREEN VEGETABLE, ORGANIC, CONVENTIONAL, OR OTHERWISE, that is being harvested.

So are organic products the way to go, or no?

(See the videos below for two professional opinions.  First, a pro-organic viewpoint from Naturopath and Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist David J. Getoff, and next a different take from John Edward Swartzberg, M.D., F.A.C.P., and Chair of the Editorial Board of the University of California, Berkeley).

Ultimately, after reviewing the facts it’s up to the consumer to decide. However, there is some very real data about the benefits of some organic products. 

In part 3, the final post in this series, we will be discussing those products. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion!

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Written by Mr. Admin · Filed Under Organic Baby Products 

Going Organic — Hip or Hype? (1 of 3)

March 26, 2008

Been shopping lately?

If you have, then you’ve probably noticed the growing selection of organic products being offered. At first glance this seems like a no-brainer. No chemicals, no pesticides, no genetic engineering and hey– it’s more expensive so it has to be better, right?

Well, before you snatch up that organic milk and fill up your young one’s sippy cup, you might want to read this blog post… In this first post, let’s approach the concerns in three parts.

First: 

THE GOOD

Every day, millions of infants, children and adults in the United States are consuming genetically engineered food without their knowledge. Everyday groceries have been tested by the Consumers Union and it has been shown that genetically engineered foods are already on supermarket shelves — in baby formulas, drink mixes, "veggie" burgers — and even in fast-food. The FDA’s policy on this? No pre-market notification, no pre-market safety testing is required. In fact, the FDA has allowed the corporations themselves to determine whether these foods are safe. (see http://www.panna.org/node/1075)

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. What’s good about that? Well, technically there isn’t enough cumulative information to decisively say that genetically engineered food products

are harmful to us. Admittedly, I’m not doing cartwheels or anything at the thought of my family and me being experimented on, but compared to the next sections, this is definitely the better of my three bullet points.

 

THE BAD

Our bodies are being contaminated. Toxic chemicals from everyday products contaminate the bodies of every single person in the U.S. Baby bottles, toys, shower curtains, water bottles, shampoo, cosmetics, couch cushions, computers –hundreds of other common products that ordinary people use every day contain toxic chemical ingredients that are being absorbed into our bodies. (see: http://isitinus.org/project.php)

Yuck.

This definitely qualifies as bad in my book.

But now for–

THE UGLY

Our agriculture is littered with pesticides. Here are some facts you should be aware of:

10 Things You Should Know About Pesticides

1. A 1992 analysis of 5,592 washed and peeled fruits and vegetables showed that 61 per cent of them contained pesticide residues. Grapes had 21 different pesticides, apples 25.

2. Pesticides banned in North America still end up in the produce we buy here. In fact, we manufacture banned toxic chemicals and sell them to other countries who then use them on food which is shipped back and sold in our markets. Half of our winter produce is imported.

3. Scientists have traced DDT in our Great Lakes to sources i n Central America, where it is still used.

4. Dow Chemical, Monsanto and Ely Lilly are among the multinational companies which produce banned pesticides with known health dangers. One such product, DBCP, has rendered thousands of Latin American banana workers sterile.

5. Worldwide sperm count levels have dropped 50 per cent in only the last half-century. If these levels continue, most men will be sterile in two generations. (See the video below.)

6. DDT was banned in 1972; however, researches have found no decrease of this chemical in human breast milk since that time.

7. If the same levels of DDT found in human breast milk were found in cow’s milk today, the product would be banned.

8. Recent studies show that breast cancer patients have higher levels of DDT in their blood than those without cancer. Other studies show higher pesticide levels in the bodies of stomach and lung cancers.

9. Multinational chemical companies have spent millions to block or lighten legislation that proposes to limit pesticide use.

10. Despite repeated appeals from consumers and scientists, Agriculture Canada does not test for the effects of combined pesticide toxicity or of long-term effects when regulating pesticide safety and usage.

Scary, huh? So, now that I’ve provided all of this data then it must be true that organic products are better for us, right?

Well… Not necessarily.

"Stay tuned for Part 2 of 3 in this article series in which I reveal some surprising facts about so-called ‘healthier alternative’ organic products. You don’t want to miss it!"

 

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Written by Mr. Admin · Filed Under Organic Baby Products