this side of heaven

My family is worth it

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Organic chicken worth the price in today's world

Do you remember that hogs in six US states were fed the pet food tainted with melamine that had been recalled? Well, it didn't stop with hogs. As many as three million chickens may have been given the poisoned pet food as well; those chickens have already been processed, and eaten by consumers. Consumers - that is me and you, folks.

"Although the chickens, which came from 38 poultry farms in Indiana, have already made their way into the food supply, there appears to be minimal or no health risk to humans, the government said."

Wow, I feel so much better. Please explain to me how a 30- pound dog can die from the poisoned pet food, while a 30- pound child cannot be harmed from eating chicken fed the poisoned pet food. Then I just discovered that commerical chicken feed is treated with an arsenic- based additive, which is normally benign, so they say, but under the proper conditions can convert to its more toxic form -- and which has been linked to numerous cancers. Tyson Foods has just stopped using the additive in its feed, thank goodness.

Now I am beginning to learn the meaning of "The love of money is the root of all evil."

This story has been updated.

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Why not pork

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Yes, Virginia, organic is better

• Meat from grass- fed animals (natural) has half the saturated fat of that from grain- fed (conventional) animals.
• A 6- ounce steak from a grass- fed steer has almost 100 fewer calories than from a grain- fed one.
• Meat from grass- fed animals has two to six times more omega 3 fats than that from grain- fed animals.
• Dairy cows grazing on grass pasture have 500% more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA, an omega 3 fat that aids in weight loss) in their milk fat than conventional diary cows fed a standard grain diet.
• Free range chickens have 21% less total fat, 30% less saturated fat, 28% fewer calories, and 100% more omega 3 fatty acids even than conventional chickens given special high- energy feeds.
• The eggs of free range chickens contain 400% more omega 3 fats than their conventional counterparts.

(Source: The Fat Flush Plan by Ann Louise Gittleman, pp. 31-32.)

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Save our honeybees!

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Frankenfood strikes again

These are all the Frankenfood news stories I found just over the past week. STOP MESSING WITH OUR FOOD! It makes me crazy. As as the honeybee story and corn ethanol story goes to show, even if you are determined to never put one bite of Frankenfood in your mouth, all their mucking around still messes things up for you. Big time.

Kenyans Ready to Embrace GM Foods
Farmers Oppose Growing GM Rice in Kansas
GMO Oilseed Rapes Authorized for Animal Feed in EU
Corn- Based Ethanol: The Biggest Greenwash in History?
Genetically Engineered Tomatoes Pack Folate Punch
New Technology Coming Too Fast for Indian Farmers
Are GM Crops Killing Honeybees?
Is Your Rice Contaminated with Human Genes?
New Success in Engineering Plant Oils
Finding the White Wine Difference

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Organic IS healthier!

We always knew it was true:

The American researchers discovered that organically grown kiwis had significantly higher levels of vitamin C and polyphenols - compounds associated with health benefits including reducing cholesterol, improving circulation and preventing cancer.

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I draw the line at cloned food

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Must we play God?

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A step in the right direction

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Dissecting the headlines

A UK scientist is claiming that eating organic food might be a contributing factor in the dramatic rise in food allergies over the past 30 years. He makes this assumption based on the fact that organic food was not available 30 years ago, so of course that is the cuprit.

Here's a question: what about the level of processing and additives that supermarket food goes through? Hasn't that dramatically increased in the last 30 years? And what experimentation was done to rule out those factors as causal agents in allergy increase?

But here is my favorite quote from the news article:

"An allergy is far from a simple disease and academics are still struggling to understand it."

Let's keep that in mind before making blanket claims about organic food, shall we?

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Organic demand outstrips supply

The demand for organic food outstrips the supply, so organic food companies like Stoneyfield are importing organic food from overseas. This is actually good. Prices will stay high for organic food in the short run, but conventional farmers in the U.S. are beginning to switch to organic farming practices as they see there is a greater demand for this product. This means that in the long run, as more and more farmers go organic, and as more and more food companies provide organic food, the prices will begin to normalize.

Not only that, but it is conceivable that in 30 or 40 years organic farming and food production will be the rule, not the exception. This is good news for our future grandchildren and great grandchildren.

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Stalk the wild deer

“Prior to World War II, people ate more vegetables and more wild meats and fish — foods all high in Omega-3 oils. Surprisingly, meats were once abundant in Omega-3 fats. That is because in the past, cattle grazed on plants — which are rich in Omega-3 oils. Today’s cattle are grain-fed, leaving beef with hardly any of the health-enhancing substance.”
Blaylock Wellness Report, April 2005: Omega 3: Nature's Miracle Panacea.

Omega-3 fats are good and protect our bodies against many nutritional diseases: depression, brain chemistry disorders and dementia, heart disease, diabetes, obesity ... the list goes on. Wild meat is organic meat. If you don’t hunt for elk or deer, do raise your own grass-fed livestock, or buy organic or natural grass-fed beef, veal, and lamb from your natural grocer.

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When it pays to buy organic

Updated 02.07.06; scroll down for updates.

Consumer Reports has just published an overview of the organic food industry. While most of the discussion concerns the laws (and, unfortunately, the loopholes) governing the labeling of something as an “organic” food, there is an interesting section on the comparison of conventionally-raised to organically-raised items that are increasingly filling mainstream supermarkets:

“According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a research and advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables exposes you to about 20 pesticides a day on average. If you eat the 12 least contaminated, you’re exposed to about two pesticides a day.”

Wow, only two pesticides a day! That is why we have gone organic.

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Update: I noticed the Consumer Reports link (which worked fine yesterday) only takes you to a subscription page today. So I found a cached link which includes the text of the article. But I donÂ’t know how long the link will be active, so if this topic interests you, save the text of the article on your computer!

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