A British study on the nutritional value of organic foods was released yesterday.  (source National Post: “No nutritional value added in organics: study.” Thur. July 31, 2009 http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1842708)

The study concluded that “Organically produced foods have no more nutritional value than conventionally grown products and consumers who pay a premium for organic foods are doing so based on perception, not fact” [my emphasis]

Are they daft?

Do they think that people who purchase organic food are daft?

I purchase organic products because I care about my health and the health of my planet.

I purchase organic products because of what it doesn’t contain . I personally do not want to eat residue from pesticides such as:

- Iprodione*. A known carcinogen used in the conventional production of almonds, Iprodione is also a potential ground water contaminant and suspected endocrine disruptor.

- o-Phenylphenol*. A known carcinogen used in the conventional productions of apples, o-Phenylphenol is also a developmental or reproductive toxin and a suspected endocrine disruptor.

- Chlorothalonil*, a known carcinogen used in the conventional production of tomatoes, that also has the potential to be a ground water contaminant.

By purchasing organic products I support biodiversity, environmental stewardship, clean water, clean air, safe work environments for farm workers, preservation of heirloom plants, soil nutrition, small-scale family farms, ethical treatment of animals, sustainable agriculture and the list goes on.

Purchasing organic isn’t about better nutrition.

Purchasing organic is a non-selfish way of saying “I care.” 

*Information sourced from PAN Pesticide Database http://www.pesticideinfo.org and What’s on my food? http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/index.jsp. Retrieved July 31, 2009.

I haven’t written for a few days. I have been dealing with plastic abundance causing feelings of overwhelm, confusion and depression.

Don’t worry … I’m not about to abandon civilization and move to some remote forest to live with wolves. But I am having to reframe my outlook.

As you know, since the beginning of July I have been engaged in a 30 day experiment to stay away from food in plastic packaging.

I have discovered that it is pretty much an impossible undertaking. To live without plastic food packaging is not convenient and many foods have to be avoided.

Here’s what I have learned:
- To stay away from plastic I have to drive my car to get to u-pick farms, farmer’s markets, butcher shops and bulk food stores.
- Much of the fresh produce, especially fruit, even at farmer’s markets, is packaged in plastic baskets or bags.
- Food packed in glass bottles have plastic lids with plastic security wraps. 
- Most convenient food is wrapped in plastic to keep it fresh.
- Most people are oblivolious to the health and environmental problems associated with plastic.

When I speak to people about my plastic peeves, the most frequent response I get is a blank stare, then a compassionate sounding “… but its recyclable …” excuse. The second most frequent response is “… everything will kill us these days … what can you do…”

Everyone is feeling the same powerlessness when it comes to plastic and food.

Is plastic slowly killing us and our environment?

Is there a will to implement cost effective alternatives?

What will it take for society to change?

Is it too late to change?

Is this a battle worth fighting?

Yup – its time to for me to reframe my focus. My inner battle-weary-nature-spirit needs shoring up.

Its time for action.

Here’s a mid-month treat for you.

Organic Apricots in all their glory ready to serve up their low crap goodness to all who care.

These beauties are from Abbott Acres in Cawston, British Columbia.

I still have a couple of weeks to go before I finish my 30 day No-Food-Purchased-In-Plastic experiment and I’m in a pretty good rhythm with my purchasing habits. There are a couple of products that I have run out of and not replaced because it isn’t convenient. Its really just a matter of getting myself organized with some clean empty jars kept handy with my cloth bags. That will be my project for this week.

I’m only doing this experiment for 30 days and it only applies to the food that I purchase.

Can you imagine going a whole year without purchasing anything except the absolute necessities? Well, believe it or not, Jen, Grant and Rhyannon did just that http://cleanbinproject.com/theproject/and the great part is they documented their year and are in the process of packaging it into a film. You can see the trailer here: http://cleanbinproject.com/the-film/

And over across the ‘pond’, Mrs Green and family have been “making our world a cleaner place” by reducing their household waste and blogging about it at MyZeroWaste.com. Each week they weigh how much garbage they send to the land fill and over the course of a year have compiled an awesome repository of information about reducing, reusing and recycling.

These are just two examples of wonderful people taking responsibility for their personal consumption by embracing a low crap lifestyle.

Low Crap Diet is about so much more than just what you eat. When you get real about what you eat, you begin to truly understand how everything affects everything else. The only way to create change in this world is to challenge our own habits, assumptions and “normalized behaviours”.

So whether you want to lose weight, heal disease, live longer or run a marathon, embracing a low crap diet is a great place to start.

The 1st Annual Buy-No-Food-In-Plastic Day has come and gone and I’ve heard some great stories from friends and family about how their plastic awareness was ignited.

The best story comes from someone I won’t name … She tells me she was having lunch with a coworker at a food court and enthusiastically talking about it being the 1st Annual Buy-No-Food-In-Plastic Day. As she was speaking she suddenly noticed that her food court food had been served in Styrofoam containers … oops …

When she sheepishly told me the story I cheered! Hooray! That tells me that the 1st Annual Buy-No-Food-In-Plastic Day succeeded in raising both her and her coworker’s plastic-awareness. Plastic is so integrated into daily life that we hardly even notice.

They then discussed how they could have easily brought down reusable plates and cutlery from the office kitchen.

Maybe next week they will.

It doesn’t matter if you succeeded in going 24 hours without purchasing plastic or not. What matters is that you became a little more plastic-aware.

Congratulations!

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Today is my birthday and you can wish me well by participating in the first annual Buy-No-Food-In-Plastic day. All you have to do is pay attention to how the food you purchase is packaged. And when you have a choice, choose food products that are self-packaged or in non-plastic containers.

Before a problem can be solved, we must first be aware that there is a problem. Do you remember when Big Mac’s and Quarter Pounders were served up in cancer-causing polystyrene aka Styrofoam? 

More than 20 years ago McDonald’s assistant vice president was quoted in the New York Times: ”We use foam packaging for the same reasons that schools, hospitals and other restaurants do. It keeps our products hot, it keeps them fresh, its portable and it’s a safe and sanitary way to serve our product.” (http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/11/nyregion/mcdonald-s-is-urged-to-alter-packaging.html Accessed: July 16, 2009).

Today, McDonald’s no longer uses foam packaging for its sandwiches and the change in packaging hasn’t seemed to hurt their business. Their sandwiches are still delivered hot, fresh, safe and sanitary … in benign paper-based wrapping.

Change can happen. It starts with awareness.

Its fairly rare to see food in Styrofoam packaging these days. But the packaging of choice is still predominately other types of plastic. Plastic keeps food fresh. Its portable. Its sanitary. It’s a wonder product. But is it safe? The evidence is mounting that it is not; not for lab rats, not for babies, not for adults, not for fish; not for water, not for landfills.

Today is the day to raise your plastic awareness. Can you go the whole day without purchasing food wrapped in plastic?

It’s a difficult challenge, but its not impossible.

Well here I am, half way through my PFF experiment. (PFF = Plastic-Free-Food … way easier to type than “30-Day-No-Food-Purchased-In-Plastic”.)

Eating PFF is not easy and as I reflect on the past 15 days I realize that I have had some wins and some slip ups.

For instance, I didn’t think I had to give up my daily whole milk latte habit. After all I was bringing my own cup to the coffee shop. But today I watched as the barista poured the milk for my latte out of a plastic jug. Crap! Ok technically I didn’t purchase the milk in the plastic jug … or did I?

Then there are the herbs I bought in China town yesterday that were all sealed in plastic bags. I was buying the herbs for my business, so I didn’t think I was compromising the experiment. And I wasn’t … well not until I tore into the bag of Goji berries for a snack. I was well into my third fist full of the berries before I noticed the plastic bag in my hand.

One day on the weekend I was at the big box grocery deli and wanted a quick, high protein snack. I scanned the deli case and spied unwrapped sausage rolls. I told the clerk I wanted one, but I didn’t want the plastic take out tub that they use. I suggested that she simply wrap it in a paper towel. She said she could put it in a plastic bag instead. I told her “No! I don’t want plastic!”

I didn’t mean to yell … I apologized and tried to explain about my PFF experiment … but I’m pretty sure she rolled her eyes at me as she handed me the paper wrapped roll. I shrugged my shoulders and proceeded to pull off all the crappy white flour pastry and then ate just the meat part. It wasn’t very good.

So I stopped at the organic store on the way home and picked up a few handfuls of fresh cherries, using one of my cloth bags instead of a plastic bag. The clerk in that store gave me a 5 cent bag discount. The cherries were delicious.

This Friday, July 17th is your turn to experiment with PFF purchases. Write in and let me know your experiences.

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Since there are so many new readers this week, I thought I’d give you a quick catch-up on what’s going on at LowCrapDiet.com and then we’ll talk about ketchup.

Low Crap Diet is about cutting ‘crap food’ out of our diet … improve our health; improve the health of the earth.

Lately I’ve been cranky about plastic and other throw away packaging. In fact I became so frustrated with all the low crap food in high crap packaging that I decided to try a 30 day buy-no-food-in-plastic experiment. Feeling a little lonely in my experiment, I invited you to join me by declaring Friday, July 17, 2009 to be the first annual “Buy No Food in Plastic” day. (Better start getting organized … Friday is only two days away.)

Now that you are all caught up, here’s the promised ‘ketchup’ bit.

I’ve always wondered why “returnable glass bottles” didn’t catch on for more products. It’s a brilliantly sustainable system. When I purchase milk in a glass bottle, I pay a ‘deposit’ on the bottle as incentive to bring it back to the store so it can be refilled. When I return the bottle the deposit is refunded. It works for milk and pop and there is no reason it couldn’t work for other consumable products.

I’d like to see the following products in returnable glass bottles:
- yogurt
- feta cheese
- olives
- cooking oil
- vinegar
- mayonnaise
- nut butters
- stewed tomatoes
- bar-b-que sauce
- spices
- honey
- juice
- ice cream
- ketchup

I think you get the picture and you can probably add other products that you regularly purchase.

The ability to purchase ketchup in a refillable glass bottle would remove a huge amount of ketchup’s crap-factor.

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Did you know that:
- plastic is collecting in the ocean
- the plastic in the ocean breaks down into tiny colourful bits
- fish and birds eat those colourful bits thinking they are eating food
- you can be part of the solution.

Raise your “plastic-awareness”. On Friday July 17 purchase only plastic-free-food.

Click here for a poster that you can forward to your friends.

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A marketing guru blogger guy named Seth came onto my radar a few months ago when I was setting up Low Crap Diet.

Recently Seth wrote about his birthday wish, asking people to “… start a project, launch an idea …” … create a “Make a difference day.”

Today Seth’s post challenged me to go farther: “Go ahead, do something impossible.”

I like challenges.

I am in the midst of an impossible challenge.

I have a birthday coming up.

I want to make a difference.

In fact, I know you want to make a difference too, so I’m answering Seth’s birthday wish with a birthday wish of my own.

On Friday July 17, my birthday, I invite you to take part in the first annual No-Food-Purchased-In-Plastic Day

The purpose of No-Food-Purchased-In-Plastic Day is to raise our ‘plastic-awareness’, especially in the area of food packaging.

Did you know that:
- plastic never goes away.
- not all plastic is recyclable.
- not all recyclable plastic is recycled.
- plastic leaches toxins into our bodies, our water, our air, and our earth creating havoc in ways we are only just beginning to understand.

My 30 day experiment is teaching me that it is difficult to avoid food with plastic packaging. But I am learning that it is possible to drastically cut down on how much plastic garbage I generate. 

Here’s just a few ideas of how you can participate:

1. Pay attention to how your favourite foods are packaged. (Do you really need your sandwich wrapped if you are going to eat it right away?)
2. When you do purchase food wrapped in plastic, be sure to reuse or recycle the packaging.
3. Bring your own knife, fork and coffee cup (BYOKFCC)
4. Bring your own reusable bags (BYORB)
5. Whenever possible purchase plastic-free-food (PFF)

Can you go 24 hours purchasing only plastic-free-food? Leave a comment and let me know your ideas and thoughts.

Stay tuned for more details … and Happy Birthday Seth!

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