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.

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.

My purchases today were simple: 2 avocados and a large ripe tomato.

No plastic involved! Yeah!

I was curious about the produce sticker with the PLU number on it. The stickers on the avocados seem to be made of paper because I was easily able to rip it. I started searching through my fridge for other produce stickers and found one on those oranges that I bought the other day. That sticker was definitely plastic because it didn’t rip, it stretched as you can see in the picture below.

I did a little research on the stickers and discovered that the glue part that attaches the sticker to the produce has to be ‘food grade’ … whatever that means … because it seems to me that the definition of “food grade’ keeps changing.

I did learn some interesting things about the PLU number on those little labels. Apparently a four digit number means the produce was conventionally grown. If the number starts with ‘9′ the produce is organic. If the number starts with ’8′ the produce is genetically modified. You can read more on the International Federation for Produce Standards website.

Two days in and already challenged!

My shopping list yesterday was short. All I needed was a couple of oranges, broccoli and vanilla extract.

Organic oranges were easy as they are sold by the piece.

Broccoli was more of a challenge. Much of the fresh produce sold at the neighbourhood organic market is packed in plastic bags to preserve its freshness. At the big-box-grocer across the street, organic broccoli is bundled together, three stems at a time, secured with a plastic elastic that has an attached plastic label.

Slightly perplexed I started pacing back and forth between the organic broccoli and the non-organic broccoli. Even the non-organic broccoli was bundled with an elastic band!

[Note to self: research if elastic bands contain any type of plastics.]

Nope, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t purchase the non-organic broccoli. Not after writing June 22nd’s post introducing the What’s On My Food database. Broccoli is one of those products that contains large amounts of pesticide residue. Even organic broccoli does not arrive at the table pesticide-residue free.

I decided to purchase two stems of organic broccoli, but not before I pulled the stems out from the confines of the plastic elastic thingy. I think that was slightly bending the rules …

I looked for vanilla extract at the organic produce store. Unfortunately both brands they carried had plastic security things shrink-wrappped around the plastic lids.

Back to the big-box-grocer. No organic vanilla extract there. They had artificial vanilla extract in plastic bottles … blah. Fortunately they also had a house brand real vanilla extract in a glass bottle and there wasn’t any shrink wrapping security thing around the plastic lid.

Yup… a plastic lid.

Annoyed, I purchased the house brand vanilla extract rationalizing that at least I could reuse the bottle and its plastic lid. Slight bend of the rules number two …

About mid day I met up with some friends for lunch. Afterwards we thought it would be nice to pick-up a coffee and go sit by the water. Great idea, except that I didn’t have my travel mug with me. No problem. I really could use a second coffee mug to keep in the car for just such occasions.

At the big-box coffee shop I refused to purchase a cheapo plastic travel mug. There was one choice of a stainless steel travel mug … that would be the stainless steel travel mug with a plastic handle and plastic lid.

Rolling my eyes and complaining bitterly to my friends, I paid for my $30 take out coffee with … yup you guessed it … plastic … I didn’t have enough cash with me.

Its going to be a long month.

A new website called “What’s On My Food” www.whatsonmyfood.org has been launched. Its purpose is “… to loosen the pesticide industry’s control over global agriculture …” by making information available to the public through the power of computing.

Created by PAN (Pesticide Action Network) North America, What’s On My Food cross-references toxicology data from the US Environmental Protection Agency with the US Department of Agriculture’s Pesticide Data Program.

Brilliant!

One of the things that makes this website particularly exciting is it lists the pesticide residues found on both conventionally grown and organically grown food.

Featured are some 49 different foods in various preparation methods. For each of the 89 food entries you can discover if they contain residues which are:

1. Known or Probable Carcinogens
2. Suspected Hormone Disruptors
3. Neurotoxins
4. Developmental or Reproductive Toxicants

Yes … you read that right. Carcinogens, hormone disruptors, neurotoxins and toxins that disrupt human reproduction are all legally used to grow our food. 

That pisses me off!

Some of these chemicals are also finding their way into food grown using organic methods … we live in a closed system … everything affects everything else …

Let’s take a look at what this website says about one of my favourite foods, the Sweet Potato.

- 13 pesticide residues were found on the non-organic Sweet Potatoes; 4 of these same residues were present in the organic Sweet Potatoes grown in the USA; none of the residues were found in the imported organic Sweet Potatoes (there is no mention of what country this product was imported from.)

- The 13 pesticides included: 1 known carcinogen; 2 probable carcinogens; 1 possible carcinogen; 7 suspected hormone disruptors; 6 neurotoxins and 2 reproductive toxins.

Now I’m really pissed!

Eat organic. Grow organically. Hug organic farmers.

Let’s get real about what we eat.

Still on the subject of breakfast, I am a big fan of making a pot of rice every few days and storing it in the fridge (still in the pot … why not? …saves on washing dishes and cuts down on my use of plastic containers that may leach nasty stuff into my low crap food.) I eat that rice cold, like a breakfast cereal.

Rice is easy to cook. The trick is to have a pot with a fairly heavy bottom. You also need to know how hot the ‘simmer’ setting is on your stove. I always use the same pot and burner, so I know I can go away and leave it to cook by itself. If you have never cooked brown rice before, you’ll want to stick within sniffing distance of the stove during the last 10 minutes of cooking to make sure that first batch doesn’t burn.

Rice is made by combining 2 parts water with 1 part rice. I’m in the habit of washing the rice before I cook it, but that is not necessary.

1 cup of rice with 2 cups of water will make about 3 cups cooked rice.

My latest purchase of organic brown Basmati rice cost $1.35 for one cup of dry rice. That works out to about 45 cents per serving. Basmati rice is always more expensive than regular long grain brown rice, which makes this low crap food very economical.

Brown rice by itself is:
- Low acid forming
- Diabetic Friendly
- Gluten Free
- High Fiber

Ingredients
1 cup brown organic rice
2 cups water (you can substitute apple juice, broth, or other liquid)

Milk or Milk substitute: almond, rice, hemp seed milk, etc.

Optional Ingredients. Remember you don’t need to use all the optional ingredients. Just pick and choose what you like and what you have on hand.
- Chopped raw nuts: almonds, walnuts, filberts, pine nuts, etc
- Seeds (whole or ground): sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, flax, salba, hemp, etc
- Chopped dried fruit: raisons, currents, apricots, dates, coconut, etc
- Sweeteners: honey, maple syrup, etc
- Fresh or frozen fruit: berries, apples, peaches, bananas, etc
- Dash of flavouring: cinnamon, ginger (fresh grated or dry powdered), dark chocolate (grated), allspice, vanilla extract, carob powder, lemon or lime zest

Directions
1. Put the rice and water together in a pot and turn the heat to medium-high.
2. When the water starts to boil, turn the heat to ‘simmer’ and put a lid on the pot.
3. Set your timer for 50 minutes.
4. Water may seep out of the pot through the lid. This is ok. It the pot starts to boil over, then you need to turn down the heat.
5. Don’t lift the lid during cooking as you will let out too much moisture and the rice may burn before its properly cooked.
6. When 50 minutes has passed, gently lift the lid and tilt the pan slightly to the side. If the rice holds in place, it is ready. If the rice starts to slide, there is still too much moisture in the pot, so put the lid back on and return it to the heat for a few more minutes.
7. To make the rice into breakfast cereal, simply spoon about one cup of either hot or cold cooked rice into a cereal bowl, add any optional ingredients you like and top it off with milk or milk substitute.

Cooked rice can be stored for a week in the fridge … if it lasts that long. Once you get in the habit of always having cooked rice on hand, you will be adding it to salads, soups, snacks and of course breakfast.

This afternoon both my fridge and my tummy were feeling a little empty, so I grabbed my shopping bags and walked over to see what I could find to fill both.

What I came home with was two bags bursting with low crap food; food that is unprocessed and self packaged with only a couple of exceptions. The cucumber and cauliflower are both wrapped in plastic; the yogurt is in a plastic tub (one of these days I’ll start making my own); and the eggs are in a cardboard carton.

Not bad!

The plastic yogurt tub will be recycled and the egg carton will be taken to be reused. All the produce trimmings will be fed to the worms, with the exception of the citrus rinds, which will be composted. So the only crap the earth will have to deal with is the plastic covering on the cucumber and cauliflower.

The only the crap my body will have to deal with is … well all I can think of at this point is possible BPA contamination from the plastic and not all of the produce is organic, so a few other chemical residues may be ingested. I will be eating most of this food raw, so the health enhancing benefits will far outweigh the few short comings.

All in all, I’m going to give myself an 8 out of 10 for low crap shopping. I’m taking away 2 points because not everything is organic.

These foods, along with other stores in my fridge, freezer and pantry will keep me going for several days. Stay tuned to find out how I’m enjoying this bounty over the next few days.

Here’s what I bought:
4 sweet peppers (2 red; 1 green; 1 orange)
1 cauliflower head
1 spinach bunch
1 onion
1 celery
9 garlic bulbs
1 medium ginger root
1 cilantro bunch
3 broccoli stalks (organic)
1 kale bunch (organic)
1 long English cucumber
3 large navel oranges
2 limes
1 pear (organic)
2 Fuji apples (organic)
1 pineapple
1 dozen eggs (organic)
1 large tub plain yogurt (organic)

Do you ever really think about how organic fruit begins?

You might have visions of a peaceful serene orchard brimming over with picture perfect produce.

Well I have a treat for you … a rare peak into just how much love really goes into your food.

Take a look at this video of apricot trees being pruned at Abbott Acres in Cawston, British Columbia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzswr8n_ysA

Unfortunately YouTube has censored the music that was playing on the satellite radio that was sitting beside the camera. So you have to imagine Mick Jagger crooning through the first half of the video in the classic version of “Miss You”

“I’ve been holding out so long; I’ve been sleeping all alone; Lord I miss you; I’ve been hanging on the phone; I’ve been sleeping all alone; I want to kiss you … “ 

The second half of the video is another classic, “Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads.

“And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack; And you may find yourself in another part of the world; And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile; And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife; And you may ask yourself-well…how did I get here? …”

Who says you have to be a Zen master to be a farmer. This video shows that farming might just be the hippest job around … and I can guarantee that those ‘cots are going to be the grooviest ‘cots you have ever tasted. Yako has promised to keep us updated with juicy shots as those apricots get ready for harvest later this summer.

Sending out a special hi-five to Tammi, Ted and Yako, and all the other organic farmers, for doing what you do.

I’ll be checking in with Tammi and other organic farmers over the summer to help us all get back in touch with low crap food.