EATING ORGANIC FOOD - IS IT REALLY WORTH IT?
I was watching the ladies of 'The View', this morning. They had dedicated part of their talk show on how to go green in 2009. I watched with fascination as the 'green expert' went through her demonstration of ways to live a more eco friendly life.
She began by stating that we don't need to get all gung ho about being environmentally conscious. We could be 'LIGHT GREEN' and still make a contribution. I can get on board with that, as it seems less intimidating to go green without having to commit to a total makeover of your whole life. Makes the whole process more do-able.
However, when she came to the display of fruits, vegetables and meats to choose for a green diet, she really lost track of the whole point of going green. She said that we only need to buy the organic foods that we do not peel; bananas, pineapples & avacados etc. The expert said the vegies & fruits that we peel before we eat could be eaten safely, even if they were covered in toxic pesticides, fungicides and herbacides. She said they are safe because we peel the toxic part off & throw it away!
This is just nonsense and I have to write about it because this is too important to ignore.
First of all, those toxins will be present in every single cell of the plant or animal that has been exposed to agri-chemicals. The poison is NOT JUST ON THE PEEL, it is throughout the body of the plant or animal, especially in the fat cells. Whether the source of the food you consume is plants or animals, the toxins will be concentrated in the fat cells of YOUR body. When I say concentrated, I mean literally that the grams of toxin/1000 grams of body weight of the product you consume will result in a many fold increase in the grams of toxin/kg of YOUR body. As this process continues up the food chain, from micro organisms to plants to insects and then fish, birds, reptiles to mammals at the top, that rate of toxins to body weight increases at every point of consumption. Humans area at the very top of this process of concentration and are therefore in the category of species with the MOST to lose from having the food chain contaminated. Please believe me; I have a BSc degree in Agriculture and have studied this process from a micro & macro biology point of view.
Second, we are choosing to eat organic food because we want to support & even increase the number of organic farms and orchards that are NOT pouring thousands of TONS of toxic chemicals onto our precious agricultural land. The commercial, non organic farms that use chemical controls are a HUGE HUGE HUGE problem for both our fertile soil supply and our ground waters. Chemical dependent, large scale or many small scale, farmers spray, pour and dust their crops and soils with petroleum based fertilizers and long lasting pesticides, fungicides and herbicides (THE THREE CIDES). they are NOT just exposing the animals or plants that they will provide for YOU to eat. They will also be applying it to the lowest ends of the food chain where it will then concentrate its' way up the food chain to you again. A great many of these 3 agro chemicals have a lifetime that is immeasurable ; some 1/2 life numbers are in the thousands. Once applied, they will not just go away. Not for a very long time, if ever.
As for washing & peeling your vegies & fruit to protect yourself from those toxins; What do you think happens to those toxins that you remove? They are washed down the sink or put in the trash, where they AGAIN end up in our water sheds and garbage dumps. Oh, and if you are gardener composting to be green, you will be adding these toxins to your so called organic compost, which in turn goes on to your vegetable soil and is concentrated into the plant or animal that grows in your garden. And then? Back to YOU AGAIN!
That brings me to a fourth point. Our kids futures are going to be way more affected than ours as this concentration of toxins increases and accumulates by the year. It is going to be necessary to actually find a way to stop the manufacture of these products if we want to see a drop in the number of cancer and other immune system disease cases. At this point the cancer rate is going up substantially from one generation to the next. Heck, even the Canadian cancer Society recommends that you eliminate toxin exposure in order to reduce your chances of getting cancer.
Factor FIve: Our world is fragile. What goes around comes around does not even begin to cover this issue. When it comes to toxins in our world, they actually come back around and around and around again, in an ever concentrating & increasing toxic spiral. Our atmosphere is just a few miles thick, our soils and organic matter are a finite supply. Our water supply is fixed and diminishing as toxic chemicals leach off the surface and down into the underground aquifers that provide our drinking water. The old tall tall smokestack taking the air pollution up & away and the long long sewer pipe to take the liquid wastes away are modern day fairy tales. On planet Earth, THERE IS NO AWAY. What goes up comes down. What goes in the lakes, rivers & oceans comes back out . And what gets dumped onto our soils comes right back around to lodge permanently in our bodies. If we have any desire to see our childrens lives succeed and carry on into the next generation, we have to get this.
How can you NOT?She began by stating that we don't need to get all gung ho about being environmentally conscious. We could be 'LIGHT GREEN' and still make a contribution. I can get on board with that, as it seems less intimidating to go green without having to commit to a total makeover of your whole life. Makes the whole process more do-able.
However, when she came to the display of fruits, vegetables and meats to choose for a green diet, she really lost track of the whole point of going green. She said that we only need to buy the organic foods that we do not peel; bananas, pineapples & avacados etc. The expert said the vegies & fruits that we peel before we eat could be eaten safely, even if they were covered in toxic pesticides, fungicides and herbacides. She said they are safe because we peel the toxic part off & throw it away!
This is just nonsense and I have to write about it because this is too important to ignore.
First of all, those toxins will be present in every single cell of the plant or animal that has been exposed to agri-chemicals. The poison is NOT JUST ON THE PEEL, it is throughout the body of the plant or animal, especially in the fat cells. Whether the source of the food you consume is plants or animals, the toxins will be concentrated in the fat cells of YOUR body. When I say concentrated, I mean literally that the grams of toxin/1000 grams of body weight of the product you consume will result in a many fold increase in the grams of toxin/kg of YOUR body. As this process continues up the food chain, from micro organisms to plants to insects and then fish, birds, reptiles to mammals at the top, that rate of toxins to body weight increases at every point of consumption. Humans area at the very top of this process of concentration and are therefore in the category of species with the MOST to lose from having the food chain contaminated. Please believe me; I have a BSc degree in Agriculture and have studied this process from a micro & macro biology point of view.
Second, we are choosing to eat organic food because we want to support & even increase the number of organic farms and orchards that are NOT pouring thousands of TONS of toxic chemicals onto our precious agricultural land. The commercial, non organic farms that use chemical controls are a HUGE HUGE HUGE problem for both our fertile soil supply and our ground waters. Chemical dependent, large scale or many small scale, farmers spray, pour and dust their crops and soils with petroleum based fertilizers and long lasting pesticides, fungicides and herbicides (THE THREE CIDES). they are NOT just exposing the animals or plants that they will provide for YOU to eat. They will also be applying it to the lowest ends of the food chain where it will then concentrate its' way up the food chain to you again. A great many of these 3 agro chemicals have a lifetime that is immeasurable ; some 1/2 life numbers are in the thousands. Once applied, they will not just go away. Not for a very long time, if ever.
As for washing & peeling your vegies & fruit to protect yourself from those toxins; What do you think happens to those toxins that you remove? They are washed down the sink or put in the trash, where they AGAIN end up in our water sheds and garbage dumps. Oh, and if you are gardener composting to be green, you will be adding these toxins to your so called organic compost, which in turn goes on to your vegetable soil and is concentrated into the plant or animal that grows in your garden. And then? Back to YOU AGAIN!
That brings me to a fourth point. Our kids futures are going to be way more affected than ours as this concentration of toxins increases and accumulates by the year. It is going to be necessary to actually find a way to stop the manufacture of these products if we want to see a drop in the number of cancer and other immune system disease cases. At this point the cancer rate is going up substantially from one generation to the next. Heck, even the Canadian cancer Society recommends that you eliminate toxin exposure in order to reduce your chances of getting cancer.
Factor FIve: Our world is fragile. What goes around comes around does not even begin to cover this issue. When it comes to toxins in our world, they actually come back around and around and around again, in an ever concentrating & increasing toxic spiral. Our atmosphere is just a few miles thick, our soils and organic matter are a finite supply. Our water supply is fixed and diminishing as toxic chemicals leach off the surface and down into the underground aquifers that provide our drinking water. The old tall tall smokestack taking the air pollution up & away and the long long sewer pipe to take the liquid wastes away are modern day fairy tales. On planet Earth, THERE IS NO AWAY. What goes up comes down. What goes in the lakes, rivers & oceans comes back out . And what gets dumped onto our soils comes right back around to lodge permanently in our bodies. If we have any desire to see our childrens lives succeed and carry on into the next generation, we have to get this.
Please do not be alarmed by this information. We all have so much power to change the direction of tomorrows' agricultural businesses just as we do any other. It's once again, just a matter of choosing who to give your money to. The business that gets lots & lots of money for their products does well. The others close down & go away. Choose to buy only organic food whenever you see it available ( almost every grocery store at this point). Make your request to your grocer that you would like to buy all organic products. Organic meat, milk, cheese, vegies & fruit. Organic baby food, organic baking products, juice, cookies, cereals etc etc.
ORGANIC EVERYTHING!I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the organic growers & farmers in the world today. Many of you have sacrificed yields, years, tears and economic difficulties as you developed the extraordinary and ingenious new methods of organic farming that have resulted in an organic agricultural industry that out yields, out pays and outsells the non organic farming interests. You are heroes to our world and I can't tell you all enough how grateful I and my family are. Hopefully, everyone can get this and make the tiny effort needed to switch to buying organic food and nothing else...peel or no peel.
Cheers
DJL
WANT TO SWITCH TO ORGANIC GARDENING? TIPS & GUIDEDJL