Your organic milk might contain algae and fish oil

Millions and millions of gallons of organic milk contain industrial-brewed ingredients to beef up nutritional values.

When you buy a carton of organic milk, chances are you think you’re getting a carton of pure organic milk. And if you’re splurging on organic milk with DHA Omega-3 fatty acids to support brain health – and who doesn't want their brain health supported? – chances are you think that those healthy bits are coming courtesy of healthy grass-fed cows. But as Peter Whoriskey points out in the Washington Post, you might be wrong on both accounts – much of the nation's organic milk can thank algal oil (and fish oil) for its brain-boosting boasts.

Whoriskey describes a setting in a South Carolina factory that sounds a tad less charming than Horizon’s cartoon cow leaping across the planet's grassy fields might suggest. He writes:

Inside a South Carolina factory, in industrial vats that stand five stories high, batches of algae are carefully tended, kept warm and fed corn syrup. There the algae, known as schizochytrium, multiply quickly. The payoff, which comes after processing, is a substance that resembles corn oil. It tastes faintly fishy.

The oil is added to milk, in this case Horizon’s DHA Omega-3 version, allowing the company to advertise its added benefits and attach a higher price tag. Consumers bought more than 26 million gallons of Horizon’s algae-goop milk last year, according to the company; that accounts for 14 percent of all organic milk gallons sold.

Read more here.

Your organic fruits and veggies might have been irrigated with fracking wastewater

This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s organics standards, written 15 years ago, strictly ban petroleum-derived fertilizers commonly used in conventional agriculture. But the same rules do not prohibit farmers from irrigating their crops with petroleum-laced wastewater obtained from oil and gas wells — a practice that is increasingly common in drought-stricken Southern California.

As I reported last month, oil companies last year supplied half the water that went to the 45,000 acres of farmland in Kern County’s Cawelo Water District, farmland that is owned, in part, by Sunview, a company that sells certified organic raisins and grapes. Food watchdog groups are concerned that the state hasn’t required oil companies to disclose all of the chemicals that they use in oil drilling and fracking operations, much less set safety limits for all of those chemicals in irrigation water.

A spokesperson for the USDA’s National Organics Program confirmed that it has little to say on the matter. “The USDA organic regulations do not directly address the use of irrigation water on organic farms,” said the spokesperson, who asked to be quoted on background, “but organic operations must generally maintain or improve the natural resources of the operation, including soil and water quality.”

Read more here.

U.S.D.A. to Start Program to Support Local and Organic Farming

The United States Department of Agriculture plans to announce Monday that it will spend $52 million to support local and regional food systems like farmers’ markets and food hubs and to spur research on organic farming.

The local food movement has been one of the fastest growing segments of the business, as consumers seek to know more about where, how and by whom their food is grown.

But local farmers still struggle to market their food. Distribution systems are intended to accommodate the needs of large-scale commercial farms and growers. Grocery stores and restaurants largely rely on big distribution centers and are only beginning to figure out how to incorporate small batches of produce into their overall merchandise mixes.

Farmers’ markets are proliferating around the country, increasing 76 percent to 8,268 since 2008, according to the Agriculture Department, but they have trouble marketing themselves. And few consumers are aware of a website the department created to help them find a farmers market in their area.

“These types of local food systems are the cornerstones of our plans to revitalize the rural economy,” Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, said in a telephone interview. “If you can connect local produce with markets that are local, money gets rolled around in the local community more directly compared to commercial agriculture where products get shipped in large quantities somewhere else, helping the economy there.”

The $52 million will be the first outlay to local and organic enterprises of the farm bill signed into law by President Obama in February, which tripled the amount of money aimed at that sector to $291 million. The organic business, which has long complained that the Agriculture Department does not support it financially, will get $125 million over the next five years for research and $50 million for conservation programs.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/business/usda-to-start-program-to-support-local-and-organic-farming.html

Newcastle University Study Proves Organic Food Is Better for You

The study, led by Newcastle University, will re-ignite debate about the benefits of organic food

The Journal by Tony Henderson

The largest study of its kind – led by North East experts – has found significant benefits to organic food.

An international team led by Newcastle University has shown that organic crops are up to 69% higher in a number of key antioxidants than conventionally-grown crops.

Numerous studies have linked antioxidants to a reduced risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers.

The study found that a switch to eating organic fruit, vegetable and cereals – and food made from them – would provide additional antioxidants equivalent to eating between one to two extra portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

The study, to be published next week in the prestigious British Journal of Nutrition, also shows significantly lower levels of toxic heavy metals in organic crops.

Cadmium, which is one of only three metal contaminants along with lead and mercury for which the European Commission has set maximum permitted contamination levels in food, was found to be almost 50% lower in organic crops than those conventionally-grown.

The study, funded jointly by the European Framework 6 programme and the Sheepdrove Trust, also found that nitrogen concentrations were significantly lower in organic crops.

Concentrations of total nitrogen were 10%, nitrate 30% and nitrite 87% lower in organic compared to conventional crops. The study also showed that pesticide residues were four times more likely to be found in conventional crops than organic ones.

Carlo Leifert, professor of ecological agriculture at Newcastle University who led the study, said: “The organic versus non-organic debate has rumbled on for decades now but the evidence from this study is overwhelming – that organic food is high in antioxidants and lower in toxic metals and pesticides.

“This demonstrates that choosing food produced according to organic standards can lead to increased intake of nutritionally desirable antioxidants and reduced exposure to toxic heavy metals.

“This constitutes an important addition to the information currently available to consumers which until now has been confusing and in many cases is conflicting.”

The study is the most extensive analysis of the nutrient content in organic versus conventionally-produced foods ever undertaken and is the result of a groundbreaking new systematic literature review and meta-analysis by the Newcastle team.

The findings contradict those of a 2009 UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) commissioned study which found there were no substantial differences or significant nutritional benefits from organic food.

The FSA commissioned study based its conclusions on only 46 publications covering crops, meat and dairy, while the Newcastle analysis is based on data from 343 peer-reviewed publications on composition difference between organic and conventional crops now available.

“The main difference between the two studies is time,” said Prof Leifert. “Research in this area has been slow to take off the ground and we have far more data available to us now than five years ago.”

Dr Gavin Stewart, a lecturer in evidence synthesis and the meta-analysis expert in the Newcastle team, said: “The much larger evidence base available in this synthesis allowed us to use more appropriate statistical methods to draw more definitive conclusions regarding the differences between organic and conventional crops”

Prof Leifert said: “This study should just be a starting point. We have shown without doubt there are composition differences between organic and conventional crops, and now there is an urgent need to carry out well-controlled human dietary intervention and cohort studies specifically designed to identify and quantify the health impacts of switching to organic food.”

The entire database generated and used for this analysis will be freely available on the Newcastle University website (http://research.ncl.ac.uk/nefg/QOF) for the benefit of other experts and interested members of the public.

Scientists Reviewed 343 Studies to see if Organic Food is Better for you. Here’s what they Found Out

This settles the debate over organic foods once and for all!

Are organic foods really healthier than non-organic foods? Researchers from Newcastle University in England have reviewed and conducted meta-analysis on 343 peer-reviewed scientific studies in an effort to find out if organic foods contained greater nutritional value than conventional foods. The results will probably shock some, but will confirm what many people already knew; organic foods are indeed much healthier for human consumption than ‘conventional’ foods. Image credit: AP

The study looked at existing research that had been conducted on the differences between organic and conventional foods, finding that there were some significant variations in the nutritional value between the two.

“We carried out meta-analyses based on 343 peer-reviewed publications that indicate statistically significant and meaningful differences in composition between organic and non-organic crops/crop-based foods”

The most important difference that researchers found was that organic foods contain a much higher amount of antioxidants than conventional crops. Antioxidants prevent oxidation in the body which combats certain diseases and cancers.  An Environmental Working Group press release noted that:

“consumers who switch to organic fruits, vegetables, and cereals would get 20 to 40 percent more antioxidants. That’s the equivalent of about two extra portions of fruit and vegetables a day, with no increase in caloric intake.”

Shoppers often argue that organic foods are too pricey to purchase for an everyday diet. Well, if they contain more nutrition per serving, then the body would require less servings per meal. Logic indicates that by comparing price based on nutritional value rather than amount, shoppers can spend about the same if not less with organics.

Now the downside of eating organic foods is they contain less pesticides. Oh wait…thats right, pesticides are extremely harmful to the body! Researchers found that conventionally grown foods are three to four times more likely to contain pesticide residues. The study indicated that:

“While crops harvested from organically managed fields sometimes contain pesticide residues, the levels are usually 10-fold to 100-fold lower in organic food”

Researchers also found lower levels of the harmful heavy metal cadmium and lower levels of nitrogen, both of which are dangerous to human health. Cadmium, which is also present in cigarette smoke, can cause damage to the liver, kidneys, and other bodily functions and organs. Researchers were unable to explain why there were lower levels of these toxic compounds in organic food, but it’s been speculated that the use of glyphosate (Roundup) based pesticides may induce heavy metal uptake in ‘conventional’ crops as it does in other organisms.

Read more: http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/scientists-reviewed-343-studies-to-see-if-organic-food-is-better-for-you-heres-what-they-found-out/

Turn Here Sweet Corn – Book Review

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works
by Atina Diffley
Published by University of Minnesota Press, August 2013
344 pages 1 b&w photo, 5 b&w plates, 29 color plates, 6 x 9
$18.95 paperback
ISBN 978-0-8166-7772-6

When the hail starts to fall, Atina Diffley doesn’t compare it to golf balls. She’s a farmer. It’s “as big as a B-size potato.” As her bombarded land turns white, she and her husband Martin huddle under a blanket and reminisce: the one-hundred-mile-per-hour winds; the eleven-inch rainfall (“that broccoli turned out gorgeous”); the hail disaster of 1977. The romance of farming washed away a long time ago, but the love? Never. In telling her story of working the land, coaxing good food from the fertile soil, Atina Diffley reminds us of an ultimate truth: we live in relationships—with the earth, plants and animals, families and communities.

A memoir of making these essential relationships work in the face of challenges as natural as weather and as unnatural as corporate politics, her book is a firsthand history of getting in at the “ground level” of organic farming. One of the first certified organic produce farms in the Midwest, the Diffleys’ Gardens of Eagan helped to usher in a new kind of green revolution in the heart of America’s farmland, supplying their roadside stand and a growing number of local food co-ops. This is a story of a world transformed—and reclaimed—one square acre at a time.

And yet, after surviving punishing storms and the devastating loss of fifth-generation Diffley family land to suburban development, the Diffleys faced the ultimate challenge: the threat of eminent domain for a crude oil pipeline proposed by one of the largest privately owned companies in the world, notorious polluters Koch Industries. As Atina Diffley tells her David-versus-Goliath tale, she gives readers everything from expert instruction in organic farming to an entrepreneur’s manual on how to grow a business to a legal thriller about battling corporate arrogance to a love story about a single mother falling for a good, big-hearted man.

Atina Diffley's book “Turn Here Sweet Corn” is a masterclass in organic gardening and farming without being preachy, a lesson in entrepreneurship, a love story and a legal thriller, all rolled into a memoir that is as easy to read as a good novel.

Reading the chapter “Endangered Species” I just wanted to scream at the developers as well as the people who regarded the vegetables growing in the fields as “just laying there being wasted”. The latter pointing to the fact that so many folks today do not know where the vegetables that they buy in the supermarkets come from and that, unless they are grown in a hydroponic way, they grow in soil, what they would regard as as “dirt”.

The developers, when they take over the Diffley land, you also want to scream at. We cannot eat houses and infrastructure and we need farms just like the Gardens of Eagan and others close to the cities. But seems to be something that escapes them and that all too many today do not understand and that includes many in our governments.

When reviewing books I tend to use Post-It notes for annotations which I leave sticking like flags out of the pages of the book. When a book has many such flags, as this one has, it means one of two things; it is either extremely good and those flags indicate references or bad and the flags remind me as to where the bad points are and that I will comment on these.

In the case of “Turn Here Sweet Corn” it is the former and not the latter. This book is a handbook for organic gardening and farming without being one.

The book is an absolute page turner that I found very hard to put down. And the reader will also learn something new about organic gardening and farming on almost each and every page. It is easy to read and teaches the whys and wherefores, and even the how-tos to some degree, of organic farming and gardening without being a boring manual.

Atina Diffley is an organic vegetable farmer who now educates consumers, farmers, and policymakers about organic farming through the consulting business Organic Farming Works LLC, owned by her and her husband, Martin. From 1973 through 2007, the Diffleys owned and operated Gardens of Eagan, one of the first certified organic produce farms in the Midwest.

Rating: Six out of five. I know that that is actually not possible but I am going to do it anyway.

© 2013

Farm subsidies

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Both the European Union and the United States pay subsidies to farmers for simply doing what they set out to do, farming; producing food for the people.

While we will all agree that farmers have an important role, that of feeding the people, being given handouts, in the form of EU or other subsidies, just cannot be justified.

No other business – or industry – in the EU or the USA is being afforded the same consideration as is farming and while, as said, feeding the people, that is to say, producing food for the nation, is important, this is not the way the proverbial cookie crumbles.

The subsidies in both Britain and the USA – for Britain did pay farmers a “bonus” already before the European Union Common Agricultural Policy ever came about namely already in the last war, World War Two, as did the US, to make it possible for farmers to provide “cheap” food for the nation and the troops, under difficult circumstances. But today almost every farmer seems to have become dependent on them.

Farms have gotten bigger, often run by corporations, with the little mixed farms having almost gone to the wall, and the machinery to run those farming operations has become so expensive – to buy and run – that most farms, apparently, can just about break even, with subsidies.

On the other hand farms in the USA that have returned to the old way of family farms and using horses and refusing government handouts (and not only the Amish and Plain People), are turning a profit. They are also – predominately – organic and thus their produce can attract a premium from the buyers.

While, however, “conventional” farmers get huge subsidies, especially in the USA, for planting and growing “conventional” and genetically engineered crops, organic farmers have to pay to have their produce certified organic before they can market it as such. The system is purposely skewed in favor of Big Agriculture to the detriment of the small mixed family farms.

What is required is a level playing field with subsidies removed and GMOs requiring labeling and organic being the norm.

© 2013