This is from an op-ed piece in Sunday's NY Times:
Most mass-produced coffee is grown in open fields heavily treated with fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. In contrast, traditional small coffee farmers grow their beans under a canopy of tropical trees, which provide shade and essential nitrogen, and fertilize their soil naturally with leaf litter. Their organic, fair-trade coffee is now available in many coffee shops and supermarkets, and it is recommended by the Audubon Society, the American Bird Conservancy and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.And then there's this, posted last week on Grist:Organic bananas should also be on your list. Bananas are typically grown with one of the highest pesticide loads of any tropical crop. Although bananas present little risk of pesticide ingestion to the consumer, the environment where they are grown is heavily contaminated.
When it comes to nontraditional Latin American crops like melons, green beans, tomatoes, bell peppers and strawberries, it can be difficult to find any that are organically grown. We should buy these foods only if they are not imported from Latin America.
Overall, the nutritional value of conventional veggies has been falling for decades. As farmers (and their input suppliers and extension agents) have worked to maximize yield, food has become significantly less nutritionally dense. In a survey of veggie crops, for example, riboflavin levels dropped nearly 40 percent between 1950 and 1999. (For more info on this, see an earlier Organic Center report called "Still No Free Lunch: Nutrient Levels in the U.S. Food Supply Eroded in Pursuit of Higher Yields.")
The protein content of conventional U.S-grown corn and soybeans has plunged in recent years -- likely due to yield-boosting mania and the near-universal use of genetically modified seeds for those crops.
13 comments:
Sounds great! Where can I get organic hydrogenated oil?
that's my husband!
Mary, you don't have to convince me, we already incorporate mostly organic produce, have decided to only feed our (nonexistant) kids organic baby food, buy fair trade coffee beans, etc. etc. - it's good for us, laborers and the environment. Even Goya has gone organic!! LOL
yay Hellers! for those kids to-be, if you drink any milk or eat dairy products girl wonder, make it organic. those bvt's are starting to mess with young girls' reproductive systems (and there's mounting evidence that some of it may even be starting in utero). am i sounding preachy?
I'm not gonna say preachy; just (naturally, and happily!) all too reminiscent of the board.
Not that I disagree with anything you said, mind you! But y'all know how I generally respond to earnestness...
Dammit! Apparently, I respond by not closing my tags...
Sigh.
oh, I forgot to mention that I also decided to eat go organic only while pregnant as well since hey that's when our brilliant baby's brain will first form!! I've done the research and organic baby food is only 10 cents more a jar so why wouldn't I choose to remove toxins/pesticides from my baby's diet in his/her most developmentally important years? Have you read Dr. Greene!!
word verification, Mary, I'm shaking my fist at you!!
Until Daddy was allowed to feed Lilah "his" food after age 1 (a story for another day), we fed her "Harley food." She ate a totally vegan diet made only of freshly pureed organic fruits and veggies, beans and whole grains (just like my mother made for me). Go organic!!!
Alright everyone, let's just calm down. I've removed "word verification" from my settings -- I hadn't even realized I had created it that way. So let's just put that whole episode behind us.
And Lilah's mommy and I are on the same page about the food stuff. To
the extent that any parent actually has time, pureeing some simple steamed organic veggies, fruits, etc. is actually the best choice. The jarred organic stuff is definitely better than the conventional, but the manufacturers have to steam the hell out of it to get it in "jarable" form, so it's really lacking in a lot of the nutrients that the fresh stuff has.
In fact, I still puree stuff all the time. I freeze it, and then use it to throw into the boys' food so I can get some extra healthy stuff into 'em. Last week they made English Muffin pizzas with pureed red pepper and tomatoes that I'd had frozen from last summer. And last night I made myself a pasta sauce using pureed horn squash (and organic roasted yellow pepper, onions, garlic & sage -- it was awesome!) But really, the key is just to work with whatever time you can muster. Noah lived off of primarily jarred stuff since I was working.
I'm with you, Mary, my mom would buy fresh veggies at the weekly green market (not frozen or canned) and steam/parboil and puree (or use the "ricer" :-) to make into food and juices for me - that's what I ate growing up - that was before organic, but also before the explosion of so many pesticides too. I think (no way of knowing for sure) that I have a healthy relationship with food because she tried all kinds of combinations of foods and had me help pick out veggies at the market with her - she made it fun, etc. I still love beet, carrot and orange juice!
So y'all are big proponents of Jessica Seinfeld's book, eh?
(p.s. YAY no verification!)
you mean the book she copied, Irene? She didn't actually come up with more than like 5 of the recipes in her book. Plus, I don't know how I feel about hiding veggies, but I don't have picky eating kids (or kids for that matter).
Never read it. I'm brilliant on my own! But re: the hiding -- you "hide" only to get as many nutrients in your kids' (or your own) food as is possible. Toddlers are ALL really picky eaters, even the best of them (Noah, who's favorite meal is still often broccoli and tofu, has occasional days where he refuses to eat anything). So you hide healthy stuff in everything, and then put other healthy stuff all over the plate. For example -- we'll have a meal of Mac 'n' Cheese with steamed vegetables, but the "mac 'n' cheese" is really multi-grain pasta with pureed squash, cauliflower, etc. with grated cheese on top, and then other steamed vegetables are on the side. The things you learn as a mother. For the record, this knowledge has edged out all room in my brain for such things as New York Civil Procedure, FRE, how to write a motion for SJ, etc.
Ha! I was totes gonna mention that at the sign of any support for the Seinfeld book, Nil!
I'm just glad I don't have to worry about any of this stuff yet!
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