I just found an online grocery store at aulsuperstore.com that has Arrowhead Mills organic cereals, Amy’s organic soups, and Kettle Brand “organic” chips. Do any of you out there use those products? What do you think about shopping for organic food online?
I buy Horizon Organic milk at my local ShopRite grocery store, so I looked on their very thorough and informative website. There I found under the “Raising Organic Kids” link, Dr. Greene’s Corner, which contained Dr. Greene’s Organic Prescription, a “top ten list” of organic food that everyone should try to switch to for the health of their kids.
This list was compiled by Dr. Alan Greene, M.D., F.A.A.P., a pediatrician at Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. Dr. Greene is the author of From First Kicks to First Steps, McGraw-Hill 2004, and Raising Baby Green, Wiley Books 2007. He is the founder of Dr.Greene.com (and a blogsite by that name) and he’s on the Board of Directors of The Organic Center. This man has credentials. Intel even named him “Children’s Health Hero of the Internet”.
Okay, here’s Dr. Greene’s “top ten” list in order of “impact” and “ease of choice”:
1. MILK–Organic milk is the “tip of the iceberg”, environmentally speaking, because the cows it comes from graze in pastures rich in nutrients during the growing season. The farmer has nurtured his soil responsibly, without pesticides and chemical fertilizers (or with minimal use of these) that would otherwise get into the water supply.
The milk cows eat organic feed that is free of artifical growth hormones, antibiotics, and feed that has been genetically modified. It’s not just the milk that is healthier, but the cows are healthier and well cared for. This also makes animal lovers happy. Organic milk’s growing popularity is convincing dairy farmer’s to raise cows without the use of artifical growth hormones.
Dr. Greene says that organic milk is healthier because it has more omega-3 fatty acids and the antioxidant beta-carotene.
2. ORGANIC POTATOES–Unfortunately, American children’s favorite food, the french fry, is made from our most pesticide-contaminated vegetable! The USDA tested potatoes that had been washed and peeled, but 81% still contained pesticides. Plus, potatoes had the highest amounts of pesticides of all 43 fruits and veggies they tested. American kids eat tons of french fries–so do American adults. A survey showed that white potatoes make up 30% of the vegetables we consume.
Production of organic potatoes has actually decreased over this decade.
Fast food chains and restaurants will change to organically grown potatoes if they think that we want them. We need to ask for organically grown food, and if it is not available, choose something else. That’s how business gets the message.
3. PEANUT BUTTER: There is more farmland devoted to peanuts than any other fruit, veggie, or nut; and most of the peanuts are used to make peanut butter. I love it, too. Unfortunately, more than 99% of peanut growing is done conventionally.
Peanuts contain so many good things: heart-healthy mono-unsaturated fats, protein, vitamin E, niacin, folate, antioxidants that are on par with blackberries (and roasting them increases the antioxidant levels), and even resveratrol, the anti-aging nutrient we associate with red wine.
Regular peanut butter contains high amounts of sugar, hydrogenated oil, and preservatives. Organic peanut butter has a very short list of ingredients.
Farmers are using a very toxic fungicide to kill the mold that grows on peanut plants. These fungicides can disrupt endocrine functions and stay in our bodies a long time. An organic way to handle the mold problem would be crop rotation, cover crops, and tillage (sounds so simple, doesn’t it), resulting in more bio-diverse soil. Dr. Greene suspects that organic growing and processing of peanuts would result in less allergies.
4. ORGANIC BABY FOOD–Babies are especially vulnerable to environmental toxins like pesticides and carcinogens. A pesticide called chlorpyrifos has been linked to lower intelligence, risk of developmental delay, and ADHD. An organic diet can almost eliminate this exposure. Only 0.5% of U.S. agriculture production is organic right now.
Babies grow the most from conception through age three. That is the most important time to eat organically grown food.
The bad news is in. We get less nutrients from the food we eat today than our grandparents did eating the same food 50 years ago. We get less protein, iron, calcium, phosphorus, riboflavin, vitamin C, and phytonutrients. Why? Our food is grown in depleted soil.
5. CATSUP–or “ketchup” if you were raised like me. Organic catsup is 57% higher in the anti-cancer and anti-heart disease nutrient, lycopene, than conventional catsup. Some organic brands have three times the amount of lycopene, and five times the amount of lycopene as a fresh tomato! Organic catsup also had double the amount of antioxidants as conventional.
Tomatoes and tomato products are the #1 source of lycopene in American diets, especially our kids’ diets. An easy switch to organic catsup (pizza sauce, marinara sauce, etc.), would significantly increase our nutrient intake, as well as decrease conventional tomato farming methods!
6. COTTON–Surprise! Cotton growing accounts for 10% of worldwide pesticide use, 25% of all insecticide use, and 2.5% of worldwide agricultural cropland use. Dr. Greene says that The World Health Organization estimates 25 million people are poisoned by pesticides each year worldwide, with 20,000 deaths resulting.
Cottonseed oil has become a common ingredient in salad dressings, peanut butter, snack food, crackers, cookies, etc. The meal from cottonseeds used to be fed primarily to dairy cows, but its use as a protein source for people is on the rise.
Only a tiny percentage of U.S. cotton fields are organic–most are genetically modified (GM). GM products have largely been eliminated in Europe and Japan.
Cotton may be the most important crop that we should try to change to organic. Buy organic cotton clothing, also!
7. APPLES: Our second most commonly eaten fruit (after bananas), and second most juiced (after oranges) is also one of the most pesticide-contaminated fruits and vegetables. Organic orchards make up 3.33% of U.S. apple production. When we choose organic, we are not only lowering our pesticide exposure, but we are using our consumer buying power to change agriculture.
Apples have been tested for vitamin C and antioxidant content, and high levels of both were found. Organic apples have higher levels of healthful polyphenols and other phytonutrients. They taste better, too.
8. BEEF: Cattle need seven pounds of corn to put on one pound of weight. It takes about 1600 calories of fossil fuels to produce 100 calories of conventional beef. This is bad for the environment.
Corn-fed or grain-fed cattle are actually designed to graze. They get upset stomachs from the acid and have to be fed antacids and antibiotics with conventional production. It’s cruel.
Organic beef production is less than a quarter of a percent in America. Organic beef that comes from sustainable grass-fed cattle is leaner and contains five times the amount of omega-3 fats as conventionally (cruelly) raised cattle.
We need to replace beef in our diets with other proteins like: organic eggs, garbanzo beans, quinoa, or soy.
9. SOY: Almost the entire soy crop in the U.S. is used to make soybean oil and meal. Soybean oil accounts for two-thirds of all vegetable oils or animal fats consumed by us. Trans fats are usually partially hydrogenated soybean oil.
A huge amount of soybean meal is used to feed livestock. With 72 million acres planted in the U.S., soy ranks second only to corn for pesticide use. 62 million of those acres are genetically modified.
Soy is an ingredient in most processed foods. The government does not require labeling of genetically modified foods, so choosing organic is the only way to know you are not eating genetically modified food products. Relatively speaking, we only produce a tiny crop of organic soy right now. Buying organic soy milk, soy yogurt, and veggie burgers will help the agricultural system.
10. CORN: Almost no corn is produced organically.
80 million acres of our land is used for the corn crop; more land than for any other crop. This means more chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used for corn than any other crop. Corn is used as 90% of feed grains for cattle. 50 million acres is genetically modified.
Fertilizer runoff from corn production ended up in the Mississippi river, creating a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico where no aquatic life can live.
High fructose corn syrup (you know, the stuff that makes us fat) is made from corn. More than 4000 products on our grocery store shelves are made with corn products, including most baked goods and sodas. When reading labels, some terms to look out for are: dextrose, glucose, corn starch, modified cornstarch, vegetable starch, corn solids, corn sweetener, corn oil.
The extremely challenging switch of corn production to organic would have the single most profound impact on the health of cropland in America; and, therefore, on the health of our families.
BONUS: WINE–Dr. Greene calls the nutrient found in the skin of red grapes, resveratrol, the Fountain of Youth nutrient; and there is enough of it in red wine to have an effect. Some studies have shown resveratrol to have antiviral, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-aging, and neuroprotective effects. Organic wines have an average of 32% higher levels of resveratrol than conventionally produced wines, but the numbers can be much higher. I plan to put this assertion to the test.
So, enjoy the fruits of the earth organically!
P.S. I like the website Farmandfood.com for organic food, organic agriculture, and even a link to Kangen Water that explains the acid/alkaline pH balance and how important it is to your health.
The website also links to just about every kind of food you can think of–if you click on Chinese food it takes you to Acme market’s website. I heard on the radio that Acme has Wild Harvest organic products now.
AUL Superstore. (n.d.) Retrieved October 15, 2008, from www.aulsuperstore.com
Farmandfood.com. (n.d.) Retrieved October 28, 2008, from www.farmandfood.com.
Greene, A., M.D. (n.d.) Dr. Greene’s Organic Prescription. Retrieved October 15, 2008, from www.drgreene.com.
Horizon Organic Dairy. (2007). Dr. Greene’s Corner. Retrieved October 15, 2008, from
United States Department of Agriculture. (October 15, 2008). Welcome to the Agricultural Marketing Service. Retrieved October 15, 2008, from www.ams.usda.gov.
Organic Food: Going Against the Grain 