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Organics & Health: The debate that need not take place
Related to this project: Food4Health

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

This week the health blogosphere, newswires and cocktail party circuits were buzzing over the report from the report for the U.K. Food Standards Agency [http://www.food.gov.uk/] that came to the conclusion that organic food offered no more nutrients than ‘conventionally’ produced foodstuffs. (I find it strange to call the way we mass-produce food conventional, particularly when you think that most of what we eat today didn’t exist 50 years ago and the stuff that did exist is now produced in a way that is so foreign to the way its been done for the thousands of years before that calling it conventional is about as realistic as calling one of those ‘meal replacement‘ products a meal…but I digress — for an interesting take on this go see Food Inc. [http://www.foodincmovie.com/] in theatres).

This finding didn’t surprise me at all. There isn’t any particular reason why ‘conventionally’ grown food should be any less nutrient rich than organics. But as Marion Nestle writes [http://www.foodpolitics.com/2009/07/todays-huge-flap-about-organics/] , that misses the point. It’s the same case that I’ve been making in my social circles the past few days as people talk about organics and how this has them reconsidering things. It shouldn’t — unless physical health is the only reason why you eat something. And I would argue that there are many good reasons to eat organics that have just as much to do with health, but do so in a way that goes beyond nutrients.

Organics are much more friendly to the planet for starters. The problems with birds & wildlife, and environmental degradation due to pesticides has been well-documented.

Pesticides are also highly toxic to those who are administering them — very often low educated, non-protected workers and their families – despite efforts to reduce this.

Organics also provide a vehicle for supporting local farmers, which brings added environmental and economic benefits.

All of these things produce health in our community. These are the social determinants of health of the food system and not just the nutrient portion of it. And there is much reason to believe that these social and environmental determinants play as big of a role in our health as anything we gain from nutrients.

Health is indeed a complex system both physically, socially, and as a concept in its own right. Viewing the link between organics and physical health (vis nutrients) as straightforward (and one that some organic supporters are doing through their critique of the report) reduces this complexity and potentially does the organics movement more harm than good. My suggestion would be to look at all the other benefits that organics can confer and focus on that.

This doesn’t mean the door is closed and that more research shouldn’t be done, but I think a lot of people will be happy enough knowing that the organic food they eat is doing the planet good, animals good and their local economies good and that is healthy in its own right.

August 3, 2009 | 7:45 PM Comments  0 comments

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Simple Farming, Complex Answers Part 2
Related to this project: Food4Health

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Following on my last post, my journey through organics did not end with the seeing of Food Inc.

In yesterday's Globe and Mail, columnist Margaret Wente wrote about organic food and her experience at the local farmers market. In the column, Wente points to research from the Mayo Clinic suggesting that organic produce is no more healthy than the usual produce, yet it is far more expensive and something that is simply not sustainable or accessible in the long run.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/organic-tastes-good-but-better-for-us-no/article1214614/#comments

The piece elicited a wave of comments about the perils and joys of organic farming. One of those comments was from me.

I actually agree with her -- on the surface. There is no compelling evidence that organics as a whole are healthier when you measure health in strictly biological terms. But food and health is not so simple. The way food is grown, its impact on the environment; the manner in which those growing conditions influence communities and the workers who tend to the crops, harvest them and apply pesticides; the transportation of that food; and the way in which food production choices either limit or encourage diversity and promote sustainability are all part of the equation. That is the piece that got missed.

When viewed through this lens, the case for organics is much stronger.

Yet there is also the issue of capacity. If the world changed to organics overnight we'd starve as there isn't the capacity for it. But change happens over time and there are ways to foster intelligent shifts in the way food is produced and consumed to a more sustainable model. This sustainability also means ensuring safety and that is one of the areas where organics can be just as problematic.

As argued many times on these pages, the transformation of the food system is what we need to consider more than just arguments over whether one thing is better than the other. The big question is how to do this and do it soon, because at some point we need to move and arguing whether organics are good or bad is not likely going to help much unless its backed with some action on the transformation part.

I'd welcome any suggestions from our readers over how best to do this and to hear what you think on the issue of organics and food systems transformation.

July 12, 2009 | 9:24 AM Comments  0 comments

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Simple Farming, Complex Answers Part 1
Related to this project: Food4Health

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

It's been an interesting 12 hours, which is made even more so by the fact that I've been asleep for 7 of them.

Last night I went to see the movie Food Inc., which is a documentary about the food industry and system that sustains it. As a piece of infotainment (as many documentaries are), it gets high marks. It's well shot, put together nicely, and the story told is clear and understandable. It's greatest strength is that it shows using real footage the absurdity of much of our food system and illustrates the gap between what we perceive about farming and what it really is (in the United States and most likely Canada), and that is a big factory. The pastoral images that we see grace our packages and the marketing behind food is simply not a reflection of reality. Did you know that nearly all of the meat consumed in the U.S. is processed at only 13 plants? Are you aware that the majority of beef and pork products come from just a handful of producers? The wild diversity that we think when we see the farmers at the market (if we are so lucky to have access to farmers markets) represents a tiny portion of the food sold. The majority is by big players.

One of these is Wal Mart. Now Wal-Mart is not known as being a champion of the little guy, but what was interesting in the film was that they showed how Wal Mart is interested in organics and all that comes with it -- small farms, connection to the land etc.. This isn't because of some moral argument, it's because there is a market for it. Suddenly, we have a new argument about organics and food production that we didn't have before when the largest retailer in the world wants in. The film does a good job of showing some, but not all, of the arguments for why this could be a good thing for the world even if it might raise concerns among many about co-optation of organics. Wal Mart drives markets and if we want less pesticides and more organic options, this might be the way to do it.

Any thoughts?

July 12, 2009 | 9:10 AM Comments  0 comments

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Wrapping Up 10 Weeks of Food4Health Goodness
Related to this project: Food4Health

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Wow.

It's not profound, but it is a palindrome if that counts. The past 10 weeks have been a blur and the last two have been really a blur with all the amazing things going on in the Food4Health world.

And we're just getting started.

160 blog posts, dozens of Facebook posts, hundreds of tweets on our Twitter link (@Food4Health, @cdnorman & @yvresearch) and countless hours of fun, discussion, learning and action on the part of an amazing team in Toronto and Ottawa and the many youth and professionals working around Ontario. Then there are the stories. This site has been a testament to the creative spirit of youth and young adults interested in learning more about the complex interconnections between food and health. It's amazing stuff.

The first phase of Food4Health has been a big success and I want to encourage everyone involved in this group to keep posting and connecting as you learn about food in new ways. I'd also love to see ideas come from around the world as this is a glocal issue -- global and local together. What I eat matters. How my food is grown matters. What we do about it matters.

As a professor of public health I can't help but connect these things to the unfolding outbreak of swine flu in Mexico and its spread throughout North America as an example of why we need to approach this as a systems problem, not just something to deal with the moment we are at the grocery store or at a restaurant.

So as the ideas continue to unfold, we'll continue to find ways to build connections, learn and innovate with youth, for youth and in partnerships with our community.

One of the better examples of how to do this recently came to my attention and that is using unused city land to promote urban agriculture:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009742.html

What a novel, innovative way to solve many problems at the same time. That's the kind of thing we need right now (IMHO) and that phase 2 of Food4Health is going to explore.

April 28, 2009 | 4:16 PM Comments  0 comments

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Having Food Close to Home is Good for your Waist
Related to this project: Food4Health
Related to country: Canada

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

A few days ago I posted a link about a study that revealed that the presence of drinking fountains in schools cut obesity rates considerably. Kids drink more water, they function better, and feel less hungry, which leads to less weight.

This to end the week we now have a study done in my old neck of the woods at the University of British Columbia showing that those who live more than a kilometre from a grocery store have higher rates of obesity than those who don't:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009720.html

Why? Well, think about what you buy and how cumbersome fresh foods are to carry. They aren't so heavy as much as they are fragile -- but they are heavy. If you live far away, that means either driving (no exercise + carbon emissions) or taking transit (having your bags squished and your formerly firm tomatoes turn to sauce). The way to address this is to buy stuff that's easy to carry like processed foods, which are light and durably packed (thanks to all that packaging that goes into it).

So we get a double whammy here: people are obese and one of the sensible options for purchasing wind up to be those that are the least healthy and cause the most environmental damage.

It seems to me that we need to get some design folk into this conversation, because this is not just a problem of food, it's a problem of how we design our cities and towns. It's also another example of why we need to be thinking in systems if we are to move things ahead.

April 9, 2009 | 10:51 AM Comments  0 comments



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