Fructose free must-haves

In general, creating fructose free meals is pretty easy. It’s just a matter of checking food labels carefully, even on things like, say, canned tomatoes, pizza bases and pita bread, things which reason says should not have sugar but which the manufacturers, in their wisdom, have poured a couple of spoonfuls into. The good news is that for many things, you can find a brand that offers the product without the sugar. And voila, fructose free dinner is served.

There are some particular things which I've found handy to have around now that I'm avoiding fructose. Some of these are to replace sugar, and some are to replace the snacks/treats I used to eat. So, today I wanted to share my top cupboard must-haves for fructose-free eating. 

Rice malt syrup

This fructose free syrup is a little like honey in consistency, and doesn’t taste like rice at all- hurray! I use it on toast sometimes, or even on Weetbix instead of honey. 

Fructose-free milo

This is an amazing recipe recreation by The Colonel over at the Sweet Poison forum. It was a cinch to make once I sourced the ingredients, and I made a big old container full ready for a lovely hot drink whenever the mood strikes. Delicious and completely fructose free. Thanks Colonel!

Dextrose and glucose syrup

These are the sugar-substitute staples for fructose free baking. I’ve used these for chocolate, coconut cake and caramels so far, and there are more to come. But if you can’t be bothered waiting for me to experiment with treats you can check out the Sweet Poison forum for recipe ideas.  For those from the USA, you might want to check out nofructose.org where Bill is experimenting with fructose-free recipes using US ingredients.

Citric acid

This is a bit of an odd one, but lately I’ve found that I love a glass of water with just a sprinkle of citric acid in it- a bit like having a slice of lemon in water. It adds just a bit of sourness, as if I’m having a cordial drink but without the sweetness. With my tastebuds now unused to much sweetness, I really like the sourness. I don’t think it would be wise to overdose on this, since it is an acid and might do strange things to the tummy, but since I don’t drink soft drinks, juice or cordial anymore, it makes a nice change from plain water. You could easily add a sprinkle of dextrose as well to make it more like a lemon-y cordial.

Peanut butter

I’ve always loved peanut butter but I used to use it very rarely because of the fat. I would use jam- ie, fruit boiled with sugar- in preference to peanut butter. Now I’m making friends with fat and enjoying the delicious creaminess of smooth peanut butter (no added sugar variety, obviously).

Smiths Crinkle Cut Cheese and Onion chips

Flavourings in chips, savoury snack biscuits and so on are usually a sugar minefield, so at first I was limited to plain potato chips if I wanted a snack. I quickly got bored of these and scanned the flavoured chips in desperation. Surely I could find one without sugar?? Nope, no good. Until I looked more closely at the Cheese and Onion flavoured Smiths Crinkle Cut Chips. The ingredients list includes dextrose but no other sugars. And dextrose is just glucose, so it’s fine from a fructose perspective. And as luck would have it, cheese and onion is one of my favourite flavours. So, huzzah!

Of course over-indulging on any of the above will send me back to my now-abandoned fat pants, but the good thing is that without the fructose, I don’t over-indulge. Huzzah again! 

It’s always good to get new things to add to the repertoire, so I’d love to hear from you- what are your favourite fructose free finds or cupboard staples?

Organic III: the final chapter

When I finished my last organic post (before a short caramel detour, and a short forced hiatus due to illness) I felt like I was well and truly falling down the rabbit hole, holding a can of worms and heading towards a box marked ‘PANDORA’ in big letters. I also felt a little confused, and not just by the number of mixed metaphors I was using. Once you start questioning your food (well, not literally) you find out all sorts of unpalatable truths (pun: hilarious) about pesticides and hormones and so on. I can’t look at what I eat and drink in the same way anymore. For example, it’s a relief to know that Australian chickens don’t have added hormones and are pretty antibiotic free, but if they are fed on grain which is sprayed with the old bug-be-gone, then my chicken pesto may be chicken pesticido. Is anything safe?? But then there's no evidence that these pesticides do anything bad to me...so....???

I’ll admit that I hoped the answer to 'should I go organic?' would be something like ‘ sure, go organic if you want to, but, hey, no problemo if you don’t feel like it or can’t afford it’.  But no. It had to be more complicated than that. Damn you organic food *shakes fist*. By the way, this is a picture of the 'organic section' of my local supermarket which illustrates why I'm not touching on the 'organic is better for the environment' argument in this series. It's just...yeah.

The only sure way to keep the pesticides off is to wrap the food in plastic.

But I do still need to know whether the claims of the organic food industry- that organic food tastes better and is it better for you than regular food- are true. Here are a few random samples:

Organic produce is better for you and more nutritious. Many people say that organic food tastes "as it used to", remember when we were kids? Research has shown that organic food has more vitamins, antioxidants and nutrients. Organic Angels (Australia) [Emphasis theirs] 

Flavor is another benefit of healthy plants growing in a living soil. Flavor results from a mixture of many different and complex molecules. Healthy, living soil provides a constant and more complex mixture of these molecules, which results in more flavor. Maine Organic Farmers and Gardiner’s Association   

The claims of other organic groups are similar, and many state that these claims are backed by 'research' (without citing specific research) which makes it sound legit and not just a hard sell from an industry asking you to pay 33% more for their goods. Well, call me cynical but I’m not going to take their word for it. Here’s what I found out.

In 2007 there was a huge media storm in the UK (and internationally) over the nutritional value of organic food after a large UK organic research facility (funded by Tesco, the largest seller of organic food in the UK) reported that their organically grown food was up to 40% higher in nutrients than conventional food grown at the same time. Newspapers went wild. The organic associations demanded that the government’s food standards agency ‘admit’ that organic food was superior. But when the data were actually examined, the findings were less exciting. Yes, the organic peaches grown in 2004 had 40% higher phenolics (which may have antiviral and anti-inflammatory health benefits) than conventional peaches, for example. But then the conventional peaches grown in 2005 had 30% higher phenolics than the organic peaches. This is just one example of the inconsistent findings which have plagued research in this area. There are some ‘trends’, but no firm conclusions about the nutritional superiority of organic food. The few well-conducted studies in this area (summarised here and here) suggest: 

• There is no evidence that vitamins, minerals and trace elements in organic food are greater than in conventional foods for most food types, but
• There is some (slight) evidence that leafy veges and potatoes may have a higher vitamin C content when grown organically and that some organic veges and cereal crops may have better quality proteins and higher iron and manganese than their conventional cousins.
• Grass/clover fed cows may produce milk higher in vitamin E, beta-carotene and lutein as well as Omega-3 fatty acids.

If these trends are correct (and not just statistical anomalies), the question then becomes whether this makes any difference to our health. A systematic review of research in 2010 showed that in the past  52 years, there have been only 12 well-conducted studies comparing the health benefits of organic vs conventional food. And the majority of these showed no difference in health outcomes. Food for thought. I’ll get to some conclusions in a minute, promise.

Finally though, to taste. Such a subjective thing, one wonders how anyone could ever reasonably claim that any food ‘tastes better’ than another. Surely it’s in the eye mouth of the beholder.  So while research has shown repeatedly that people who buy organic food claim that it tastes better, and some research has demonstrated that in blind taste testings, things like orange juice and bread are rated as yummier when organic, this is an area where science can’t tell me what to do, really. If I think it tastes better, then it does (for me). I’ll have to see taste for myself.

Ok, time for some conclusions. Oh god. What to make of all this?? Ok, systematically:

• Organic food costs a LOT more than conventional food
• Organic food is mostly pesticide free (but not 100%)
• While Australian chicken and lamb are fairly safe from antibiotics and hormones, pesticides may still be a concern for animal products from animals fed on non organic grain. 
• Some Australian fresh produce is more likely to have high levels of pesticide residue at than others (see my nerdy but colourful chart on the previous organic post)
• There's little evidence that organic food is higher in nutrients, but the evidence there is points to potential benefits in organic milk, leafy greens, potatoes and cereal crops.
• Only my taste buds can tell me if organic tastes better.

Here's the thing. While I wish it wasn't so, the first point is the most important. There's just no point thinking that I can regularly increase my food budget by a third, no matter what the rest of the list says. BUT there may be a way to shop smarter and get value out of organic, so here's what I plan to do. I'll buy organic milk, bread and fresh produce which falls into the orange column of my chart (e.g., carrots, spinach, apples, pears). If my budget can bear it, I'll choose organic pork, because pork is treated with hormones in Australia, so there is that plus the pesticide (from the feed given to the pigs) to be thinking about. Beef also falls into this category but luckily Coles offers the hormone free beef (at no added cost to me!) so I'll take them up on that. 

And believe it or not folks, but I might just try the whole growing it myself thing for some of my veges, which will help. I'm soon to have my own backyard to dig around in, after all. We'll see.

So, that's that. A semi-organic-as-much-as-I-can-afford-it lifestyle for me. Probably what I would have guessed three posts ago, but at least now I know why I'm doing it. To some extent. 

I'd love to know if you've ever considered going organic and if so, what you decided to do. It's a tough one!

Creamy caramels

Creamy caramels

2/3 of the way through a series about going organic, and I’ve got a hankering for caramels. I’ll finish the organic thing later, I promise!

There are still days when I miss my lollies, and this week I’ve been really feeling it. I’ve been friends with them for so many years. I no longer crave them, but every now and then I have just a little sigh and a little wish for a sweet treat. And chocolate is all well and good, but some days you just need CANDY.

I’ve done a few experiments with glucose-based jelly lollies and hard boiled lollies, but I’m not happy with the outcome (I’ll post a recipe if I ever get them right). But the other day I wanted caramels, and nothing else, so I set out to see if they could be made without fructose. I found a recipe online here and decided to mold it to my fructose-free will. Mwa ha ha!

This recipe makes these soft, buttery caramels. 

Delicious for a sweet treat, and just what I was after J You will need a candy thermometer. Mine was about $6 from House (or was it Home?).

Here are the ingredients:

·         1 cup glucose syrup

·         1/4  cup water

·         1 cups dextrose powder

·         1 cup double cream

·         1/4 cup evaporated milk

·         1/4 cup softened butter, cut into small cubes

Line a pan with alfoil and spray the foil with oil/ cooking spray. This is VERY important unless you want to be picking foil out of your teeth later J

In a medium saucepan, heat the glucose syrup, water and dextrose. Just a tip for measuring out the glucose syrup which is so thick that it seems more like a solid than a liquid (at least when you are trying to get it from jar to measuring cup and from cup to pan!). Put the jar in a saucepan or bowl filled with hot water and leave it for a little bit. The syrup gets runnier as it heats slightly – which makes it much easier to pour out. Believe me, you will thank me for this step.

So, once the syrup, dextrose and water are in a saucepan and heating away, stir them until sugar dissolves (mine still looked a bit cloudy but wasn’t getting any clearer so I just let it go to the next stage: ). Allow the mixture to come to the boil, reduce the heat so that it is bubbling away by itself and insert the candy thermometer. Let the mixture boil until the candy thermometer shows 120 C (250 F).

While this is happening, you need to prepare the cream and evaporated milk by heating them in a separate saucepan- they need to be warm, but don’t let them boil. Have your butter ready as well.

When the sugar mixture hits 120C, it’s time to tip in the heated cream/evaporated milk mixture and the butter. The temperature will decrease- relax, this is normal.

Pull up a chair because you need to stir constantly from now on. Keep the candy thermometer in the mixture and keep stirring (while it bubbles away) until the thermometer hits 118 C (245 F). The recipe actually said 244, but let’s not split hairs here. It should be a lovely golden caramelly colour. If you want a firmer, chewier caramel, cook the candy until the temperature comes up to 120-125C. 

Pour into your prepared pan. Don’t scrape it from the bottom of the saucepan (no idea why not, the recipe says so).

Now the hard part. Leave the caramel alone. Overnight. Don’t worry, there is probably some left in the pan that you can scrape out and taste. If you are like me, you’ll probably get impatient and try and cut it early, but it really does need ages to set at room temperature and it apparently gets a smoother, silkier texture if left to cool and set at room temperature rather than in the fridge.

To cut it, tip it face down onto some baking paper, peel the foil away from the bottom (unless you are like me and didn’t grease the foil enough, in which case cut the foil away), and then cut into whatever size pieces you like using a greased knife.

If you cooked to 118C, your caramels will be very soft and you need to wrap them to keep their shape. They look very cute when wrapped (I just used baking paper in two stages- see below).

Wrap a strip as wide as the caramel around it once. Then place on a rectangle piece, wrap around, and twist the ends:

Voila!

But if you plan to eat them straight away, don’t care about shape, or you made them firmer, you don’t need to worry about this step (which I will admit is a tad fiddly)- just store them in an airtight container. The recipe says they will be good for two weeks, but I’ll have to get back to you on that one. I found with previous glucose candy experiments that it doesn’t last as well as sugar candy.

My only other comment is that if you are making this for yourself, you might want to halve the recipe. There is no way I would want to eat this much caramel in two weeks by myself, as delicious as it is.

Enjoy!

Pesticides, hormones and antibiotics, oh my

If you’ve already read part 1 of this series, you'll know I’m on a quest to find out whether I have to spend the bucks and buy organic if I want to be not only sugar free but healthy. It’s going to cost us 33% more. We don’t have 33% more. But I’m going to try and answer the question anyway and then work out what to do if the answer is yes- maybe sell my firstborn or start making all our clothes myself out of bin liners or something.

By the way I missed an obvious question in my last post when I was considering whether organic means ‘organic’ or not. I decided yes, as long as it’s certified (otherwise any old crap can be packaged as organic, since no one checks it). But the other question is whether, in this environmentally polluted world, any food can ever be completely organic (e.g., pesticide free)? So here’s the quick answer: no. In 2003, Australian testing showed that around 15% of organic produce had pesticide residue. And this US study looked at residue in organic and inorganic produce and found that over 20% of organic produce had residual pesticides. Around half of these were banned pesticides which were sprayed long ago but persist in the soil (such as DDT). On the other hand, pesticides were found in over 70% of regular, run-of-the-mill produce.

Which brings us nicely to today’s topic- how many nasties does your in-/non-/un-organic food contain and will these do us any harm if we eat them?

To get us started, here’s a quick run-down on hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and genetic modification used in producing inorganic Australian fresh food.  In case you are wondering, this information is unlikely to apply to any other country- policies and practices in farming, preparing, packaging and transporting, not to mention testing and policing standards, vary hugely. So much for globalisation. But anyway, here’s how we do it in Oz:

Dairy: Australian dairy cattle are not treated with hormones. Dairy cows can be treated with antibiotics if these are prescribed by a vet for the cow’s health, but there is a moratorium on the milk from that cow while on the antibiotics and for a period afterwards. 

Meat: Australian beef and pork may be treated with hormones such as oestrogen or testosterone to increase growth (note that Coles non organic beef is hormone free- thanks Curtis!). Australian chicken and lamb are hormone free. 

Antibiotics are used in all meat industries to treat disease in animals. However, red meat industries are required to withhold animals treated with antibiotics from the market for a defined period, and the Australian Government's National Residue Survey monitors our meat. The chicken industry have demonstrated that no antibiotics remain in chicken meat.

Fruit and vegetables: Australian non organic produce may contain any of 300 pesticides registered for use in Australia. Testing of produce for residual pesticides is conducted by the industry itself, and by state and federal government. Industry tests are the most comprehensive (but not the most independent). State testing is highly variable- ACT and Tasmania do not test for pesticide residue, while Victoria tests locally produced fruit and veg, but not fruit and veg imported from overseas. The Commonwealth government tests apples, pears, blueberries and onions for local consumption, as well as fruit and veg going overseas. 

Wheat: Australian wheat is treated with pesticides and may be genetically modified. The level of pesticides remaining in wheat for consumption is regulated and monitored by the Australian National Residue Survey. All genetically modified foods have to be declared on the labels of Australian foods.

Huh, better than I expected, in some ways. On this analysis, pesticides appear to be the biggest concern for the nonorganic shopper, especially in the categories of fruit, veg, wheat products, and (since animals eat pesticide-treated products) meat and dairy. In other words, all of the above. Darn it.  

Maybe pesticides are like salt, though: a little just adds an extra tang, a lot is unhealthy? This website gives a calculator for the number of servings of a fruit or vegetable that you can eat without ingesting an unsafe level of pesticides.  Apparently, I could safely eat 529 servings of apples, 10,877 servings of lettuce, or 7379 servings of potatoes in a single day without the pesticide residue having an effect on my body. The numbers are based on the No-Observable Adverse Effect level, which is the highest dose that fails to kill or observably harm experimental animals. It’s not really that reassuring, to be honest. And there’s very little published research out there examining cumulative effects, the combined effects of multiple pesticides, or the possible long term impact of even tiny doses on human body systems. We still have so much to learn. The alarm about the harmful effects of BPA, which was commonly used in plastics since 1957, was only sounded in 2007. A chemical like BPA is different to a pesticide, but can we really say that we know all there is to know about the man-made chemicals we are potentially putting into our bodies via what we eat, even if they have been used for decades? Short answer: heck no

Importantly, especially for someone who is relatively convinced but hasn’t found her food budget increase magically while she was researching this (ie, me), some foods may be more worth the extra dollars to buy organic than others. The US Environmental Working Group (a non-profit organisation) provide a ‘Shoppers Guide to Pesticides’ which they developed based on government data on pesticide levels in foods. They list twelve fruits and veg which were found to have the worst levels of pesticides (and they recommend to buy these organic) plus fifteen which are low in pesticides. Nice. Innocent old no-calorie celery was the worst on this list. Well shucky darn.

I couldn’t find a similar list for Australia so I made my own, below. I’ve done this using the results of the Victorian Produce Monitoring Program report from (2008/9). Some caveats for the below: it is based on the VPMP's testing of limited samples (sometimes as little as one sample) of Victorian grown produce. (I did look in other states but I couldn’t find individual data about produce). I’ve interpreted the data to show ‘low’, ‘moderate’ and ‘high’ risks of pesticides based on the proportion of fruit and veg samples which showed pesticides in these tests, plus I’ve highlighted (in bold) those which had at least one sample fall above the level considered safe in Australia.

 

Low risk of pesticides  No samples showed detectible levels of pesticides	Moderate risk of pesticides Less than 50% of samples contained pesticides	High risk of pesticides More than 50% of samples contained pesticides
Fruit: Blueberries Tangelos Honeydew Rockmelon Watermelon Dates Olives Persimmon Kiwifruit Pomegranate Veg: Asparagus Beans Broccolini Brussels sprouts Capsicum Chilli Eggplant Mushrooms Sweet corn Pumpkin Bok choy Lettuce Salad mix Silverbeet Garlic Onions Fennel Fennel leaves Beetroot Potatoes	Fruit: Plums Grapefruit Oranges Veg: Artichokes Celery Cabbage Cauliflower Cucumber Broccoli Tomatoes Peas Squash Zucchini	Fruit: Boysenberries Mandarin Pears Nectarines Apples Strawberries Apricots Peaches Grapes Lemons Blackberries Raspberries Veg: Carrots Spinach Horseradish Celeriac Parsnips

I’m going to summarise this all in my final post in this series (if I ever get there). I’ll have to leave answering the final organic question- does it taste better and is it better for you- until then.

I'm off to enjoy a nonorganic apple before all of the above sinks in fully...

Off the [pesticide] grid? To organic or not to organic

This sugar-free thing is going pretty well. I can even report that I survived a child’s birthday party this week without eating anything sweet. The Allens Party Mix was calling to me- oh those honey bears- but I didn’t heed its call. So with that mostly under control for now, I wanted to turn my attention to other ways of being healthier in what my family and I eat.

So, time to face the organic question- should I start to buy organic food wherever possible? I already buy it in dribs and drabs. But I’ll be honest and say up front that I’m organically clueless. I’ve got very little idea about what it means in terms of the way food is grown or processed (beyond not including pesticides), let alone the potential added-value of organic in terms of health and nutrition. But I do know that it’s more expensive- and my husband and I have just had our mortgage approved on our first home, so our pockets are not exactly going to be lined with cash. So, cost and value for money are the two things I have to be convinced on.

When I started this post I thought I would be able to work this out and come up with a simple answer in a single post, but alas it turns out to be more complicated, and I turn out to be more long-winded in summarising it, than I would like. So it will be a mini-series instead. I’m starting with the costs today, and I’ll also look at the claims about organic food which I’ll then break down in more detail in future posts. Sound like a good plan? Ok then.

To costs. I know organic is more expensive, but how much are we talking about if I were to switch most of my normal shopping over to organic? I’ve done a direct cost comparison using things that I would normally buy. I’m using online prices, which should give me a reasonable estimate of the costs (and more importantly, the cost differences) to be going on with.

.

So here's a trolley's worth in terms of organic and non-organic (unorganic?) costs. I’ve tried to make these fair comparisons by shopping at the same store (mostly Coles online) for the organic vs the nonorganic item (so that price differences don't just reflect a difference across stores). I know there are other places to buy organic meat and veges but it's hard then to compare fairly to non-organic. For things like bread, yoghurt, cheese etc where there are lots of non organic brands available (with different prices), I’ve used the brand I usually buy as the non organic comparison, so that I get a good idea of the difference compared to my normal shopping.

	Organic price	Non organic price	Difference if I buy organic
Apples Royal Gala 1kg	$5.98	$4.48	+ 1.50
Avocado 1 whole	$2.98	$2.28	+ 0.70
Broccoli 500g	$5.98	$1.99	+ 3.99
Carrots- 1kg	$3.48	$2.28	+ 1.20
Potatoes- 2kg brushed	$5.98	$4.66	+ 1.32
Zucchini 500g	$4.98	$1.49	+ 3.49
Pumpkin 1kg	$2.98	$0.78	+ 2.20
Tomatoes- 400g tin	$1.57	$0.8	+ 0.77
Chickpeas  400g tin	$1.70	$1.07	+ 0.63
Lentils 400g tin	$1.87	$1.07	+ 0.80
Milk 2L	$5.19	$2.99	+ 2.20
Yogurt natural 1kg	$5.61	$5.07	+ 0.54
Cheese 250g	$8.01	$5.08	+ 2.93
Weetbix 750g	$5.07	$4.5	+ 0.57
Olive oil 500ml	$7.66	$6.15	+ 1.51
Bread 1 loaf	$5.49	$4.48	+ 1.01
Penne pasta 500g	$2.45	$1.00	+ 1.45
Instant coffee 250g	$20.72	$21.8	-1.08
Chicken breast fillets 500g	$15.00	$8.37	+ 6.63
Sausages 450g	$5.99	$5.99	0
Lamb loin chops 460g	$12.19	$11.49	+ 0.70
Beef mince 540g	$8.99	$6.96	+ 2.03
Rice cakes 1 pack	$1.81	$1.66	+ 0.15
Baby fruit jar 110g	$1.45	$1.24	+ 0.21
Total trolley cost	$143.13	$107.67	+ $35.45

So there you go. As expected, organic goods are nearly always more expensive. Except in the case of coffee where I must be buying an expensive brand of non organic. Anyway, the total cost is just over $35 more for this trolley’s worth, which doesn’t sound too horrendous. Although if I look at it another way, I’m actually paying about 33% more for my organic trolley. Hmm...Well, added cost is one thing, but it might be well worth it if it’s 33% healthier for me. I guess.

Here’s the low down for those (like me) who are not particularly au fait with what organic means. The three major claims about organic food that I want to investigate:

1. That foods that are sold as ‘organic’ are produced sans artificial pesticides (crops), and growth hormones or antibiotics (meats). 

2. That the pesticides et al used in producing non organic food can cause untold harm to our health because they remain in the food that we eat. 

3. That, because of the above and because of the more traditional and less mass produced way of making them, organic foods are more nutritious. Specifically that they contain more vitamins and minerals, and better flavour. For example, these guys specifically claim that:

The benefits of organic food are now well recognized with research findings that confirm that organic foods have far higher nutrient, vitamin and mineral content, as well as not having harmful pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and artificial fertilizer chemicals that are present in non-organic products. Organic food is especially higher in vitamin C, antioxidants, iron, phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium.

There are also a bunch of claims about organic food being better for the environment, and although I don’t want to be dismissive of these which are very important, in the interests of keeping this blog focussed, I’m primarily concerned about the health and nutrition benefits. But stay tuned for my second blog ‘Off the griddle’ where I not only drop sugar but anything produced or cooked using electricity. Just kidding. (Although that does sound an intriguing idea. Feel free to use it.)

To round off this first part of the miniseries, let’s take just the first claim. There isn’t much that I can quibble about there, really. If organic means no pesticides, then by golly organic food won’t have pesticides in it. Whether this leads to any benefit for our bodies comes down to claims 2 and 3. 

But since I do love to quibble (and also the word quibble) I will point out that several countries, including Australia, have had organic scandals, with organic foods turning out to be just plain vanilla, or worse. For example in the USA in 2007 a not-so-organic milk was defrocked, similarly in the UK in 2009 a man was jailed for repackaging ordinary foods and selling them as organic. Then in Germany in 2002, organic chicken products were found to be laced with a cancer-causing pesticide after the chickens ate contaminated grain. So with both criminal falsification and accidental contamination to deal with, you may not always be getting what you paid 33% more for.

In Australia there is a national standard for organic certification, meaning that strict tests are applied to goods in order for them to earn the tick of organic approval shown on the product. But the certification process is voluntary meaning that you technically can sell something as organic when it is anything but- if it's not certified, then no one is checking. And companies that are certified obviously have to pay for the certification, meaning that you probably pay even more for certified organic goods. So you can either risk it with uncertified organic, or pay for certified, your choice.

It feels wrong to end here without any conclusion on the organic question but trust me, breaking down claims 2 and 3 is a mega-post all of it's own. So, here endeth part 1, and part 2 will be coming soon to a computer screen near you.