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!

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.

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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.

Boring necessity or faithful friend?

I promised it and here it is: a fibre-themed post. I know, I know, when it comes to nutrition, you can’t get any more boring than fibre. But trust me, like the Transformers, there’s more to fibre than meets the eye. Plus this is a short post, so it's easy to digest.

Digest, geddit?

Ahem. Anyway, I’m not historically a fibre-phile. I hardly ever ate lentils or wholemeal pasta (brown pasta, eurgh). I’ve often been baffled as to how to include veges in the meals I made for the family (the answer: microwave some frozen peas!). And even though I knew that yes, fibre is good for me yada yada, I wasn’t convinced it was as groundbreaking and important as nutritionists would have me believe. So I said, ‘yeah ok’ and then I switched to wholemeal bread. What, that wasn’t enough?

With my new hat on as (very) amateur armchair nutritionist, here’s what I've learned- fibre is a gem when it comes to nutrition and health. But that’s the conclusion, and I have to start at the beginning. Before I start though, I have to warn that once you start reading up about this sort of topic you’ll come across some definitely undelicious sounding words, like ‘gastric emptying’, and ‘fermentation in the intestine’. I’ll try to keep these at a minimum in my short-cut explanation of things below. Excuse me if I go too far in the other direction and refer to your ‘tummy tum’. I have a one year old at home so it’s hard to judge sometimes.

Firstly, fibre comes in soluble and insoluble forms, and they don’t have the same effect on the body. Insoluble fibre adds bulk to what you eat, which fills your stomach up quickly, making you feel physically full (I’ve explained more about fullness in my previous post). Insoluble fibre also speeds the movement of food through the digestive system. It’s the fibre that you associate with, um, number twos. It’s the fibre that Darren Hinch wanted us to try in the All Bran challenge.

Soluble fibre is the fibre that is...soluble. Well, technically it absorbs water rather than being ‘dissolved’ in it, and it becomes viscous –gooey or gummy according to my thesaurus, yuck – and this not only helps add a physical feeling of fullness to your tum, but also slows the digestive process, meaning that your stomach doesn’t get empty quickly. (Yep, I mean gastric emptying is delayed- gross!).

But other than slowing things down, digestion-wise, soluble fibre seems to be the good fairy of many body processes which affect our health. It slows the absorption of glucose, which means that you don’t get a sudden blood sugar spike from eating carbohydrates if you also eat soluble fibre. It lowers cholesterol and does good things to your intestines. Things you probably don’t want to know about, but which you should be grateful for all the same. New research suggests that fibre plays a positive role in your immune system, somehow changing inflamed immune cells into anti-inflammatory, healing cells. So instead of being sick little cell-patients, they have been inspired by fibre to become  tiny cell-doctors. How cute. (I'm glad it doesn't take them 7 years of training though. But then, I wouldn't want under-qualified cells running around my immune system either). Well anyway, here’s the news report version of this study which is far more understandable than the original research article.

In other words, eat more soluble fibre, you won’t regret it.

If you look for fibre on the nutrition information panels of foods, you will notice that soluble and insoluble fibres are lumped together under ‘dietary fibre’. This is because the dietary reference intake for fibre (25-30 grams per day) is for both types combined. On the one hand, this makes sense because many foods that are high in fibre include both insoluble and soluble, so you may as well count both together. On the other hand, lots of foods that I think of as ‘high fibre’ are biased toward one type of fibre, with hardly any of the other. If you are eating wholemeal bread to increase your fibre intake, you are increasing your insoluble fibre intake, and getting very little soluble (0.08 grams per slice). An apple has both, but more soluble (2.3 grams) than insoluble (1.6 grams). If you’re interested, here’s a website with a handy breakdown of the soluble and insoluble fibres in different types of food. Thanks internet! 

So, fibre. I’m sorry I ignored you. You seemed boring, but you are not. Let’s be friends.

I’m off to Tasmania tomorrow. The Apple Isle- how appropriate! Also home of Lactos, wondrous purveyors of delicious cheese. Oh and also family. Point is, I won’t be blogging for a few days :)

Cleaning house

I spent this morning cleaning out our ‘snack shelf’. I needed to do this anyway- the shelf is too high for me to reach to the back and there are things in there of which I know not- the ghost of snack attacks past. I found some candy canes from Christmas two years ago. They were probably still good (do candy canes go off?) but I chucked them out anyway, along with

•         Two packs of ‘Double-D’ candies. Completely disgusting anyway, but also made with Isomalt, a low calorie sweetener which acts body just like sugar with approximately 50% glucose and 50% fructose.

•         Two packs of 'Sultry Sally' 97% fat free potato chips (salt and vinegar). Most flavoured chips have sugar in the flavouring so I was surprised and a little excited to see that these used dextrose (glucose). Then I realised that they a) contain MSG for no good reason and b) taste like cardboard. So, I chucked them.

•         Three individual snack packs of apricots in juice by Weight Watchers. No sugar added and only half a WW Point each (I think under the new ‘Pro Points’ system they are worth 0 points). But, sweetened with cyclamate and saccharin, artificial sweeteners which don’t act like fructose in the body (as far as we know) but which I can probably do without anyway. 

Goodbye ‘diet’ snacks. You won’t be missed. My snacks now (in case you are wondering) are things like popcorn, plain potato chips, nuts, rice crackers etc- as well as fruit, cheese, etc. Yummier and healthier snacks than the manufactured crap I used to eat in the name of my diet. I haven’t felt the need to snack as much as usual, anyway, which is great news.

I’ve also had a good look the snacks I give my son, who is 12 months old. I must admit that my attention previously was on the salt, rather than the sugar. Babies' kidneys can’t cope with salt in the same way that adults do, and it is dangerous for them to have large amounts. The Food Standard Agency, UK says that toddlers 1-3 years can cope with 2 grams of salt per day (0.8 grams of sodium) max.

So that's salt, but I'm off the sugar grid, remember? So, of course I'm now interested in sugar for toddlers. It's hard to find recommendations about the daily intake of sugar for this age group. The 'Toddler Healthy Food Pyramid' on Kidspot doesn't even mention sugars. And the information on the Raising Children Network site is also sparse in this respect. Perhaps we are all pretending that the only sugars littlies will come across are the natural ones in fruit and vegetables, and the lactose in milk and dairy? Please. If you expect toddlers to have no foods with added sugar, then say NO FOODS WITH ADDED SUGAR. 

Well anyway, what’s in our cupboard? My son is still at the age where he eats plain rice cakes enthusiastically, and I haven't ventured far into commercial snack packs or bars so far. The ones I had bought, though, included a few hidden nasties from a sugar perspective. Rafferty’s Garden Fruit Snack Bars (recommended for 12 months plus), a former favourite, turned out to be 40% sugar. Some of this is the (dried and concentrated) apple paste, but if you look at the ridiculously long list of ingredients that these bars contain, sugar is listed twice (added to the ‘fruit paste’ and to the biscuity outer layer of the bar). At 6.5 grams of sugar per serve, baby gets about 1.5 teaspoons of sugar in a tiny bar. Yum! 

Sultanas are another suspect food in terms of sugar, unfortunately. When someone opened a container of sultanas at mothers group this week, the babies all channeled their inner locust, swarming over and devouring as many as they could. I don't think I've met a baby of this age who doesn't love their 'tanas. Sultanas are 100% fruit, of course, but with all the water removed they are 80% sugar instead of the 20% sugar of the grape that made them. The usual story with fruit is that the fibre content, as well as the overall bulk (mostly water) of fruit limits the damage from the fructose that they contain. It fills you up, naturally limiting the amount of fructose you can eat in one sitting. You might eat a medium orange (about 7 grams of fructose), you might even find room for two (14 g fructose), but you probably wouldn't want your dinner afterwards. Compare how easily you (or your one year old) can eat a 40g packet of sultanas (about 13g fructose) and still find room for more. 

I'm not binning the 'tanas, in case you were wondering. We're just having them as an occasional treat instead of an everyday snack. The Rafferty's bars are gone though. Now we need some new ideas before the rice cakes get old- I'm always happy to hear new ideas for toddler snacks, so please feel free to post your suggestions below. [Thanks to those who pointed out that the comments weren't working for everyone- I had it on the wrong settings. I've fixed this now, so it should be easy to comment if you want to]. 

All in all, a good day's work. I know I'm not going to be able to keep my baby off the sugar grid at all times, but at least now I’ve made sure the snackables for both of us are as healthy as possible :)