For Three Years, Every Bite Organic
· Sign In to E-Mail or Save This
· Print
· Reprints
· Share
oLinkedin
oDigg
oFacebook
oMixx
oYahoo! Buzz
oPermalink
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Published: December 1, 2008
Fruits, vegetables and animals can be 100 percent organic. What about people?
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Stuart Bradford
Well
How hard is it to eat organic food all the time? Join the discussion.
Go to Well »
Science Times
This week in Science Times, the early Earth, a health halo effect, doctors
behaving badly, carbon sleuths and new ways to defend against esophageal cancer.
Go to Science Times »
In a fascinating experiment — on himself — Dr. Alan Greene, a pediatrician and
author in Danville, Calif., decided to find out. For the last three years, Dr.
Greene has eaten nothing but organic foods, whether he’s cooking at home,
dining out or snacking on the road.
He chose three years as a goal because that was the amount of time it took to
have a breeding animal certified organic by the Department of Agriculture.
While food growers comply with organic regulations every day, Dr. Greene
wondered whether a person could meet the same standards.
It hasn’t been easy.
“This isn’t a way of eating I could recommend to anybody else because it’s so
far off the beaten food grid,” said Dr. Greene, 49, the founder of a popular
Web site about children’s health, drgreene.com. “It was much more challenging
than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be tough. There were
definitely days where there was nothing I could find that was organic.”
Other writers have ventured off the traditional food grid, notably Barbara
Kingsolver in “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral” and Michael Pollan in “The
Omnivore’s Dilemma.” But what makes Dr. Greene’s experiment remarkable is the
length of time he devoted to it, and his effort to incorporate organic eating
into the routines of everyday living. His findings offer new insight into the
challenges facing the organic food industry and those of us who want to
patronize it.
Organic farmers don’t use conventional methods to fertilize the soil, control
weeds and pests, or prevent disease in livestock.
Organic methods often lead to higher costs, and consumers can pay twice as much
for organic foods as for conventional products. Last week, the financial advice
Web site SmartMoney.com reported that to feed eight people an organic meal of
traditional Thanksgiving foods, a shopper would pay $295.36 — a premium of
$126.35, or 75 percent, over a nonorganic holiday spread.
To cut back on the cost of an organic diet, Dr. Greene said he had to cut back
on meat. “Whenever you go up the food chain, the costs pile up,” he said. “If
you don’t eat meat at every meal, if meat becomes more of a side dish than a
centerpiece, you can fill the plate with healthy organic food for about the
same price.”
Questions remain about whether organic foods are really better for you. The
data are mixed. This fall, researchers from the University of Copenhagen
reported on a two-year experiment in which they grew carrots, kale, peas,
potatoes and apples using both organic and conventional growing methods. The
researchers found that the growing methods made no difference in the nutrients
in the crops or the levels of nutrients retained by rats that ate them,
according to the study, published in The Journal of the Science of Food and
Agriculture.
But other research suggests that organic foods do contain more of certain
nutrients — almost twice as many, in the case of organic tomatoes studied for a
2007 report in The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Dr. Greene said he was inspired to go all-organic after talking to a dairy
farmer who noted that livestock got sick less after a switch to organic
practices. He wondered if becoming 100 percent organic might improve his own
health.
Three years later, he says he has more energy and wakes up earlier. As a
pediatrician regularly exposed to sick children, he was accustomed to several
illnesses a year. Now, he says, he is rarely ill. His urine is a brighter
yellow, a sign that he is ingesting more vitamins and nutrients.
At home, he said, the organic routine was relatively easy. Organic food is
widely available, not just at stores like Whole Foods but at traditional
supermarkets. He also shopped at farmer’s markets and joined a local
community-supported agriculture group, or C.S.A. Because he bought less meat,
the costs tended to balance out. And his family (two of his four children still
live at home) largely went along with the experiment.
On the road, though, life was more challenging. In corporate cafeterias and
convenience stores, he looked for stickers that began with the number 9 to
signify organic; stickers on conventionally grown produce begin with 4.
When dining out, he called ahead; high-end restaurants were willing to
accommodate his all-organic request. He also found a few lines of organic
backpacking food that he could carry with him.
Dr. Greene reached the three-year milestone in October, but his diet is still
organic. He hasn’t decided whether to keep going full tilt or to ease up in the
interest of cost and convenience. In his latest book, “Raising Baby Green: The
Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth and Baby Care” (Jossey-Bass), he
advocates a “strategic” approach, urging parents to insist on organic versions
of a few main foods, like milk, potatoes, apples and baby food.
The biggest surprise of the whole experience, he says, was that many people
still don’t know what “organic” means.
“It’s surprising to me how few people know that organic means without
pesticides, antibiotics or hormones,” he said. “In stores or restaurants around
the country, I would ask, ‘Do you have anything organic?’ Half the time they
would say, ‘Do you mean vegetarian?’ ”
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________
For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please
visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
[email protected]
http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins
free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
