Article: A Texas Perspective: Why You Better Start Eating Organic Food

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A Texas Perspective: Why You Better Start Eating Organic Food

 

From The Fort Worth Weekly

 

January 26, 2005

Threats to our food supply are pervasive but don't stop eating yet.

 

BY WENDY LYONS SUNSHINE

Photos by Scott Latham

 

Amy McNutt was shocked by what she saw in strawberry fields in

California.

 

" we went organic to have some kind of integrity. "

 

I stare at my plate. Grilled fish is the main attraction < no fatty

sauces,

cholesterol-laden ribs, or potentially mad-cow-carrying beef for me.

I¹ve

skipped the smothered fries and gone with steamed broccoli. Fresh green

salad is sprinkled with toasted croutons and drizzled with vinaigrette.

The

glass glistens full of water and lemon, not sugary soda.

 

The restaurant's white tablecloths and wood paneling are squeaky clean <

heck, all the patrons are wearing shoes and there's nary a mustard smear

on

the servers " tunics. Even the dessert cart is nowhere in sight. What <

other

than the eventual check at the end of the meal < could possibly be

unhealthy

here?

 

Unfortunately, as I learned in the course of researching this story, the

answer is: plenty. Despite USDA grading, FDA guidance, state

environmental

rules, city health inspectors, and consumer groups, the truth is that

eating

< whether at a restaurant or in the comfort of your own home < is a

surprisingly risky business these days.

 

Start with the fish. Let's hope it didn¹t come from Texas waters < or

from

ocean waters, either, unless you have an appetite for brain-damaging

methyl

mercury. Was the broccoli field fertilized with hazardous mining wastes?

I

have no way of knowing. The fresh green leaf lettuce? Probably has

rocket

fuel running through its leafy veins. Croutons? To make them crunchy and

last longer, they're baked with heart-choking transfats. The water in my

glass? Fortunately, it doesn¹t come from the Midwest, where weedkillers

have

contaminated the water supply of more than seven million people. Or from

California, where a banned pesticide contaminates the tap water of

another

million people. But my drink might just contain common, cell-damaging

byproducts of chlorination, including a powerful cancer-causing chemical

known as Mutagen X. No kidding.

 

Unless your diet is totally and utterly organic < so you know what

you're

eating, where it was grown, how it was raised, what it was nourished on,

watered with, fattened with, and cooked in < it's increasingly hard to

keep

toxins off your plate and out of your body. Even then, some chemical

residues have become so ubiquitous that there's no avoiding them. In the

21st century, it seems, the last century's " better living through

chemistry "

mantra is coming back to bite us.

 

A SEED coalition display reveals high mercury contamination in many

Texas

lakes.

 

At her Magnolia Avenue restaurant, young filmmaker-turned-restaurateur

Amy

McNutt is endlessly busy < overseeing meals, handling paperwork, bussing

tables. But she sat down in her Spiral Diner long enough to explain what

triggered her interest in how food is grown, and why she buys organic

whenever possible.

 

A vegetarian at age 19, she was living in central California, close to

crop

land. What she saw there shocked her. " These guys were out in the field

wearing spaceship suits while they were spraying pesticides, " said

McNutt.

³It was so toxic that they couldn¹t even be in a field of strawberries

without a self-contained suit and a breathing apparatus.²

 

The haz-mat vision so unnerved McNutt that she immediately changed her

buying habits. " I was more concerned about people out there working in

it

every day than in my own health " admitted the native Texan. " Migrant

workers

don¹t even get those suits. " She began shopping at a local organic food

market for produce that had been intentionally raised without the help

of

pesticides, herbicides, or synthetic fertilizers.

 

Research confirms that McNutt was right to be concerned. The dangers of

pesticides to farmworkers have been documented for years. But more and

more

research shows that even the amounts that reach the average consumer can

be

dangerous. Researchers in Washington state, for instance, found recently

that pre-schoolers who ate ordinary supermarket foods had pesticide

levels

six times higher than youngsters whose diet was restricted to organic

products. And four out of five common pesticides < used on the vast

majority

of non-organic produce sold in American grocery stores < have the

potential

to cause cancer or other health problems.

 

A doctor at Stanford University School of Medicine discovered that

people

who were exposed to common pesticides < the kinds of insecticides,

herbicides, weed killers, and fungicides used both by farmers and many

homeowners < were twice as likely to suffer from Parkinson's later in

life.

And in 2003, a British medical journal study found a striking

correlation

between pesticide residues and the occurrence of breast cancer. Women

who

were battling cancer had five to nine times more detectible pesticides

in

their bloodstreams than those who were cancer-free.

 

In another recent study, Michigan researchers found that girls between 7

and 11 years old who had been exposed to DDE (dichlorodiphenyl

dichloroethene, a metabolite of the pesticide DDT) grew more slowly than

did

those without the exposure. What makes this scary is that DDT was banned

from use in the 1970s. Pesticide residues are so persistent that they

can

remain in the soil for decades. In fact, the researchers remarked that

because of DDT¹s once-widespread use, it was difficult to find children

for

the study who had not been exposed.

 

The health risks of pesticides are especially significant for growing

children. In a report called ³Trouble on the Farm,² The Natural

Resources

Defense Council pointed out that farm kids are exposed to highly toxic

agricultural pesticides just about everywhere < in the air, in their

water,

on their food, in dust tracked in from the field on shoes < but that

kids

who are simply eating contaminated food are also vulnerable. Children¹s

low

body weight makes their exposure proportionally greater, and their

developing bodies are much more vulnerable to disruption by outside

toxins.

 

Paul Huston warns fellow anglers of the dangers of mercury in

Texas-caught

fish.

 

Traditional farmers and gardeners know that keeping the bugs and weeds

away

is only part of the equation for getting good yield from the soil. The

other

major factor is fertilizer. It must have seemed like the height of

recycling

(also known in business circles as making money off something that used

to

cost money), therefore, when some farmers started spreading sewage

sludge on

crop fields and pastures as a fertilizer. Hey < the sludge is rich in

nutrients and water, and putting it back on the land means it doesn¹t

have

to be otherwise cleaned up. An innovative North Carolina farm, for

example,

uses high-strength wastewater from its 4,000 pigs to grow greenhouse

tomatoes.

 

Soil can neutralize a certain amount of toxins. But sludge is sometimes

chock full of heavy metals (like mercury, lead, or cadmium); industrial

chemicals (like polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs); or harmful

bacteria. When heavily contaminated sludge is applied to land, local

plants

and animals, not to mention the groundwater beneath < can absorb the bad

stuff. Crops can be affected < but cows, higher up on the food chain,

are

even more likely to accumulate toxins from their grazing.

 

Farmers are always expected to be mindful when applying sludge or

conventional fertilizers. Even when they are, however, they may not know

just how unhealthy the stuff they¹re spreading is.

 

A few years ago, a Seattle Times reporter described how farmers

unwittingly

spread toxins on their fields because of poor fertilizer labeling. In

his

book, Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, a Global

Industry,

and a Toxic Secret, Duff Wilson exposed the lack of oversight on

fertilizer

manufacturing. Instead of paying for proper disposal of hazardous mining

wastes, mining companies had discovered that it was cheaper to repackage

the

waste and sell it as fertilizer. The product label doesn¹t mention when

hazards like lead, mercury, dioxins, cadmium, and arsenic are included

at no

additional cost. Since Wilson's reports came out, Washington state has

implemented strict disclosure rules for fertilizers. Texas is one of a

handful of other states beginning to limit toxins in fertilizer.

 

But calls to local stores indicated that at least one such toxin-laced

product is still on shelves here.

 

Texas isn't doing well at all in regulating another poison that can have

serious effects on food contamination. Mercury starts out in places like

power plants, gets spewed out into the air, lands in and contaminates

the

water, and then gets served up < to the unwary < in fish. Right now,

Texas

leads the nation in the amount of airborne mercury being blown out into

our

skies.

 

" When we look at the mercury emissions in the air pollution category,

we've

seen a rise for the past three years, " said Karen Hadden, clean air

coordinator for the SEED Coalition in Austin, a Texas-based group

supporting

clean air and clean energy. The latest government data show that more

than

9,800 pounds of mercury blew into Texas air in 2002.

 

A pervasive industrial material, mercury is used in a host of products

from

fluorescent light bulbs to batteries to dental fillings. The danger

begins

when mercury flies uncontrolled into the air as a by-product of waste

incineration, cement manufacturing, and coal-fired power generation. The

stray mercury settles on land and water, where it gets absorbed by tiny

bacteria and converted into a more toxic form, methyl mercury. These

mercury-laden bacteria are eaten by tiny fish, which in turn get eaten

by

larger fish.

 

Methyl mercury is stable and doesn't disappear magically. It remains

stored

in the cells of fish that consume it. As they feed and grow, the larger

fish

< those higher up in the food chain < become the most heavily

contaminated.

 

Initially, effects may not be noticeable, but as they become more

contaminated, fish display nervous system and reproductive damage. Even

a

minute quantity of exposure will affect a fish¹s coordination and make

it

easier prey, said Dr. David Marrack, a retired Houston physician and

former

environmental researcher. And that¹s bad news for the animals at the top

of

the food chain: us.

 

Mercury's neurotoxic effects take place at the cellular level, Marrack

explained. We may not recognize they're occurring until so many nerve

cells

are damaged that behavior and learning ability are obviously affected.

The

effects of mercury poisoning are wide-ranging, from memory loss to numb

fingers to reduced fertility.

 

" Every atom of mercury is potentially poisonous. Period, " Marrack said.

Methyl mercury is especially damaging to human fetuses and infants,

whose

nervous systems are still forming. That's why fish consumption

advisories

issued by the government are strictest for pregnant women.

 

Because of mercury contamination, the Texas Department of Health warns

adults to eat no more than one pound per month of fish caught from B.A.

Steinhagen Reservoir, Sam Rayburn Reservoir, Big Cypress Creek, Toledo

Bend

Reservoir, or Caddo Lake. Health officials recommend that children

consume

half that amount.

 

In 1993, 27 states had mercury advisories for their waters. Within 10

years, that number had shot up to 44. According to a report by the U.S.

Public Interest Research Group called " Fishing for Trouble, "

recreational

fishing across the country is in jeopardy from mercury pollution.

 

Changing your order from Texas-caught catfish to saltwater seafood may

not

help, however. In 2003, a whopping 92 percent of the Atlantic coast and

100

percent of the Gulf coast were under seafood consumption advisories,

according to EPA estimates. Hawaii¹s entire coast was under a similar

warning. The advisory means that scientists recommend people limit the

amount of seafood they eat from those areas.

 

Mercury pollution means that delicacies at the top of the food chain,

like

swordfish and tuna, are the most toxic to humans. People have gotten

mercury

poisoning just by eating a tuna fish sandwich for lunch every day.

There's

nowhere to hide from the problem, either. In the Arctic, remote Inuit

fishermen who dine heavily on seals and whales have been found to have <

by

far < the highest bodily concentrations of mercury ever recorded.

 

Hadden wants Texas to get rid of its worst-in-the-country rating on

mercury

emissions. She points out that modern smokestack technology, available

now,

could capture 90 percent of Texas¹ coal plant mercury before it spews

into

the atmosphere. SEED is part of an alliance of 25 organizations seeking

a

mandate from the Texas Legislature for a 90 percent reduction of

industrial

mercury emissions during the current session.

 

Environmental groups, however, are just one section of the alliance: The

Texas Medical Association is pushing for immediate adoption of tighter

standards. And fishermen themselves are working to get mercury out of

Texas

waters.

 

In Mesquite earlier this month, local groups fighting mercury pollution

manned a booth at the Fishing & Outdoor show. Paul Huston, aquatic

resources

chairman for the Dallas Sierra Club, and his wife Patsy, both avid

anglers,

spent hours at the show < soliciting signatures on EPA petitions and

warning

their fellow fisher-folk that eating Texas fish is dangerous for their

health.

 

One aisle over at the Big Town Expo Center, Sparky Anderson, executive

director of SMART (Sensible Management of Aquatic Resources Team),

explained

that sportsmen are ready to get political about pollution. The groups he

represents, while traditionally loath to hold hands with professed

environmentalists, have joined the alliance working to solve the state¹s

mercury problem.

 

" Anglers are some of the best field scientists there are. They're out on

the lake every day, and they see differences that a state-funded

scientist

observes only four times a year, " said Anderson, who's also a lobbyist

for

the Texas Black Bass Fund. He wants to put fishermen's savvy to use in

writing better laws.

 

Ed Parten, president of Texas Black Bass Unlimited, agreed. " Any time

you

have poor water quality, it's a proven fact, you're going to have poor

fishing, " he said. " Something needs to be done about it. " Parten is a

committed angler who fishes for both pleasure and sport. He competes in

two

dozen fishing tournaments a year and is adamant that Texas fishing has

gotten worse over recent years. Parten pulls plenty of fish out of the

water

in Texas < but he won¹t eat them because of mercury contamination.

 

 

Pamela Cook is marketing director of Whole Foods Market, where you won¹t

find any transfats.

 

Wearing jeans and the Whole Foods' signature green apron, Pamela Cook

explains that her market shouldn¹t be called a health food store.

 

" We never say we are a health food store, " says Cook, marketing director

at

the Arlington location. " That's a public perception. " Still, their

commitment to natural foods is strong. The Austin-based chain carries

organic produce and organically raised meats. And she's particularly

proud

that her store no longer carries any product containing transfats (also

known as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, trans-fatty acids, and

shortenings).

 

Calorie-conscious folks who transferred their allegiance from butter to

margarine years ago have found out more recently that they may have

jumped

from the frying pan into the fire, healthwise, because of transfats,

man-made inventions that have become ubiquitous in processed foods. The

problem is, study after study demonstrates that transfats are more

dangerous

to human health than saturated fats like butter and lard.

 

Not only do they increase bad cholesterol in the bloodstream, but

transfats

suppress the good cholesterol. Harvard researchers found a direct link

between consuming these fats and an increased risk of heart attacks and

concluded that " ... consumers should be aware of the harmful effects " of

transfat products.

 

Transfats have even been linked with increased colon cancer in certain

segments of the older population. A University of Utah study concurred:

" It

seems prudent to avoid consuming partially hydrogenated fats... . "

 

Start reading ingredient labels, and you'll see transfats just about

everywhere. It's nearly impossible to find conventional bakery goods,

ordinary frozen foods, or even children's snacks without them. That¹s

because they extend shelf life. Once I started scanning labels in my

neighborhood supermarkets, I was shocked to find partially hydrogenated

oils

on virtually every aisle. Even many products branded as a " Healthy

Choice "

use them. Most disappointing of all: The whole-grain bread at my

favorite

French restaurant includes them. Quelle horreur.

 

Robert Hutchins, shown here with three of his children, is a

far-from-typical Texas rancher.

 

Forty miles northeast of Dallas, near Greenville, the road to Rehoboth

Ranch turns from asphalt to a rutted gravel lane. The approach,

sheltered by

tight rows of thin pine trees, feels like driving into a bumpy time

machine.

 

A cluster of sturdy low buildings rolls into sight. When his visitor's

car

comes to a stop, ranch owner Robert Hutchins steps forward, extending

his

thick hand in welcome. Although Hutchins is dressed in typical ranching

gear

< denim overalls and jacket, baseball cap, and heavy workboots <

Rehoboth is

not a typical ranch.

 

For one, the scale here is smaller. On these 100 acres, there are no

immense storage bins of grain, no mountains of manure, no thousands of a

single species being readied for feedlots or crammed indoors for easier

processing. Hutchins and his wife, Nancy, are doing something

revolutionary

in the heart of Texas. They¹re raising commercial poultry and livestock

the

way they believe the Creator originally intended: grazing them in small

herds and flocks, exclusively on grass.

 

Hutchins and his visitor step across a muddy yard to survey fields that

are

bright green despite the chilly season. Juvenile goats poke their

flop-eared

heads through the fencing. Next year they will give milk for the family

and

its customers. Hutchins explains he's one of just a handful of farms in

the

state licensed to sell raw unpasteurized goat's milk.

 

Not far from the modest house where Hutchins and his wife live with 11

of

their 12 children, dozens of chickens and roosters mill about in a

moveable

pen, clucking in the bright sunlight, their feathers and red combs vivid

against the grass. A few are roosting inside a contraption with sliding

metal walls. Hutchins explains that it¹s a henhouse on wheels, ready to

follow the flock to the next grassy spot. Farther from the house are

turkeys, and near a group of trees, sheep and the occasional cow graze.

 

Hutchins also sounds a little different from conventional ranchers. When

he

describes Rehoboth's mission, the phrase " optimally nutritious " pops up

time

and again. Sure, Hutchins follows typical organic guidelines. No

synthetic

growth hormones are used to speed young livestock to the slaughterhouse.

(Growth hormone residues are believed to cause children to reach sexual

maturity faster, among other problems.) No antibiotics are pumped into

the

animals, either < though they're typically needed to keep farm livestock

from getting sick in overcrowded conditions. Preventing chemical

contamination is just the beginning of healthy foodstuffs, Hutchins

believes. The rancher is convinced that a natural, low-stress lifestyle

for

the animals is also critical to success.

 

" Our animals spend their entire lives in their natural environment

eating

their natural diet, " says Hutchins, a Navy veteran and former Raytheon

executive. " That's what differentiates grass-fed meat from what is

commercially available and mass produced < even mass-produced organic

meat

that you can find at Whole Foods or Central Market. "

 

Rehoboth Ranch's meat is not certified organic, in part because Hutchins

doesn't want to spend the $1,000-plus annually that certification

requires.

The ranch¹s annual gross is under $200,000. The family now survives on

one-fifth of the six-figure income Hutchins once pulled in working in

the

defense industry.

 

The rancher feels that the certified label is more important for organic

wholesalers seeking supermarket outlets and that it's less important

when

you have a direct relationship with retail customers who know your

operation. Rehoboth sells only from a tiny store on ranch premises and

from

the Texas Meats Supernatural stand in Shed 2 at the Dallas Farmer¹s

Market.

 

Even without the organic label, consumers have responded favorably. They

purchase every last bit of chicken, pork, lamb, beef, turkey, and egg

that

comes off Rehoboth Ranch. There's a waiting list for the fresh goat¹s

milk,

and during this visit, chicken and lamb were entirely sold out.

 

USDA-certified organic livestock are required to be kept free of

antibiotics and synthetic hormones, and their feed must be

uncontaminated.

But Hutchins ups the ante on the government. He argues that

mass-produced

organic meats are still factory farmed and finished in a feed lot. This

unnatural diet stresses the cattle, which changes the texture of the

meat

and leaves it less nutritious.

 

" It's true that organic standards prohibit the use of hormone implants

and

sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotics, but the meat is not optimally

nutritious, " he says. " When you take a beef steer, for example, and put

him

in a feedlot for 120 to 150 days, within 100 days over 80 percent of the

omega-3 essential fatty acid is gone from the meat, and it cannot be

replaced. "

 

Cattle have multiple stomachs designed to slowly ferment their grass

diets.

Feeding them large quantities of grain short-circuits their elaborate

digestive systems, says Hutchins, and as a result, feed lot cattle

suffer

indigestion so much that they are given antacids along with the grain.

 

Beef experts say that, indeed, the use of antacids in cattle is

widespread,

although it has been reduced in recent years, as feedlot operators have

become more sophisticated. The practice does affect the chemistry of the

meat, but beef authorities say the practice is not unhealthy for humans.

Still < who knew you had to be worried about antacids before the steak

arrived?

 

Hutchins points to research showing that meat from grass-fed, pastured

animals is not only free of synthetic hormones, antibiotics, and mad cow

disease, but also has considerable nutritional benefits, including

higher

levels of healthful omega-3 fatty acids, beta-carotene, and vitamin E

than

do conventionally raised meats.

 

Jason Sawyer, assistant professor of beef cattle production at Texas A & M

University, acknowledged that an animal's diet does affect meat's

chemistry.

But Dr. Sawyer thinks the differences between conventionally raised and

grass-fed beef are insignificant.

 

" Beef is never going to provide a high proportion of those [beneficial

chemicals] in a diet, " he said. " If you start out with half of a percent

and

increase it to 1 percent, it's a 100 percent improvement, but it's still

only 1 percent " of the recommended amount.

 

The USDA instituted its organic certification program in response to an

increasingly vocal public concerned about the safety of the country's

food

supply. Health-conscious consumers and food producers around the country

are

keeping a watchful eye out, trying to prevent the certification process

from

being diluted and, in their eyes, made meaningless.

 

Who wants to dilute it? Big agribusiness, which sees terrific

opportunity

in the organics marketplace, and wants to lower the bar for entry. The

USDA

reported that in 2000 < two years before government certification was

even

available < consumers spent over $7.8 billion on organic food. And sales

of

organics continue to grow at a rate of about 20 percent annually,

according

to a recent survey by Whole Foods.

 

Even now, some food producers feel that the government¹s 100-plus-page

organic certification guidelines don't go far enough. Two vocal critics

of

the USDA program are Kristie and Rick Knoll, considered pioneers in the

organic food movement. On their modest 10-acre farm an hour east of San

Francisco, they grow 100 different products. " We went organic to have

some

kind of integrity, and every time we turn around, the guys in the

government

are trying to knock the legs out from under it, " Kristie Knoll said. She

and

her partner don't bother with USDA organic certification, because they

feel

it is too lax. For example, it allows lettuce to be rinsed with

chlorinated

water.

 

Chlorinated water? Yep. That may be a problem, too.

 

So. You read labels, you buy organic, you start noticing whether the

salmon

at the store is farm-raised or wild. And you swear that lips that touch

transfats will never touch yours. Feeling good about yourself, you buy

some

nice organic broccoli, get out your shiniest saucepan, add a little

water at

the sink, and get ready for a nice healthy meal.

 

Aaaagh. Step away from the stove. Toss out the water. And the pot with

it.

 

In the last couple of years, the FDA has become concerned that

perchlorate

(the primary ingredient of rocket fuel, also used in explosives, rubber

manufacturing, and other industrial processes) may be contaminating our

food

supply through irrigation water and bottled waters. Initial field tests

on a

range of products from around the country were released in late 2004.

Results varied wildly.

 

The green leaf lettuce sampled by researchers was found to have anywhere

from 1 to 27 ppb of perchlorate contamination. Bottled water came up

virtually clean, while whole milk averaged 6 ppb. But how much

proto-rocket

fuel can a person ingest before it gets to be a problem? With only

preliminary data in hand, scientists, industry lobbyists, consumer

health

experts, and the government are still squabbling over that.

 

As for Mutagen X, the powerful mutation-causing agent found in the

drinking

water of several Massachusetts public water systems a few years ago <

it¹s

one of several by-products of chlorination. The jury is still out on

their

effects, which may vary based on local water treatment facilities. Some

studies show a dramatic increase in bladder cancer from exposure to

chlorinated water, while others say the effects are negligible.

 

And what about that saucepan? Aluminum is one of the heavy metals (like

mercury and lead) considered to be neurotoxic. Accumulations of aluminum

are

found in the brains of Alzheimer¹s patients, and it has been linked with

other damaging health effects as well.

 

We can control our own kitchen cabinets. But most of us don't get to

check

out what's sitting on a restaurant¹s stove or how our processed foods

were

prepared. If the chefs are using uncoated aluminum cookware to simmer up

acidic foods like tomatoes (think chili or spaghetti sauce), then we may

well be getting a toxic mouthful. For example, no aluminum migrated into

a

potful of porridge cooked up by Finnish researchers. Yet when they

boiled

rhubarb in the same aluminum pot, an astonishing 170 mg/kg of aluminum

was

drawn into the fruit.

 

Americans may not be doing much on the rhubarb or porridge fronts < but

some of us are now afraid of our cookware nonetheless. And filtered

water is

looking less frou-frou all the time.

 

In his book, Why Things Bite Back, Edward Tenner explores how

innovations

often carry unintended effects. For example, the pesticide DDT appeared

amazingly safe when it was first introduced in the 1940s. Unlike earlier

pesticides, it did not seem to harm people who came into direct contact

with it.

 

Yet today, decades after being banned, DDT is linked to cancer and

stunted

childhood growth. " DDT came to menace us in the future because it seemed

so

safe in the present, " wrote Tenner. The lesson: It¹s hard to predict

consequences. The Next Big Thing for industry could in fact have a

trickle-down effect that further compromises our food supply. Each time,

it

seems, that a major development " improves " our lives, some unintended

consequence becomes a drawback. For example, the canning process

improved

food safety radically, but the lead solder in cans caused health

problems,

until the threat was recognized and the process was changed.

 

In our culture, useful chemicals and new technology are presumed

innocent

until they're proven to be contaminating our food, water, or air. Even

when

damning evidence builds up, those responsible often stick their heads in

the

sand for as long as possible. Case in point: coal-burning power plants

spewing mercury.

 

In the case of the seemingly endless threats to the safety of America's

food and water supply, it often seems that no one is looking at the big

picture, trying to answer the ultimate questions about how much food

supplies can be contaminated, before humankind and the environment are

significantly damaged. In the meantime, consumers grow weary of the

whirl of

reports, and either close their ears or end up scared to eat anything

more

complicated than a home-grown carrot.

 

Many researchers believe that the immediate " big picture " is this: Most

of

these problems are manageable < as long as folks eat everything in

moderation and try for a heart-healthy, low-fat diet.

 

Dr. Gina Solomon, a physician and senior scientist with the Natural

Resources Defense Council, said that eating a heart-healthy, low-fat

diet

will also expose people to fewer environmental contaminants. That's

because

chemicals like PCBs, dioxins, and flame retardants accumulate in fat <

and

in our bodies < over time. " So fatty foods like meat, cheese, and ice

cream,

and fatty fish like farm-raised salmon contain the highest levels of

those

contaminants, " she said. Besides warning breast-feeding moms away from

such

foods, she said, the National Academy of Sciences last year also began

warning that girls should start avoiding fatty foods in childhood, to

lower

the risks, years later, to their own children.

 

For regular fish eaters, Solomon recommends using the mercury calculator

on

the NRDC web site (www.nrdc.org), to find out just how much of that

contaminant they are probably gettting, based on their diet.

 

What about grass-fed meats, such as those raised by Hutchins < are they

any

better? " Organic, grass-fed meat is likely to be healthier, " Solomon

acknowledged.

 

It is also true, however, that, even eating organically and healthily,

it's

impossible to avoid some of the results of humankind's former

carelessness.

" Since PCBs contaminate our entire environment, it's sad but true that

even

organic food is not able to completely escape these chemicals, " she

said.

Although the food supply is gradually becoming less contaminated with

these

chemicals, " almost any sample of meat, fish, ice cream, cheese, or

butter "

is likely to harbor some trace of these persistent toxins.

 

The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that carries out

environmental

investigations, has issued a shopper's guide to fruits and vegetables,

available on its web site (www.ewg.org). Based on USDA test data, the

group

recommends you avoid conventionally grown apples, bell peppers, celery,

cherries, grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, raspberries,

spinach, and strawberries, because they carry the most pesticide

residues.

Non-organic produce that's likely to be less contaminated: asparagus,

avocados, bananas, broccoli, cauliflower, corn, kiwi, mangoes, onions,

papaya, pineapples, and sweet peas. And, the organization recommends,

toss

those old aluminum pots and replace them with stainless steel.

 

Jill Wachter admits she carries more pounds than she should and doesn't

exercise enough. Yet, while their retirement-age friends all battle

heart

disease, cancer, and diabetes, both she and her husband remain free of

ailments.

 

The Fort Worth couple are frequent patrons of Spiral Diner and have been

vegetarians for 25 years. Fifteen years ago they both switched to eating

organics. Why? " Not wanting to put poisons in my body, " said Jill, who

will

turn 60 this year. She is convinced that " clean foods " offer huge

benefits,

beyond their superior flavor.

 

Neither she nor her husband takes any medication, and both enjoy good

blood

pressure, healthy cholesterol levels, and plenty of energy. And it's not

because they come from genetically superior stock.

 

" My mom died of cancer. My dad had heart surgery when he was 50 and died

of

heart disease. Fred's dad died of heart disease, " explained Jill.

" Fred's

one of six children. Four are diabetic and on heart medication; they're

at

the doctor all the time and having surgery. They're not well. " What

about

Fred's other sister, the one who doesn¹t have all those health problems?

She

has a garden where she raises her own organic food, including her own

chickens, whose eggs she eats. The only meats her diet includes are fish

and

chicken, each once a week.

 

Fred Wachter, 63, believes that he and his wife have also lightened

their

toxic load by avoiding tap water. " We've been drinking steam-distilled

water, " he said. " I think that is much healthier. They take all the

additives like chlorines and fluorides out. Some researchers think

certain

forms of cancer, like bladder cancer, can be traced to chlorine in the

water. "

 

" One of our friends used to tease us, " said Jill. " He would say things

like, " I just mowed the grass, do you want to come over and have some? "

Now

he's having severe health problems, and all of a sudden is real

interested

in this diet. "

 

" Unfortunately, what we see in our customer base is that they are

afflicted

by something, " said Cook, of Whole Foods. " They have what I call

Olife-altering events. " They may find out they have diabetes or heart

disease, " she said. " That¹s the jolt that they need to make them aware

of

what they put into their body.² l

 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/texas012705.cfm