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Climate change has altered the migratory pattern of the sockeye salmon, which due to lengthened daylight exposure pushes their reproductive cycle, forcing them back to spawn too early while the water is still too warm.

I went to a very interesting lecture a few weeks ago about the decline of the Fraser River sockeye salmon stocks, presented by Dr. Glenn Crossin from the University of British Columbia. His studies of the Fraser River sockeye implicate climate change as one of the most important factors in their almost complete collapse this year. Ten million salmon that were expected to return to the Fraser River, simply did not show up at all. This disastrous collapse has caused the Canadian Government to launch a public inquiry in the hopes that we will not have a repeat of the cod fishery collapse of the early '90soff the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Fraser River does not have fish farms, so for this stock at least, they are not to blame for the decline. It is known that the salmon smolts made it safely out to the ocean. Dr. Crossin’s research points to climate change being a key factor, as the warmer the water, the harder it is for the fish to survive. River water below 18C is tolerable to sockeye, but as the water warms beyond that mortality rates increase. However, river water temperatures were not the problem for the 10 million fish that never even made it back into the river system at all. Something affected the salmon during the time they were in the ocean.

It is known that the warmer ocean waters are forcing the salmon further north where the water is cooler and more habitable to them. Dr. Crossin's research suggests that this new more northern migration is affecting the hormone systems of the fish. The further north one goes during the summer months, the longer the daytime light. Near Prince Rupert at the summer solstice, the sun sets at around 11pm. Further north is the land of the midnight sun. As I have suggested in multiple posts previously, the light/dark cycle is a strong hormone regulator in living organisms including humans, and when a light/dark cycle is altered there will be hormonal consequences. For salmon, all that extra daylight causes an increase in testosterone levels, which makes them want to return to the rivers to spawn. The longer the length of daytime light, the higher the testosterone levels, the more urgent the drive to spawn.

So, the sockeye are starting their migration south back to the spawning rivers early, while the waters are still warmer. In 2006, Dr. Crossin tagged 195 sockeye salmon with accoustic transmitters in the north off the west coast of the Queen Charlottes in order to follow their journey back south. But in July the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) opened a salmon fishery at the north end of Vancouver Island, and only 12 (6%) of his 195 tagged fish made it back to the Strait of Georgia. It is probably a  stretch to say that that fishery caught 94% of all the returning fish at that time, but clearly that fishery had a big impact.

Before 1995, the late-run sockeye would return to the Straight of Georgia (Salish Sea) in August like clockwork and spend about a month to 6 weeks there before heading into the river systems in late September to mid October when the water was cooler. But since 1995, between 60 and 90% are not waiting in the Straight, and instead are heading directly into the rivers in August while the water is at its hottest, probably because of their high testosterone levels and their accelerated drive to spawn. High water temperatures are resulting in high fish mortality before they can reach the spawning grounds. It is predicted that if nothing is done to slow down climate change, summer river temperatures will hit 25C soon, which will be lethal to all Sockeye salmon in the river at the time.

So, between the warmer ocean waters forcing the salmon to migrate further north impacting their hormonal system and making them return to spawn earlier in the year, mixed with an ill-timed fishery and/or
overfishing and who knows what else, the result was very few salmon making it back to the Fraser estuary this year. Depending upon the salmon stock we are talking about, climate change, over-fishing, predation, the sea lice problem, the damming of rivers for hydro-electric power, pollution, chemicals and medical drug residues from sewage finding its way into the rivers, and the break-outs of farmed Atlantic salmon, wild Pacific salmon have a lot to contend with if they are going to survive.

Is ocean fishing as sustainable as it is claimed to be? I'm not so sure, because one has no idea what salmon stock is affected by catching a salmon in the ocean. If that salmon is destined for a healthy Alaskan river, perhaps there is little or no harm, but if that salmon is destined for the Fraser, harm is clearly done even if it is caught in the open ocean north of Vancouver Island.

So I ask again. Should we be eating salmon at all? I don't think we should be eating any sockeye. These fish need all the breaks they can get right now, as it is looking like climate change is forcing them onto the endangered list without any help from humans fishing them. Chinook and Coho numbers are also declining markedly, perhaps for the same reasons. Pink salmon seem to be the only bright spot, so if we want a salmon dinner, pink may be the only sustainable type of salmon to eat.

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We know salmon is one of the healthiest fish out there - chock full of omega 3 fatty acids, but if we keep eating them now, will there be any left for our kids to eat when they grow up?

I just got back from the farmer's market, one of my favourite weekend activities. I love the variety of produce that one simply can't find in the grocery store - last week after my farmer's market excursion, I made a "purple meal" with purple potatoes, purple beets, purple kale, purple cabbage and purple tomatoes along with some beef tenderloin. I didn't find the purple carrots or purple broccoli last week, but if I had found them, they would have been part of the meal too. What fun! And the food is so fresh and tasty compared to the grocery store produce which is picked weeks early for shipping and then frequently ripened with chemicals when the time is right.

Well today, my last purchase was two wild coho salmon fillets, caught in the deep ocean off the coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands in northern British Columbia. I haven’t bought salmon in a while, because I find myself feeling guilty every time I think about it. All over the news have been reports about how the sockeye salmon run this year was expected to be fantastic, but very few salmon came back to spawn. None of the salmon runs are as good as they used to be, and year after year the trend seems to be worse and worse. I asked the people at the booth at the market today if we should really be buying salmon at all. She told me that that was a difficult question to answer - she said that their fish is caught in a sustainable way, no where near the mouths of rivers, but it was obvious that she was very worried about the future of this fabulous fish, and was wrestling with the same question. The cod fishery collapsed on the east coast of Canada 17 years ago and still has not recovered. If we don’t stop eating salmon now, can we expect the same thing on the west coast? In the States last year, the West Coast Salmon Fishery was considered a failure and labelled a Federal disaster. In Canada, the sockeye fishery is closed completely this year due to the near total collapse on the Fraser River, the most important salmon estuary in BC. Nine to 11 million fish that were expected to return this year did not show up.

One might make the argument that this is a reason to eat farmed salmon rather than wild, but the problem with that theory is that the farmed salmon industry is heavily implicated in the decline of the wild salmon stocks, as the fish farms are on the rivers where the wild salmon spawn, and the wild salmon smolts (baby fish) as they swim by the fish farms on their way to the ocean get covered in sea lice, which weakens and kills them. The government still has not forced the farmed salmon industry to use closed containers on land, to prevent the diseased fish from contaminating the wild salmon. I think that what we choose to purchase is a political act. We are either choosing to sustain the planet and its living organisms or we are not, and the fastest way to change methods of food production is to refuse to purchase food that comes from unsustainable, planet damaging, unhealthy practises. Consumers are usually way ahead of governments, and it is up to consumers to force change at the check-out stand. So, please don't eat farmed salmon!

Salmon need cold water to survive, and the ocean and rivers are warming, which is probably also playing a big roll in the declining stocks. And of course, chemical spills into important salmon rivers, such as what happened to the Cheakamus River in 2005 killing every living thing, doesn’t help. The experts say it will take more than 50 years for the fish to come back in the same numbers as before the spill. And of course, no fish means no eagles and other predators that rely on the salmon for food too, and so on up the food chain we go.

So, what do you think? Did I make the right decision this morning when I bought my salmon? I’m not too sure, but I will try not to feel guilty about my decision as I can't change it now. Instead, I do feel grateful that I can enjoy it at this time, and I will revere it as the precious item it is. I may not be eating salmon for a while, and if on occasion I do decide to treat myself, I'll make sure I buy it from someone like the person at the market today, who only catches the fish out in the deep ocean waters. Hopefully between closing fisheries, moving to closed-container fish farming, restoring the habitat in salmon streams, and doing what we can to slow global warming, one day the salmon will come back in abundance, and I'll feel good about enjoying salmon regularly again.

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Did you know that the oil it takes to make, ship and refrigerate that bottle of water, would fill that bottle a quarter of the way?

When one considers that the water standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency for tap water are higher than the water standards set by the FDA for bottled water, and one realizes that it costs 10,000 times more to produce a bottle of water ($2.50 a liter or $10 a gallon - much more expensive than gasoline) than to simply turn on the tap, we must ask ourselves why we are wasting our resources and our money on bottled water.

I think originally bottled water became popular because it was perceived to be healthier than tap water, but is that really true? About 40% of the bottled waters on the market ARE tap water (including Dasani and Aquafina) with some minerals taken out, or added in - whatever the manufacturer believes will sell. Some waters, like Evian or Fuji are spring waters, higher in minerals and therefore healthier than some of the softer municipal water supplies, but is the environmental cost worth the price considering how easy it is to add back minerals into filtered tap water?

The PET plastic that the water is sold in is made from crude oil. In 2004, the amount of oil needed to satisfy the demands of Americans for bottled water was in the neighbourhood of 17 million barrels, enough to fuel over a million cars for a year. Then add to that the oil that is needed to ship the water bottles to market. Apparently nearly a quarter of the bottles of water are shipped cross international boundaries to reach store shelves - that is a lot of oil used in transportation. Making plastic bottles also wastes crazy amounts of water. It takes 6.74 times the amount of water contained within the bottle to make it, which is a staggering amount of water. Water is becoming more and more scarce worldwide, so why are we wasting it making bottles? And finally, plastic bottles need to be disposed of, and only 1 in 6 bottles is recycled, while all others are littered on land or in waterways, or find their way to landfill sites. It takes over 1000 years to biodegrade plastic, so the result is mountains and mountains of completely unnecessary garbage; furthermore, I’m not sure I want that plastic leaching into water tables etc.

Tap water is very economical, arriving at our taps through energy-efficient infrastructure, and due to the high water standards required by government bodies, is usually quite safe. One can easily buy a tap filter to filter out chlorine or other contaminants one may be concerned about. Filters that filter out fluoride may be more challenging to obtain, but they are certainly available. Most other contaminants are already removed by municipalities. If one’s filtering system removes all minerals (reverse osmosis) making the water too soft, one can add trace minerals back to tap water by adding a pinch of pasculite clay or unrefined, air dried Celtic or Himalayan sea salt. (NOT the white, dry, processed salt which has no minerals but sodium!)

So rather than buying bottled water, get a good re-usable stainless steel water bottle, filter your tap water, and take your water with you. There are even re-usable water bottles that come with a filter in them, so if you need to refill while out, anyone’s tap water will do. If you live in the States and want to check where your municipal water comes from, find out what’s in it so you know what if anything you need to filter out, click here. For Canada or elsewhere, try googling your home town and "water quality" and see what comes up. I got this link for Vancouver, for example.

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Are cell phones safe enough to be used by children? Should governments warn parents about potential hazards even if the jury is still out?

Whether or not the radiation from cell phones is safe is an ongoing controversy that is dividing the scientific community. Much research suggests that cell phones are perfectly safe, and that we have nothing to be worried about, but some of the longer studies are beginning to tell a different story. The big concern is that the radiation emitted from cell phones may cause brain cancer on the side of the head that the cell phone is used. We may not know for sure whether or not this is true for many years to come, as there is a latency period from the beginning of exposure to the time cancer may develop, and that latency period is most likely greater than ten years.

The radiation the cell phones emit is between 1 and 3 Watts, in the microwave range, and that radiation DOES get absorbed by the head, or whatever body part is nearest the phone. Initially the concern was that this radiation heated the cells causing damage, but from the resources I’ve looked at, it looks like the body is able to dispel the heat quite easily.

However, the radiation emitted from the phone is pulsed, and apparently very similar to the electrical oscillations sent within the brain (alpha and delta brain waves). Our body is a very sensitive electrochemical system, so it seems reasonable that radio waves from external sources at similar frequencies to our internal frequencies may interfere with our bioelectrical systems, in much the same way that cell phones interfere with airplane controls and hospital equipment. So it is the similarity to the frequencies commonly used within the body, confusing the body which may be problematic. One of the frequencies used by cell phones seems to be similar to one that induces cell division in the body, perhaps explaining the links between cell-phone use and brain cancer.

Children have thinner skulls, and their brain tissue is less dense, which allows the radiation to penetrate much further into the brain, potentially increasing their risk. Dr. Devra Davis, a professor of epidemiology and the director of the Centre for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute suggests that phone radiation can penetrate more than half way through the brain of a 5 year old. Because children are still growing and their brains are still developing, genetic damage to cells in the brain may cause functional damage. The blood brain barrier may be compromised making the child more susceptible to toxins. A Spanish study showed that a two minute cell phone conversation altered electrical activity in the brain for up to an hour, compromising the ability to learn. Furthermore, if first exposure to cell phone radiation is while in childhood or as a teen, it is likely that that child or teen will be using the technology for many decades to come, increasing the potential risk even further.

Many countries, like Britain, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Israel, India and Russia are putting out warnings suggesting that children should either not use cell phones at all, or only very minimally, because they feel there is enough research suggesting that there may be a problem to warn the public of the potential danger. France is making it illegal for cell phone manufactures to market cell phones to kids under the age of 12. In Canada, that certainly is not the case - special cell phones specifically designed for kids are actively marketed to kids and their parents. Should this be happening at all, if other countries are putting out warnings?

Even though the City of Toronto's department of public health did put out an advisory in the summer of 2008 that children under 8 should only use cell phones for emergencies, and teens should limit calls to under 10 minutes, Health Canada does not feel there is any need to warn parents about the potential dangers to children, and I don't think US government agencies are putting out warnings either. Kind of reminds one of the smoking issue of yesteryear. So, as a parent would you prefer to be told of a potential problem so you can make up your own mind on how to deal with the issue, or do you trust that government agencies are doing enough to protect you and your children? I think transparency is important. I want to be in control of my health and the health of my family, and I want to know if something might be problematic, so I can do my research and make a choice. If my choice is taken away from me because I am not told, then I have no way of controlling my health. My philosophy has always been to apply the precautionary principle. It may take 30 years before we really know the truth about safety of cell phones, so in the mean time it makes sense to me to keep cell phones out of the hands of kids as long as possible, and if they have one, allow them to use it only for emergencies, text messaging, or with a headset (not bluetooth as that kind magnifies the radiation). These suggestions obviously apply to the rest of us too!

To check the the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) (the quantity of radiofrequency energy that is absorbed by your body) of your cell phone, click here.

For more on the topic of cell phones and kids, watch this CBC production of
Marketplace.

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It may seem surprising that the grocery store is not the place to go to find the healthiest food. Thankfully there are other options.

The last couple of weeks we've explored two branches of the industrial food chain - conventional farming and big organic - and highlighted some of the problems with each, according to the research done by Michael Pollan, and delineated in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma. Further to the problem of grocery store food, this morning I was reading about how Tyson Foods is suing the USDA in order to be allowed to use the label "Raised without antibiotics that impact antibiotic resistance in humans" in its chickens, even though they inject the antibiotic, gentamicin, into the eggs. They are fighting to be allowed to deceive us with their label - to make us believe that their chicken is antibiotic-free. Over the last few years I have pointed out several deceptive practices that food companies use to make food found on grocery-store shelves appear healthier than it actually is, including:

• Carbon monoxide put in packaged meat to minimize brown spots and make it look fresher, so consumers buy it even if it is past its prime.
• The complete absence of labelling of genetically modified food (70% of food in the supermarket contains genetically modified ingredients )
• all almonds in North America that are labelled as raw, are actually either sterilized through heat or chemicals, and therefore not raw at all
• In Canada, bread labelled as "whole wheat", actually means bread with 70% of the wheat germ is stripped away. The wheat germ is where the bulk of the nutrition is.
• Chickens and eggs are labelled as free-range and as "having access to outdoor pasture", which they are strongly discouraged from using
• Meal-replacement drinks being sold as healthier than real food, even though they are very high in sugar and contain damaged fats
• Lower-fat milks and yogurts most likely containing unlabelled powdered milk, which is essentially oxidized cholesterol and dangerous to our health
• Soy isolate ingredients being hidden on labels as textured vegetable protein, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, bouillon, natural flavour etc.
• Sugar being hidden on labels as various kinds of syrups, words ending in "ose" or "saccarides".
• Using the word "light" to mean light in colour or texture rather than low calorie as the consumer may think
• The label "made with real fruit" may mean "contains fruit flavours", and no actual fruit at all
• Pictures of a farm with cows grazing implying that the milk was pasture fed - almost always a lie
• Putting health claims on a label usually indicates it is not healthy. No 7-Up does not grow on fruit trees, Splenda is not a form of sugar, and Cheerios is actually highly processed and far less good for our hearts than a cooked whole grain would be.

So, staying away from grocery stores that sell us these foods can do a lot to improve our health. And even Industrial Organic, although far better than conventional, can be problematic because they are frequently still using industrial methods such as feeding cattle organic grain which makes the cattle sick. One of the reasons industrial farming methods came to pass in the first place (in addition to the obvious profitability), was the worry about being able to actually feed the growing world population. There is another way.

In his book, Michael Pollan introduces the reader to an entirely new kind of farming - or perhaps I should say "the old way" of mixed farming with a twist, which is highly productive, making it possible to feed large numbers of people with highly nutritious food from the land AND actually improve the quality of the soil the longer the land is farmed this way. No more compromising nutrition to put out more food, no more torturing of animals in the name of feeding humankind, no more pesticide run-off into the waterways damaging our drinking water or the habitat the fish we eat live in, no more relying on oil to run our whole agricultural system. This is a completely sustainable system that follows the laws of nature, and actually increases the health of the animals and plants that are a part of it, and it encourages plant diversity, the opposite of what mono-farming does. I think it's brilliant, and would encourage all farmers to consider it!

Michael Pollan introduces us to a permaculture farmer, Joe Salatin, who runs Polyface farm in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. On 100 acres of grass, using low technology methods, Mr. Salatin produces per season 30,000 eggs, 10,000 broilers, 800 stewing hens, 25,000 pounds of beef, 250 hogs, 1000 turkeys, and 500 rabbits - an enormous amount of food produced in a way that improves the soil each year. Joe sees himself as primarily a grass farmer, because it can be argued that all flesh is grass. (I think all flesh is soil, actually.) The key to how his farm works, is keeping the grass at its healthiest. His only technology is a movable electric fence, which he uses to fence off a portion of his pasture in early evening, into which he introduces his cattle, which then have a day to graze that area. The next evening, he fences off another portion of pasture, into which the cattle move. If grass is over-grazed it cannot survive, and one winds up with a mud-pile. So, by moving the cattle daily, he not only prevents the grass from dying, but actually encourages it to form a stronger plant, much like how pruning a bush does. He is converting grass and sunshine into meat and dairy - using solar energy rather than fossil fuels.

Exactly three days later, he introduces the chickens into the same area that the cows were. The chickens go straight for the cow paddies, which are now full of plump maggots that are about to hatch into flies. Introducing the chickens at that time gives the chicken their favourite food, spreads the cow manure around via chicken feet, prevents a fly problem, and also further nourishes the grass with chicken droppings. The cows and chickens both get to eat their favourite and most healthy food, and they get to do what they do best - be cows and chickens, living their life to the fullest. And the grass, cut down by the cows, sheds some of its root system, which is turned into soil by the earthworms, soil bacteria and fungi, and fertilized by the animal waste, grows again very quickly, making it possible to repeat the process in about 5 weeks. And the food that comes from this low tech method of farming is brimming with nutrition, unlike the food that comes from a factory farm. What makes this farm so productive is the symbiotic relationship between the animals and the grass, resulting in improved soil fertility and improved plant diversity year after year. What a boon to countries struggling to feed themselves, like those in Africa, for example!

Joe Salatin refuses to sell his food via the industrial food chain, even to a store such as Whole Foods. He is trying to build local economies where "bar-codes are unnecessary". His customers come to his farm to buy eggs and chickens, and he sells at local farmers' markets, through metropolitan buying clubs where groups of families put in a large order for food twice a month, through CSAs or "Community Supported Agriculture", where customers subscribe to the farm and get a box of produce a week all summer, and to chefs in the neighbouring towns, who love the quality and flavour of his food. His customers are those that want to know exactly where their food is coming from, how it is grown or raised, and demand highly nutritious, flavourful food. His customers relearn that all food is seasonal - that beef, lamb and pork are fall/winter foods, and that chicken is a summer food. These people have opted out of the industrial food chain in order to better nourish their families and to support a style of agriculture that gives more back to the planet than it takes away.

I agree with Michael Pollan, who says that what we choose to eat is a political act. What we decide to put in our mouths either feeds a system that results in the degradation of the planet and our health, or one that improves it.The industrial food chain relies on the false idea that in order for humankind to win, nature must lose. It also relies on the ignorance of its customers with respect to its practises, and sells based on price alone. They want their customers to believe that an egg is an egg, or an apple is an apple - that the growing method has no impact on its nutrition. We know that this is untrue. What the animals we consume are fed, alters the composition of their fats. A strong argument can be made that it is this fat-ratio alteration that is behind a lot of the sickness we suffer today. The nutrients or lack thereof in the soil greatly impacts the nutrition in the plants we eat. By opting out of the industrial food chain as much as possible and growing some of our own food, purchasing "bar-code-free food" by supporting smaller, local farmers at farmers' markets or through weekly local organic food-box programs, we can nourish our families and our local economies. This does require some work to source out food, and also to spend time cooking, but becoming a part of the local "slow food" movement is well worth the effort.

Feel free to watch Michael Pollan discuss these ideas in this 17 minute video on Youtube, or read Michael Pollan's fantastic book - it is well worth it.

If you want to search for other posts by title or by topic, go to www.wellnesstips.ca.

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Pollan, Michael The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals Penguin Press, New York, 2006.

Eisen, Michael Michael Pollan Interview The Progressive Nov. 2008.

Gutierrez, David Tyson Foods Injects Chickens with Antibiotics Before They Hatch to Claim "Raised without Antibiotics" Natural News.Com Nov. 9, 2008.

Howden, Daniel Organic farming 'could feed Africa' - Traditional practices increase yield by 128 per cent in east Africa, says UN The Independent Oct. 22, 2008.

Lowitt, Kristen A Comparative Case Study of Nova Scotia Farmers’ Markets: Exploring Connections Among People, Places and Food Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada Sept. 2008.

Henderson, Paul Raw deal. . .or are they just milking the system? Chilliwack Times Nov. 4, 2008.

Copyright 2008 Vreni Gurd

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Does the label “organic” deliver on its promise?

What does the word “organic” conjure up for you in your mind? For me, ten years ago before I began to research food, “organic” meant over-priced, blemished fruits and veggies. I certainly didn’t understand why anyone would pay extra for what I thought must be subpar produce. Of course, I had never seen an organic apple at that time - I just believed they would be full of worms, since no pesticides were used. Later, after I’d actually gone into a store that sold organic produce, and found my first organic apple to not only be blemish free, but also to be the tastiest apple I had ever had in my life, the word “organic” took on a new meaning for me. Now it meant tastier food, and it also took on the pastoral meaning of the traditional family farm - the type of mixed farm we read about in our first-grade readers.

Organic food now means food grown without chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and organic animals are fed organic feed, and are antibiotic and hormone-free, but according to Michael Pollan in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, originally the word “organic” meant much more than that - a communal bond that was trying to change the relationship people had with the planet in order to save it. The organic movement was born in the late 60s as a protest against the collective - anything industrial and centrist. The California hippies at the time were environmentalists that wanted to create that one-on-one connection with the earth, and to grow healthy food in a cooperative, “more gentle on the earth” way that wasn’t contaminated by the industrial, collective, “conquest” of nature” system. Living organically was a political act based upon three ideals: chemical-free farms (how food was grown), anticapitalist food co-ops (how food was distributed), and “countercuisine” or “brown food” (brown rice, brown bread etc.) which was pitted against the “white foods” created by industrial agriculture. Pollan explains how the original organic hippies believed completely that “you are what you eat”, in every sense of the word, and that one cannot separate the food you eat from how it is grown, and how it arrives at your table.

In nature, plants and animals are symbiotic. Animals poop on the plants which nourishes the soil that the plants need to grow, that the animals eat. It is a closed system that replenishes itself, and is therefore sustainable. So, mixed farms actually work quite well. But is the organic food we buy in the supermarket actually coming from these mixed farms we imagine in our heads, and does it fit the ideals of the originators of the organic movement?

I think unfortunately a lot has been lost. Over the last 40 years the growth in organic food has been tremendous, the word “organic” now representing an 11 billion dollar a year industry. With the demand for organic food being so big, suddenly organic food is being shipped thousands of miles from where it was grown, using lots of fuel for its transport. Organic farms have grown in size to handle the demand, meaning they have needed to adopt many of the industrial agriculture methods in order to process the food. Sure, the food is grown without chemicals, but heavy machinery is needed to pick, wash and package all those organic mixed leafy greens or organic baby carrots we see at the grocery store. Last week I discussed the problem of feeding cattle corn rather than grass. Organic beef is probably fed organic corn, and an organic cow will get just as sick on organic corn as a conventional cow will on conventional corn. So, we have organic factory farms which are indeed feeding their animals organic feed, but not the animals’ natural diet, putting out organic beef, milk, chicken and eggs. But now the farmer can’t use drugs to keep the animals healthy. The organic food movement has become industrialized in order to handle demand. Also, processed organic food uses the word “organic” to denote something healthy, but organic ketchup made with organic high fructose corn syrup is just as unhealthy as the conventional product.

And what do the words organic “free-range” mean when it comes to chicken and eggs? The words conjure up the idea of happy chickens running about outside in the grass, pecking out grubs - being a chicken! According to Pollan, who visited Petaluma Poultry in California which sells free-range organic roasting chickens and organic free-range eggs via the brand name “Judy’s Family Farm” through Whole Foods, 20,000 chickens live together in huge sheds. They are not in battery cages, but still live in pretty cramped quarters due to the number of chickens and the space available to them. Along the side of the shed is a grassy yard that the chickens can explore should they wish, but apparently because the door to the outdoors is shut for their first 5 weeks, they never bother going outside during the last 2 weeks of their life. But the farmer can put “free range” on the label because that option is available to the chickens for the last quarter of their life. The chickens eat the organic feed that is in trays above the ground in the sheds. So much for “free-range” chicken and eggs - seems a bit of a scam to me! They are unlikely to be getting the grubs they need to alter the nutrition of their eggs or their meat for the better, after all. I have yet to see “pasture fed” on milk, cream, yogurt, cheese or butter in my grocery store, so one must assume it is grain fed, even if it is organic.

So the organic movement, brimming with the ideals of the late 60s has turned into industrial organic, a method of farming that closely resembles that of conventional industrial agriculture. Ideals have fallen by the wayside, since the farming and distribution methods are essentially the same. Industrial organic is probably slightly better than conventional farming due to the lack of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, which would not only produce a less toxic, potentially healthier food, but would also do much more preserve the soils and protect the streams from chemical run-off. But is that good enough?? When it comes to meat, poultry, eggs and dairy, is the food healthy enough to provide us with the nutrition we need? Is this the food system we should be supporting with our hard-earned dollars?

There is a third option - a much better way, that provides healthy food and sustains the planet. Next week we’ll discuss opting out of the industrial food system. Do read Michael Pollan's fantastic book - it is well worth it.

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Pollan, Michael The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals Penguin Press, New York, 2006.

Gonzalez F. et al.Grain feeding and the Dissemination of Acid-Resistant Escherichia coli from Cattle Science Washington, Sept. 11, 1998, Vol. 281, Iss. 5383: p. 1666-69. (A study that shows the difference in e-coli levels between grass and grain fed cattle.)

Copyright 2008 Vreni Gurd

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Most of us are eating a huge amount of corn (and soy) and are not aware of it. What is that doing to our health, and the health of our planet?

I’ve been reading a great book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan, who looks at food from a rather unique perspective - that of the food itself. So instead of looking at corn as a commodity, he wonders how corn has managed to propagate its seed so well, becoming the most successful plant on the face of the earth. Considering the rather large obstacles that corn must overcome to reproduce, its success is astonishing. He notes that the corn kernels (the seeds) are all contained in a thick husk, and should the cob fall to the ground those seeds would have to make their way through the husk to the soil in order to germinate, and even if they did manage to accomplish that task, considering all the seeds are bunched together, there would be a huge overcrowding problem which would further diminish the chance of success. Corn’s domination over other plants has been due to its amazing versatility at a low cost, filling the bill for food globalization perfectly. We are now planting it in vast quantities in order to put it into pretty much all processed, packaged foods as well as factory-farmed meat, poultry, eggs and dairy on the market.

Most of the corn in our food is not the same corn that we enjoy by the cob in the autumn - it is an industrial, genetically modified corn, grown for its super cheap calories , grown for its oil (sold for cooking, salad dressings and for hydrogenation into transfat margarines and shortenings), its sweetness (high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, maltodextrin, maltose), its meal, flour and starch, which is further processed into stabilizers, emulsifiers (mono-, di-and triglycerides, lecithin, xanthan gum) thickeners, gels and viscosity control agents for food, as well as adhesives, coatings, and plastics for industry, not to mention ethanol for fuel. Most of the corn grown by far is fed to animals like cows and chickens, in order to fatten them up quickly for market.

Why were animals forced off the grazing fields to be packed together like sardines in the barns of factory farms? Grazing animals take a lot of space, and also it takes more time to convert the sun’s energy that is stored in grass into the meat of a grazing animal than it does to convert petroleum-based energy from chemical fertilizers into corn, and then into meat by feeding the animals that corn. So, in the eyes of industrial agriculture, petroleum-based / corn-based farming makes a lot of economic sense. And the processed food companies like Cargill and General Mills love it, because corn is a cheap filler, preservative, and sweetener which can easily be disguised to replace more expensive or more perishable ingredients, increasing their bottom line. So for example, fruit juices become fruit drinks made of corn, strawberry shakes are not made from strawberries but from corn, and chicken becomes chicken nuggets (hard to determine how much of that chicken nugget is actually chicken).

So, according to Pollan, if you were to read the ingredients in a fast-food meal at McDonalds to determine how much of the food was derived from corn, depending on what you order, from the french fries at about 23%, to a cheeseburger at 56% (including the corn fed to the beef in the patty), to a salad dressing at 65%, to a milk shake at 78%, to a soft drink at 100%, that is a lot of corn we are eating. And a lot of fossil fuel was used to make that fast-food meal, considering not only the chemical fertilizers to grow the corn, but also all the trucking involved from farm to grain elevator to processing plant to food plant to fast-food outlet.

Here's the thing. Even though to the industrial agriculture / food processing industries, using corn and oil as the basis for making cheap food products is very profitable, there is a huge hidden cost to all this cheap food. First of all, at the most basic level, we have switched from a style of farming that uses the sun to create food energy to one that uses petroleum (chemical fertilizers) to create food energy, which is not sustainable. Industrial agriculture depletes soils, rather than maintaining them or improving them. Chemical fertilizers don't provide complete nutrition to the plant, resulting in plants that contain less nutrition for the animals that eat them. Huge fields of one kind of crop reduces the diversity of plant life, which not only harms the food chain, but also creates economic risk, as all the eggs are in one basket should that crop fail. And all monoculture crops need to be trucked for processing, AND ALSO trucked to supermarkets and fast food restaurants, further utilizing petroleum energy.

Feeding corn to ruminant animals who's bodies are designed to eat grass makes cows very sick. The rumen, the organ that ferments grass, can't handle corn, which causes gas to become entrapped in the slimy build up, bloating the rumen which causes it to press upon the lungs of the animal. The animal must be intubated to prevent suffocation. Also, corn causes the rumen, which normally has a neutral pH, to become acidic, resulting in a heartburn type of condition, and over time the acid can wear a hole in the rumen allowing bacteria into the blood stream, causing liver problems and eventually death. E-coli levels are very high in corn-fed cattle. So, the cows are given drugs to combat these conditions. And all of this could be avoided if the cows were allowed to eat their natural diet - grass. Scientists have even shown that if the cows are fed hay for the last two weeks prior to slaughter, e-coli counts would drop dramatically, but the industrial farmers won't even do that because of the perceived extra cost.

Industrial agriculture also creates a huge pollution problem. Chemical fertilizers sprayed on crops, as well as manure waste from factory farms leach into streams and rivers, sickening and/or killing off marine life. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, industrial agriculture is the biggest polluter of rivers in the States.

And at the top of the food chain we find us. And we are unwittingly eating huge amounts of processed GMO corn (and soy) in packaged food, factory-farmed meat, dairy, poultry, and eggs from animals sickened and drugged because of the corn they are eating (remember - when you see "grain fed" beef at the supermarket, that is NOT a good thing!) If the food we eat is inherently unhealthy is it a surprise we are getting sicker and sicker? It is predicted that today's children will not live as long as their parents. More and more of us are overweight and suffering from type 2 diabetes and heart disease at younger and younger ages due to so much starch, sugar and omega 6 fats (found in corn and soy) in our diet and in the diet of the animals we eat, and the lack of nutrition found in packaged and factory-farmed food. So, ask yourself. Is the cheap food provided by the industrial agricultural system really that cheap, when you consider the environmental and health costs as well? How much are you paying out in drugs each month to treat health conditions largely caused by consuming industrial food?

There is a much better way … We'll get into that soon.

Do read Michael Pollan's fantastic book - it is well worth it. If you want to search for other posts by title or by topic, go to www.wellnesstips.ca.

Related tips
Conventional vs. Organic vs Pasture-fed meats, poultry, eggs and dairy
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Processed food is taking over our supermarkets
Food brands that contain genetically modified ingredients
Essential fats: Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio
Food, our raw material

Pollan, Michael The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals Penguin Press, New York, 2006.

Gonzalez F. et al.Grain feeding and
the Dissemination of Acid-Resistant Escherichia coli from Cattle Science Washington, Sept. 11, 1998, Vol. 281, Iss. 5383: p. 1666-69. (A study that shows the difference in e-coli levels between grass and grain fed cattle.)

Copyright 2008 Vreni Gurd

To subscribe go to www.wellnesstips.ca

One of the most powerful speeches I have heard. Please take the five minutes to listen.

The Girl Who Silenced the World for 5 Minutes.

I have nothing to add.

If you want to search for other posts by title or by topic, go to www.wellnesstips.ca.

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Clean Water for Streams - by Karen Munro
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The power of volunteers - by Karen Munro

www.wellnesstips.ca

Take the opportunity now while you still can, to view this documentary on Monsanto.

I am taking a wee holiday, so for this week's tip, I invite you to watch this documentary that aired on French television (ARTE – French-German cultural TV channel) by French journalist and film maker Marie-Monique Robin, called The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won’t ever see.

Perhaps not a bad idea to watch it now before Monsanto has it removed.

If you like to garden, perhaps you can consider looking into planting some heritage seeds, or varieties of vegetables and fruit that are not easily found in the supermarket, and help protect some of the biodiversity that Monsanto is trying to take away.

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My apologies to my Jewish readers, as this is a little late for Hanukkah. Bottom line is it is pretty much too late for me too, but if any of you are only beginning the annual Christmas shopping rush, maybe trying to reduce the environmental footprint that the holiday season tends to create can be consideration.

In the summer we don't do the campfire thing anymore, and for the past several years, we've opted for an artificial Christmas tree. It seems to me that every live tree is precious as it can soak up carbon, and so I no longer feel comfortable wasting trees only to burn them or throw them out in a couple of weeks. I hope to use my artificial tree for the rest of my life, and then hopefully it can be donated to someone else that can use it after that. However, live trees are biodegradable whereas artificial ones are not, and many fossil fuels were used to make the artificial tree and get it to my home. So, I'm not sure which is really the better alternative, and possibly I made a wrong decision a few years ago. If you do get a live tree, look into getting it chipped into mulch rather than having it disposed of in a landfill. The best option is probably to decorate a potted tree or plant, and then plant it in the garden afterwards.

Lighting - LED lights are the way to go, as they use far less energy and therefore last much longer than the other kind. They may cost a little more, but in the long run they will save you money. Of course, not putting up Christmas lights at all would save even more energy. I wonder about these holiday season displays that advertise the huge quantities of lights they are using like it is a good thing. Festive and pretty yes, but I think it is time municipalities were more conscious about the environmental impact these displays have. One doesn't need lights to have a happy and festive heart.

Wrapping paper - how about using that newspaper you read? Then you can recycle it, compost it or put it into your worm bin afterwards. Or re-use a gift bag that you received from someone last year. Or, if you have the time and the inclination, sew some gift bags that can be continually reused. Or wrap with tea-towels, handkerchiefs or something else like that. At the very least, make sure the wrapping paper you buy is made from recycled paper, and then recycle / compost it again afterwards.

Gifts - Do you feel that your home is being filled up with stuff? How much more stuff do you really want? I don’t believe I’m the only person that feels like I have enough stuff. Giving experiences can be good - theatre, concert or movie tickets, a dinner out, an afternoon of snowshoeing, swimming lessons, piano lessons, wood carving lessons, or personal training for example. Or home-cooked food can be a wonderful gift - something to put in the freezer and use on a busy night or when your recipient does not feel like cooking. Or a gift certificate for your time for babysitting, lawn cutting, snow shoveling, leaf raking, house cleaning, or any other helpful service that may be needed. I think that frequently spending time together is what people want the most, and if you don’t have much spare time, that gift can be very valuable indeed. Gifts like this don't have much packaging, and they are not transported half way around the world to get to a store near you.

Another form of gift that I would love to receive would be an acre of land in my name donated to the Nature Conservancy, The Land Conservancy or some such organization that is involved in protecting habitat. Another neat idea are carbon offset gift cards - they come in 2 tons or 10 ton denominations. Or a donation to Oxfam unwrapped or any other charity you think your recipient would appreciate. These sorts of gifts can be purchased online from the comfort of your home, and if you have a printer, you can print electronic gift certificates at home, so your gift isn’t being flown or trucked using up fossil fuels.

These are only a few ideas - do you have others? Please do tell us by commenting!

I am very excited to say that FINALLY my new website is up - check it out at www.wellnesstips.ca.

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