The Future of Food - Introduction

What seems like a long time ago, I accepted the challenge of writing about organic versus modern farmed foods and whether, or not, organic was "better".  I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  I started by reading a book on the subject (Tomorrow's Table by Pamela C. Ronald and R.W. Adamchak).  The Authors are a married couple, Ronald is a Professor of Plant Biology at UC Davis and Adamchak manages the campus' organic farm.  This book led me to source after source on the subject, some very good sources and some very bad.  After picking my way through the maze of often times conflicting information, I settled on a few sources that seemed to offer balanced and rational views on the subject.

So, for the purposes of this blog, which is not a scholarly paper nor a claimed authority of any kind, I will list here my sources for the information that will appear in future posts in this series.  By doing so, I hope you will all track down these sources and read, listen and watch them yourself so that you can hold me accountable for my opinions and decide for yourself what methods seem to offer the best solutions for the problems facing humanity in the future.

This series of posts will be broken into 4 sections: Part 1 The Challenge; Part 2 The Organic Response; Part 3 The Case For Science; and Part 4 Protecting the Future.  If I feel any particular section is getting too long I will break it into sub-sections.  I sincerely thought that this issue would simply be a matter of finding out which foods were the most nutritious, finding some taste test results to determine what people preferred and moving on; boy was I wrong.  I think as you read you will come to realize, as I did, there are no easy answers when it comes to food, and it is especially hard to know who to trust when it comes to information about what we eat.  Hopefully, we will all find the questions we need to ask suppliers in order to provide the best nutrition for our families while maintaining the environment for future generations.

Sources for future posts:

Tomorrow's Table P.C. Ronald and R.W. Adamchak, Oxford University Press March 2008

The Open University- Genetic Modified Foods, The Issues (Multi-Media Podcast available free iTunes)

Yale School of Forestry- Food and Sustainable Agriculture (Lecture Series available free iTunes)

Oregon State University- Food for Thought (Lecture Series available free iTunes)

The Future of Food (Two part documentary available here)

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

Dangour, A., Lock, K., Hayter, A., Aikenhead, A., Allen, E., & Uauy, R. (2010). Nutrition-related health effects of organic foods: a systematic reviewAmerican Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 92 (1), 203-210 DOI:10.3945/ajcn.2010.29269

Mader, P. (2002). Soil Fertility and Biodiversity in Organic FarmingScience, 296 (5573), 1694-1697 DOI: 10.1126/science.1071148

http://www.foodwithlegs.com/organic-food-taste-test/

http://jrsm.rsmjournals.com/content/101/6/290.full

http://www.pewenvironment.org/

Where's the (Kobe) Beef?

Larry Olmstead has a fascinating 3 part series in Forbes that looks at the authenticity of Kobe beef and its availability outside of Japan.  It is enlightening and I urge you to read all three parts to get a true understanding about how labeling works.  While he is examining the U.S. labeling laws, much of what he says regarding Kobe Beef does apply to Canada, as well: if you think you have eaten Kobe Beef here, you are probably mistaken, for all the same reasons.  I have had, what was labeled as, Kobe hot dogs and, after reading the article, now realize that they probably were most definitely not Kobe. 

Olmstead discusses the international labeling treaties and the fact that the U.S. has never signed on to those treaties (just as they have not signed on to many international treaties).  Olmstead makes the case that it is hypocrisy on the part of the U.S. when they have strong armed many nations, including Canada, to adopt draconian and creativity-stemming intellectual property laws to protect the recording, motion picture and publishing industries that are monopolized by the U.S. (it is interesting that the U.S. has still not passed their own legislation on this issue) Olmstead writes:

This is not an oversight, as in, “hey, we forgot to regulate the labeling of Kobe beef.” This is part of a pattern of deliberate actions going back well over a century on the part of the Federal government to actively ignore foreign trademarks and intellectual property claims in order to support domestic industries. It has very much been done on purpose, and continues to be done on purpose, at the expense of the American consumer (and foreign producers). It is also stunningly hypocritical, and flies directly in the face of the government’s deep pocketed attempts to combat piracy in the arenas of music, film, technology, and software.

 Many of the treaties discussed in the article have been ratified by Canada and products such as Champagne are protected here - if a sparkling wine is labeled Champagne it must come from the French appellation of Champagne.  But, not all products are protected in Canada, either, and we do a pretty good job on hypocrisy ourselves, at times.  Olmstead's point that allowing companies here to make money off the efforts of more hard working producers as unfair to those producers AND to the consumers is a valid criticism of governments that refuse to enact safeguards.  And, in Canada, the problem is about to become much worse as the government has announced plans to stop investigating some claims, cutting of inspectors and a general malaise toward consumer protection.  More and more, consumers in Canada and the U.S. are being left to their own devices in a libertarian controlled market that uses the refrain "caveat emptor" as some kind of defense for fraud. 

Canadians seem to be too generous to those who have poisoned our food and water supplies over the years - many believe the Koebels got off relatively easy in Walkerton, let alone the government, Maple Leaf Meats has done ok since the listeria outbreak and the beef industry here never really suffered in the domestic market as a result of mad cow outbreak.  It seems that the more our food supply is condensed in the hands of a few multinationals the less testing and enforcement our government is willing to invest.  It is time we all demanded stricter labeling regulations, more thorough inspections and the attitude of "caveat venditor" (a notion I would argue is as much a part of the libertarian's patron saint Adam Smith's teachings) should be the rallying cry of concerned consumers everywhere.  In the meantime, a healthy skepticism toward marketing claims, be they big business or small, would go a long way in preventing others from stuffing their pockets with your hard earned money.  The next time I see a retailer selling Kobe Beef I know I will be having an interesting conversation with them.  I will simply ask to see the serial number provided with each cut of meat sold from Kobe Japan and watch with delight as they squirm a little.

The Secret To My Longevity is Longevity

A woman in Newfoundland has defied the experts and lived to the ripe old age of 106 years while maintaining an "unhealthy" lifestyle.  Her love of sweets, salt beef, pizza and fries should have killed her off years ago according to the likes of Dr Oz.  Yet, here she is living la vida loca on the Rock.  The god stuff doesn't impress me but, I think she is spot on when suggesting that having fun will keep you around a little longer.  That is the mantra of this blog, anyway.  So, live it up folks and hope you have the right combination of genes to keep at it for awhile yet.  Just, maybe tone it down a little once in awhile. 

I Let My Liver Do the Detoxing

I had considered writing a post about "Detoxing" but, I realized that Ben Goldacre did a far better job of explaining it than I could.  Before you watch the video, Ben talks quite fast so, listen quickly!  Also, the Barbie doll in the video is undergoing this treatment here.



The only thing I will add is what I have said before: living is a compromise between having fun and staying healthy.  The only person who can decide on how much fun versus how much health is YOU.  So enjoy yourself, or don't.

Rubbing Salt in the Wound

I am often accused of being a curmudgeon, or contrarian or cynic because I am not willing to accept every new study or latest fad in the health and nutrition world.  So, every now and then, I like to find gems like this one from Scientific American that debunks the myth that salt causes hypertension.  The article does a great job of illustrating the difficulties of designing studies that can make definitive claims of links between certain foods and illness, and also shows how important it is to have more than one study to substantiate claims.  

There is no shortage of "experts" willing to jump on the first study they find that shows a correlation between anything we eat and our latest health "epidemic".  Inevitably, these connections are later shown to fall apart under further study, but once the thought is implanted it is difficult to wipe it from out lexicon.

The glory which is built upon a lie soon becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance.  How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again. - Mark Twain in Eruption.

It's no different for foods that are supposed to be good for us, either.  The idea that red wine is a great way to stave off heart attacks or cancer are just as unsubstantiated and yet everyone who needs to justify their over doing it seems to want to remind us of the miracles of the magic grape.  Or the latest study on the benefits of coffee.  I drink coffee and wine because I like them.  I put salt on food because it tastes better.  I said it before, eat less/move more/all things in moderation, including moderation.

How Sweet It Is.

I recently went shopping at a local farmer's market and as usual stopped at the honey supplier to check out their offerings.  I love honey and use it as a sweetener in coffee and tea as well as in my cooking.  I prefer the taste and there is no unpleasant after taste like that I detect with refined sugar.  It is also my opinion that honey is just sweeter than other sweeteners.  But, mostly, I use it because I love the flavour.

I always find it amusing, though, that honey is the one food I purchase at farmers' markets that is marketed to me by the vendors as some kind of miracle cure all.  I do not doubt that honey is a good source of some nutrition, but the same can be said for any food.  This vendor on this particular day was even more effluent than usual about the health benefits of honey and was trying to convince me that honey was more of a panacea than a food.  She asked me how much honey I use and I told her I go through a large jar every couple of weeks to which she replied "oh, that's wonderful. Good for you. You will never have to worry about cancer or diabetes."  This I found amusing since I am at high risk right now for diabetes and my doctor is currently considering medication for same.  But, I let it go.  She then cautioned me to not use that horrible stuff they sell in supermarkets, to which I assumed she was referring to pasteurized honey.  She enlightened me that honey from large companies is not real honey.  I did not have the patience to sit through an explanation of what it was so I did not ask.

In the end I told her that her product was nice, thanked her for the sample and said I wasn't really in need of any just now but maybe next week.  This only seemed to open the door to a discussion about the health properties of bee's wax candles.  Really?  Burning a candle is going to provide me some kind of health benefit?  I still haven't seen any relief from mosquitoes by using citronella candles so I'll be damned if I am going to spend $10 on a bee's wax candle.  I was able to extricate myself from her grip and went on with my shopping but the experience stuck with me and I wondered just what is the evidence of honey's health benefits?  Off to Google I went and the only evidence was a number of pages for benefits-of-honey.com.  However, while the information appears well written and well sourced, when you actually click on the links they are only linking to themselves as the source.  Obviously this would be unreliable.

So, I went to PubMed and looked up some of the most recent studies. I reviewed 11 recent studies on PubMed that looked at various health effects of honey.  These studies suggested that there is limited evidence (most in the form of using honey as a wound dressing in diabetic foot) regarding the health benefits of honey.  None of the studies used very large sample groups and none showed overwhelming statistical evidence to support their conclusions.  The general conclusions were that honey does seem to have some antibacterial properties that may benefit in the use as a topical ointment in diabetic foot and that honey may be used as a low glycemic sweetener in healthy and at-risk individuals and could be a sugar substitute for diabetics as long as hemoglobin A(1C) is monitored (elevated levels tend to be the cause of diabetic foot and eye sight loss).  To me this does not show overwhelming evidence that honey is a miracle food that we all need to consume. There was one study that looked at the in vivo effects of honey on damaged cells but no follow up studies have been conducted to replicate the findings.

I love honey, all types and styles and, yes, even BillyBee honey.  I look at honey as a better tasting sweetener, and am aware of some of its dangers (and here.).  I will continue my use of honey out of pure love of the taste and won't be feeling guilty about buying pasteurized honey either, and I might even save a little money in the process. But it would be nice, in the mean time, if honey producers would concentrate on marketing their product as a great tasting, quality sweetener that won't kill you when used in moderation, you know, like everything else.

Not the Apple of My Eye

If an apple a day could keep the doctor away the doctor I would want to keep away form me would be Mehmet Oz.  This quack has a long history of pushing all sorts of woo and misinformation (see here, here and here ) but recently he made a claim that defies stupid, that popular brands of apple juice contain harmful levels of arsenic and may be poisoning children.  Here is a link to the story.

This claim is ridiculous of course because any element on the periodic table may appear in any food grown in our environment.  As anyone with a high school education could have told the good physician, arsenic appears in two forms, organic and inorganic and the latter is the one we need to worry about.  The FDA made that perfectly clear in their correspondence with this twat and he still refuses to admit his mistake and amend his claims.  Imagine how enraged he will become when he finds out that fish contain levels of mercury.  I think PZ Myers said it best when he suggested apple orchard owners consider a class action against him.

I found this tweet by @kreativekonnect to be demonstrative of people's lack of understanding: "the moral of the apple juice story? Why doesn't the FDA make sure food is labeled with all the ingredients?" Because then they would be labeling oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, iron, carbon etc, etc.  Toxins occur naturally in the environment and our bodies are evolved to deal with them in the small doses we would normally be exposed to them.  Some are more harmful and some are more plentiful.  It is nice to know that there are intelligent people working in agencies whose job it is to measure these toxins and determine the safe levels.  While I don't advocate blind obedience to government, there comes a time when we must place our trust in those that work for us.  In this case, Dr. Oz has undermined that trust and called their integrity in to question.  I hope they litigate him into ruin.