What is safe or Organic and good for you? (From My Columns at Brooklyn College Kingsman)

By Margo Belton

originally for Brooklyn College Paper The Kingsman

September 25, 2009

What is safe or Organic and good for you?  Knowing something about the source will enable your decision on how to proceed...or not.

It all started when a Psychology and advertising student at one of my lectures started yelling me “It is all a government plot!!” (She feels that we are being poisoned.) I told her it is not that bad yet.

There are studies,   valid and verifiable studies being conducted on food as medicine, super foods and cancer, brain plaque formation and sugar intake, etc. Many of those studies are being conducted in countries where they still do things the old-fashioned way- grow food in the front yard garden. The science about our food sources are still in the infancy stage and more are needed. The funding in the United States may not emerge until after this recession. In any case, that does not stop you, dear reader from doing a little research on your own. I feel better knowing where lot of my food originates. In a competitive environment, where your good lucks and brains make the difference- you are what you eat.

In order to keep my edge, I want the science about food: when I want to investigate the latest rumor on the internet about super this or that, I perform a metasearch.

It helps that I do have free access to any food journal or medical journal on the planet- thank you... Brooklyn College Library!!!

Once you get online at the Library, you can research trends you should know more about: Slow Foods, Neutraceuticals, Functional Foods, 5-9 a day, to name a few.

For instance, the American Dietetic Association would not propose a functional foods list if there was not a trend. Some Foods Are Good For You. Too bad the pesticides sprayed on some of these foods may have you wondering if the sheer variety of having over 40,000 items shippable to the United States at any time of the year is worth it. Seasonal eating may mean it does not have to survive a truck trip.

To determine where to purchase apples that are locally grown, I simply made a trip to where the local growers go: the CENYC sponsored GreenMarkets.

The link is 

http://nyc.gov/html/doh/html/cdp/cdp_pan_green_carts.shtml

Food is sometimes more expensive at the bigger GreenMarkets - so I go at the end of they day to get bargains. Hit it no later than 5:30 pm at Union Square, for example. The best bargain so far is the tiny CENYC stand on Lewis Ave at Middle School 35 (Stephen Decatur) in Bed-Stuy.  The kids there cannot tell me if the produce at this stand is organic or not. Yet the CENYS stand here is locally grown and healthy versus not locally grown and not healthy.

I purchased beets there for two dollars with the stalks on them (gorgeous) and they lasted a week. They were also the sweetest, freshest beets I ever ate.  When my roommate and I investigated buying beets at the PathMark at Atlantic Ave, the beets were $1.50 more and were pitiful. Those beets were over sprayed with water from jets places in the shelving, and wilting.

It did not matter that the beets brought at the stand on Lewis and Decatur were organic- they were healthy and fresh. We used a chopper to make a beet cucumber and arugula slaw, threw in some high -end organic olive oil (the green kind that you NEVER heat) and heaped it on a plate with some pasta covered with chopped tomatoes and crushed tomatoes. This meal was very easy to assemble- open some cans, boil some water, use the food chopper.) People were telling us how our skin was glowing.

Actually our skin was glowing from the organic wines that we drink in the backyard.  We prefer sulphite free, organic wines with complex flavors. Sulphites give you a headache. Why not treat yourself to some grapes from France in liquid form- a safer import than the over sprayed fruit from the same continent.   The wine store told us that French wines are regulated tighter than wines made in the US so we felt good about drinking Domaine D'Heritiques, a light white for under thirteen dollars, available at in Dumbo (Blanc et Rouge, 81 Washington Street. (Certain wine shops would not know organic from hootch so you may have to do some traveling to a gentrifying neighborhood...) You could also drink Malbecs, from a region in NorthWestern Argentina. This region is producing exceptional, inexpensive wines-2008(also see 2005).  These red wines should cost fewer than ten dollars regardless of the importer. The Argentine currency is still weak, so it works out to our advantage.  Remember the main ingredient in red wine, reservatrol is good for your already aging brain. My room mate and I are currently trying to determine if our favorite brand, Gato de Negro, is following organic practices. (An interesting Gato de Negro Malbec can be had for $5.50 at the Derby Liquors 2123 Nostrand Ave (718) 434-1155 on Nostrand between Glenwood and Flatbush.

Get Directions

You do not have to drink to receive the benefits of wine-just eat your colors. Purple foods are good for you! Cut out this chart and put in your wallet to get all the foods that the American Dietetic Association considers particularly beneficial. These foods contain components that are colors, vitamins, oils, minerals and other items that are grouped under the word phtyochemicals. It is very hard to exactly replicate some of the functions that these phytochemicals perform in the body, which is why they are considered functional. Take a look at the benefits column in the chart to learn about the importance of function. Some of the functions are in the skin of the food- i.e. the husky grain of whole wheat is what you want, not just the caramel color added to the bread with some grain from the wheat thrown in. The marketing of bread is such that they know you will grab 100% whole wheat product off the shelves and think that you are getting what you paid for- health.

Be all you can be- read. It is 100 % whole grain, not whole wheat. Do not pay extra unless you know what you are paying for. Lately even spaghetti has been appearing with mixed wheat product. Spaghetti is a wheat product, so unless the fiber content is in the teens, there is no bran husk in this mixed wheat product, and you are being bamboozled. Regular cheap spaghetti at 2 packages for a dollar will do just fine. You want whole grain? Buy some wheat germ, like my momma used to do. Spoon it all over everything if you want. Wheat germ is cheaper than granola, and less fattening overall. If it is processed cold (read the label) the B vitamins may be intact, depending on how long it has been on the shelf. The Egyptians stored grain for about ½ a year, and grew more wheat in the spring (winter wheat), so read the expiration labels.

To juice or not to juice? Why eat a red apple or a blueberry anyway? You are eating the energy stored in the fruit as a color. This is the 5-9 a day approach, as proposed by the various US government agencies responsible for our health. See www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov

Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Orange, Brown, White, Pink …. 9 colors that occur in the foods that you should be eating every 24-38 hours (a day). Red tomatoes or strawberries, Yellow bananas or Yellow Squash, Blueberries, Purple Cabbage or Concord grapes, Oranges (NOT ORANGE JUICE) and Cantaloupes, nuts, and mushrooms, cauliflower and garlic, Pink grapefruit, and watermelon.

Those colors are in the fruits and vegetables listed above. Nuts are the seeds of the fruit, and as

seeds they pack a lot of energy, so the size of your fist is the most you should eat of nuts in one 24-28 hour period. if you are watching your waistline. As for orange juice, it is manufactured with a lot of sugar so the processer can include sour and almost bad oranges and give the consumer a uniform taste. A lot of 

Photo by Valeria Boltneva from Pexels

people would use a juicer instead, and make their own OJ. Juicers are not the answer. A simple 20 dollar blender, purchased at the dollar store, will give you pulp, which is a very important part of the orange. You might even drink some macerated skin when you use a blender. In a juicer, all you get is the juice.

You can be missing the most important part of the fruit when you toss the skin. Yet fruits in the United States are heavily sprayed. If you have ever grown up with an unsprayed fruit tree in your yard, you can easily see that nature is cruel, and your poor untreated fruit tree does not have a chance against most predators. There are methods of growing fruit that avoids spraying, but they are labor-intensive and hence the cost tends to go up. Costs can be kept down if you buy fruit and vegetables in season. Visit the GreenMarkets and there you can get foods that are just harvested, and have not been cured with ethylene gas so that they look ripe, and taste just picked.

 The knowledgeable consumer does not have problem with chemicals if they understand that not all chemicals and chemical processes are inherently bad. Being alive is a chemical process. The smart consumer knows that about naturally irradiated fruits. Example of a naturally irradiated fruit: a raisin was once a grape. The radiation was from the sun. They should also understand that an artificially irradiated food may have been processed to preserve it longer on the shelf. The labeling of irradiation is not currently required by US laws. What to do? Shop local. If you must have a pineapple, which is never in season in New York, get it at the right time of year for its harvesting in Honduras or wherever it came from. You can Google the peak time of harvesting to get the most for your dollar in terms of vitamins, and other phytochemicals in the fruit. Again Google this:

http://localfoods.about.com/od/newyorknewengland/New_York_New_England-Seasonal_Fruits_Vegetables.htm

You do not want pesticides in your foods? , but you cannot afford to shop at Whole Foods all the time? (Trader Joes on Atlantic and Court streets is so much more reasonable, it’s often cheaper than the big chain supermarkets.) All you have to do is use Google to find a chart on fruits that may be heavily sprayed. See this link:

www.grinningplanet.com/2006/update2005-05-24/pesticides-in-food.htm

If you cannot do that, buy a pineapple or a tropical fruit from a reputable market that can sell you an organic fruit, and eat it quickly. Organic is not sprayed with chemicals that preserve it on the shelf, so no irradiation should be in the process either.

Organic means different things in different countries. There is a United Nations Commission on Organic practices, detailing the standards of 158 countries. Did you know that much of the food Morocco grows is shipped to France and tends to be organic? Did you know that Argentina has started using estrogen in its fabled beef industry, to keep up with the demand in beef from competing consumers, namely China and the US?

It is all about quality in the end, because Organic is a very loaded term-Goggle the New York Times Article It’s Organic, but Does That Mean It’s Safer? By KIM SEVERSON and ANDREW MARTIN Published March 3, 2009.

see this website: http://fao.org/search Type into search docrep/004/y1669/y1669e04.htm (you might even want to check out FAO the Website on international food standards by country.)

PESTICIDES AND FOODS: SHOP TO MINIMIZE YOUR INTAKE

www.grinningplanet.com/2006/update2005-05-24/pesticides-in-food.htm

Also, wash your foods with a scrubber to remove some of these sprayed chemicals that incorporate into the food-grade wax also sprayed on these foods.

Pesticides @ SO-SO LEVELS . . . SO USE CAUTION!	AHH . . . BEST OF THE BUNCH Wash of course, but eat without too much worry ….
YOU MUST WASH THESE AND RINSE THOROUGHLY Spinach	Broccoli
Grapes	Oranges
Lettuce	Blueberries
Potatoes	Papaya
Green Beans	Cabbage
Hot Peppers	Bananas
Cucumbers	Kiwi
Mushrooms	Canned Tomatoes
Cantaloupe	Sweet Peas
Oranges	Asparagus
Fresh Winter Squash	Mango
	Canned Pears
	Pineapple
	Sweet Corn
	Avocado

Hate to cook? Chop it up, toss on some pasta or put in a bowl, throw your favorite sauce.

Betty-Crocker-BC-2405C-3-Cup-Chopper @ 18.99 in 2020 

https://www.amazon.com/Betty-Crocker-BC-2405C-3-Cup-Chopper/dp/B00FG3HF9A/ref=psdc_678514011_t3_B00KDVJI4A

Easier to add variety

Fun and quick stretches your dollars