Recent studies demonstrate nutritional superiority of organically grown food
by Guy Dauncey
or millions of years, for as long as mammals
and their predecessors have lived on Earth, humans and our ancestors have
always eaten organic food. Our physical bodies evolved in the exact way
that Earth's organic food encouraged us to: the match between the cellular
needs of our bodies and the nutrients which organically grown plants and
animals can provide is complete 100 percent.
The movement away from organic food started
in the 1860s, when a man called Justus Leibig applied his new-fangled modern,
scientific mind to the question, "I wonder what makes plants grow?"
To answer his question, he took some soil and burnt it. In the ashes, he
found potassium, potash and nitrogen. "Miracles!" he thought.
"I've found the secret to life!"
From that moment on, modern farming started
to add manufactured fertilizers to the soil to boost the productivity of
plants. Today, the production of chemical fertilizers worldwide and the
parallel production of pesticides is a huge, multi-billion dollar international
business.
In the 1920s, however, a small group of people
in England inspired by the leadership of Lady Eve Balfour formed the Soil
Association. They started to spread the idea that food was better grown
organically, without chemicals. Today, the organic revolution is beginning
to catch on all over the world. Denmark has committed itself to 20 percent
of its farming being organic by the year 2000, and the Gallo Wine company
is the largest organic farm in California.
Throughout the years, however, there has never
been any hard and fast proof that organic food is actually any better for
you. Instinct might tell you that it is, and the knowledge that you're not
eating all those chemicals sure feels good, but where was the proof?
Finally, the answers have arrived. In 1993,
a trace minerals laboratory analyst in Chicago named Bob L. Smith started
a small experiment. For two years, he went to stores in Chicago and purchased
between four and fifteen samples of both organic and non-organic produce.
He took the foods back to his laboratory and analyzed them different foods
for trace elements, to see what was present and what was missing.
The results are stunning, and should be a wake-up
call to the whole world:
Overall, organically grown food exceeded conventionally
grown crops significantly in twenty of the twenty two beneficial trace elements.
They also had lower quantities of toxic trace elements such as aluminum,
lead and mercury.
Trace elements are critically important for
our health and for the development of the brain. In a recent paper in the
British medical journal The Lancet, Danish researchers reported that
organic farmers and men who regularly consumed organic food had twice the
sperm count of men who did not consume organic food. (Thanks to David Steinman's
article in Common Ground for all this information).
The May/June issue of Organic Gardening
spells out why pests love non-organic food, but avoid crops raised organically
on good compost. It describes two studies by Dr. Larry Phelan which show
that the European corn borer moths lay 18 times more eggs on sweet corn
plants grown in chemically farmed soils than on organic soils. When he carefully
monitored the variables, he found that it was the mineral ratios which were
responsible. When the necessary minerals are available in the proper balance,
plant roots absorb exactly what they need for photosynthesis.
Plants grown in chemical soils often lack this
mineral balance. Pests are not as attracted to the complex starches and
proteins in plants with a good mineral balance they're like junk food addicts,
and prefer a diet rich in the simple sugars and amino acids that are present
when the mineral supply is out of balance. Organic farmers have sensed this
for years but this is the first time there has been solid scientific evidence.
Reprinted from Guy Dauncey's monthly publication from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, available at: www.islandnet.com/~gdauncey/econews, email: gdauncey
islandnet.com.
