Pacific Views

Natural Food

Over at Educated Guesswork, there's a post about arbitrary perceptions of natural and synthetic food. With the reasonable conclusion that very little of what most urbanized people eat could be considered natural. He points to Dan Simon of I Could Be Wrong, who opines that a preference for 'natural' food is purely aesthetic.

It's pointed out rightly that corn as we know it is the result of horticultural tinkering that multiplied cob sizes by a factor of 10. But it could also be mentioned that cabbage, broccoli, kale, kohlrabi, bok choy, brussel sprouts, and cauliflower, are all from the same species of selectively bred mustard plant. Further that wheat, a widespread dietary staple, did not exist as such before about 10,000 years ago.* Nor is that all, but you get the picture.

It could even be said that it's a very odd custom to take $0.03 worth of corn and (not necessarily in this exact order) mash it, roll it out, bake it, break it into flakes, pack it in $0.12 worth of cardboard and plastic, and sell it for $3.99 to be eaten in the morning with milk. Historically speaking, this behavior is quite aberrant, bordering on the perverse.

If we wanted to get especially picky, the word 'natural' could be attacked for it's very meaninglessness. Arsenic, after all, is a perfectly natural component of raw almonds, apple cores, and peach pits. Nonetheless, the prudent would avoid it.

Certainly, when I see the phrase 'all natural' on a food label, I get to wondering what's so natural about this particular processed item. More information is needed.

Is It Healthy?

High health and nutritional value is really the standard food needs to be held to. And the assurance I look for on a label is some kind of organic certification. This is a distinction I'd gladly ignore if it were a matter of keeping up appearances. I don't have some kind of leftist committee I have to report my food purchases to, and I wouldn't complain if my groceries were cheaper.

While there isn't universal agreement that the benefits of organic outweigh the downsides, this article snippet summed up the opposing views pretty well:

...A study in the 2003 Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that frozen, organic corn contained 52 percent more vitamin C than conventional corn. Another study in the journal's August 2002 issue found that organic peaches and pears had higher levels of naturally occurring antioxidants, which might bolster the immune system.

But not all scientists agree that organic food is healthier than food raised conventionally.

Researchers at the non-profit Institute of Food Technologists argue on the organization's Web site that health risks associated with naturally occurring microorganisms are "far greater" than risks associated with pesticide residues. ...

I don't know about those last guys, but I usually wash my food before preparing it. Maybe it's just me? And anyway, many of those naturally occurring microorganisms actually have a purpose:

...Organic farming encourages soil organisms, which can produce "many compounds that help plants, including substances such as citrate and lactate that combine with soil minerals and make them more available to plant roots. . . The presence of these microorganisms at least partially explains the trend showing a higher mineral content of organic food crops." ...

Microorganisms like cyanobacteria and beneficial root fungi do a tremendous amount to boost plant nutrient uptake and the organic content of the soil. But they're also very sensitive to both pesticide and fertilizer, with repeated applications leaving soil thoroughly dead.

Putting (Some Of) It Back

Once the soil's natural replenishment crew is gone, more and more must be added to it in order to provide nutrition for crops. And what's added is generally lacking in trace minerals, and often laced with industrial contaminants:

The recycling of hazardous industrial wastes into fertilizers introduces several dozen toxic metals and chemicals into the nation's farm, lawn and garden soils, including such well-known toxic substances as lead and mercury. Many crops and plants extract these toxic metals from the soil, increasing the chance of impacts on human health as crops and plants enter the food supply chain.

...Between 1990 and 1995, 600 companies from 44 different states sent 270 million pounds of toxic waste to farms and fertilizer companies across the country. 1 The steel industry provided 30% of this waste. Used for its high levels of zinc, which is an essential nutrient for plant growth, steel industry wastes can include lead, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel and dioxin, among other toxic substances. ...

Yum.

Unsafe Wherever You Go (sorry, Bob)

But you can't entirely avoid unpleasant contaminants just by sticking to organics. Due to the careless disposal of rocket fuel components (thank you, Lockheed Martin), the Colorado River is contaminated with toxic perchlorate:

...In a front-page story on Dec. 16, 2002, The Wall Street Journal reported that “tests on several vegetable samples from a perchlorate-contaminated farm in Redlands found the plants concentrated perchlorate from local irrigation water by an average factor of 65, according to calculations by Renee Sharp of the Environmental Working Group in Oakland, Calif., one of the few nonprofit groups focused on perchlorate contamination. That means the perchlorate dose in the vegetables was 65 times the amount in the water.” Sharp told the Journal: “If people are eating it, on top of drinking it, the EPA will have to lower its proposed drinking-water standard substantially.” [Read the story]

Perchlorate, which impairs the thyroid’s ability to take up iodide and produce hormones critical to proper fetal and infant brain development, has contaminated almost 300 drinking water sources and farm wells in California and an unknown number of sources in at least fifteen other states. Sources known to be contaminated include the Colorado River from near Las Vegas to the Mexican border — the primary or sole source of irrigation water for farms in California, Arizona and Nevada that grow the great majority of the lettuce sold in the U.S. during winter months. ...

This means that even organic lettuce from these states (the rest of the article is focused largely on the uptake of perchlorate in lettuce) is contaminated with rocket fuel because of the irrigation water used. And as they mention above, most of the lettuce eaten in the US in winter comes from farms in these areas.

The EPA released this commentary on perchlorate in 2002, noting that "[t]here have been confirmed perchlorate releases in at least 20 states throughout the United States." This was their July 18, 2003 (released on a Friday) ruling on the topic:

...At this time, EPA does not believe adequate data exists in these key areas to make a regulatory determination….for perchlorate…EPA is gathering information to fill the data gaps for these contaminants. With respect to perchlorate, EPA is gathering national occurrence data on perchlorate in drinking water through the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring (UCM) Rule. ...

If only they were as thorough about vetting the intelligence used to figure out who to pick fights with. The above link makes it clear that it isn't just unregulated rocket fuel we'll be treated to, but "manganese, sodium, sulfate, aldrin, dieldrin, metribuzin, hexachlorobutadiene, naphthalene and Acanthamoeba." Not exactly reassuring.

Several of those substances are quite natural. But I don't want them in my food and water in appreciable quantities. Which brings me back to the original point at long last.

Know where your food comes from, know what's done to it. Don't rely on arbitrary terms like 'natural' on the label, because most of the time it's a meaningless marketing gimmick. It's scary at first, but you'll thank yourself later.

* "Guns, Germs, and Steel" - Jared Diamond, 1998