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What is the Organic Difference?
by Eric Wegner, from the January 2007 Newsletter .
I attended a recent symposium in Vancouver Washington on sustainable farming and food quality, put on by Washington Tilth, and thought Co-op members might be interested in a summary of what was presented. The basic message is: organic and sustainable is not just better for the planet, but better for us as well.
Carlo Leifert presented his work comparing the quality of milk from grass-fed organic production and conventional production. He found that saturated fats were up to 40 percent higher in conventional, and that the good fats (CLA, an essential fatty acid known to fight cancer, boost immune response and reduce the probability of diabetes) are from 25 to 40 percent higher in grass-fed organic. Vitamin E and carotinoids were also higher in the organic milk.
Stephen Jones, a wheat breeder at WSU, presented his research showing that older heritage varieties of wheat can have up to double the amounts of micronutrients such as iron, zinc and selenium. “We shouldn't be surprised that after a century of selecting crop varieties for yield and never considering nutrition, that we have ended up with lower nutrition,” said Jones.
Preston Andrews, a horticulturalist at WSU, studied the differences between crops of apples of the same variety, grown in the same area but using different management practices (certified organic and conventional.) He had the apples analyzed for antioxidents and levels of quercetin, a phytonutrient known to have anti-prostate cancer qualities. The organic apples had significantly higher levels of both, with better firmness and the same yield, although with lower weight on average.
Andrews also found levels of ascorbic acid, phenolics, flavenoids, anthocyanins (all good stuff) were higher in organic strawberries than comparable conventional berries. His conclusion was that phytochemicals are diluted in conventional systems because of high levels of Nitrogen fertilizer, which produces excess growth, and because of selection of crop cultivars for non-nutritional standards.
Chuck Benbrook, from the Oregon Organic Center, opened the symposium with words that gave me plenty of food for thought. High levels of nitrogen fertilizer, he said, do produce higher yields, but most of the extra yield is in the form of glucose. Within the plant, this extra glucose (sugar) bonds with other molecules (amino acids, proteins and the like) in a process called glycosolation, which changes the metabolic uses of the molecules. High fertilizer inputs create larger cells, decreases nutrient density, less intense flavor, and greater susceptibility to pests and pathogens. With greater availability of sugar, lower densities of phytochemicals for defense purposes, conventional crops require the use of pesticides to compensate.
Similar abnormalities of glucose metabolism occur in humans, and are called diabetes. Are we giving plants diabetes by stimulating their growth beyond normal levels in conventional agriculture? And are the plants we are eating, with their higher levels of sugar, reduced phytonutrients and glycolated molecules, contributing to the epidemic of human obesity and diabetes? According to Benbrook, it is far too early to say, but certainly time to find out.
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