The fixation with tiny nutritional differences between organic and non-organic is a silly distraction from the real issues, writes Craig Sams.
I’m having a bit of a ‘Duh’ moment I’m afraid.]
20 years ago, way back in 1992 I wrote and recorded a song called “Eat Organic Save the Planet.” It was part of a promotion by Whole Earth Foods that created the model that has been applied for September organic promotions ever since. We produced ‘Eat Organic’ leaflets, badges for kids, shelf talkers offering 10% off , printed window posters and gave a prize to the retailer who had the best organic window display with Cheryl Thallon as the judge. The song was on a cassette tape and we gave one to every participating shop to play on their music system. Our job was to push retailers to switch from our ‘natural’ products to the new organic versions we had developed, despite the price differences.
The song’s lyrics set out the argument:
“The weather round the world is getting very strange
As the Amazon rain forest turns into a cattle range
But still you keep on buying all those products that they sell
Eating burgers, drinking coffee, let the Indians go to hell
Eat Organic – Save the Planet”
And
“If you’re part of the problem then you’re holding us back
We’re fighting for survival put the world back on the track
Clean your act up, eat organic and be part of the solution
It’s time to take the next step in the planet’s evolution”
And
“One day we’ll lose the land that our lives are built upon
Then the next thing has to be that we will all be gone”
And
“If we really want to save this planet of our birth
We’ve got to place some value on what life on Earth is worth
If we didn’t spray so many toxic pesticides
All those different species never would’ve died”
So when some monomaniac academics at Stanford say organic is no better than non-organic because it has the same level of vitamin content I can’t take it seriously. They don’t get it. They probably never will. They are part of the problem and are accessories after the fact (to use the correct legal terminology) to the murder of our beloved planet, which in effect is the murder of all of us.
Organic farming protects biodiversity; it helps get carbon out of the atmosphere and into the soil via composting; it combats global warming by not using nitrate fertilisers (responsible for 1/7 of the annual increase in greenhouse gases); it doesn’t produce sick animals or milk from cows that die when they’re three years old; it helps restore soils that were built up over thousands of years and have been horribly degraded in the past 50 years; it encourages wildlife, birds and bees and other vital pollinators instead of killing them with sprayed poisons; it doesn’t use pesticides that are proven causes of birth defects – defects that are intergenerational and where your grandchildren get the hardest hit from them. Organic farming uses half the fossil fuels of non-organic; organic farmers are younger and prettier (they are 30% younger and six times more likely to be female) than non-organic farmers; organic farming never uses genetically modified seeds or hormonal milk drugs which have never been properly tested for human safety; organic farming never uses sex hormones to build up layers of muscle and fat; organic farmers don’t routinely give antibiotics to their animals just to make them grow a little faster, not least because this breeds antibiotic-resistant diseases that cross-infect and kill humans. Organic food never contains hydrogenated fat, named or disguised as mono- and di-glycerides of fatty acids; or artificial flavourings, colourings, preservatives.
Jeez, I’m exhausted just running through this list.
So who really gives a toss about tiny differences in vitamins and minerals? It’s one thing (along with ‘it tastes better’) that I’ve always felt is totally irrelevant. We make food choices using our better judgement and if we eat a lot of junk food, sugar, alcohol, hydrogenated fat and hormones and antibiotics and pesticides then no amount of extra vitamins will make much difference.
It seems so bleedin’ obvious and it is. People worldwide are going organic. Farming in the developing world is rejecting GM and going for organic solutions. The black arts of PR-backed ‘experts’ and ‘scientists’ and ‘authorities’ can’t turn back the tide.
By Craig Sams
Organic food pioneer and polemicist
Craig Sams is Britain’s best known natural food pioneer. He is the founder of Green & Blacks, a former Soil Association chairman and the author of The Little Food Book.
