There's More to Healthy Than Nutrition
In the sense that people should be involved with knowing that their food choices are healthy ones, that a diet heavy in fresh fruits and vegetables provides us with the vitamins and minerals we require to maintain bodily integrity. Agriculture has made great strides in the last fifty years, feeding greater numbers of people through advanced agricultural knowledge and technological aids. That we have, in the process, restricted seeds to specific types, isn't too good.
On the other hand, because food scientists have targeted viruses and predatory insects that attack our food grains and vegetable crops, we're fairly well assured that crop disasters will remain distant possibilities. Not, however, impossible to occur; that a mono-crop of food staples would be attacked by a rust or a virus that applied herbicides become incapable of inhibiting.
And there lies the rub, so to speak. Modern agricultural practises require huge amounts of chemical fertilizers to return to depleted soil the nutrients required for take-up by agricultural plant species. We've also become inordinately dependent on herbicides and pesticides, to the extent that run-off pollutes our waterways and impacts deleteriously on other living things.
There is a growing movement toward organic farming, and a more aware public concerned not only with the quality of the food we eat, but with the manner in which dependence on fertilizing agents, pesticides and herbicides are impacting on our atmosphere and our environment. From affecting the hormonal development of fish, birds and other wildlife to growing evidence that humans too are affected.
When the new study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine presented data that organically grown food has no nutritional advantage over 'conventionally' grown foods, but does confer a dollar advantage to those who sell it, people grabbed at that 'gotcha'. As a kind of affirmation of what they always suspected, or preferred to, that most food grown ordinarily is as nutrient-rich as the organic type.
Lulling many into a false sense of security, in fact. The study did not look at the differences between organically-grown as opposed to conventionally-grown foods with respect to trace amounts of pesticides and how that would impact,incrementally, over a sustained period of time, on the human body. We already have ample evidence that our over-reliance on chemicals discredits us as stewards of our environment.
The vitally important issue of eating fresh foods that have been grown without the use of pesticides was overlooked, and that's a pity. If we really give it any thought at all, we're better off eating slightly more expensive organically-grown food than food grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It simply makes good sense. Then, of course, there's another side issue, that of the common ingestion of processed foods.
People who commit themselves to a healthy diet make little use of processed foods. On top of the conventionally-grown fresh fruits and vegetables with their overload of pesticides, eating a diet heavy with processed food products also means loading up our bodies with preservatives, flavour enhancers and colouring agents.
If we're as serious as we say we are about healthy food choices, then we should begin to make more informed choices, to be healthier as a population than we currently are.
On the other hand, because food scientists have targeted viruses and predatory insects that attack our food grains and vegetable crops, we're fairly well assured that crop disasters will remain distant possibilities. Not, however, impossible to occur; that a mono-crop of food staples would be attacked by a rust or a virus that applied herbicides become incapable of inhibiting.
And there lies the rub, so to speak. Modern agricultural practises require huge amounts of chemical fertilizers to return to depleted soil the nutrients required for take-up by agricultural plant species. We've also become inordinately dependent on herbicides and pesticides, to the extent that run-off pollutes our waterways and impacts deleteriously on other living things.
There is a growing movement toward organic farming, and a more aware public concerned not only with the quality of the food we eat, but with the manner in which dependence on fertilizing agents, pesticides and herbicides are impacting on our atmosphere and our environment. From affecting the hormonal development of fish, birds and other wildlife to growing evidence that humans too are affected.
When the new study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine presented data that organically grown food has no nutritional advantage over 'conventionally' grown foods, but does confer a dollar advantage to those who sell it, people grabbed at that 'gotcha'. As a kind of affirmation of what they always suspected, or preferred to, that most food grown ordinarily is as nutrient-rich as the organic type.
Lulling many into a false sense of security, in fact. The study did not look at the differences between organically-grown as opposed to conventionally-grown foods with respect to trace amounts of pesticides and how that would impact,incrementally, over a sustained period of time, on the human body. We already have ample evidence that our over-reliance on chemicals discredits us as stewards of our environment.
The vitally important issue of eating fresh foods that have been grown without the use of pesticides was overlooked, and that's a pity. If we really give it any thought at all, we're better off eating slightly more expensive organically-grown food than food grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It simply makes good sense. Then, of course, there's another side issue, that of the common ingestion of processed foods.
People who commit themselves to a healthy diet make little use of processed foods. On top of the conventionally-grown fresh fruits and vegetables with their overload of pesticides, eating a diet heavy with processed food products also means loading up our bodies with preservatives, flavour enhancers and colouring agents.
If we're as serious as we say we are about healthy food choices, then we should begin to make more informed choices, to be healthier as a population than we currently are.
posted by Pieface @ 5:27 PM
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