My girlfriend is fixated on politically correct food

Dear Auntie Pinko,

This isn't a world-shaking political issue (I guess it does have some political implications,) but maybe you can help me out anyway. My girlfriend reads DU all the time and loves your column, so maybe input from you will help settle this. My girlfriend is fixated on politically correct food, and practically no food is politically correct enough for her. Supermarkets are poison merchants, in other words, and lately even the "natural foods" industry has been "taken over by Corporate America" and the very word "organic" has been co-opted by the Corporate Forces of Evil. Now she's all worried that the government is going to make California's tougher standards for labeling safe food obsolete, and the only thing we'll be able to eat is whatever vegetables we can raise ourselves.

I actually do care about the quality of food I eat and prefer to reduce my intake of chemicals, hormones, etc. I'm not really unsympathetic to her (and I make a pretty good Nut Loaf myself) but it’s starting to get out of hand. I really don't want to get rickets, beriberi, or other nutritional deficiency illnesses just because we can't eat anything but our own carrots, potatoes, lettuce, etc. Is there any way to convince my girlfriend that a little moderation isn't going to kill us?

Carl
Davis, CA


Dear Carl,

If you indulge your tendency to amusing hyperbole when you're discussing this with your girlfriend, you might try toning it down a bit, for a start. Since she’s correct, and she knows it, on the fundamental concept of healthy eating, mockery (even from someone who loves her) probably just makes her less attentive to any valid arguments you may bring up.

We do benefit from minimizing our intake of chemically-'enhanced' foods, in more ways than just health. The agribusiness complex that has vertically integrated almost our entire food chain from seed (or gamete) to table is incredibly costly in finite resources of power, air, water, etc. And the collusion of our government in short-term subsidies for wasteful and unhealthy food production and consumption has entrapped both farmers and consumers. Breaking this destructive cycle would be so costly, in the short-term, that no one has yet mustered the popular will or political muscle to do more than tinker with peripheral issues like labeling. And again, your girlfriend is right when she points out that agribusiness simply exploits these limited efforts for their own purposes.

Nevertheless, Carl, you, too, have a valid point. We live in the world we live in, unsatisfactory as it may be, and our efforts to change it must go hand in hand with reasonable accommodations thereto. There is a very broad spectrum of what you label 'politically correct' food consumption practices, and the extremes at both ends can be equally costly in different ways. You and your girlfriend need to find someplace on the spectrum that will meet both of your needs and minimize the costs in both energy and cash.

By all means, plant your own perfectly organic garden, and eat (and preserve) your own produce if you have the land, the time, and the skill to do so. Not everyone does. It can be very costly indeed, to recondition land that (as is the case of almost all land, nowadays) has plenty of chemical and biological residues already integrated into the soil. And to keep it entirely free of rain- and wind-borne 'contributions' can be even harder.

But if you can't quite manage that level of purity, simply avoiding the use of industrial chemically-based fertilizers and pest controls will still result in garden produce that’s likely to be much healthier than what you can get at the supermarket.

If your resources don't run to a garden of your own, the next-best choice is fresh locally-grown in-season organically-raised produce from the nearest farmer's market. That may still be too limiting for you, however, both nutritionally and as far as the variety you want in your diet. Since the decline of the consumer food co-op movement, many people no longer have access to a consumer-owned co-op market in their neighborhood, but if you have such a market, that’s clearly the first choice in trying to expand your food options while minimizing environmental impact and maximizing health.

If you don't have those options, or if those options are too costly in travel and/or time, you will have to (as most of us end up doing,) find ways to do business with Big Agribusiness and minimize the harm. Corporate chains that stake their marketing reputations on "healthy" and "environment-friendly" practices have some incentive to minimize the damage that their mass-agribusiness basis inevitably promotes, so if you can afford the price premiums, shopping at such places sends the message that you care about those issues.

A word here about those "organic" price premiums, by the way. Americans do not pay anything like the real cost of the food we eat. Keeping food expenditures down is naturally of critical importance to families struggling to get by on cheap-labor wage and income levels, and Auntie has nothing but sympathy for their attempts to pay the least possible amount for their food. For the rest of us, it is a galling truth that those price premiums for corporate agribusiness "organic" and "healthy" foods do more to inflate corporate profits than provide livable incomes for the food producers. Nevertheless, even by those standards, our food is shockingly cheap and highly subsidized compared to real production costs.

Americans of almost all income levels (except the top) are feeling the squeeze of rising health care, housing, and energy costs, and paying a bit more for food is a challenge—but we really have no valid grounds for complaint. Contributing even a little bit more to the real costs of food production is a choice that represents a commitment to a sustainable future. Balance that off against our "need" for a new spring outfit, the latest video game, five-dollar lattes during coffee breaks at work, etc.

What about those of us who really can't afford to pay the price premiums charged by the "healthy" corporate supermarket chains?

The good news is that more and more regular supermarkets are climbing on the "natural" "organic" and "healthy" bandwagons and offering more choices. Many of those choices carry very modest premiums. In the Consumer Reports of February, 2006, a very solidly-researched article discusses which produce items carry the highest health risk when conventionally-produced, as opposed to organically-produced, and includes a list of "buy organic where possible" produce on that basis. It's worth a look at your local library. Essentially, items where we tend to consume the rind, husk, peel, etc., (or those that have no rind, peel, etc., like raspberries or celery) represent our highest risk of ingesting pesticide residues, etc. So buy those things organic. Same goes for "cumulative food chain" items like meat, poultry, dairy, etc.

Produce that has its own removable "package" (like bananas, sweet corn, etc.) has less risk, as does packaged stuff like breads, oils, cereals, dried legumes and so on. Studies have shown that members of the cabbage family (broccoli, cauliflower, etc.) are resistant to absorbing pesticides, so those are less risky when conventionally produced, as well.

Finally, if what you are really after is just eating healthier, you can do yourself a world of good by just buying raw ingredients (flour, beans, baking soda, vegetables, eggs, and so on) and making your own food, rather than buying packaged, processed, ready-to-eat foods, which contain the highest chemical levels of all.

I hope this information helps you and your girlfriend work out a compromise, Carl, and thanks for asking Auntie Pinko!

hey, i don't know if you are taking suggestions but if this is a real letter, the girlfriend's likely got an eating disorder, you'd be amazed at how many friends of ana are bright, intelligent women who have every answer in the world as why they cannot eat and you shouldn't either

i don't think you can assume the writer is exaggerating, he may be, but there are friends of ana who really do think they can get by just eating lettuce and drinking lots of distilled water

and I used to see a lot of food fads masking eating disorders when I worked in a health food store. Some were extreme enough to try to live on vitamins, alone. Some swore they only ate fruit that had fallen off the trees naturally. Others tried to take the macrobiotic diet to its extreme, living on brown rice, exclusively. All had very weird body image problems.
All were extremely unhealthy.

Any extreme pursuit of purity is generally masking a deeper issue, whether it's purity in food or purity of faith.

Some swore they only ate fruit that had fallen off the trees naturally.

Those are frutarians. Some consider it a healthy lifestyle, though most who adhere to it do so out of the belief that it is the least harmful diet possible. (By only eating fruit that has already fallen off the tree/vine, they need not harm plants in any way.)

http://www.fruitarian.com/ao/WhatIsFruitarianism.htm

where the girl is coming from.

It is hell on earth trying to eat a non-processed organic foods without slipping back into bad eating habits when those around you serve up their version of "food".

It is hard to make my boyfriend understand what eating the crap they sell in the stores and try to pass off as food does to me. When the toxins build up I get fuzzy brained and can't think coherently. I get fatigued and start to feel sickly.

If more people paid attention to what they were eating and quit supporting the huge ag businesses they would feel better and most likely the cost of medical care would go down. (Maybe Monsanto would even go out of business!) There would be improvements in water, air and soil quality from a decreased usage of pesticides, fertilizers, anti-biotics and growth hormones.

There are a zillion reasons on the plus side for people to try and eat the way the guy's girlfriend wants to eat. Yes, it takes a little longer to go shopping, and yes, it may cost a little more, but in the long run the benefits are worth it.

and I do understand. But my stance on it was "I cannot eat wheat/sugar/processed foods/etc.," not "and you mustn't either." I found that most people understand "This makes me sick," particularly if you phrase it like that. And it is very hard; you end up carrying a bit of food with you so that you don't have to starve.

But anorexics like the starving part. I've heard them proclaim how they must only eat the heathiest food and use that as an excuse not to eat anything. I've walked for miles with someone to find a restaurant that might have vegan food for him, only to have him grill the kitchen staff and find out they use lard. So while I eat a plate of nachos, he instructs me that no real vegetarian would ever eat cheese.

I'm not sure how much Carl is indulging in hyperbole, but I confess my first reaction was the same as others up thread. I have an organic garden; I do the best I can with my eating; I don't put the burden of it on someone else. I've had it with the food police, and I'm not a doctor; I can't cure eating disorders.

Auntie, as always, gives us a rational approach. This will work if the girlfriend's rational.

that wanting healthy food is some sort of disorder. I can't imagine the reaction you people would have seeing my family's diet ... but then again, you haven't seen my daughter's skin get almost okay after years of her scratching herself bloody due to unknown allergies.

Let me rephrase: I'm sure you are right to question some strange eating habits due to mental or emotional disorder, but I still find it depressing that many people have that as their first reaction. To me, there is nothing more important than spending the time and money to eat as healthily as possible. At least, it's right up there with a decent place to sleep, clean water, and clean air. And I have had many people roll their eyes at the demands of our diet, so I guess I feel a little bit on the side of the girlfriend in this picture. Not that I want to discount such disorders, but a little more respect for what one puts into one's body wouldn't do the average American any harm.

concerns and preferences, especially when they do not reflect your own biases. (For those who don't know pitohui has previously mentioned that a relative works for Tyson chicken, a polluting, factory farming, animal abusing peddler of chemical nastiness. Decrying healthy eating is in her economic interest and she does it at every opportunity.)

Please stop belittling other's legitmate concerns about thier food. It's getting damned old and it's highly insulting. Wanting to eat well is not a disease.

Because she prefers not to eat highly processed, chemical filled franken-foods foisted on her by mega-corporations? Because she enjoys a variety of fresh vegetables from her backyard garden? What a radical nut she is. :sarcasm:

My brother, who is dying of a self-induced mutilation and subsequent uncontrollable infection, started with food fears and fetishes in his teens, and progressed to ever more dysfunctional states of mind. People are not dying of food, so much as of what is eating them, with the exception of those dying for lack of food.

Do you have any more convincing evidence that concern about eating healthy food (which is this girlfriend's concern) is a good indicator of mental illness?

Consider moving someplace like Seattle, where you can get organic stuff for cheap from Trader Joes, Whole Foods Market, etc. There is an abundance of choices here.

I'm sure if they don't have an excellent farmers market, there have to be terrific fresh veggies readily available in the area.

I've met many otherwise well-intentioned vegans and vegetarians who are into a "holier-than-thou" food game that may or may not be a cover-up for an eating disorder. I had a roommate who was sorta kinda like that, where she would loudly and publicly extol the virtues of eating only whole foods grown organically, but she wasn't above eating Dreyer's ice cream or a piece of cake made from a mix, if you had one. :eyes:

I used to eat *everything.* Then I decided to stop eating animals for ethical and health reasons. A few years after that I discovered that I was *highly* allergic to tomatoes.

I am now a very picky eater, mostly through what I consider necessity.

You should maybe try to walk a mile in someone else's shoes before you judge.

Most of our entertaining is done over dinner. We cook good food well and don't care to alter our menu for picky eaters. One kosher type is grandfathered in, but I think all the veggie-people are gone. We don't judge anyone -- we just don't invite them to dinner.

How would you feel if you had a close friend who had invited you to dinner often over the years, and suddenly you came down with a food allergy and were told that you were no longer welcome at their table 'cause they couldn't be bothered to fix something that you could eat?

But if we'd just met we wouldn't bother to pursue the relationship. Life is too short. Even if you were charming and did not use the term BS in every post.

I had a restaurant, not fast food, in Ann Arbor, a city locally famous for its high-maintenance portion of the population.

People would bitch about:

disposable serving wares (no dishwasher, folks!)
food warmed in the microwave
lack of totally vegan variety


A food allergy is one thing--political correctness is something else entirely. People who are that picky had best learn to cook. And spend mucho dinero at "health food" stores.

And I think it's totally shallow and arbitrary to choose "friends" based on food choices.

I have vegan friends and I have friends who are low-carb carnivores.

If I had a friend who was totally unwilling to be sensitive to my food requirements and insisted that I was a Philistine for not eating the gourmet fare provided, be it foie gras, veal, or puppies, I would think that he valued his stomach more than his friends.

Then they have to prove themselves!

People who don't eat certain things because of their religion get special treatment, but those who don't eat certain things because of their ethical principles get the boot.

Nice attitude. :eyes:

Carl's girlfriend has legitimate concerns about the quality of food they are eating.Clearly she, and Carl need to find a livable solution.Auntie's advise is right on target.Wanting to eat decent food is not
an eating disorder, or a sign of a mental disorder

Disorder.....

Glad to see at least a few more posts on this topic.

I LOVE food! I just prefer food that won't make me ill.


Edited to add that I just now realized the inflamatory nature of the title of this thread.

What if it had been titled:

"My Girlfriend is fixated on Real Food"

it sounds to me like "Carl" doesn't want to concern himself with whether his food is factory farmed or full of dioxin or whatever.

I guess it's easy to eat if you live in denial about everything. That's what passes for mental health these days.

Luckily they live in a town with a pretty great farmer's market and what I'm told is a really nice food co-op (I've never stopped in since we have such a nice place here on my end of the causeway) they have lots of healthy options available.

My advice would be to eat low on the food chain and focus scarce resources on getting organic alternatives to the most contaminated foods first (that would be animal products from the most fatty to the least, if you're eating them- and I hope you aren't if you're concerned about food safety) then highly contaminated plants like berries and GMO stuff like non-organic corn and soy.

Honestly Carl, it sounds like she does know what she's talking about. There are legitimate concerns about our food supply, dilution of organic standards and corporate takeovers of organic foods (for example Altria/PhillipMorris/Kraft now owns Boca burgers and Muir Glen Organics, Dean Foods- a dairy company- owns Silk soymilk, etc.) I think as long as you eat a varied plant-based diet you'll be eating as well as you can in our polluted modern world though, so as long as your girlfriend is staying on the side of informed advocacy rather than worry you'll both be okay.

You shouldn't belittle her concerns though. That's a bigger issue that what you eat, really.

I'm tired of seeing goodhearted men belittle those closest to them. Carl seems like a good guy, but one should really be extra careful with the words one uses with those they hold most dear. I guess that goes for men and women, but as a guy raised by a single mom, with two sisters, a wife, and a daughter, and no significant male figures in my life, I'm particularly tuned to lame things guys do to their ladies.

Only one link up the chain. Delicious and nutritious.

People who eat animal fats have much higher body burdens of enviornmental contaminants than those who don't. Undoubtedly the letter writer's girlfriend knows that though.

Toxins?


http://www.eatwild.com/index.html

Health Benefits of Grass-Fed Products

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Lower in Fat and Calories. There are a number of nutritional differences between the meat of pasture-raised and feedlot-raised animals. To begin with, meat from grass-fed cattle, sheep, and bison is lower in total fat. If the meat is very lean, it can have one third as much fat as a similar cut from a grain-fed animal. In fact, as you can see by the graph below, grass-fed beef can have the same amount of fat as skinless chicken breast, wild deer, or elk.<1> Research shows that lean beef actually lowers your "bad" LDL cholesterol levels.<2>



Data from J. Animal Sci 80(5):1202-11.

Because meat from grass-fed animals is lower in fat than meat from grain-fed animals, it is also lower in calories. (Fat has 9 calories per gram, compared with only 4 calories for protein and carbohydrates. The greater the fat content, the greater the number of calories.) As an example, a 6-ounce steak from a grass-finished steer can have 100 fewer calories than a 6-ounce steak from a grain-fed steer. If you eat a typical amount of beef (66.5 pounds a year), switching to lean grassfed beef will save you 17,733 calories a year—without requiring any willpower or change in your eating habits. If everything else in your diet remains constant, you'll lose about six pounds a year. If all Americans switched to grassfed meat, our national epidemic of obesity might diminish.

In the past few years, producers of grass-fed beef have been looking for ways to increase the amount of marbling in the meat so that consumers will have a more familiar product. But even these fatter cuts of grass-fed beef are lower in fat and calories than beef from grain-fed cattle.

Extra Omega-3s. Meat from grass-fed animals has two to four times more omega-3 fatty acids than meat from grain- fed animals. Omega-3s are called "good fats" because they play a vital role in every cell and system in your body. For example, of all the fats, they are the most heart-friendly. People who have ample amounts of omega-3s in their diet are less likely to have high blood pressure or an irregular heartbeat. Remarkably, they are 50 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack.<3> Omega-3s are essential for your brain as well. People with a diet rich in omega-3s are less likely to suffer from depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder (hyperactivity), or Alzheimer's disease.<4>

Another benefit of omega-3s is that they may reduce your risk of cancer. In animal studies, these essential fats have slowed the growth of a wide array of cancers and also kept them from spreading.<5> Although the human research is in its infancy, researchers have shown that omega-3s can slow or even reverse the extreme weight loss that accompanies advanced cancer and also hasten recovery from surgery.<6,7>

Omega-3s are most abundant in seafood and certain nuts and seeds such as flaxseeds and walnuts, but they are also found in animals raised on pasture. The reason is simple. Omega-3s are formed in the chloroplasts of green leaves and algae. Sixty percent of the fatty acids in grass are omega-3s. When cattle are taken off omega-3 rich grass and shipped to a feedlot to be fattened on omega-3 poor grain, they begin losing their store of this beneficial fat. Each day that an animal spends in the feedlot, its supply of omega-3s is diminished.<8> The graph below illustrates this steady decline.



Data from: J Animal Sci (1993) 71(8):2079-88.

When chickens are housed indoors and deprived of greens, their meat and eggs also become artificially low in omega-3s. Eggs from pastured hens can contain as much as 10 times more omega-3s than eggs from factory hens.<9>

It has been estimated that only 40 percent of Americans consume an adequate supply of omega-3 fatty acids. Twenty percent have blood levels so low that they cannot be detected.<10> Switching to the meat, milk, and dairy products of grass-fed animals is one way to restore this vital nutrient to your diet.

The CLA Bonus. Meat and dairy products from grass-fed ruminants are the richest known source of another type of good fat called "conjugated linoleic acid" or CLA. When ruminants are raised on fresh pasture alone, their products contain from three to five times more CLA than products from animals fed conventional diets.<11> (A steak from the most marbled grass-fed animals will have the most CLA ,as much of the CLA is stored in fat cells.)

CLA may be one of our most potent defenses against cancer. In laboratory animals, a very small percentage of CLA --- a mere 0.1 percent of total calories ---greatly reduced tumor growth. <12> There is new evidence that CLA may also reduce cancer risk in humans. In a Finnish study, women who had the highest levels of CLA in their diet, had a 60 percent lower risk of breast cancer than those with the lowest levels. Switching from grain-fed to grassfed meat and dairy products places women in this lowest risk category.13 Researcher Tilak Dhiman from Utah State University estimates that you may be able to lower your risk of cancer simply by eating the following grassfed products each day: one glass of whole milk, one ounce of cheese, and one serving of meat. You would have to eat five times that amount of grain-fed meat and dairy products to get the same level of protection.

Vitamin E. In addition to being higher in omega-3s and CLA, meat from grassfed animals is also higher in vitamin E. The graph below shows vitamin E levels in meat from: 1) feedlot cattle, 2) feedlot cattle given high doses of synthetic vitamin E (1,000 IU per day), and 3) cattle raised on fresh pasture with no added supplements. The meat from the pastured cattle is four times higher in vitamin E than the meat from the feedlot cattle and, interestingly, almost twice as high as the meat from the feedlot cattle given vitamin E supplements. <14#> In humans, vitamin E is linked with a lower risk of heart disease and cancer. This potent antioxidant may also have anti-aging properties. Most Americans are deficient in vitamin E.



Data from: Smith, G.C. "Dietary supplementation of vitamin E to cattle to improve shelf life and case life of beef for domestic and international markets." Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1171

To read about the health benefits of dairy products from grassfed animals, click here.

Read news bulletins about the health benefits of grassfed animal products at Grassfarming and Human Health.

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References

1.Rule, D. C., K. S. Brought on, S. M. Shellito, and G. Maiorano. "Comparison of Muscle Fatty Acid Profiles and Cholesterol Concentrations of Bison, Beef Cattle, Elk, and Chicken." J Anim Sci 80, no. 5 (2002): 1202-11.

2. Davidson, M. H., D. Hunninghake, et al. (1999). "Comparison of the effects of lean red meat vs lean white meat on serum lipid levels among free-living persons with hypercholesterolemia: a long-term, randomized clinical trial." Arch Intern Med 159(12): 1331-8. The conclusion of this study: "... diets containing primarily lean red meat or lean white meat produced similar reductions in LDL cholesterol and elevations in HDL cholesterol, which were maintained throughout the 36 weeks of treatment."

3. Siscovick, D. S., T. E. Raghunathan, et al. (1995). "Dietary Intake and Cell Membrane Levels of Long-Chain n-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and the Risk of Primary Cardiac Arrest." JAMA 274(17): 1363-1367.

4. Simopolous, A. P. and Jo Robinson (1999). The Omega Diet. New York, HarperCollins. My previous book, a collaboration with Dr. Artemis P. Simopoulos, devotes an entire chapter to the vital role that omega-3s play in brain function.

5. Rose, D. P., J. M. Connolly, et al. (1995). "Influence of Diets Containing Eicosapentaenoic or Docasahexaenoic Acid on Growth and Metastasis of Breast Cancer Cells in Nude Mice." Journal of the National Cancer Institute 87(8): 587-92.

6. Tisdale, M. J. (1999). "Wasting in cancer." J Nutr 129(1S Suppl): 243S-246S.

7. Tashiro, T., H. Yamamori, et al. (1998). "n-3 versus n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids in critical illness." Nutrition 14(6): 551-3.

8. Duckett, S. K., D. G. Wagner, et al. (1993). "Effects of time on feed on beef nutrient composition." J Anim Sci 71(8): 2079-88.

9. Lopez-Bote, C. J., R.Sanz Arias, A.I. Rey, A. Castano, B. Isabel, J. Thos (1998). "Effect of free-range feeding on omega-3 fatty acids and alpha-tocopherol content and oxidative stability of eggs." Animal Feed Science and Technology 72: 33-40.

10. Dolecek, T. A. and G. Grandits (1991). "Dietary Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Mortality in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT)." World Rev Nutr Diet 66: 205-16.

11. Dhiman, T. R., G. R. Anand, et al. (1999). "Conjugated linoleic acid content of milk from cows fed different diets." J Dairy Sci 82(10): 2146-56. Interestingly, when the pasture was machine-harvested and then fed to the animals as hay, the cows produced far less CLA than when they were grazing on that pasture, even though the hay was made from the very same grass. The fat that the animals use to produce CLA is oxidized during the wilting, drying process. For maximum CLA, animals need to be grazing living pasture.

12. Ip, C, J.A. Scimeca, et al. (1994) "Conjugated linoleic acid. A powerful anti-carcinogen from animal fat sources." p. 1053. Cancer 74(3 suppl):1050-4.

13. Aro, A., S. Mannisto, I. Salminen, M. L. Ovaskainen, V. Kataja, and M. Uusitupa. "Inverse Association between Dietary and Serum Conjugated Linoleic Acid and Risk of Breast Cancer in Postmenopausal Women." Nutr Cancer 38, no. 2 (2000): 151-7.

14. Smith, G.C. "Dietary supplementation of vitamin E to cattle to improve shelf life and case life of beef for domestic and international markets." Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1171

Your link (which only presents one side of the story since it promotes the eating of certain animals) didn't address that, but it's true in any animal around our polluted globe.

My first reply had to do with the fact that cattle are actually pretty LOW on the food chain - unlike fish, chicken, pigs etc which are much more omnivorous.

Next point was lower fat content of grass fed animals - what that website promotes. And finally the article discusses some of the benefits and nutrition of grass fed meat.


Now then, which toxins were you refering to?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/26/ING3PHRU681.DTL

Here's a snip:

On the table in my small Berkeley apartment this morning is a healthy-looking little meal -- a bowl of imported McCann's Irish oatmeal topped with Cascadian Farms organic frozen raspberries, and a cup of Peet's Fair Trade Blend coffee. Like most of us, I prepare my breakfast at home, and the ingredients for this one probably cost me about $1.25. (If I went to a cafe in downtown Berkeley, I'd probably have to add $6 more, plus tip, for the same.)

My breakfast fuels me up with about 400 calories, and it satisfies me. So for just over a buck and half and an hour spent reading the morning paper in my own kitchen, I'm energized for the next few hours. But before I put spoon to cereal, what if I consider this bowl of oatmeal porridge (to which I've just added a little butter, milk and a shake of salt) from a different perspective. Say, a Saudi Arabian one.

Then what you'd be likely to see -- what's really there, just hidden from our view (not to say our taste buds) -- is about 4 ounces of crude oil. Throw in those luscious red raspberries and that cup of java (an additional 3 ounces of crude), and don't forget those modest additions of butter, milk and salt (1 more ounce), and you've got a tiny bit of the Middle East right here in my kitchen.

Now, let's drill a little deeper into this breakfast. Just where does this tiny gusher of oil actually come from? (We'll let this oil represent all fossil fuels in my breakfast, including natural gas and coal.)

Nearly 20 percent of this oil went into growing my raspberries on Chilean farms many thousands of miles away, those oats in the fields of County Kildare, Ireland, and that specially raised coffee in Guatemala -- think tractors as well as petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides.

The next 40 percent of my breakfast fossil-fuel equation is burned up between the fields and the grocery store in processing, packaging and shipping.

Take that box of McCann's oatmeal. On it is an inviting image of pure, healthy goodness: a bowl of porridge, topped by two peach slices. Scattered around the bowl are a handful of raw oats, what look to be four acorns and three fresh raspberries. Those raw oats are actually a reminder that the flakes require a few steps 'twixt field and box. In fact, a visit to McCann's Web site illustrates each step of cleaning, steaming, hulling, cutting and rolling that turns the raw oats into edible flakes. Those five essential steps require significant energy.

Next, my oat flakes go into a plastic bag (made from oil), which in turn is inserted into an energy-intensive, pressed wood-pulp, printed paper box. Only then does my breakfast leave Ireland and travel 5,000 fuel-gorging, carbon-dioxide-emitting miles by ship and truck to my grocery store in California.

Coming from another hemisphere, my raspberries take an even longer fossil-fueled journey to my neighborhood. Though packaged in a plastic bag labeled Cascadian Farms (which perhaps suggests birthplace in the good old Cascade mountains of northwest Washington), the small print on the back, stamped "A Product of Chile," tells all -- and what it speaks of is a 5,800-mile journey to Northern California.

If you've been adding up percentages along the way, perhaps you've noticed that a few tablespoons of crude oil in my bowl have not been accounted for. That final 40 percent of the fossil fuel in my breakfast is used up by the simple acts of keeping food fresh and then preparing it. In home kitchens and restaurants, chilling in refrigerators and cooking on stoves using electricity or natural gas gobbles up more energy than you might imagine.

For decades, scientists have calculated how much fossil fuel goes into our food by measuring the amount of energy consumed in growing, packing, shipping, consuming and finally disposing of it. The caloric input of fossil fuel is then compared with the energy available in the edible product, the caloric output.

What they've discovered is astonishing. According to researchers at the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Agriculture, an average of more than 7 calories of fossil fuel is burned up for every calorie of energy we get from our food. This means that in eating my 400-calorie breakfast, I will, in effect, have consumed 2,800 calories of fossil fuel energy. (Some researchers claim the ratio is as high as 10 to 1.)

But this is only an average. My cup of coffee gives me just a few calories of energy, but to process 1 pound of coffee requires more than 8,000 calories of fossil-fuel energy -- the equivalent energy found in nearly a quart of crude oil, 30 cubic feet of natural gas or about 2 1/2 pounds of coal.

So how do you gauge how much oil went into your food?

That is the real issue. Unfortunately, organic food is also unsustainable, as it is produced, stored, transported and cooked using huge quantities of fossil fuels. It also uses land inefficently, producing 20%-50% less than technology-assisted farming. This is an extravagance that only rich Westerners can afford.

And only until the oil runs out.

The Guardian published an excellent article that Carl should read:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1210493,00.html

If I may quote the last paragraphs -


I love that paper! One of the internet's only bullshit-free zones.

Uncertainties about health effects of pesticides.

It won't be doing anybody any good if technically enhanced foods to boost production turn out to be unhealthy for a substantial proportion of the world's population.
So with all of the contradicting studies on pesticides, many will opt for organic for themselves and their families.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1743666,00.html

DemEx

I agree with your view on this essential issue in our lives.


As far as responses here suggesting that it is a mental disorder to be concerned and picky about food ingested, I do see how eating disorders and malnutrition can develop from this concern, but IMO finding a satisfactory manner to deal with this in daily choices of putting food on the table is what is needed here, to ward off a response to the seemingly overwhelming problem by drastically limiting one's food to almost "nothing"......besides, enjoyment of food is very important for physical and mental health too, in my experience!

Great, balanced advice given here.
:thumbsup:

DemEx

Carl used the word "fixated" which led me wondering about an eating disorder as it did the folks who responded at the beginning of the thread.

From the Wikipedia:

Orthorexia nervosa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Orthorexia, or orthorexia nervosa is a term coined by Dr. Steven Bratman, a Colorado specialist, to denote what he considers to be an eating disorder characterized by a "fixation" on eating healthful food.

Bratman coined the term in 1997 from the Greek orthos, "correct or right", and orexis for "appetite".1 Literally "correct appetite", the word is modeled on anorexia, "without appetite". Bratman describes orthorexia as an unhealthy obsession with what the sufferer considers to be healthy eating. The subject may avoid certain foods, such as those containing fats, preservatives, or animal products.

Although the word is entering the English lexicon, the psychiatric community has not officially recognized the condition. Bratman's concept has been widely criticized by those who feel that focusing on healthful diet is generally beneficial and does not indicate a mental imbalance. Many believe that Bratman is unfairly targeting the vegetarian lifestyle.

A first scientific study on the subject was published in 20042.


References
Note 1: S. Bratman, D. Knight: Health food junkies. Broadway Books, New York, 2000
Note 2: L.M. Donini, D. Marsili, M.P. Graziani, M. Imbriale, and C. Cannella: Orthorexia nervosa: A preliminary study with a proposal for diagnosis and an attempt to measure the dimension of the phenomenon, Eating and Weight Disorders, Vol. 9 (2), pp. 151 (2004)

I'm not denying that there are some people who engage in pretentious, holier-than-thou snobbery regarding food. I've met plenty of them. In those cases it's more about showing off how "concerned" you are - it's social posturing.

But Carl's girlfriend is right about a lot of things. I write for an organic/natural foods magazine (in the interest of disclosure, I guess). I'm a freelancer and I'm not paid by any of the food corporations, and I research this issue 7 days a week. It's true that big corporations are taking over the organic industry - ie. General Mills now owns Cascadian Farm, Dean Foods owns Horizon Organic, etc. And that matters a lot because it weakens the organic standards. For example, when Dean Foods bought Horizon, one of the first things they did was start lobbying for the organic standards to be relaxed.

I don't think I'm mentally ill or have an eating disorder, and I doubt that Carl's girlfriend does, either. But if you want pure food, it's getting harder and harder to find it. I am not even that much of a "health nut". I just want to make sure that antibiotics will always work (since the antibiotics given to the animals we consume contribute, in part, to antibiotic resistance) and I don't want my sons growing breasts because of the growth hormones that are given to cows (which are banned in most other industrialized nations). I hate that it's so hard to even find a loaf of bread that's made without high-fructose corn syrup. I'm trying not to get on a soapbox here, but the fact that the rate of obesity and diabetes has skyrocketed has everything to do with diet. And considering that the rates of obesity and diabetes have risen so sharply in such a short period of time, and that our collective American diet and lifestyle weren't *that* much better before, it makes me wonder what they're doing to our food. Because of my job, I know *exactly* what they're doing to our food.

Wanting to have access to food that hasn't been completely screwed up with additives isn't wanting to be politically correct and it's not obsessive. It's wanting to have what nature intended and increasingly losing options to find it.

body is reacting too ... I'm a vegetarian and I've heard all the arguments about how raw foods is suppose to be the healthiest way to eat vegatables, but as much as I love them, for the life of me I can't eat raw carrots. I can't digest them properly, they bind my system, give me terrible gas, and cause all types of problems. I solved the problem by steaming them. Its not as pure as some of the activits claim, but hey my body process them fine.

The reason I mentioned this is that I would expect that eating the carrots raw would be a more natural way of eating them and that the body would process them better, but for that one vegatable it wasn't the case. If Carl's girlfriend is putting (for the lack of a better word) food idealogy over what's happening to her body, then that's mental, but if her body is reacting fine, then she maybe a little anal, but she's OK

Just out of curiosity...where's Carl?

You'd think that if somebody came to DU enough to write a letter to Auntie Pinko, he'd weigh in on this discussion so he can at least defend himself.

Just curious...