I agree that there are important issues to be looked at with regard to organic farming (or sustainable agriculture), and I appreciate that the holistic accounting approach to assessing the financial benefits of any particular method of farming is the only way to figure out the most effective techniques.
The short term benefits of an intensive bout of mechanised industrial farming in any particular region are what drives non-organic methods. To be honest, it often has less to do with long term planetary management and more to do with making a quick buck!
Getting maximum yield per acre on a year by year basis is all that many farmers around the world are interested in.
Taste, appearance and nutritional value are further down the list of priorities.
"Do what you wanna, do what you will, but don't mess up your neighbour's thrill" F. Zappa
It's just a shame that word Organic was chosen - SA or similar should have been adopted - Sustaianable Agriculture.
Yep - it's a pity we didn't go for Biological Agriculture like most of Europe - that puts it in neat contrast with 'Chemical agriculture' our conventional system which in practice treats the soil as an inert medium, not a delicate ecosystem. But beware, cos 'Sustainable Agriculture' is a tag that's now being used to describes a slightly ecofriendly fudge which retains most of the inputs used intensively, but with a few sops to nature such as beetle banks and unploughed headlands - it's pretty much window-dressing.
About the carbs, Periurban, I agree we eat far too much. But obesity really took off as a problem when people went for low-fat and replaced fat with carbs. This puts the body in a situation where it lacks fat soluble vitamins, essential fatty acids etc., and causes us to overat to try and get them. As I said somewhere else - farmers produce overfat animals by feeding them a high carb, LOW FAT diet. The other thing is appetite - fat rich foods fill. us up, and keep us feeling full, as they are slow to digest. So it's hard to overeat pure fats - it quickly leads to nausea. But our system for carbs works much more quickly, and produces big spikes and troughs in blood sugar, especially when fats are not eaten as well. This encourages binge eating.
Originally posted by Hollyvag: Harryman: About the carbs, Periurban, I agree we eat far too much. But obesity really took off as a problem when people went for low-fat and replaced fat with carbs. This puts the body in a situation where it lacks fat soluble vitamins, essential fatty acids etc., and causes us to overat to try and get them. As I said somewhere else - farmers produce overfat animals by feeding them a high carb, LOW FAT diet. The other thing is appetite - fat rich foods fill. us up, and keep us feeling full, as they are slow to digest. So it's hard to overeat pure fats - it quickly leads to nausea. But our system for carbs works much more quickly, and produces big spikes and troughs in blood sugar, especially when fats are not eaten as well. This encourages binge eating.
Exactly! That, coupled with the persistent demonization of saturated fats, which we absolutely need.
Just read this article from The Sun. (Anyone paying any attention to them for nutrition needs examined but that`s another matter).
However, what this article proves to me is periurbans original point. The science is wrong and as a result kids will get fed high carb sugar rich rubbish no matter what. Looking at these proposed packed lunches I think there isn`t a lot of nutritional difference. They even advise crisps and pizza!!
How many different food manufacturers make money out of that lot? If you gave them more natural foods such as cold meats, cheese, fruit and maybe a little brown bread with real butter etc you`d do far better.
This is the very kind of bad advice that will make the whole campaign fail in the long term as periurban originally suggested.
A thinly veiled plug from their sponsors, I think. Not only do they give carbs top billing, but they don't even mention fats, good or otherwise. How about an email blizzard in their direction?
Just say you disagree wholeheatedly with the food choices and general tenet of their article on foods suitable for packed lunches for children...
============================================== On one of our original topics, sugar, Tate and Lyle etc. - are we all aware that Tate & Lyle are currently receiving £118,000,000 subsideies from the UK govt (thats you and me) for 'food' production - a lot of which (Aruna note) is destroying 3rd world competitiveness - of all the 'food' producers who should not be getting ANY subsidy, for the damage they are doing, Tate & Lyle take the biscuit!
Now there's an email to the government dept responsible for Food Subsidies begging to be sent ...
On one of our original topics, sugar, Tate and Lyle etc. - are we all aware that Tate & Lyle are currently receiving £118,000,000 subsideies from the UK govt
Shameless bump - are we aware that these hysters are getting 118 million bushedos from us, the taxpayer, for whjat exactly - polluting the worlds population with pure unnecessary (no food value whatsoever!), white and nasty stuff?
I'm sure that there are many ways in which the land might be farmed sympathetically, but I still say that from a purely nutritional point of view there is effectively no difference between organic and chemical methods.
The issue of toxins being introduced to the food chain is one that all methods of farming must be sensitive to, and is a separate issue.
The low fat revolution was the trigger for many of our current problems, but the seeds were sown long before (pun intended, sort of). The worrying thing is that even in the post-Atkins world the low fat snowball continues to grow and grow.
The sun thing?
The Sun are merely following government guidelines about food grouping. The meals they have "designed" are intended to appeal to children whilst providing what so called nutritional experts say we should be eating. All the food groups are covered, and any concerned parent who makes a cursory investigation will find that the Sun have actually provided what the government would call a "balanced" diet.
Any child who ate such a diet would have to be eating a very different diet at other times of the day to stay healthy and not succumb to sugar addiction. The lunches listed are deficient in iron and EFAs at the very least, and will promote an unhealthy insulin and serotonin response.
I don't suppose JO has a good record of being dealt with fairly by the press, but this is an especially low blow. I don't think this sort of "food" represents what JO wants.
"Do what you wanna, do what you will, but don't mess up your neighbour's thrill" F. Zappa
There are plenty of studies which purport to show that organic is no different to conventional, but I would take a good look at who paid for them! Here's a simple experiment you can do yourself. Buy a bag of conventional carrots and a bag of organic ones (both preferably unwashed). Put them in a corner and forget about them for a fortnight, or even a month in the winter. On your return, see which ones are a slimy mess and which ones are growing!! Then tell me there's no difference.
I'm sure that there are many ways in which the land might be farmed sympathetically, but I still say that from a purely nutritional point of view there is effectively no difference between organic and chemical methods.
The issue of toxins being introduced to the food chain is one that all methods of farming must be sensitive to, and is a separate issue.
Ther can be an enormous difference in mineral balance and trace element uptake between so-called organic and NPK, barren land farmed root crops to name just one type...
There are plenty of studies which purport to show that organic is no different to conventional, but I would take a good look at who paid for them!
True, and when the terms of reference are often so narrow (shades of pharmaceutical industry drug trials, quite closely allied?) then why would you expect much difference.
Buy an iceberg lettuce from a supermarket, and tell me they have any taste at all and like as not, less nutritive value. At least my allotment grown ones taste of something, and probably have a few trace nutrients in too - not that they're my favourite thing to eat!
What I'd like to know, is when was watercress* last served as a part of a school meal? This is such a basic, cleansing and nourishing foodstuff that used to be a cheap staple in many parts of the country, specially around here (Chilterns) and Wiltshire with its chalk streams, and in Scotland too - But local producers just could not get supermarkets to buy it - they're as good as all gone due to the pressure of 'markets' and cheap NPK barren foodstuffs, yet now they've re-found a niche market - at £1-25 a bunch!
So Periurban, and again with respect to your point of view... Keep promoting your preferred form of farming that supposedly feeds the world, and you'll be paying that for a single apple soon, organic or not. I can't subscribe to the oft quoted notion that organic food is expensive when comparatively, non-organic is just plain exhorbitant! It's this that sets the bottom-line and its massive profit margins for the retailers mask the very similar costs of either form of production.
*Watercress - a food that has laways been by definition and law, effectively 'organic' - as there was nothing allowed added to the aquifer water it is grown in except one drop per fifty gallons of soemthing (forgotten its name) to ensure that liver-fluke doesn't flourish. But them even that may have changed now...
I do not disagree with either of you on any of your points. If you read my posts carefully you'll see that I do not voice support for conventional chemical based farming methods. In fact, given the choice, and all else being equal, I'd choose organic every time.
My only point is that in terms of nutrition there is very little demonstrable difference in the nutritional value of one of the farming methods over the other. Obviously, if the farmer lets the soil deplete, and then replaces the missing nutrients with chemicals, there is a good chance that something will go awry.
But an organic farmer might be equally guilty of such crimes, and in many parts of the world formerly fertile plains have been reduced to desert by just such inappropriate traditional "organic" farming techniques.
Any farming method that produces a poor crop and leaves the soil incapable of yielding further bounty is a bad method. Any method that introduces toxins to the food supply (whether directly, or by tranference to the water table, or to insect life) is a bad method.
Non-organic methods are certainly more prone to deliver a large cash crop, which remains a huge incentive all around the world, but I cannot help but feel that modern techniques could be combined with traditional wisdom to fulfill all our needs without compromise in any direction.
That's the challenge facing food producers in the 21st century.
"Do what you wanna, do what you will, but don't mess up your neighbour's thrill" F. Zappa
Non-organic methods are certainly more prone to deliver a large cash crop, which remains a huge incentive all around the world, but I cannot help but feel that modern techniques could be combined with traditional wisdom to fulfill all our needs without compromise in any direction.
This is, in fact what organic agriculture really is - it's not pre-chemical farming but post-chemical farming. Yes, some traditional farming has proved highly sustainable and ecological sound - eg. tradtional Chinese agriculture; some has not - eg the overgrazing and almost desertified regions around the mediterranean. But organic methods draw on both old and new technology, and most importantly, start from a basis of regarding the soil as an ecosystem recycling nutrients in complex forms, not an inert medium for holding simple mineral salts - the underlying view of conventional agriculture, from its 19th century roots. Which is why the founding body of organic agriculture in Britain is the Soil Association. Have you read 'The Living Soil' by Eve Balfour?
If Jamie is doomed as you put it then why in the last week or so has the goverment and millions of schools decided to do something about school dinners,I personally would say that he is a successful hard working and caring young man both with this project and his homelife you can really see how much hwe loves his children and how they adore him i wouldnt call that doomed or failed.
Then there is hope for humanity! I certainly believe that good sense will ultimately prevail in all of this, and the good work that is being done by the likes of the Soil Association will, um, bear fruit (sorry!) in terms of health and nutrition as well as the environment.
Natter26.
Thanks for your contribution, but if you had managed to read the entire thread (a daunting prospect, I know!) you'd see that I have modified my views somewhet, and I actually support JO's efforts.
I was quite surprised by how much difference his cooking made to the health of the kids who were "adventurous" enough to try it.
Hotgirl.
The BMJ are a significant cog within the establishment, and they have a position of importance at the heart of the world medical community. However, that doesn't mean they get everything right.
If eating the way JO proposes was the answer to all our problems then we wouldn't have any problems. JO's cooking isn't some sort of secret. It is, in fact, quite traditional. He isn't bringing anything new to the table.
I have modified my opinion since I made the initial post. In particular, I was very impressed with the reduced incidence of asthma in one school that ditched the junk.
But I do maintain that the "spirit" of my original post is still relevant to the general debate on the role of sugar and refined carbohydrate in our diet. If you can be bothered to read the whole thread you'll find some interesting debate on the subject.
But to summarise, whilst JO's dishes do help to reduce total sugar content, they still have a relatively high carbohydrate load. The program aims the finger of blame at sugar, fat and salt, as if they were each equally to blame, whereas study after study has shown that it is sugar and refined carbohydrate that causes *all* of the problems.
So, whilst I applaud JO for what he has managed to achieve, I cannot help but feel that an opportunity has been missed.
"Do what you wanna, do what you will, but don't mess up your neighbour's thrill" F. Zappa
As I said, I have modified my opinion somewhat, and I have to accept that even the quite minor changes introduced by JO have made a difference.
Far from me missing the point, I think it's JO and his supporters who are missing the point. To blame fat, additives and salt equally with sugar and refined carbohydrates is what they have got wrong.
We've had a good debate about these issues on this thread, so if you can be bothered wading through the pages you might find it interesting.
My basic point is that there is an underlying scientific principle at work here, and it is not fully understood by those who seek to promote so called "healthy" eating.
The point is that if the low fat, low salt, organic way of eating was all it took to make us healthy, then we'd be doing it already.
Eating that way fails to deal with the biggest detrimental influence on modern health, which is sugar and refined carbohydrate.
Until we tackle the sugar demon head on, and recognise what he is, we will continue to fiddle around with the edges of our problems without ever getting to the heart of the matter.
Today in the supermarket I happened to walk past the sugar shelves. Suppressing a shudder, I noted how almost every other product was lovingly transferred from the delivery crates onto the shelves, and arranged nicely.
Not so the sugar. It is simply wheeled in on the pallets straight from the lorry. It shifts so fast they don't actually have time to handle it! Just wheel it in, stack it high and sell it "cheap".
We eat more sugar now than ever before, and it's no coincidence that we are sicker than ever before.
"Do what you wanna, do what you will, but don't mess up your neighbour's thrill" F. Zappa
I have since replying first of all to this post read your new post and yourchange of opinion to some of jamies project and if you had read all the threads you would have realised i had left a message there for you too
He's right though (Periurban), that refined carbs and sugar, oh so much nutritonless sugar, is dominating many diets today, even though on a diet!
Salt too, is overrated as an evil - because it's hidden so much - if it was always visible, or accounted for, it could be balanced properly, with potassium at least - and there is the problem. Not so much the absolute amount of sodium, but its falling out balance with potassium (ratio 2/1) and as this pair is at the centre of cellular metabolism, its pretty important that balance doesn't stay out of kilter for long.
And the dangers of avoiding fats or reducing them drastically, usually results in all the wrong ones being eaten, with dire results. The monocular focus on saturated fats has distorted the real message about the work that good fats do in the body and their essential role in so many processes - the brain being one.
Maybe the preponderance of sugars and absence of quality fatty acids are partly responsible for the enormous increase in psychological health problems - for a supposedly advanced society, we have dreadful problems in so many areas of human health - that we just shouldn't.
Producing more and more and cheaper and cheaper food of dubious quality, just isn't the way to go - but just try telling our government that - talk about joined up government - I don't there has ever been a British govt. so disjointed with its opposing policies and ministries fighting one another to be heard, rather than sitting in cabionet together working out proper strategies for the nation's good.
