Growing Organic

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com It’s happening to crops in the United States, too. In 2004, Donald Davis, PhD, a former researcher with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin, led a team that analyzed 43 fruits and vegetables from 1950 to 1999 and reported reductions in vitamins, minerals, and protein. Using USDA data, he found that broccoli, for example, had 130 mg of calcium in 1950. Today, that number is only 48 mg. What’s going on? Davis believes it’s due to the farming industry’s desire to grow bigger vegetables faster. The very things that speed growth — selective breeding and synthetic fertilizers — decrease produce’s ability to synthesize nutrients or absorb them from the soil.

When Stress is a Good Thing…

The article goes on to say:

“A different story is playing out with organic produce. “By avoiding synthetic fertilizers, organic farmers put more stress on plants, and when plants experience stress, they protect themselves by producing phytochemicals,” explains Alyson Mitchell, PhD, a professor of nutrition science at the University of California, Davis. Her 10-year study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry showed that organic tomatoes can have as much as 30 percent more phytochemicals than conventional ones. ”

Phytochemicals are substances that plants naturally produce to protect themselves against bacteria, viruses, and fungi.

More?

From and article by Winston J Craig, PhD, RD,Phytochemicals: Guardians of Our Health“

“phytochemicals, non-nutritive substances in plants that possess health-protective effects. Nuts, whole grains, fruits and vegetables contain an abundance of phenolic compounds, terpenoids, pigments and other natural antioxidants (including vitamins A, C and E) that have been associated with protection from and/or treatment of chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and hypertension as well as other medical conditions (3). In addition to the phytochemicals, fruits and vegetables are naturally low in fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, calories and sodium, and are rich in potassium, fiber, folic acid and vitamin C.”

The truth is that it takes time to build up soils, and it takes effort to gain a skill set for gardening. It takes physical effort to plant, grow and harvest your food, as well as cook things yourself. But here is the payoff: it is a great satisfaction to work in a garden, to eat from ones own table, it is a more enjoyable existence when one is healthy. There are great things that come from the modern food industry, I’m not going to deny that. We have fruits and veggies, spices and specialty foods from every place on the globe imaginable…. all available to us in the USA. We have fresh fruits and vegetables at any season.

But we have lost much, and that is due to our own indolence. It is not a choice between shopping in a grocery store or growing your own food, but it is apparent that we ought to incorporate both.

It does take effort, it does create change, but some things are worth it. Growing your own food is one of those things….especially when it is so easy to start small and with little investment.