Do You Know About Bioregional Eating?

Eating bioregionally is gaining in popularity. Here's what you need to know, including how it differs from the locavore moment.

Growing local has its merits, but a growing movement suggests perhaps we need to let the region dictate what we grow locally. (Photo: Arina P Habich/Shutterstock)

There's a growing trend in sustainable food that sort of fine tunes locavorism. Sourcing from within bioregions is the one of the big food trends for 2016, according to Forbes, and although eating bioregionally has a lot in common with locavorism, it's not the same. What are bioregions and how can paying attention to them help us eat and live more sustainably? Here's a primer.

What are Bioregions?

A bioregion is a "geographical area with a unique combination of plants, animals, geology, climate and water features." When it comes to growing and raising food, each bioregion will have foods that it can naturally sustain and foods that it cannot.

Bioregional Eating vs. Locavorism

I have neighbors here in New Jersey who have a lemon tree in their house. They are avid vegetable gardeners and grow seasonally in both their backyard and a plot in a community garden. They certainly do their part to support the locavore movement. That lemon tree is something completely different, though. The climate where we live doesn't support citrus, so the tree is purely for fun. The number of lemons the tree produces may never equal or surpass the amount of money it costs to buy and sustain the tree, and the resources used to make sure it thrives are considerable.

I mention this not to put down my neighbors. In fact, I would love a lemon tree in my home. It would be fun to pick a fresh lemon each time I needed one, but I've established that my enthusiasm for growing my own food doesn't match my enthusiasm for eating it. So I mention this as an example of how growing locally isn't always sustainable.

Food that comes straight from your backyard has been hailed by many as the holy grail of sustainable eating for about a decade now. It's the ideal that resonated with me when I began my personal blog about eating local in the South Jersey/Philadelphia region. What I've come to learn along the way, though, is that eating sustainably is much more complicated than buying everything I possibly can from within a 100-mile radius.

Tomatoes grown in a hot house during every season may be local, but the practice isn't necessarily in keeping with bioregionalism. (Photo: Tree of Life/Shutterstock)

As with the lemon tree example, just because it can be grown locally doesn't mean it should be grown locally, especially when you take sustainability into consideration. My friends' lemon tree barely makes a dent, but large-scale production of foods that a bioregion doesn't naturally support can make a big dent in un-sustainability. Take for instance, energy-intensive hot houses that grow tomatoes out of season that are sold within the region. Are the tomatoes local? Yes. Are they sustainable? It gets more complicated then, doesn't it? They may (or may not) be more sustainable than a tomato grown in a warm region and shipped across country. Both methods of obtaining a tomato in the winter months in a place where they won't grow naturally use a lot of energy.

The concept of eating bioregionally seems to fine tune locavorism. Eating a locally grown hot house tomato in February is not eating bioregionally; eating a farm- or garden-grown tomato in July is. To truly eat bioregionally, we should forgo all fresh tomatoes once they're out of season.

Bioregionalism Beyond Food

This concept is easy to grasp when it comes to food, but it goes beyond that.

Your food bioregion may contain several towns, more than one state, and even more than one country. Part of bioregionalism is the idea of basing our political borders on nature. When you do that, you can see how it could get complicated fast. Instead of several different local, state or even national governments existing within one bioregion, there would be one political government within its natural borders. If we arranged "political structures around ecological regions and the cultures within them," argues Rachael Stoeve in Yes magazine, there would be sustainability in many areas of life.

There's a whole other blog post to write about that aspect, but it's interesting to look at the food concept with that broader scope. The decisions made about the resources within a bioregion would be more likely to benefit the environment and the people than corporations and those with a financial interest. That's something to chew on.

[via Mother Nature Network]

5 Studies That Link Science Behind the Benefits of Organic

Benefits to Public Health

A new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health concluded that eating an organic diet can contribute to human well-being. The research was led by Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences-based Dr. Jan Johansson, who reviewed current research on the effect of organic agriculture and crops on public health.

Finding a clear health advantage of consuming organic, her team states that "both animal studies and in vitro studies clearly indicate the benefits of consumption of organically produced food instead of that conventionally produced."

The increased phenolic compounds and lower pesticide residues found in organic produce could partially account for these benefits, but the study also points out that the significant advantages of organic cannot be explained by these variables alone. Researchers suggest that synergistic effects between various constituents within organic food are likely to be part of the reason it's more beneficial to public health than conventional products.

Reduced Pesticide Exposure

A new study published in the journal Environmental Research found that eating an organic diet for a week can reduce a person's pesticide exposure. The research was led by Dr. Liza Oates, who examined pesticide metabolites in the urine of 13 individuals who consumed a diet of at least 80 percent organic over seven days, and conventional food for seven days.

Dr. Oates’ team found that the total pesticide metabolite levels were reduced by as much as 96 percent by eating organic, with an average reduction of 50 percent. This study shows that eating an organic diet can reduce exposure to chemicals that have been associated with health risks. As stated by Dr. Oates, “Recent studies have raised concerns for the health effects of these chemicals even at relatively low levels.”

It’s nice to see a study showing that choosing organic can make a significant difference in your exposure levels.

Nutritional Benefits

A new study published in the British Journal of Nutrition shows conclusive evidence that organic crops, and the food made from them, are healthier than their conventional counterparts. In this study, researchers conducted a meta-analysis on 342 peer-reviewed publications looking at the health benefits of organic agriculture and found that organic crops have higher antioxidant levels, lower cadmium levels and less pesticide residues than non-organic crops. They found that organic crops had significantly higher levels of antioxidants that have been linked to decreases in chronic disease risks such as cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers.

The study also found fewer pesticide residues and lower toxic metal levels in organic versus conventional food, and organic crops had on average 48 percent lower cadmium levels than conventional crops. Cadmium is a highly toxic metal that can cause kidney failure, bone softening and liver damage. It can accumulate in the body, so even at low levels chronic exposure is dangerous. The findings of this study strongly support the health benefits of organic food.

Neonicotinoid Pesticides Linked to Honeybee Die-Off

A new study published in the Bulletin of Insectology by Harvard researchers found further evidence of the link between neonicotinoid use and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), in which bees abandon their hives over the winter and eventually die.

This study was led by Professor Chensheng (Alex) Lu, an advisory board member for The Organic Center and associate professor of Environmental Exposure Biology at the Harvard School of Public Health. It supports his previous research, which found that 94 percent of hives exposed to low levels of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid died within 23 weeks of exposure. The new study added a second neonicotinoid called clothianidin to their observations. The researchers found that the same negative effects were associated with bee exposure to clothianidin as with imidacloprid. “We demonstrated again in this study that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering CCD in honeybee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter,” said Dr. Lu.

Organically Managed Soils Could Reverse Effects of Climate Change

The Rodale Institute has done some amazing science supporting the benefits of organic agriculture, and its new report, entitled “Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change,” maintains this high quality of investigation. The report takes an in-depth look at how farming systems affect greenhouse gas emission and illustrates the benefits that organic agriculture can have on climate change. Specifically, the publication focuses on the ability of soil to mitigate climate change when managed organically.

Findings include a decrease of annual greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent if management of all current cropland transitioned to regenerative organic agriculture. Transitioning global pasture would add to carbon sequestration by 71 percent. “We could sequester more than 100 percent of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to widely available and inexpensive organic management practices,” the report states.

[via newhope 360]

Farmers' Markets Are Good for Communities…Right?

Vegetables at the Dane County Farmers' Market. Photo courtesy of Bill Lubing.

Farmers’ markets practically glow with wholesome virtue: Shop here, they promise, and you can help build a sustainable, healthy food system!

But without the data to buttress those claims, it’s hard to know whether farmers’ markets are actually meeting those goals or how they can adapt to better meet their communities’ needs. Alfonso Morales, a professor of urban planning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wants to help change that.

Fueled by an increasing interest in local food, the number of farmers’ markets in the United States has more than doubled in the last decade. This rise in popularity has been accompanied by the implicit assumption that farmers’ markets are more sustainable than their fluorescent-lit, big-box counterparts. Their environmental advantages, advocates say, are clear. Food is transported shorter distances, which results in lower fossil fuel consumption. Farmers’ markets offer more diverse crops grown by more eco-friendly methods. Broaden the definition of sustainability to include social, health, and economic factors, and you’ll encounter claims that farmers’ markets promote healthy eating and a pedestrian culture, bring fresh produce to undeserved neighborhoods, foster entrepreneurship and a diversified agricultural economy, and create a social space that builds a sense of community.

Most people assume that farmers' markets help encourage sustainable agriculture. Morales' new project could help measure that effect.

Farmers’ markets might very well be doing all these things, Morales says, but we don’t know, and he admits that right now there isn’t even a consensus on how to evaluate these “sustainable” activities. “But even so, we have to make a way forward. And the way we make a way forward is though measurement.”

Those measurements are relatively easy for major supermarket chains, which have the staff and the budgets for exhaustive market research. Analyzing research data enables big retailers to respond to changing demographics and consumer preferences, ensuring that they stay relevant to the communities they serve. Farmers’ markets typically don’t have those resources. That’s where Morales’ project comes in.

Morales and his partners at the Farmers Market Coalition are working with managers at nine farmers’ markets around the country to ask, “What is it that’s relevant to them and their community?” They’ll help market managers figure out what data they need and how to collect and present it. Some of the data will help address all those assumptions about the environmental benefits of farmers’ markets, such as the average number of miles the food actually travels, the number of organically farmed acres represented at the market, and how diversified the market’s farms are. Other data will speak to a market’s impact on its community by looking at the number of small businesses started through the farmers’ market, whether it attracts foot traffic to nearby shops, and the number of vendors who are minorities or women. All this data collection will help reveal how each farmers’ market is affecting its community — and how it could be doing better.

Bill Lubing, the manager of the Dane County Farmers’ Market in Madison, agrees that good data is essential when making decisions about how to move a market forward. “There are a lot of people with a lot of ideas,” he said, but a shortage of ways to evaluate those ideas. “More data is always better.” For example, because he ran the market’s newsletter for years before becoming manager, Lubing knows that links to recipes are very popular. Surmising that customers are sometimes stumped by the produce at the market (how do you tackle an entire stalk of Brussels sprouts?), he’s published a series of basic instructional videos, as well as more recipes. They’ve been a hit.

Morales argues that good data can do more than improve decision making. It can also help market managers advocate for the market with local business and government. For example, if a market wants permission to open a new branch in a public park in an underserved neighborhood, data showing the amount of produce purchased with SNAP benefits can help persuade the city that it’s a worthwhile use of space.

Morales, who worked as a market vendor in Chicago while doing research for his dissertation, believes that professors like him have an opportunity “to really engage with the community directly, and to try to empower people.”

Shopping at a farmers' market gives consumers a closer connection to their food–which is becoming increasingly popular. Photo courtesy of Bill Lubing.

The project’s immediate focus is local: to help individual managers make decisions that work in their particular communities. But if the project takes off (and it looks like it’s going to — dozens of markets beyond the original nine have asked to participate) it could generate enough data to start to draw conclusions about the roles of farmers’ markets in the United States as a whole. That’s exactly the kind of large-scale data needed to evaluate whether farmers’ markets are really helping create a more sustainable food system.

Regardless of how they stack up environmentally, Morales believes that farmers’ markets offer something that chain supermarkets can’t: a personal connection to a farmer and to food. “A relationship matters to people,” he said. Lubing agrees. Shopping at a farmers’ market “really has an emotional buy-in factor,” where you feel like you’re cheating on your local cheese maker if you grab a block of Cheddar from the grocery store in a pinch. “And people love that, people crave that.”

[via QUEST Wisconsin]

The Difference Between Heirlooms, Hybrids, and GMOs

Know Your Produce - Perfect Produce Is Unnatural

There is nothing quite like the taste of a fresh fruit or vegetable straight from the garden. To the eye of the gardener, this vegetable picked ripe off of the vine is perfect. They nurtured it, carefully tended to it, and then finally, get to enjoy the fruit of their labors. However, compare this vegetable to one at the grocery store and it is suddenly asymmetrical, small, not candy apple red, and even has, gasp!, a brown spot.

To gardeners, this poses the question, “What is it about those grocery store vegetables that make them all so perfectly colored, perfectly big, and perfectly symmetrical? And, how did they become the standard of how a vegetable should look?” The truth of the matter is that they look perfect because they are unnatural.

In order to understand the differences between fresh produce from a garden and what you see on the average grocery store shelf, you’ve got to look far beyond what is apparent on the surface. In fact, it all comes down to the minutest material of the plant, it’s DNA. As we have gained an understanding of genetics, we’ve also learned how to manipulate the genetic material of the food we grow, for good, and for bad. Let’s take a look.

Heirloom peppers from a garden

Heirlooms

We’ll start with what’s natural, the way fruits and vegetables have been grown and propagated for thousands of years. It’s a very simple concept: you save the seeds of a fruit or vegetable with favorable characteristics, (typically color, shape, size, and flavor), and plant them year after year. Other than selecting which fruit or vegetable seeds to save, the seeds are in no way manipulated. The plants are allowed to open pollinate and ripen in their own time. Today, we refer to these plants as heirlooms. Since seeds from heirloom plants can be harvested and planted year after year, a farmer or gardener never has to purchase those particular seeds again. In a sense, it’s the ultimate sustainable agriculture practice.

Figure 1. If an heirloom plant is allowed to open pollinate with other plants of the same variety, the seeds will produce a fruit identical to the parent plant. Source: Kerry Soltis

Hybrids

Heirlooms, however, like all things good and natural, are not perfect. They have a relatively small gene pool and typically lack disease resistance. As we began to learn more about the genetics of these heirlooms, certain varieties were cross-pollinated in order to create new varieties with disease resistance and traits that would enable them to grow in a wide variety of climates. In other words, rather than allowing the plants to open pollinate, two different varieties were purposely crossed to create a plant with specific traits, a hybrid.

Figure 2. If you cross-pollinate two plants, each with a dominant favorable trait, the resulting fruit will bear both of those traits. Source: Kerry Soltis

These sorts of hybrids are a great blessing to farmers and gardeners who live in hot, humid, or very dry environments. They enable more people to grow their own food, decrease their pesticide usage, and live more sustainable lifestyles.

The one major downfall of these hybrids is that their seeds do not necessarily result in plants that are identical to the parent plant, so seeds cannot be saved.

Figure 3. This punnet square illustrates a cross between two hybrid plants. If you were to cross two heat tolerant, flavorful varieties, only half of the resulting plants would be identical to the parent plant. Source: Kerry Soltis

For a gardener or small farmer, growing certain hybrid varieties is not a bad thing, by any means. However, in the mid 1900s, the agriculture industry began taking hybridization to the next level by selecting for traits that would benefit their industry, and thus, their profits. Size, shelf life, high yields, and aesthetics quickly became the top priority for food production. Why not right? Who wouldn’t want large quantities of produce on grocery store shelves? It all sounds great until you realize what traits are compromised to get these varieties—mainly nutrition and taste. Researchers often refer to the decrease in nutrient content when high yielding plant varieties are developed as the Genetic Dilution Effect.

Studies have found that nutrient content in many of the nation’s main food crops have dramatically decreased over the last century. For example, the protein in wheat, barley, and corn has decreased by approximately 40% since the 1940s. The calcium in broccoli has decreased by more than 50%. Furthermore, since these hybrid plants produce high yields of larger fruits and vegetables, more nutrient rich fertilizers must be applied to support their growth, resulting in more nutritional losses. Raspberries, for example, when fertilized with large amounts of phosphates, will produce double the yield, yet their mineral content decreases by 20-30%. So essentially, our grocery stores are packed with an abundance of big, beautiful fruits and vegetables, but their nutritional value has never been lower. And don’t forget taste. Taste isn’t typically on the high priority list when it comes to creating hybrid varieties for mass production.

Figure 4. When plants are hybridized for mass production, aesthetics, yield, and shelf life are often selected for over nutrition and taste. Source: Kerry Soltis

Hopefully it’s starting to become apparent that when it comes to perfection, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. That home-grown tomato with a little brown spot is probably starting to become much more appealing than those “perfect” grocery store varieties that lack nutrition and flavor.

GMOs

The scary truth is that produce manipulation does not end with these tasteless hybrids. Here in the United States more genetically modified (GMOs) crops are being planted each year. These plants are created using biotechnology. Techniques such as, splicing, microinjection, viral carriers, and bacterial carriers create plant varieties that could never occur naturally. These methodologies give food scientists the ability to introduce favorable genes of completely unrelated species into food producing plants. Unfavorable genes can now also be silenced. Many of these food crops, particularly corn and soy, are ending up in common food products. These food products are not required to be labeled as containing GMOs, so there is no way to avoid them other than buying foods with an organic label.

Not only is this process unnatural, it also has the potential to be extremely dangerous to our health and the environment. A frequently used method for creating pest resistant plant varieties involves artificially inserting a toxin carrying gene from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, into plant DNA. The resulting plants then produce that toxin, which in turn will kill the larvae of their pests. It is currently unclear how this toxin affects humans. In a similar process, soy beans are genetically engineered so that they can tolerate high levels of pesticide application. As a result more toxic pesticides are being applied to these crops.

We shouldn’t be messing with Mother Nature though; she’ll always find a way around our ingenious ideas. Since the onset of this mass pesticide use, superweeds and superbugs have emerged that have adapted to the pesticides, so that they are in no way effected by them. Unfortunately these superweeds and superbugs have the potential to spread into our natural ecosystems and severely disrupt ecological balances.

Figure 5. DNA from a completely non-related organism is inserted into plant DNA so that it produces toxins, making the plant pest resistant. Source: Kerry Soltis

It’s all pretty scary stuff, especially when you consider that Monsanto, the major U.S. company behind all of this genetic engineering, has gone so far as to patent their genomic creations. Farmers who elect to plant GMO crops must sign an agreement that they will not save seeds. Even worse, as wind, insects, and birds spread the seeds and pollen of GMO crops, heirloom crops become contaminated with the GMO DNA. Heirloom farmers have no way of knowing that their crops have been contaminated until they plant the compromised seeds. Monsanto has such a stronghold on the industry that when this occurs the heirloom farmers are sued for infringement on patent laws rather than Monsanto being penalized for contaminating the crops of these farmers.

Consumers, gardeners, and local farmers hold the power when it comes to fighting back against food modification. If we change our perception of the perfect produce and begin selecting fruits and vegetables that are locally grown, nutritious, and flavorful, agriculture will have no choice but to respond accordingly. It’s Darwinism at the grocery store level. We get to decide what is fit to stock the shelves and what isn’t!

[via Organic Lifestyle Magazine]

Farmacology: What Business Can Learn From Sustainable Farming

Medical and business communities can take surprising lessons from farming and improve employee well-being and productivity.

Frustrated that conventional medicine had little to offer many of her patients, Daphne Miller, a practicing physician and professor of family medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, decided to take a look at how human health is affected by other natural systems. This led her on a journey of family farms, where she wandered through henhouses, carted produce, and dug in the dirt.

Miller's findings, gathered in her book, transformed her thinking about stress, resilience to disease, and how a systems thinking approach in the medical community could save money and enhance people's health. The lessons she found hold insights for the health of business too. Can companies use the vital signs of farms to measure their own well-being? And how do externalities help drive greater sustainability?

Why should a doctor think like a farmer?

Agriculture has everything to do with medicine. In fact, I've come to see the divisions between the two disciplines as mostly artificial and arbitrary, and am now convinced that a farm internship should be a required part of medical training, and vice versa.

First, there's the direct connection between the farms where our food is grown and our bodies. Many of us are familiar with the headline-catching links between industrial farming and our physical health: superbugs spawned on large-scale dairies and cattle operations that threaten to infect us, or the chemical runoff that contaminates our drinking water. But beyond these issues, we pay little attention to how decisions made on a farm, [for instance] the choice of seed [or] soil management, positively or negatively affect our bodies.

My time spent learning from farmers and researchers has made me think beyond food as medicine to farm as medicine. I've learned how healthy soil can produce a healthy immune system, how microbes on the farm can communicate with our resident microbes – our microbiome – how certain grazing practices can produce food that stress-proofs our nervous system, how the terroir in which an herb is grown can influence its medicinal value, or how inner-city farming delivers unexpected health benefits to the surrounding community.

I also discovered that farming at its best offers a radically new way to think about health and healing. For example, the integrated pest management approach used by a winery in Sonoma gave a group of oncology researchers a more ecological way to understand and treat cancer.

Of two organic egg farms, you say that the one with higher production is the less sustainable. What does this tell us about hidden costs?

The farms taught me how we value short-term productivity at the expense of overall health. The conventional egg farm has higher laying rates and the hens produce larger eggs than the neighboring pasture-based egg farm. But when you take a whole host of factors into account, such as egg taste and quality, market price, fossil fuel inputs, worker health, hen health and environmental health, you realize that pasture-raised is the healthier, more sustainable option.

I often see this thinking applied to human productivity. Many of my patients work for companies where the work ethic is one of intense competition, with 60-80-hour work weeks, all in the name of greater annual profits. They tell me they rarely take vacations and wouldn't dream of exercising during their lunch break, as that would be interpreted as a lack of dedication to their job.

These patients mortgage their health in order to maximize their work performance and their revenue; they pull all-nighters, skip meals, eat food that offers fuel but few nutrients, use caffeine to stay awake and then alcohol to go to sleep, and rarely move their bodies except to hop on a plane or walk from desk to car. This approach is not sustainable and eventually leads to chronic health problems, including high blood pressure and blood sugar, weight gain, depression, anxiety and sleep apnea.

Not surprisingly, newer research is showing that this is as unhealthy for businesses as it is for individuals. Maximally taxing employees translates into lower work performance and, in the long term, less financial success.

You make an analogy between factory farming and factory medicine. What are the implications for managing healthcare costs?

Eighty percent of health expenditures in the US are spent within the four walls of a medical institution, and they are spent treating disease. This is consistent with the factory model: consolidate and streamline your efforts for maximal impact. But farm health and human health are not just a matter or treating disease, just as business health is not just a matter of tackling problems. I would argue that in all these sectors our money is much better spent on nurturing our environment – our air, our soil, our social institutions, our educational resources – than on fixing end-stage problems.

You say your farm odyssey gave you a new understanding of "vital signs". Can you explain?

I was fascinated to learn what farmers consider the "vital signs" of a healthy farm ecology: diversity, synergy, and redundancy.

Diversity means not just variability in crops, but also in the populations of microbes and other life forms on the land. Synergy – the whole being greater than the sum of the parts – is why a given farm's success cannot be predicted simply by looking at its discrete components. Redundancy, or self-sameness, describes the emergence of specific designs within each organism and throughout an entire ecosystem. Recurring patterns are a sign of a system's resilience: in the event of a failure, one part can provide backup.

These vital signs – diversity, synergy, and redundancy – are rarely discussed within medicine, but I now see them as helpful ways to describe a healthy human. My friends in business who've read Farmacology tell me that these same vital signs have given them a useful way to assess the health of their company.

Judith D Schwartz is the author of Cows Save the Planet and Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth. More information on Daphne Miller's book, Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us about Health & Healing, can be found here.

[via The Guardian]

What is Permaculture?

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This is a very hard question to answer concisely. Put 10 permaculturalists in a room and you’ll come out with 20 definitions of permaculture. Here are a few.

The word permaculture was coined in the mid-1970′s by David Holmgren, a systems ecologist and Bill Mollisonand, a researcher, author, teacher and naturalist, as a combination of the words “permanent” and “agriculture”. This signified their work to establish principles of land use and human organization in providing for human needs that were sustainable indefinitely, given the reliance of the dominant status quo on non-renewable fuels and ecologically degrading practices. The evolution of the term to encompass aspects beyond agriculture, such as energy flows and social systems, led to the adaptation of permaculture as “permanent culture”.

David Holgmren defines permaculture in his book “Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainabilty” as “consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fiber and energy for provision of local needs. People, their buildings and the ways they organize themselves are central to permaculture“.

Bill Mollison writes that “Permaculture is about designing sustainable human settlements.  It is a philosophy and an approach to land use which weaves together microclimate, annual and perennial plants, animals, soil, water management, and human needs into intricately connected, productive communities”.

Author Michael Feingold writes that “Permaculture is revolution disguised as gardening“.  I like that one.

Permaculture is in part a design science rooted in 3 ethical principles:

1. Care for the Earth
2. Care for People
3. Share the Surplus

The three guiding ethical principles remind us that the Earth and it’s natural cycles provide the basis for life; that people are a contributing member to the community of life and have needs for food, water, shelter, community and sense of self that we must attend to providing; and that we are provided with times of abundance which enable us to share with others, connecting us to a community that supports us when we experience times of less.

Following from these ethics are 12 principles of permaculture design, best explained by David Holmgren.  Click here for his explanation of these Permaculture Principles

 

[via Design We Need]

8 Foods Even The Experts Won’t Eat

Food scientists are shedding light on items loaded with toxins and chemicals–and simple swaps for a cleaner diet and supersized health. Experts from different areas of specialty explain why they won’t eat these eight foods.

Clean eating means choosing fruits, vegetables, and meats that are raised, grown, and sold with minimal processing. Often they’re organic, and rarely (if ever) should they contain additives. But in some cases, the methods of today’s food producers are neither clean nor sustainable. The result is damage to our health, the environment, or both. So we decided to take a fresh look at food through the eyes of the people who spend their lives uncovering what’s safe–or not–to eat. ” Their answers don’t necessarily make up a “banned foods” list. But reaching for the suggested alternatives might bring you better health–and peace of mind.

1. The Endocrinologist Won’t Eat: Canned Tomatoes

Fredrick Vom Saal, is an endocrinologist at the University of Missouri who studies bisphenol-A.

The problem: The resin linings of tin cans contain bisphenol-A, a synthetic estrogen that has been linked to ailments ranging from reproductive problems to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Unfortunately, acidity (a prominent characteristic of tomatoes) causes BPA to leach into your food. Studies show that the BPA in most people’s body exceeds the amount that suppresses sperm production or causes chromosomal damage to the eggs of animals. “You can get 50 mcg of BPA per liter out of a tomato can, and that’s a level that is going to impact people, particularly the young,” says vom Saal. “I won’t go near canned tomatoes.”

The solution: Choose tomatoes in glass bottles (which do not need resin linings), such as the brands Bionaturae and Coluccio. You can also get several types in Tetra Pak boxes, like Trader Joe’s and Pomi. Exposure to BPA Causes Permanent Damage In OffSpring

2. The Farmer Won’t Eat: Corn-Fed Beef

Joel Salatin is co-owner of Polyface Farms and author of half a dozen books on sustainable farming.

The problem: Cattle evolved to eat grass, not grains. But farmers today feed their animals corn and soybeans, which fatten up the animals faster for slaughter. But more money for cattle farmers (and lower prices at the grocery store) means a lot less nutrition for us. A recent comprehensive study conducted by the USDA and researchers from Clemson University found that compared with corn-fed beef, grass-fed beef is higher in beta-carotene, vitamin E, omega-3s, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), calcium, magnesium, and potassium; lower in inflammatory omega-6s; and lower in saturated fats that have been linked to heart disease. “We need to respect the fact that cows are herbivores, and that does not mean feeding them corn and chicken manure,” says Salatin.

The solution: Buy grass-fed beef, which can be found at specialty grocers, farmers markets, and nationally at Whole Foods. It’s usually labeled because it demands a premium, but if you don’t see it, ask your butcher.

3. The Toxicologist Won’t Eat: Microwave Popcorn

Olga Naidenko, is a senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group.

The problem: Chemicals, including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), in the lining of the bag, are part of a class of compounds that may be linked to infertility in humans, according to a recent study from UCLA. In animal testing, the chemicals cause liver, testicular, and pancreatic cancer. Studies show that microwaving causes the chemicals to vaporize–and migrate into your popcorn. “They stay in your body for years and accumulate there,” says Naidenko, which is why researchers worry that levels in humans could approach the amounts causing cancers in laboratory animals. DuPont and other manufacturers have promised to phase out PFOA by 2015 under a voluntary EPA plan, but millions of bags of popcorn will be sold between now and then.

The solution: Pop organic kernels the old-fashioned way: in a skillet. For flavorings, you can add real butter or dried seasonings, such as dillweed, vegetable flakes, or soup mix. Make it organic and use coconut oil. If You’re Still Eating Microwave Popcorn, You’re Not Fully Grasping The Health Consequences

4. The Farm Director Won’t Eat: Non-Organic Potatoes

Jeffrey Moyer is the chair of the National Organic Standards Board.

The problem: Root vegetables absorb herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides that wind up in soil. In the case of potatoes–the nation’s most popular vegetable–they’re treated with fungicides during the growing season, then sprayed with herbicides to kill off the fibrous vines before harvesting. After they’re dug up, the potatoes are treated yet again to prevent them from sprouting. “Try this experiment: Buy a conventional potato in a store, and try to get it to sprout. It won’t,” says Moyer, who is also farm director of the Rodale Institute (also owned by Rodale Inc., the publisher of Prevention). “I’ve talked with potato growers who say point-blank they would never eat the potatoes they sell. They have separate plots where they grow potatoes for themselves without all the chemicals.”

The solution: Buy organic potatoes. Washing isn’t good enough if you’re trying to remove chemicals that have been absorbed into the flesh.  Budget tip: Organic potatoes are only $1 to $2 a pound, slightly more expensive than conventional spuds.

5. The Fisheries Expert Won’t Eat: Farmed Salmon

Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany, published a major study in the journal Science on contamination in fish.

The problem: Nature didn’t intend for salmon to be crammed into pens and fed soy, poultry litter, and hydrolyzed chicken feathers. As a result, farmed salmon is lower in vitamin D and higher in contaminants, including carcinogens, PCBs, brominated flame retardants, and pesticides such as dioxin and DDT. According to Carpenter, the most contaminated fish come from Northern Europe, which can be found on American menus. “You could eat one of these salmon dinners every 5 months without increasing your risk of cancer,” says Carpenter, whose 2004 fish contamination study got broad media attention. “It’s that bad.” Preliminary science has also linked DDT to diabetes and obesity, but some nutritionists believe the benefits of omega-3s outweigh the risks. There is also concern about the high level of antibiotics and pesticides used to treat these fish. When you eat farmed salmon, you get dosed with the same drugs and chemicals.

The solution: Switch to wild-caught Alaska salmon. If the package says fresh Atlantic, it’s farmed. There are no commercial fisheries left for wild Atlantic salmon.

6. The Cancer Researcher Won’t Drink: Milk Produced With Artificial Hormones

Rick North is project director of the Campaign for Safe Food at the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility and former CEO of the Oregon division of the American Cancer Society.

The problem: Milk producers treat their dairy cattle with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST, as it is also known) to boost milk production. But rBGH also increases udder infections and even pus in the milk. It also leads to higher levels of a hormone called insulin-like growth factor in milk. In people, high levels of IGF-1 may contribute to breast, prostate, and colon cancers. “When the government approved rBGH, it was thought that IGF-1 from milk would be broken down in the human digestive tract,” says North. “There’s not 100 percent proof that this is increasing cancer in humans,” admits North. “However, it’s banned in most industrialized countries.”

The solution: Buy raw milk or check labels for rBGH-free, rBST-free, produced without artificial hormones, or organic milk. These phrases indicate rBGH-free products. The Sour Facts About Milk.

7. The Biotech Specialist Who Won’t Eat Conventional Soy: GMO Unfermented Soy

Michael Harris is biotech specialist who has directed several projects within the biotech sector including those for genetically engineered food. He has been a consultant, manager and director for companies such as Xenon Pharmaceuticals and Genon Corporation.

The problem: Genetically engineered food is a cause of great concern due to the manipulation of DNA and genetic code including transfers from one species to another. Fermented soy is the only soy food fit for human consumption and since almost 90% of soy in the world is genetically modified, if you are not ensuring sources are organic, long-term health problems are inevitable, especially since soy has been found to affect hormonal balance and even cause cancer.

The solution: Check labels to ensure soy is Non-GMO or organic and never consume unfermented sources. If possible contact the company to find out exactly where the Non-GMO soy was obtained.

8. The Organic-Foods Expert Won’t Eat: Conventional Apples

Mark Kastel, a former executive for agribusiness, is co-director of the Cornucopia Institute, a farm-policy research group that supports organic foods.

The problem: If fall fruits held a “most doused in pesticides contest,” apples would win. Why? They are individually grafted (descended from a single tree) so that each variety maintains its distinctive flavor. As such, apples don’t develop resistance to pests and are sprayed frequently. The industry maintains that these residues are not harmful. But Kastel counters that it’s just common sense to minimize exposure by avoiding the most doused produce, like apples. “Farm workers have higher rates of many cancers,” he says. And increasing numbers of studies are starting to link a higher body burden of pesticides (from all sources) with Parkinson’s disease.

The solution: Buy organic apples or apples from a farmer that you trust!

[via Eat Local Grown]

Top Five Reasons to Label GMO Food

October has been designated Non-GMO Month, the month to focus on why we need to regulate genetically modified organisms (GMOs) closely. To further understand what GMOs are, go to www.nongmoproject.org.  Here are my five top reasons for why we must label GMO food!

1) The research proving the safety of GMOs is flawed. First, the only research being considered is done by the companies that created the products and profit by them and the pesticides that are necessary to grow them. Take the famous golden rice. As Rachel Parent pointed out, a person needs to eat 23 cups of rice a day to get the Vitamin A recommended dietary allowance. There are so many conflicting facts about GMOs and GMO research that 64 countries in the world refuse to allow GMO agriculture. Another way to look at it is these countries are refusing to be lab rats for flawed GMO research.

2) GMO agriculture increases the use of pesticides and water in farming. While we keep hearing that GMOs will reduce the use of water and pesticides, the opposite is the truth. A study by Washington State University concluded that the use of pesticides has increased by more than 7% because of GMO-intensive agriculture. Pesticides are water intensive. While conventional agriculture was using a billion pounds of pesticides a year, our GMO agriculture is responsible for increasing that

usage to 1.2 billion pounds annually without increasing the food supply. The patent for Roundup Ready® (RR) corn and soy beans has coincidentally expired as roundup has also lost its efficacy. RR leaves a legacy as it is responsible for increasing superweeds across the globe. The new replacement for RR will be a cocktail, much more potent and will include dicamba or 2,4- D, used as an ingredient in Agent Orange in the Vietnam war, well studied and identified with birth defects and cancer. Dicamba corn patent is currently going through USDA approval process.

3) GMO food has no benefits and will not feed the world. The most profitable corporations use World Hunger to maintain their domination in the market place. Currently, evidence is strong – we produce enough food in the world today for 10 billion people. Why are 2 billion people on our planet hungry and/or starving? It is not lack of food worldwide or even distribution, though better distribution can help. Social justice is the first place to find the real reason for hunger and starvation. Poor people cannot afford to buy food and their ability to feed themselves has been compromised. Global domination of our food by the very corporations that say they will feed the world is not the answer, it is the problem. Go to Google and search “suicides of cotton farmers in India” for a shocking peek into a tragic GMO failure. If we look at the big GMO foods in farm production today, it is mostly livestock feed – corn and soy beans – or inedible cotton. Livestock, by the way, are much happier and make higher omega milk on pasture and forage, not corn and soy. GMO ag does not lower the price of food nor produce more food. There is no known advantage to humans while there is evidence of emerging health issues and some devastating cultural issues.

4) The biotech industries – Monsanto, Cargill and DuPont – are examples of American corporations undermining democracy and abusing their power for short term domination and profits. William James, the father of American Psychology said in the late 1800s, “The most significant characteristic of modern civilization is the sacrifice of the future for the present.” Add “present profits” and we have the situation. Many citizens today wonder about the new face of democracy as we watch special interests put their agenda before what is good for all. Those following the issues sprung by a Supreme Court ruling called Citizens United, which gives corporations the status of personhood are asking “How do we get our government back?” Powerful corporations as cited above get special treatment in the government. The best way to say it is “corporate corruption.”

5) Seed ownership has consolidated and biotech owns almost all of our seed stock. Number 5 but perhaps the most important point – who owns our seeds? Weak anti-trust laws and blatant favoritism toward biotech on the Supreme Court level has allowed the consolidation of our seeds into the hands of bottom line corporations. Just two years ago, biotech owned over 65% of our seed stock2. I had the pleasure of connecting with a few Organic Seed Alliance staff members at a conference a few days ago and had to ask them how many of our seeds are controlled by biotech now and they answer was frightening:  90% of all commercial seeds are owned by 5 corporations. The questions of who should own our genetics is one that deserves a well vetted public debate. Does it bother anyone that biotech is using the human genome in its experiments? We should all be concerned about the ethics of genetic ownership and manipulation. Seed ownership needs to be in the public trust and not owned by profit-benefiting corporations.

We have to take action and advocate for our right to know. Now that I’ve given you my top five, here are five things YOU can do to help:

• Lend your voice to stop the Monsanto Protection Act
• Join the Just Label It campaign
• Support Washington 522
• Stop 2,4-D corn
• Check out the Superweed FrogTV episode and send it to unsuspecting friends and family

[via Root Stock]

Superlettuce!

Extreme weather calls for extreme crops.

It’s hot. By 9 a.m., a dusty desert film radiates hazy stillness over thirsty fields of produce. The air is dry as static, and temperatures are well on their way to a blistering peak of 103 degrees in the desert town of El Centro, California, 13 miles from the Mexican border. But Beiquan Mou, a research geneticist with the U.S Department of Agriculture, is buoyant, because his acre-wide field of green and purple lettuce is thriving in these oven-like conditions.

Lettuce is a delicate mistress; it must be coddled and kept below 85 degrees or it will struggle — bad news for America’s salads, as scientists claim climate change is poised to turn central California, home to the nation’s “salad bowl,” into a dust bowl by the end of the century. Most of the year, 60 percent of all the lettuce Americans consume grows in the Salinas Valley, 500 miles from here, cooled by the Pacific breeze. Temperatures there hover at an average of 68 degrees. In El Centro, highs of 106 are not unusual. And that is why Mou is here. Someday, much of America’s prime agricultural land will be subject to the same weather conditions that conspired to make 2012 the hottest year on record in the continental U.S. Over the course of this century, North America will see longer periods of extreme heat. Farmers could see annual losses of $5 billion or more.

Meet the Superlettuce

Mou, tall and serious in a round straw hat, armed with clipboard and pen, is picking thick, green heads of iceberg and juicy-looking romaine in leaf-wilting heat. “The Margarita looks good,” he says, touching a tender butterhead cultivar, blooming in the cracked roseate sand.

Since 2010, Mou has been on an epic quest for the world’s most heat-tolerant lettuces. Backed by a three-year federal grant, part of a $38 million effort to cope with climate change, he has growtested more than 3,500 varieties of lettuce and spinach in a heat chamber laboratory, exposing them to scorching temperatures and recording the results. The goal: Identify the hardiest species, and isolate their survival genes.

Someday, hopefully, the winners of this gladiatorial death match will wind up on salad plates. The lettuce of the future may look and taste the same, but thanks to the research Mou has begun, its DNA will contain a heat-resistant gene to help farmers cultivate it pretty much anywhere — even the desert.

By late May, Mou’s 84 finalists — 28 icebergs, 28 romaines and 28 butterheads — are ready to be picked and analyzed. They even have superhero names like Gladiator, Jericho, Sniper and Invader. Crouching in pristine, button-down ensembles, Mou and his assistant pile lettuce heads into containers and carry them back to their shade tent. They weigh them, test their firmness, split them open and measure their cores, taking note of tip burn and leaf stress.

Many of Mou’s plants have grown into mutant parodies of supermarket lettuce. Some green-leaf varieties are more than a foot wide with heads bigger than wedding bouquets. Others have cooked in the sun so long they look like burnt marshmallows.

The weirdest-looking lettuces have shot their stems 2ó feet into the air, growing leaves in the shape of Christmas trees. Called “bolting,” this is a survival tactic in which lettuce under heat stress tries to flower quickly in an attempt to reproduce.

But Mou’s lettuce has to do more than look good. He bites into a tasty-looking iceberg cultivar called Glacier and makes a face. It is piercingly bitter. “In the Salinas Valley, that one tastes just fine,” he says, shaking his head. He uses his knife to slit open a neighboring iceberg. He nods in approval. It’s sweet. It will take trial and error to produce a lettuce that is both hardy and tasty.

Global warming will dictate the world’s salad bar selection in the not-so-distant future, and Mou isn’t the only one rushing to condition our unprepared produce.

One of the USDA’s top objectives in coming years is to identify crop varieties with the most resilient all-weather genes. In addition to Mou’s work, USDA plant physiologists in North Carolina are looking for soybean cultivars that can tolerate elevated ozone and carbon dioxide levels. In Wisconsin, scientists are adapting cranberries to unexpected frost snaps — another regional effect of climate change. In Maryland, researchers are studying crops that deliver better yields with higher levels of carbon dioxide.

Mou won’t have results until 2014. But finding the world’s first superlettuce is only half the challenge. It will take time — and money — to find a way to crossbreed the lettuce genotypes with other existing strains. Charles Walthall, acting deputy administrator of the USDA’s Natural Resources and Sustainable Agriculture Systems program, says industry leaders like Monsanto are already focused on similar research. Syngenta, for example, has taken an interest in Mou’s study, and sent representatives to one of his lettuce fields.

If all goes well, our lettuce may be more primed than we are to survive the hot, dry times ahead.

“You think this is hot?” laughs Mou, sweating.

“Maybe every day in the future will be this hot.”

[via: Modern Farmer | Image credit: Julia Scott]

Breeding the Nutrition Out of Our Food

The present-day sweet corn we serve in summer bears little resemblance to its wild ancestor - a grassy plant called teosinte. A bushy plant with short spikes of grain instead of ears, teosinte has only 5 to 12 kernels in each spike and the kernels are encased in shells so hard you'd need a hammer to crack open. High in starch, low in sugar, teosinte has 10 times more protein than the corn we eat today.

The case of corn illustrates a much broader trend of nutrient loss in our current selections of fruits and vegetables. Thanks to selective breeding practices and spontaneous mutation events, the food we grow contains far fewer nutrients than the wild plantlife from which it derives. That's the central tenet of an eye-opening recent New York Times op-ed by Jo Robinson, author of "Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimum Health" (available June 4). Robinson explains:

Each fruit and vegetable in our stores has a unique history of nutrient loss, I’ve discovered, but there are two common themes. Throughout the ages, our farming ancestors have chosen the least bitter plants to grow in their gardens. It is now known that many of the most beneficial phytonutrients have a bitter, sour or astringent taste. Second, early farmers favored plants that were relatively low in fiber and high in sugar, starch and oil. These energy-dense plants were pleasurable to eat and provided the calories needed to fuel a strenuous lifestyle. The more palatable our fruits and vegetables became, however, the less advantageous they were for our health.

So, as consumers, how do we address the issue? Robinson presents some helpful hints. As for corn, she says, select the type with deep yellow kernels, and if you're cooking with cornmeal, use blue, red, or purple. When it comes to lettuce, look for high-antioxidant arugula, which is very similar to its wild ancestor. Scallions, or green onions, have more than five times more phytonutrients than many common onions do. And use lots of herbs:

Herbs are wild plants incognito. We’ve long valued them for their intense flavors and aroma, which is why they’ve not been given a flavor makeover. Because we’ve left them well enough alone, their phytonutrient content has remained intact.

Read the article here.

[via NYT, SHFT]

Russia Bans GMO Corn Following French Study, Many Scientists Skeptical

Rospotrebnadzor, Russia's federal service in control of protecting consumers' rights and well-being has suspended the import of genetically modified corn made by Monsanto, following a report by the University of Caen in France. Gilles-Eric Seralini, the French scientist behind the two-year long study, says rats whose diet consisted of Monsanto's genetically modified NK603 corn,  or were exposed to it's top-selling weedkiller Roundup suffered tumors and organ damage more often than rats in the control group. 

Published in the journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology, the study details the animals consuming the genetically modified corn developing mammary tumors as well as sever kidney and liver damage.  According to the final report, 50 percent of male and 70 percent of female rats died prematurely, compared to only 30 percent and 20 percent of rats in the control group. Many Americans as well as people in other parts of the world are calling the study and Russia's decision, clear evidence that humans should not consume modified crops, especially Monsanto's corn. The study prompted Vice-Chairman of the European Parliament's commission for agriculture, Jose Bove to call for the immediate suspension of all EU cultivation and import approvals of genetically modified crops. Bove spoke out about his request saying, "This study finally shows we are right and that it is urgent to quickly review all GMO evaluation processes." 

Does the study in fact prove once and for all that GMO crops are dangerous? Some scientists aren't agreeing with Bove just yet. Members of the European scientific community, not associated with the study have voiced their skepticism, with one French scientist accusing Seralini and his colleagues of going on a "statistical fishing trip."

Tom Sanders, head of the nutritional sciences research division at King's College London says Seralini's team did not provide any data on how much the rats were given to eat, or any documentation of their growth rates. 

"This strain of rat is very prone to mammary tumors particularly when food intake is not restricted. The statistical methods are unconventional…and it would appear the authors have gone on a statistical field trip."

David Spiegelhalter of the University of Cambridge said similar concerns arose when he learned of the study's findings, stating that the methods, statistics and reporting of all results were below standard. Spiegelhalter added that the study's untreated control arm comprised of only 10 rats of each sex, most of which also suffered mammary tumors. 

The French government, who recently decided to uphold a ban on cultivating GMO crops, has asked health and safety officials to assess the study as well as reaching out to the European Union's food safety agency, EFSA for assistance in taking a closer look at the study and its findings. The EFSA plans to deliver their initial review of the study sometime next week. 

With both sides of this study and Russia's recent decision to ban all Monsanto crops from entering their country shrouded in controversy, the only certainty at this the friction between both sides of the GMO debate is heating up.  

Getting The Dirt On What's Really Organic

With consumption of organic food throughout the United States on the rise and potential legislative measures, such as California's Prop 37 and private retailer Whole Foods instituting a third-party organic certification system, consumers are more interested in what their food and other products contain than ever before. Idaho news station KTVB recently investigated the cost of local organic foods and what goes into 'organic' certification. As of 2008, USDA numbers show Idaho ranks in the top ten states for organic food sales with more than $71 million in goods sold each year.





How Do You Know It's Organic? by Jamie Grey

"More and more people are concerned about where their food's coming from, and how it's been grown and what's gone into it," said Ariel Agenbroad, Horticulture Educator at the University of Idaho Extension Center in Canyon County.

Agenbroad says people are choosing to buy organic for a variety of reasons, including personal health beliefs, concerns about sustainability, and worries about food treated with chemicals.

Organic vs. Conventional: Cost comparison at the market

KTVB did a quick cost comparison using two grocery stores to check prices of organic produce and conventional produce. Calculating a simple average, recent prices showed organic produce generally costs around 50% more than non-organic.

For example, we found non-organic strawberries selling at $2.00/lb, while organic strawberries were $2.99/lb. Non-organic raspberries were $2.99/lb, while organic were $3.49/lb. The most drastic difference was green peppers: non-organic peppers sold for 59 cents each, while the organic variety cost 153% more at $1.49.

While those prices may shock some, we did find some items priced equally or cheaper. For example, organic navel oranges and organic kiwi fruits were priced lower per pound than their non-organic counterparts at Albertson's.

Is it really organic?

"You can trust the label -- that if it says 'certified organic by' -- that they are being inspected," said Brandon Lamb, organic program manager for the Idaho State Dept. of Agriculture.

Lamb and other inspectors check farms to make sure they're meeting USDA organic standards.

"How they're going to comply with those rules and regulations, how they're going to manage for pests, what their plan is for soil fertility, what their crop rotation is," Lamb said.

Organic farms earning more than $5,000 a year have to get certified through the USDA standards, proving they're using required sustainable farming practices. In Idaho, there are more than 200 certified organic operations, and most are growing crops.

How does a farmer or rancher get USDA certified?

Lamb allowed KTVB to accompany inspectors visiting a local vineyard for an organic re-certification inspection. Rocky Fence Vineyard in Emmett grows organic wine and table grapes and has always farmed organically. The vineyard sells to a local winery and ships table grapes internationally.

"These grapes here are just from the Idaho sun, and from the Idaho mountains," grape grower Michael Medes explains.

We found the several-hours-long inspection got down to the nitty-gritty -- from checking extensive records, receipts and plans, to walking down every row of grapes looking at the vines, to checking sheds, equipment and sprays. The idea is to check for sustainable farming practices at every level of production.

In a certified organic operation, natural pesticides, fertilizers, equipment, and other implements are allowed unless otherwise prohibited by the USDA. Synthetic products are not allowed unless specifically listed. Idaho's organic program (1990) is older than the federal accreditation program (2002), and regulations are continually getting tighter.

Farming organically costs significantly more

The USDA recently surveyed farmers nationwide, and found organic operation and production expenditures around 60% higher than conventional expenditures. The average organic farm spends $171,978 per year, while other farms spend an average of $109,359.

"If I could use a herbicide, it would be a lot easier," Medes said. "If I have to treat my vines when I have problems, the treatments usually cost about three times more than conventional and are about a third as effective."

Medes showed KTVB a gallon container of natural, USDA organic approved treatment that cost between $200 and $300 for one container. Growers say the higher cost has to be passed on to consumers, though they say the product from using organic practices is worth the price.

"We try to get our grapes tasting better so it's worth paying more. I mean that's our goal," Medes said.

Since consumers do sometimes pay more, organic growers say USDA certification is proof consumers are getting their money's worth.

"I'm glad they're real strict, because if the consumer's going to spend for organic produce, they should be protected that we're not spraying these things," Medes said.

Dept. of Ag: Other terms like 'spray-free' are not regulated

KTVB checked out several food labels at a local farmer's market and saw words like "natural," "no spray", "sustainably raised" and "country organic." Experts say those labels could mean the farmer is using organic practices, but they may not be certified or regulated.

"Consumers want to look for the organic label. [There] is the USDA issued label, and only growers that have gone through the process of becoming certified and gone through the paper work and had inspections done on their farm have permission to use this logo and call their produce certified organic," Agenbroad said. "Lots of other people will use terms like 'natural' or 'no spray' or 'organically grown', but those don't come with the seal, so it's not an absolute guarantee."

Knowing that information, experts suggest you check labels and ask questions to make sure a farm's growing practices match up with your personal beliefs about food.

"[If] You're buying based on your values, and if it's important for you to see farming happen in that way, or support a grower who uses those principals or practices, then it is worth the money to you," Agenbroad said.

Small farms don't have to be inspected to use 'organic' labeling

Lamb says small farms earning less than $5,000 a year don't have to get inspected to advertise that they're organic, they just need to register with the state. Lamb's office handles those applications as well. Usually, he says getting a small farm organic certificate is just a quick check and registration process, and does not include inspection.

Boise's Capital City Market requires proof of USDA organic certification from anyone who wants to sell using the term 'organic'. Other terms, like natural or spray-free aren't checked because the market says there's really no way to check because there aren't standards or certificates for those terms.

Fines, penalties and suspensions for incorrect use of 'organic' label

Growers and producers can be denied certification, have their license suspended, or issued a notice of non-compliance with the USDA if inspectors find violations with their methods.

"Every year we have approximately 10 to 15 operations that are suspended, but typically that's for failing to apply," Lamb said.

Lamb and his office also investigate if people report problems or suspect an organic farm or operation is out of compliance. He says they usually investigate complaints within 24 hours.

Additionally, the USDA issues fines to growers or operators found to be using the "Certified Organic" label fraudulently.

New organics health study by Stanford

Looking at the health aspects of organics, a new research study by Stanford University shows practically no nutritional difference between organically and non-organically grown produce -- but does show a big difference in the use of pesticides.

Organic fruits and veggies have a 30% lower risk of pesticide contamination than non-organic. However, no studies found specifically that pesticides at non-organic levels cause harm.

Scientists also looked at pork and chicken. They discovered there's a 33% greater risk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in non-organic pork and chicken. They also found higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids in organic milk and chicken.