Health & Organic

Food grown without chemicals can create a barrier against pesticides, but also nurture more, say investigadores.

Organic foods protect children from pesticides, while foods derived from modern intensive agriculture has less nutrients that 60 years ago, as revealed to two new scientific studies.

A U.S. team from Emory University analyzed urine samples of children aged three to 11 who ate only organic foods and found that they contained virtually no metabolites of malathion and chlorpyrifos, two pesticides commonly used.

However, once the children returned to eating conventional foods, pesticide metabolites quickly climbed to 263 parts per billion, according to a study released on February 21.

Organic farming without the use of most pesticides and fertilizers in intensive agriculture, and not use hormones or antibiotics.

There was a “dramatic and immediate protective effect” against the pesticides by eating organic foods, said Chensheng Lu, assistant professor at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University.

The finding, as well as one published in Britain earlier this month, have fueled the controversy over the biggest benefits of organic foods compared to conventional, involving academics, businessmen and activists in the global arena.

The British analysis of government nutrition data on meat and dairy products from the 30′s and 2002 and found that the mineral content of milk, cheese and beef produced by intensive agriculture fell to 70 percent in that period.

“These declines are alarming,” Ian told Tierramérica Tokelove, spokesman for the NGO The Food Commission (The Food Commission), which published the study. The commission advocates for healthier and safer food.

The research found that parmesan cheese had 70 percent less magnesium and calcium, beef steaks contained 55 percent less iron, chicken had 31 percent less calcium and 69 percent less iron, while milk also showed a large reduction of iron, along with a decline of 21 percent magnesium.

Copper, an important trace mineral (an essential nutrient that is consumed in small quantities), also declined 60 percent in meats and dairy 90 percent.

“It seems likely that intensive farming methods are responsible for this,” Tokelove said from his office in London.

Although controversial, several other studies also found differences between conventional and organic foods.

The organic fruits and vegetables had significantly higher levels of antioxidants, which have the ability to fight cancer, according to a 2003 study published in the American Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The organic plants produced these chemical compounds to fight off insects and competing plants, researchers said.

A 2001 report from Britain’s Soil Association (British Land) looked at 400 nutritional research studies and came to similar conclusions: foods grown organically had more minerals and vitamins.

“Modern plant breeding for rapid growth and high yields could be affecting the nutritional quality,” said Katherine Tucker, director of nutritional epidemiology at Tufts University in Boston, in the northeastern U.S. state of Massachusetts.

Lower levels of minerals in food we eat is cause for concern. Magnesium, calcium and other minerals are very important for proper nutrition, “said Tucker told Tierramérica.

Good nutrition and exercise are the main factors that can make a difference in the incidence of many diseases, including cancer, he said.

She recommends eating unprocessed foods, animals raised in the open and organic foods.

Farmers in other parts of the world should not adopt the intensive farming practices in North America or Europe, says Ken Warren, spokesman for the U.S. The Land Institute (Earth) in Salina, Kansas.

“It’s an unsustainable system that relies heavily on chemical fertilizers like nitrogen to keep yields high and produces ‘hollow food’,” said Warren.

“Hollow food” contains insufficient nutrition and is suspected of playing a role in the rapid rise in obesity, as people eat more to get the nutrition they need, he said.

Crops take minerals, trace elements and other things from the soil every year. Modern agriculture back to the land are some chemical fertilizers can not replace what was lost, he said.

Furthermore, herbicides and insecticides kill microorganisms in the soil that play an important role in soil fertility and helping plants grow.

Pesticide residues in modern agriculture are another cause for concern. A 2003 study by the University of Washington found that children eating organic fruits and vegetables had concentrations of pesticide six times lower than children eating conventional produce.

The Land Institute advocates what it calls natural systems agriculture. This involves the use of perennial crops in polycultures, that is, planting several different crops together as has been practiced in many traditional peoples around the world.

“Farmers in other parts should learn from the mistakes of U.S. agriculture. Consider the nature is a better model for farming,” he said.

Source: http://inforganic.com/node/948