Organic kiwifruit healthier
Here’s a story to make the organic food grower and consumer smile. Research in California found that organic kiwifruit had significantly higher levels of Vit C and polyphenols (anti-oxidants) in them.
All the main mineral constituents were more concentrated in the organic kiwi fruit, which also had higher asorbic acid (vitamin C) and total polyphenol content, resulting in higher antioxidant activity.
The article also said:
Another recent study overseas found that a pint of organic milk has 68 per cent more omega 3 fatty acids – important for normal brain functioning – than conventionally produced milk.
Which was news to me. Personally I buy mostly organic primarily because of the better impact on the environment (leave the spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees) and secondarily because of the health implications of organics, but it’s good to know that it’s good for the planet and good for people.
March 27th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
while we are talking about being green and healthy..and stuff…
and caring for the planet..
how about walking it..eh..?
those greenies/environmental activists.. who still wear leather….and who still eat meat…and drink coffee..
should really have a look at the graph in this story…
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20070320-The-Water-Diet.html
it measures how much water goes into making different food/products..
the biggest water-pig is coffee…(!)
number two is bovine leather..
and number three is meat..(beef..)
so…if one were a meat eating/leather-wearing/coffee-drinking greenie/environmental activist..
one could hardle be more of a hypocrite..eh..?
and just in case you are wondering..
if you are a non-coffee drinking..non-leather wearing..vego/vegan greenie/environment activist..
you are doing fine..veges are way way down the water-pig list…
food for thought..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
March 27th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
nice one Phil,
that’s incredible that it takes 50000 to 100000 litres of water to produce 1 kg of beef, but then again as a poster points out in the comments to the newspaper article that the blog post refers to:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21122658-3102,00.html
all that water is recycled and some properties don’t abstract water and are self-sufficient in rain water that falls on the property.
It really does depend on whether the crop or animal is raised or produced in a place that is short of water or not.
I read somewhere that bags of supermarket salad greens in the UK are terrible because they use so much water in their production in Africa, that many Africans have increased pressure on water resources.
By focusing purely on the position of the food in the food pyramid you lose sight of the detail of how each foodstuff was produced. Meat from a farm that relies on rainwater in a wet and green area is clearly better than a farm in a dry area that relies on intensive irrigation, lettuce grown at home using stored rainwater is better than industrially produced in Africa.
The simple argument given in the article could mean that people could eat more flown in greens.
That’s not to say that I disagree with you Phil, and people do need to take more personal responsibility for what they eat.
March 27th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
oh and also, having now read the original report, Hidden Waters, by Waterwise (UK).
http://www.waterwise.org.uk/reducing_water_wastage_in_the_uk/the_facts /embedded_water.html
a simplistic viewing of the graph also neglects to consider portion size.
The graph is scaled in litres of water per kg of produced product, but you can get hundreds of cups of coffee out of a kg of coffee and you might drink a kg of beer at a single sitting, so to say that coffee is 100 times worse than beer is actually a poor comparison. A cup of coffee probably contains less embedded water than a banana and avocado sandwich. So no I don’t feel like a hypocrital greenie for continuing to drink coffee Phil!
The report also makes the point that different countries have different levels of water usage than others. Some crops are very similar from country to country, other crops have wildly different figures from country to country (including coffee - coffee from Brazil uses much less water than coffee from Ghana).
The country graph is on page 12 of the report PDF, just after the crop graph that the blog Phil linked to reproduced.
Facinating subject though. Clearly we need labelling of foodstuffs for a whole host of different health, environmental and social justice considerations.
March 27th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Ha! Take a look at Table 3 on page 19 of the PDF. A cup of coffee contains less embedded water than a glass of apple or orange juice, milk or beer and less embedded water than a packet of potato crisps and about the same as an egg!
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone Phil.
You’re right about beef though.
March 27th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
OK, I live in Australia and I’m reading that wondering how it applies here. Specifically, outback cattle are usually fed bore water which is unpalatable if not actively poisonous to humans. So that’s cool, if somewhat salty. But the other major effect of cattle is native vegetation destruction, as the beasts chew and trample their way across the countryside. So no, two legs good, four legs bad. At least in Oztraya.
March 28th, 2007 at 7:48 am
Moz
“OK, I live in Australia” ………you lucky man, do yourself a favour and get out and about whipping up support for John Howard, the last thing you need in OZ is a corrupt Labour govt.
Before you know it they will steal over 800k from you and refuse to pay it back.
P.S, before you go I think you need a foil for that mad fish and chip woman Hansen.
What you need is a strong and determined woman who will not let little things (like the truth) get in the way, I implore you to talk to Sue Bradford.
If you need any help with expenses let me know, I am sure that I could ring around and raise a few million to help you take Sue over the Tasman, I fear that the fight might take some time, so please be prepared to have Sue with you for at least 50 years.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:37 am
and the winner of the grand prize for thread hijacking is …
March 28th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
stuey said..
“..Let he who is without sin cast the first stone Phil…”
yeah..number four on the list is my poison of choice..black tea…
and thanks for the analysis that went beyond my hurried/horrified glance….
but i see you neatly sidestep the really big ones..
the leather…and the meat..
so…i would say that despite a backtrack/clarification on the coffee/tea component..
that my hypocrisy thesis still stands…
tho..i fully expect there to be a resounding silence/continuation of denial/refusal of discussion..
on the part of the leather-wearing/meat-chomping ‘environmental activists’ who inhabit many positions in the green party..and around here..
eh..?
cos’ that one really is ‘the elephant in the room’..eh..?
for those animal-skin wearing..animal-flesh eating ‘greenies’..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
March 28th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
What’s there to discuss phil? You want us to go veggie and we ain’t-a goin… at least not most of us and/or not yet.
Not complicated - Unless we have something to say it isn’t much use talking, is it?
FWIW, I want to move this way, but I have a Russian Mother-In-Law-In-Residence and just getting beef out of my diet is (to her) tantamount to starving me. You want to argue with her? The image forming as I think about it is causing me to laugh already and the people around me are wondering why…
We can move down that ladder quite a way before embracing a totally vegetarian diet.
Wonder about fish… were not on the list. Perhaps there is a clue somewhere but they use water we can’t.
respectfully
BJ
March 28th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Yeh OK Phil, I admit that you touched on a guilt button of mine with the leather goods issue.
The last time I ever bought anything leather was my trusty old doc martin boots, back in 1990. They are still going strong after two re-soles (even tho Martins claim air-soles cannot be resoled hehe) but I do fret sometimes about eventually having to replace them.
All that being said tho, I think there are infinitely more reasons to despise the tanning industry than the amount of water they use - the thing that enrages me most about them is the toxicity of chemicals and where they are disposed. It’s a most excellent point you make tho Phil, just that it needs to be kept in perspective with the other evils of those industries.
Now what was the topic again….. oh yeh, organic kiwifruit? I only eat organic produce and if people challenge me about the extra cost of such my standard reply is that I am paying for my food by nutrients per kilogram, and this makes it better value for me cos I don’t have to eat as much to nourish my body.
Plus, locally grown organic produce always tastes SOOOOO much better to me - quality of taste being measured in inverse proportion to the distance between garden and gullet.
Cheers,
Z
PS: Just for the record Phil, I lived in a housetruck for ten years and for nine of those I physically carried every drop of (rain)water I ever used in jerry cans. So you can betcha bottom dollar baby that I am by habit an ultra-anally-retentive conserver of water LOL
March 28th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
so bj..you’re quite happy to wear the hypocrite label..?
and it’s not what i ‘want’..
(stop trying to personalise/denigrate my valid concerns..)
these are facts that are staring you in the face..nothing to do with me…
and i note you are taking the (predicted) refusal to discuss option..eh..?
must go..!
questiontime beckons..
back later..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
March 28th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Phil - I don’t wear leather and I am working on the Mother-In-Law and there is damned little likelihood of cutting off my daily grind… but I have no feelings of hypocrisy about any of it. I do what I can, within my human limits, and trying to inflict a guilt trip on me is not likely to improve my game. Russian lessons (so that I can argue with Babushka) would help, but I am horrible with languages. Yeah, progress is glacial, but it is what it is.
It was however, one hell of a neat imaginary scenario
Y’all report back to us about question time though. I think lots of interesting stuff is going to happen in the next couple - three weeks.
respectfully
BJ
March 28th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
bj..i am not laying a guilt trip..
i am trying to present facts/questions/different points of view..
if you choose to project your self-guilt/defensiveness over your carnivorous behavior onto those questions..so be it..
tell me..do you feel absolutely no qualms as you chew on the flesh of what was once a living/sentient being..?
do you feel nothing..?..no uncertainties..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
and um..why do you not wear leather..?..if you already eat them..?
March 28th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Leather is not real comfortable in a running shoe Phil… nothing to do with the animals.
As for the carnivorous bit, I am an omnivore which is pretty much the way nature designed me to be. I have NO qualms about eating dead animals in any significant moral sense, and even though I have issues with the resource consumption involved and further issues with health aspects I regard my efforts to be “as good as it gets” for now. In a few years when things are more settled and I know more Russian I may be able to explain to our Babushka the benefits of tofu. For now I have to take what turns up at table…. and I doubt she will ever eat the tofu.
respectfully
BJ
March 28th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
# moz Says:
>OK, I live in Australia and I’m reading that wondering how it applies here. Specifically, outback cattle are usually fed bore water which is unpalatable if not actively poisonous to humans. So that’s cool, if somewhat salty.
The main water consumption on producing beef is not the water the cattle drink, wut the water you use to grow the grass or corn they eat. Kiwi cattle eat mostly grass, and I assume Aussie cattle do too. In the US and some latin American countries they eat corn, which means much higher consumption of irrigation water per head of cattlebeast (yes, that’s the technical term). It also means they get sick, because cattle did not evolve to eat corn.
Also, the fact that humans cannot drink the water is not relevant. We cannot drink water as an alternative to eating, because it doesn’t have any calories. Unless its as polluted as many of New Zealand’s lowland rivers, in which case it probably does. The alternative is to use the water to grow crops that are high in protein. So the question we need to ask is, is that water clean enough to irrigate lentils, soybeans or peanuts?
March 29th, 2007 at 10:34 am
b.j. said…
“..I have NO qualms about eating dead animals in any significant moral sense..”
ok then..that’s quite clear..
do you also have no qualms about the short brutal lives..?
full of pain/suffering/stress..?
lived by those now dead animals you have ‘no qualms about eating’..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
March 29th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Phil - I do have some issues with that… and you won’t find me fighting against you on those things, nor concerned that the prices rise because you win on those issues. We each have our focus.
respectfully
BJ
March 29th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
phil!
I understand and, basically, share your feelings about the breeding and killing of animals for meat and leather.
As a convert to vegetarianism (for moral and sutainability reasons) and moving closer to veganism, I choose to use some leather still.
My problem is a clash of two Green ideas:
Do I continue to “use the leather stuff until it wears out”,
when I should be demonstrating “don’t exploit animals” ?
I currently use leather shoes and one handbag, because to get rid of them would make the animals’ deaths more pointless.
March 30th, 2007 at 5:56 am
Phil - while you are at it, instead of accusing ME of being a fellow-traveler of BB’s you might ping him on animal rights…. that’s why he’s HERE instead of inhabiting the nether regions of the National party or somewhere else. You have a lot more in common with him than you realize. Yeah, he has some ideas we don’t agree on, but he isn’t a one-way street. It’d be fascinating to see the two of you guys get together - respectfully BJ
March 30th, 2007 at 8:07 am
yeah eredwen..
i just gave mine away..
and i guess i see not using/wearing as also being a statement…
(i also don’t like the touch/feel of it..i can’t get past the fact i am touching/handling the skin of a dead animal..)
and no b.j..sorry..
but you and b.b. would be in the same animal rights camp..eh..?
both wiping their (animal) body-fats from your chin..
as you concede ‘they could do with bigger cages’..
phil(whoar.co.nz)