An Apple Is an Apple – Or Is It?
One apple is pretty much the same as any other, eh? Except for the taste, of course. Ah, but organically grown apples are much better for you, right?
Certainly, the use of nasty chemicals to make produce look prettier, increase production yields, reduce infestation and generally increase the producers’ profits should be examined closely. The benefits and perils of these practices are still debated.
What has bothered me for some time is the manner in which the claims of benefits from organic production methods have expanded to include the nutritional value of the food produced. I found an interesting letter in the 7 August 2009 issue of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The letter, titled Organics: Evidence of Health Benefits Lacking, began by stating the familiar explanations why organically grown produce might be more nutritious: natural fertilisers are absorbed more slowly and conventional pesticides disrupt nutrition absorption or synthesis, potentially lowering the nutrient levels.
The article* then discusses a systematic survey of scientific literature over three decades, including very recent material, that demonstrated that there are neither consistent nor meaningful differences in the levels of nutrients between conventionally grown and organically grown produce.
There is an FDA/USDA requirement (we’re talking the U S of A here, folks) that requires that a nutrient in a product must be at least 10% greater than its comparison product to allow a claim of “more nutritional”. For organics, this is not the case.
What does make a difference is the cultivar or variety. Some varieties of produce are more nutritional than others. If you can get the information, you can achieve a much better nutritional outcome by choosing the most nutritious varieties.
Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not trashing organically grown foods. Frankly, I don’t see much difference in the supermarket, except for price. However, I’m wondering what chemicals were used on the Non-Organic side of the aisle. Nevertheless, I am not swayed by claims of getting more nutrition for my buck from the organically grown stuff.
Here in Madang we don’t have to worry about organic vs. non-organic. Everything is organic. If you don’t find a worm or two in your lettuce, you wonder what’s going on. There’s an old story about how you can tell how long someone has lived in PNG:
A NEWBIE, upon finding maggots in his banana, shrieks and throws it into the bush.
SOMEONE WHO’S BEEN AROUND FOR A WHILE carefully pulls the maggoty bits off and eats the rest.
AN OLD HAND sees the maggots and says, “Thanks, Lord, for the extra protein.”
I walked over to the market for a few minutes this morning to get some shots of our wonderful produce. Here’s a little gallery:
Bon appétit.
* Organics: Evidence of Health Benefits Lacking, Science, 7 August 2009, Kate Clancy, Michael Hamm, Allen S. Levine, Jennifer Wilkins. Any misunderstandings or errors of interpretation of the letter are my fault. You can email correspondence to aslevine@umn.edu
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As I said on FaceBook, great, informative post. If you can buy and eat veggies and fruits as good looking as those photos, you indeed have another reason to claim you live in paradise. Happily, we have incredibly good local farm produce available here in Berkeley, CA, and at a very reasonable prices, even for organic. Now, you got me jonesing for some sweet potatoes!
The veggies in the market here are very cheap. You can buy a big cabbage for about US$ 0.50 and it’s so sweet you can eat it like candy.
I love cabbage….your local stuff sounds fabulous…and it’s one of the best things you can eat for good health, maybe right behind brocoli and blueberries in terms of antioxidants and good phytochemicals…..
I been to a few organic markets but they so expensive compared to my local coles/woolworths (Aust supermarkets). As a student cheap is priority over chemicals.
One thing i miss big time about PNG is the food markets (outside of POM). Thanks for the food pics, i really could do right now with a plate full of “grease” kumu. cucumber too. The tomatos are 200% better in flavour then here in aust.
I know what you mean concerning the price of organics. When I last visited Canada, the differences were not so great. My personal habit is to buy organics that are locally produced if the price is not too much more. That gives local producers a break and reduces my carbom footprint, because the produce is not shipped so far.
You are right about our local produce. In fact, it has gotten much better in recent years since highlands farmers have seen the big market potential of Lae and Madang and are now procucing much more and better quality veggies.
I remember years back in Sydney at our local squash club walking up to the counter to buy a cold drink after a hard couple of hours on the court – I will never forget a bunch of apples sitting in a basket for sale – with a sign that read: “Natural Apples”.
R
PS. When you get a chance… please change my link’s title from “Robert@PNG” to “Trupel Tok” – much appreciated.
Back in the 70s in coastal Papua the vegetables at market were very poor. Local gardeners reused the same seed over and over. Tomatoes were large, but pink and bitter; same with cucumbers. Not worth eating! No wonder the binatangs didn’t like them! My school had large gardens and we could not have produced quality vegetables without insecticides.
Kevin, it’s been like a miracle for us that we now get such great produce, mostly from the highlands. Some people still use seed kept from the yield, but most have figured out the ‘hybrid’ thing and realise that they need to buy new seed.
When we came in ’81, the veggies in the market were basically kau kau, taro, bananas, kumul, yams and so forth – traditional tumbuna food. Now, as you can see from the photos, we can get just about anything that we want.
Thanks for reading, Kevin. Please pass on my link to your friends.
Jan
Hah! I like that one. I suppose the opposite would be “Artificial Apples”?
I’ll take care of that link change this morning. (Is that a typo error? Would you ratther have “Trupela Tok”?) Maybe it’s just “new Tok Pisin“. The language is changing faster than I can keep up.
Jan
Thanks mate!
You really do need a subscribe to comments type facility.
Cheers,
R
I probably would need it if I knew what it was. I often find that I desperately need things as soon as I discover them.
One thing I never dared to do in PNG is take pictures at the market for everyone is staring at you. There had to be a huge crowd of curious people around you while you were taking these pictures?! Anyway: Thank you so much for taking these pictures! Now it’s easy for me to show my family and friends the rich food of PNG
People are so used to seeing me walking around taking pictures that they pay no attention to me any more. I’ve sort of faded into the background.