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food is good, except when it isn't
2009-Feb-07, Saturday 11:39 amHere's a followup to my earlier post about modern food production in a changing climate.
Popcorn is a popular product in this house. I'm curious to know just how much of it is eaten here in a year. You'd think popcorn would be the model of simplicity for a food product, wouldn't you? It's just a seed. No special processing, no additives, no preservatives. You grow it, dry it, then stick it in a jar. Can't get a more natural food than that, right? Well... we still manage to mess it up.
The Popcorn Board produces a handbook that details the wide variety of substances that can be used on popcorn crops and what their acceptable level of residue can be according to the USA's Environmental Protection Agency or the World Health Organization. You should take a look at the variety of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fumigants that are permitted while growing that simple popcorn seed. If this is what goes into an exceptionally hardy food product, then what awful stuff goes into the plants that produce far more delicate foods for our table? Strawberries, grapes, or lettuce? How are they kept fresh and enticing for our purchase?
http://www.popcorn.org/handbook/handbook.cfm
I understand that we're talking extremely low concentrations, but these health risks are measured in isolation. How do they interact with the hundreds (thousands) of other chemicals that we intentionally or unintentionally put into our bodies? I've never been an "Organic" fiend, but reading material like this handbook does push me that direction. I expect to grow more popcorn in the garden this year to see if I can displace the mass produced stuff that my roommates normally eat.
Similarly, Scientific American recently reported on the possible consequences of using coal ash as a part of fertilizer. While its benefits are easily noticeable, they're finding that coal ash includes some much less desirable ingredients like mercury, arsenic, titanium, and radium.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-in-soil
Maybe it's finally time to encourage everyone to return to "victory gardens" and grow portions of their own food supply at their house. Tear up part of the grass lawn and put in veggies, grains, and herbs in its place. Maybe the bad economy will be a good excuse to get people back to tending gardens.
Popcorn is a popular product in this house. I'm curious to know just how much of it is eaten here in a year. You'd think popcorn would be the model of simplicity for a food product, wouldn't you? It's just a seed. No special processing, no additives, no preservatives. You grow it, dry it, then stick it in a jar. Can't get a more natural food than that, right? Well... we still manage to mess it up.
The Popcorn Board produces a handbook that details the wide variety of substances that can be used on popcorn crops and what their acceptable level of residue can be according to the USA's Environmental Protection Agency or the World Health Organization. You should take a look at the variety of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fumigants that are permitted while growing that simple popcorn seed. If this is what goes into an exceptionally hardy food product, then what awful stuff goes into the plants that produce far more delicate foods for our table? Strawberries, grapes, or lettuce? How are they kept fresh and enticing for our purchase?
http://www.popcorn.org/handbook/handbook.cfm
I understand that we're talking extremely low concentrations, but these health risks are measured in isolation. How do they interact with the hundreds (thousands) of other chemicals that we intentionally or unintentionally put into our bodies? I've never been an "Organic" fiend, but reading material like this handbook does push me that direction. I expect to grow more popcorn in the garden this year to see if I can displace the mass produced stuff that my roommates normally eat.
Similarly, Scientific American recently reported on the possible consequences of using coal ash as a part of fertilizer. While its benefits are easily noticeable, they're finding that coal ash includes some much less desirable ingredients like mercury, arsenic, titanium, and radium.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-in-soil
Maybe it's finally time to encourage everyone to return to "victory gardens" and grow portions of their own food supply at their house. Tear up part of the grass lawn and put in veggies, grains, and herbs in its place. Maybe the bad economy will be a good excuse to get people back to tending gardens.