Very interesting article - thanks! Click on the link for the "25 ridiculously healthy foods" and see that that article is what inspires us little back yard farmers to continue. Local is always better and naturally grown (organic but without the government label) is much more tasty and so much more healthy, IMO.

Nancy

For any of you that want to pop your own popcorn, I highly suggest the "Whirly Pop." I've been using this for years. I use a ton of butter and salt so I can't say it is the healthiest, but it is a hell of a lot better than the microwave crap.

I love my air popper too! I've learned to eat it with olive oil and salt. Yum.

I saw the same article Kathy! The one about potato farmers growing a separate patch for their families particularly struck me. How can you do that? Knowingly grow and sell things you wouldn't eat yourself? My conscience just won't allow it! That's like putting hair (or worse, in this case) in OTHER people's food or something.... Yuck!

Deanna

Some perspective - what you are getting in the article is one individual's personal opinion on each particular food in question. Note the credentials of each - marginal in several cases.

And in some of the cases, note how the credentials of the so-called expert indicate that they have a personal agenda to put forward - a reason for being critical of the food in question. ie: the chair of the National Organic Standards Board is critical of non-organic potatoes. Golly Gee whiz!

This not to mention the personal agenda of the publication itself. Just another example of why you can't believe everything you read. ;)

I'm not saying there isn't any truth to the article, just that it should be taken with a grain or two of salt and read with a great deal of objectivity.

Dave

We've changed a few of our food purchases in the last few years: Milk from cows who aren't fed hormones; Never eat farm-raised fish (which isn't too difficult because we have lots of fresh and wild salmon here in the Pacific Northwest) -- but frozen shrimp is more difficult to find "clean."; We're able to grow and eat our own apples and other tree fruits; but we do depend upon canned vegetables, especially tomatoes and mushrooms -- and I've yet to give up on microwave popcorn. However, I believe microwave popcorn is probably NOT a good-for-me food!

I know that there are often different "experts" and "authorities" and even with their agendas (which I'm sure many of them have) ... it behooves us to pay attention to everything, research what we can, and use good common sense.

Kathy -- who is longing for the olden days (except for every technological and medical advance that has made my life easier and better!

Dave, Amen

Luke

I agree with you Dave.
I did find the article interesting and a launching point for my own research.

Most of that stuff we don't eat anyway (harmful or not), we grow our own. However, If I run out of my own, I'll buy some things in the store. Some we just do without!

Deanna

Two problems:
1) As was pointed out, questionable experts (Joel Salatin is very good as a businessman, but I really doubt his science knowledge, he does think the earth is ~6,000 years old) with conflicts of interest.

2) Ignorance of the fact that the dose makes the toxin, specifically in regards to microwave popcorn. If you tried to avoid everything toxic then you literally would never be able to breathe, eat, or drink anything, and most surfaces you couldn't touch. You have a liver and kidneys for a reason, don't sweat the small stuff.

Microwavable popcorn...paper bag, a VERY little bit of oil on the corn, single staple (you need metal-to-metal to jump for sparks so it's not an issue), cook until you don't hear popping.

Potatoes aren't very toxic...until it's time to spray the defoliant found in many mass commercial operations to make whole-field harvest easier.

Tree fruits...especially apples and pears...are generally sprayed to hell and back from the moment they start fruiting until shipping. Wash em hard or peel the skins.

Everything in moderation is my guideline.

It always strikes me as peculiar that as our life spans and ability to remain more vibrant, healthy and active than our parents, grand parents and great grand parents at similar ages increase, the number of things we are warned against doing, ingesting, breathing in, touching or otherwise encountering also increases.

Life is a terminal disease, when you think about it, since every one of us born will die. I will be 50 next year, and look probably 10 years younger than my mother did at that age and 20 years younger than my grandmother. My Great grandmother looked like an old woman by 50 and none of them were remotely as healthy as I am.

"Experts" need to make a living, as do research scientists. It's a competitive biz, and mellow, everything's copacetic, no need for alarm results don't breed future earnings.

Pesticides, fertilizers, hormones etc...all bad guys, um-hum. But when was the last time we had a famine in the U.S., with people starving to death? How many pot-bellied children do we have sitting on our curbs, too weak to wipe flies from their eyes because food is too expensive for the poor to afford?

Personally, I think most folks would be better off worrying about how much exercise they don't get than whether or not their shrimp are farm grown or their milk has hormones in it. As far as I can see, obesity is killing off more of us than estrogen in tomatoes or fungicides in potatoes.

By the way, the inexpensive, non-organic potatoes I buy in the 10 pound sack at the grocery store sprout all the time. In fact, I ended up planting several in my garden this year and had quite the crop.

Pesticide and fertilizer use as we know it is really only 50-70 years old depending on where you want to put your starting point.

We grow food a lot differently than we used to starting in the 40s and really taking off in the 60s.

Suprised the experts didn't mention Nutritional Yeast for a topping for popcorn. It's what vegans use for a cheese substitute for it's nutty cheesy flavor. I have been using it on popcorn for 20 years. Get it organic at the health food store. It's good stuff.

As far as potatoes, store bought taters here sprout, in fact they were a part of my tater row this year good baking taters.

To be quite honest, if you ever look at the flower of taters and maters you know they are a member of the nightshade family. Animals seldom eat the plants due to them knowing they are toxic. Red Potatoes and Sweet Potatoes are not the same. Ever notice how red taters and sweet taters get hard and shrivel, while whites turn green and sprout, or worse, stinking mush.

My upper field open garden this year was tomatoes, potatoes Dahlias and Basil, not one nibble was taken from any of those plants. The year before, the critters ate 1/2 of my beans before I covered them with netting.
I always toss any potatoe that has the slightest bit of green, the green is toxic. Yet in England a very expensive Irish Potatoe is sold very early spring, green potatoes.

I know of older Americans that are on restricted night shade diets, not allowed to eat white potatoes or tomato products.

John Q public has a tough time biting into organic apples, peaches, pears because they have been programmed for blemish free produce. Lots of fruit farms here in Pa and they are on a 7 day spray schedule. Many have changed to Organic Sprays , but not all.

Just about every piece fresh produce in the grocery store has been gased in the trucks for transportation.

Your right about obesity and Americans, we are all going to pay for that dearly. Good thing I don't dwell on it, I am in the middle for social security taking the brunt for baby boomers before I retire, then having to pay for all the morbidly obese kids and their ill health when I do retire.

I buy mostly conventional produce, but I wash almost everything I eat pretty well. I especially go after the tree fruits pretty well and try to get un-waxed apples/pears because they're easier to clean (easier to find in-season).

Almost all the residue problems with pesticide/fertilzer/etc. contamination effect the outside of the fruit.

I heard somewhere that strawberries are the worst thing you can eat, pesticide-wise. Since we obviously don't peel strawberries, whatever is sprayed on them, is in them as well. Altho I admit, I still buy them! Haven't gotten around to planting a strawberry bed - yet.

I am trying to grow more myself because, among other things, I can control what goes on them. However, I lost most of my tomato crop this year to late blight. So I have all of 3 packages of tomatoes in my freezer to last me the winter! I have no choice but to buy canned tomato puree, etc. Store tomatoes are a waste of time. No flavor whatsoever.

I agree tho - you'll go nuts if you start panicking over everything you hear. And I'm one that tries to stay ontop of this stuff. I buy organic as much as I can, but the prices!!! OMG!!! I was trying to buy organic meats as well. I'd have to take out a second mortgage to afford a steak dinner! It would cost me roughly $30 to buy enough boneless chicken breast for a meal. I can't afford those prices on a daily basis. I just try to eat as healthy as I can, avoiding really obviously bad things. I try to make as much as I can from scratch and avoid many of the "convenience" foods where you can't pronounce half the ingredients in them!!

Lisa

My âÂÂearsâ were opened a year ago or so by an expose I heard over the radio while driving home from work. IâÂÂm no expert and I canâÂÂt provide any links or in any way substantiate what I am about to say, other than to say that I heard it on NPR and it was just a part of the news show and not a segment on any sort of science show.

A study was completed involving comparing tissues from young adults raised in the city versus those raised on strict organic foods. The study was large and it took years to gather enough samples - they wanted samples from children that were born and raised on communes and such, where they would never have been exposed to non-organic food. I believe there were over a thousand organic people samples.

There was no difference in the level of toxins between the two groups. Both the city people and the organic people had the same level of toxins in their systems.

The study concluded that we donâÂÂt really gather toxins from our food - that our digestive systems are fairly good at handling those problems - that we are exposed to most of the toxins from our environments. Bad stuff comes to us from our clothing, our furniture, our automobiles, our buildings, our roadways along with the air we breath. Our skin and lungs are not well equipped to manage the toxins we are bombarded with.

ItâÂÂs not the cr@p in our drinking water that causes a problem, our stomach can handle that - its the cr@ppy water becoming steam in the shower where we breathe it into our lungs that causes the problem.

None of this is news youâÂÂd want to hear, but the memory of that show haunts me whenever I read about bad stuff in our food or water.

I'll speak up for Joel Salatin. The data he states deserve to be judged on their merits, not whether he is a scientist or what his religious views are. His views on beef are pretty well backed up by Michael Pollan in Omnivore's Dilemma, and Pollan has no financial interest in promoting pasture-finished beef. I recommend Pollan's book to everyone I meet who might be interested.

Linked is a recent list from Consumer Reports, copied on this organic consumer web site, with the foods they found highest in pesticide residues.

I'm with trianglejohn here - there are tiny amounts of toxins in everything and everywhere now. Asthma rates have tripled in the last 40 years, auto immune diseases are increasing, as are things such as autism, etc.

So much of it we have no control over. But we can control what we eat.

Here is a link that might be useful: link with pesticide residues on common fruit and veggies

Not going to join in the pros and cons of this debate but I think I'd better point out that we do NOT eat green potatoes in England, or in the UK at all. So please don't experiment.

"Yet in England a very expensive Irish Potatoe is sold very early spring, green potatoes."

Perhaps buszzylizzy could provide the reference for this notion. We do eat early new potatoes, the most prized probably being Jersey Royals. But the tubers are definitely not green! Maybe there is a misunderstanding based on the fact that the potatoes are dug when the foliage is still green.

This summer I tried to do a small produce stand with things I grew myself, organically. To be truthful, it was an enormous amount of work and for the amount of money I would have made, I wondered if it was worth it. Now I have been pondering how small organic growers could make a living. Also, without large commercial growers, how could we possibly provide enough food for our population. Without large growers we could not do it. Everyone one would have to grow or raise food to provide for those who live in areas where they can't grow food. Then think about the amount of labor involved. Then comes the cost of food from a small grower vs. large. Plus consider the way we eat nowadays. We want fresh produce in the middle of winter and prepared foods, we don't have time to do it ourselves. There is no easy answer. Then I think about all the pollution to our planet and I'm not just talking about from farms. I believe we were not meant to live like this and we have not 'caught up' with ourselves. The answers are not easy ones.

The potato is a fairly big deal, because some varieties of potatoes are bred with genes added to make them toxic to potato beetles. Makes it possible to grow them in huge plots and is very productive. Lots of conflict over whether it is harmful to people or not. Kind of unknown for sure since it is a relatively new technique. I don't like the idea for a completely different reason than human health. Using genes for roundup resistence and BT toxicity to insects will speed up the rate at which weeds and pests will evolve resistence to those herbicides and pesticides. BT which is a toxin that comes from a bacteria, has been used for years and years as a relatively benign toxin (benign only because it breaks down rapidly, it is very toxic when applied and isn't picky, so kills any insects feeding on the plants, including pretty butterfly larvae). But dramatically increasing the use of BT will hasten insects development of resistence to it and thereby hasten its loss of effectiveness so farmers may have to turn to more and more toxic alternatives. The multinationals who manufacture the genetically engineered potatoes don't mind because then they can concoct another substitute to sell farmers. I'm not casting aspersions on them, this is how they make a living, it is up to the buying public and citizens to hold them accountable to damage this may do to the environment. I'm not totally against pesticides and herbicides, but using them broadly is not advised, that's why Integrated Pest Management was devised. Genetically modified foods are not required to be labled as such, so hard to know what kind of potatoes you are getting. It's very hard to fight off potato beetles totally organically. Also, genetically modifed crops can be grown in a variety of ways, some farmers may mix them in with non-genetically modified crops to mimic a more IPM style of farming. A farmer who has a home garden where s/he grows potatoes for the family can grow other varieties that may taste better, and they can utilize hand picking of pests and other methods of pest control that work time and cost effectively on a small scale. Same with folks who grow these crops on their own for their own use, like many of us here. As mentioned, a huge arguement for growing your own.

I agree, L, there's a huge argument for growing your own, but many can't or won't or just don't know how. We've gotten so far away from the family farm that many people don't even know what the heck it is.

Now, I raise my own grass fed beef, the local milk I buy is hormone and antibiotic free. I can my own tomatoes, so I meet the glass jar standard, and I grow my own potatoes because that way I can grow varieties and types that are not necessarily commercially viable. My cost for picking potato beetles has skyrocketed, though. The kids used to do it for a penny each, now they want 3 cents! Inflation, you know, LOL.

I agree that moderation is the key to many things, I refuse to be a fanatic about anything except the way I raise my beef. The animals are born on my place, eat only food that I grow and get pastured in the summer, hay in the winter, all the fresh water they want. They do get apples and carrots for treats, fed out of my hand. They live happy, contented lives standing in a pasture and eating until the day they become beef for the freezer. We started growing beef this way because of Dad's heart problems, now his cardiologist sends people to me to buy beef. With my genetics and my cholesterol level, I'm sticking with grass fed, thanks.

I do like eggs, so I have a small flock of Rhode Island Reds to provide those for me but that's about all the farming I can do while still working a 60 hour per week job to support my bad farming habit and my daughter's college tuition, LOL.

Annie

Interesting article and discussion here!

I did want to point out that farmed salmon actually has fewer omega-3's, so the health benefits are not as great as for wild caught salmon. I quit buying the farmed stuff because the notation of "color added" turned me off. The color is still not the same as wild caught sockeye, anyway. Now I just eat the wild salmon a couple times a year. I am having a hard time weaning DH off of corn fed beef though. We bought a quarter of grass-fed and have been eating that, but he pines for the tender, fatty steaks from the grocery store.

Looking forward to getting a bigger lot where we can grow potatoes, berries, fruits, and enough tomatoes to meet our needs for canned, sauce and paste year-round. Hope to get a little flock of laying hens, too. Natural, homegrown food rocks.

I love grass fed beef. That's all I buy now. I make up for the cost of it by eating less meat and more vegetable sources of protien. Corn fed beef now seems tasteless and yucky to me. As for tenderness, grass fed steaks should not be cooked as long. That really helps. Don't cook steaks past medium-rare. Grass fed beef also has omega-3 levels comparable to tuna.

I switched because of concerns about how cruel it to fatten cattle in feedlots, and then I got hooked on the taste.

Farmed salmon - kind of the same thing. Animals fed their natural diet and allowed to live in a natural or nearly natural state are healthier and therefore better tasting and healtheir for us to eat. It doesn't make as big a difference for tilapia or catfish, though, because they naturally live in ponds or lakes eating plant material (and other yucky things you don't want to know about). Therefore the fish farm environment is not as much of a stretch for them and I don't feel bad for eating them from a farm. But fish that are supposed to swim in the open ocean would never be happy in a fish farm, so no farmed salmon for me (which pretty much means I can't afford salmon at all, alas).

Organic milk, potatoes, apples - yeah, I knew that was good, and I had been buying them organic but kind of fell off the bandwagon when I had a period of unemployment and didn't think I could justify the expense. Maybe I should go back.

What I'm really upset about is canned tomatoes! I eat TONS of those! I only just moved into a place where I could have a big garden this past summer and haven't been able to grow my own tomatoes in a long time. The canned ones are so much more flavorful than the "fresh" ones from the store since they're allowed to vine-ripen, so those are the ones I use for all my tomato recipes.

Hmm, I'd better start a few more tomato plants to make sure I get a good supply to can myself this year. (I assume this doesn't apply to home-canned tomatoes, right?)

I haven't been on for awhile. Flora, my BF lives in Sunbury-on-Thames and he said that a few times. He doesn't cook, so who knows. He still lives in Bubbles and Squeak days.
I'll ask him again when I talk to him this weekend, although I know he won't be able to give me a variety.

Neohippie, I read in the article that the problem with canned tomatoes is the lining of the cans which contain BPA. Tomatoes canned in glass jars or in tetra Packs are good.