One issue that’s come to my attention since I started thinking more about my food is the debate about organic foods — are they healthier, and is the cost worth the potential benefits?

I’d love to buy organic food all the time, but it’s just not financially possible for me right now. That said, I believe in the health risks of pesticides on foods and would like to start moving in the direction of eating foods grown without them. But if I’m going to get a bang for my buck, which foods should I buy organic in order to protect myself from ingesting the most pesticides? Are some fruits and vegetables more susceptible to absorbing pesticides than others?

One list I found that can help answer this question is the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, which ranks 47 popular fruits and vegetables based on how many pesticides they contain, often after being washed and peeled. The list was put together by the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit group working on public health and the environment.

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Nope, it’s not a spooky tale left over from Halloween. After word got out that Canada’s flax seed crops had been cross-contaminated with a genetically modified variety, the country’s entire flax industry is in peril.

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Last week was a win for healthy foodies! Food manufacturers opted to suspend the Smart Choices labeling program, which would have deemed products like Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms as healthy picks.

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Chicken nuggets. Taco salad. Pizza. Cartons of milk. Hot dogs. Mystery meat. These foods were all staples of my elementary and high school cafeterias, despite clear guidelines about the nutritional benefits for school meals. Efforts to reform school lunch got a boost Tuesday when Institute of Medicine of the National Academies released “School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children,” a report of recommendations for how to reform school lunch.

The report was requested by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in order to help align the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs with the most recent set of dietary guidelines for Americans. Current school lunches must meet guidelines set in 1995, but nutritional knowledge has progressed since then, and the report tries to address those changes.

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As a female farmer myself, running Inn Serendipity farm and B&B with my husband, John Ivanko, in Wisconsin, this increasing blending and crossover between new women farmers with a passion for raising both cabbage and change cultivates a hefty serving of inspiration. These new women farmers grow more than food for our table; they rethink the status quo approach to our food system and provide keen insights into what needs to change.

“As one of the fastest growing groups of new farmers, women can be the change makers that transform our agricultural system into one that provides organic, healthy and fair food to us all,” explains Faye Jones, Executive Director of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), a Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) member organization that sponsored two women farmers to attend this conference. Wisconsin women farmers Jai Kellum of King’s Hill Farm and Erin Schneider of Hilltop Community Farm attended the CFSC Conference on behalf of MOSES.“It is important to keep the voice of farmers represented in the national discussion on food and agricultural policy and priorities,” sums up Jones.

Here are four of their tips for politicians to policy makers from Kellum and Schneider to improve our agriculture and food system:

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The US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, announced last month plans to use an additional $30 million dollars to purchase pork in 2009 for federal food and nutrition assistance programs.

This announcement comes as the USDA has already spent some $151 million of Recovery Act (widely known as the “stimulus”) money to purchase pork products.  To me there’s always a bit of irony when pork barrel money is spent to purchase actual pork, as is the case here.  You can read the USDA Press Release here.

There’s theoretically nothing wrong with using taxpayer money to support pork producers who are struggling with a glut of supply and lagging demand, as well as slower sales due to the economic conditions in the US.  But since a majority of pork producers in the US are huge CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations), essentially your tax money is being used to bail out pork producers who are having a slow year.

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A federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the USDA illegally approved Monsanto’s genetically modified, Roudup Ready beets.

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General Mills and Kellogg’s want to sell sugary processed foods like Froot Loops and Lucky Charms to your kids.  This isn’t anything new.  But under the guise of the new “Smart Choices” Program, large food corporations want to proudly label sugary, highly processed foods as good nutritional food options.

The program was recently created by a conglomerate of conglomerates, including ConAgra Foods, Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods, Pepsico, Tyson Foods, and Unilever.  The participating companies list all their products that “meet a comprehensive set of nutrition criteria based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and other sources of nutrition science and authoritative dietary guidance”.  You can review the Smart Choices website for yourself.

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No, this isn’t some crunchy, organic non-profit’s local food campaign or a new Slow Food slogan.  This message comes to us fresh from our United States Department of Agriculture.  “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” is a national effort collectively launching this week, designed to build vibrant local and regional food systems that provide healthful food and build the economic base of rural communities.  It showcases the importance of the connection between us and our food sources and includes $65 million in new funding initiatives.

The fact that this message comes from the USDA represents the fresh crop of vision under the Obama Administration.  Thanks to the efforts of USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, there’s a new ingredient at the USDA that has the potential to cook up something big:  leadership.  Harvesting inspiration from back in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln established the USDA as the “People’s Department,” this week’s collective efforts takes a transforming perspective on the relationship between our food and us:  personal responsibility.

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[Cairo. Creative Commons photo by Andrew A. Shenouda]

Over the summer, Egyptian officials rejected several import shipments of wheat, saying they were unfit for human consumption. Since then, the parliament has been pushing for stricter food standards. It looks like they got their wish.

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Colony Collapse Disorder has killed off more than one-third of the bees in the United States.

Beekeepers know that when there isn’t nectar readily available to their hives, as in the winter months, some turn to supplements. Traditionally it was (guess what) honey. But that’s what you want to harvest, so many turn to cheaper substitutions. Cane or beet sugar, mixed with water, was seen as acceptable as long as you removed the part of the comb containing the sugar once bees started producing again. It was important to keep the bees fed so they’d keep brooding and ready to produce honey.

Except it hasn’t only been the occasional sugar-water substitution. We’ve substituted the substitute. People have also turned to high fructose corn syrup.

And once again, it seems our need for convenience and affordability has cost us: a new study shows that a contaminant from heat-exposed HFCS may be killing off the bees.

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The Food Standards Agency in the UK has declared that, “… there are no important differences in the nutrition content, or any additional health benefits, of organic food when compared with conventionally produced food.”

In a comprehensive study, researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine examined more than 50,000 studies on the nutritional value of foods going back to 1958. Of these, 55 met the criteria of the project. Dr Alan Dangour, the principal author, commented on the marginal differences found during the studies, “A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist … but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance. Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.”

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Slow Food USA is a group working to change food policy and attitudes in the U.S. Their mission is:

…to create dramatic and lasting change in the food system. We reconnect Americans with the people, traditions, plants, animals, fertile soils and waters that produce our food. We seek to inspire a transformation in food policy, production practices and market forces so that they ensure equity, sustainability and pleasure in the food we eat.

Chapters across the country organize events where folks can learn about the Slow Food Movement.

On September 7th, slow food groups around the country are planning eat ins to send a message to Congress: it’s time to get the junk food out of our schools and fund real, healthy school lunches. Slow Food USA president Josh Viertel explains the campaign:

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The fairly new Product Verification Program is what Whole Foods has been searching since GMOs came to the US, the company says.

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Continuing in that vein, Mayor Newsom yesterday issued an Executive Directive outlining San Francisco’s first comprehensive regional food policy. The press release reads:

“The stark reality is that hunger, food insecurity, and poor nutrition are pressing health issues, even in a city as rich and vibrant as San Francisco,” said Mayor Newsom. “From the alleviation of hunger, to the need to support local and sustainable agricultural practices, these recommendations form a comprehensive and strategic approach to addressing pressing needs in all sectors of the food system.”

In making the announcement, Newsom was joined by California Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura, representatives of the United State Department of Agriculture, Bay Area farmers, and members of local food advocacy groups such as Roots of Change at West Oakland Woods Farm, one of the several community urban gardens run by City Slicker Farms.

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36 vegetables now have the freedom to be ugly, reports the Times Online:

The intention is to lower the price of fresh food and to cut red tape for growers and importers.

Retailers estimate that prices for misshapen and blemished produce will be about 40 per cent lower.

Now, even in a recession, no one has an excuse to refuse when asked to “Eat your vegetables!”

However, some produce must still adhere to strict rules.

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So why did the President’s scientific advisory team for last fall’s election include Sharon Long, a former member of Monsanto’s board of directors?

And why did Obama recently appoint Barbara Schaal, a plant geneticist with connections to Monsanto, to his Science and Technology Advisory Council?

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Doctors and health professionals in general recommend fish because of the high dose of Omega 3’s fatty acids a serving supplies you with. A 6-ounce serving of fish can provide a day’s worth of high quality protein for adults. Eating fish once a week should not cause any concern for most people. For those fish eaters who partake in multiple servings of fish a week, especially children and pregnant women, the main concern can become mercury poisoning. Eating too much mercury-ridden fish can cause certain health problems including impairment in memory and behavior, tingling in the hands, feet, and lips, as well as causing possible damage to the heart and immune system. Aside from the mercury concern, we now have a number of different fish species that are soon to become extinct due to over fishing, or are being caught using environmentally destructive methods. There are some very simple rules to follow to be certain you are not getting a side dish of mercury or hurting the environment with your fish entree.

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Beginning December 1st, “bottled water containing E. coli will be considered adulterated,” says the US Food and Drug Administration.  You don’t say?  It doesn’t seem as though we’d need a press release to tell us that, but this is the FDA we’re talking about.

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Last month, Canada, the United States, and Australia announced unprecedented plans to join forces and commercialize genetically-engineered wheat, saying that biotechnology was crucial to the future of the wheat industry. The National Farmers Union of Canada, however, immediately refuted the tri-country claim, pointing out “the overwhelming majority of farmers in Canada are still opposed to the introduction of genetically-modified wheat.”

On June 1, fifteen organizations across Canada, the United States and Australia publicly confirmed that opposition with the release of “A Definitive Global Rejection of Genetically Engineered Wheat“, a powerful document speaking out against biotech wheat.

But the battle against GM wheat is not a simple one, nor is it restrained to select countries.

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