The Organic Experience

Romancing The Steak

10/13/03

I recently read Michael Pollan's brilliant book The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, rated one of the 10 best books of the year by the New York Times. Indeed it is probably the most informative and enjoyable book I have ever read on the culture of food and eating in America today. Pollan gives us an accurate timeline and map of exactly how long it takes for our food to get from the "field" to our mouths, the long or short distances it travels to get to us, the ecological and health implications of our food choices, and the truth about how it was raised. Using Pollan's basic delineations of food (beyond organic, industrial organic, local conventional, industrial conventional, and fast food), I have composed a road map for my readers to access the vibration of your food according to how it was produced and the energetic implications your food choices have on your health and the health of our planet. I have decided to compare the various levels of human relationships (the good, the bad and the ugly) to the levels of food production from most pure to most toxic. Welcome to the drama of the food chain and how we choose to partake in it throughout the Days of Our Lives!

The Levels of Our Relationship with Food:

1. Beyond Organic (organic farmer's markets and organic food co-ops)- The honest, vulnerable, deeply spiritual connection one experiences while openly loving a romantic partner.

Have you ever experienced this sort of romantic relationship with another person? It is the highest experience of love that you believe is possible to have in terms of romantic partnership. The type of relationship where there are no secrets. Both partners are open to giving as well as receiving. Being in the energy field of your beloved other can raise you to the highest heights of the limits of humanity. The type of relationship that makes your heart pour open with authentic gratitude whenever you have the chance and makes you feel blessed to be alive. In this relationship you can acknowledge your partner's strengths and weaknesses and accept them as they are. Think of the couple that is happily and faithfully together for 40 years but have never legally married. It is not the legal binding that keeps them together but rather a continual conscious choice to be loving.

This is the relationship that is most like buying your food from local organic farmers. You get to look into the eyes of the people that produced your food whether you purchase it directly from the farm, from a farmer's market or from a metropolitan buying club. These farmers are deeply committed to the quality of their food and the health of the land that is it grown on. They know that they do not have to drug and abuse both land and animals to make food. Food produced on local farms has used less fuel in its travel to our table, a fact that cannot be overlooked considering our global oil situation. This type of farming has the most minimal, if any, negative impact on the environment, and in many cases the land that is farmed in this way often ends up being healthier as a result of the farmer's care.

Some of these farms have even stopped trying to procure organic certification because of the dilution of the word "organic" by the USDA who is more interested in making money than our health. This is why some of them call themselves "beyond organic." These farmers do right by our food and the earth because of a philosophical conviction, not because organic is the new niche market. The goal of these farmers is to produce the healthiest food possible at the best price possible for the consumer. Organic certification is expensive and sometimes useless, especially when you as a consumer can visit these farms and see for yourself what is going on in the production of your food. Visibility and accountability are alive and in practice everyday at local biodynamic farms. See how far you get trying to enter a Perdue chicken farm to "take a look around". And even if you could sneak in to a Perdue farm, what you would see would probably make you sick.

Michael Pollan highlights his experience at Polyface farm, a beyond organic farm located in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Run by Joel Salatin, a man deeply aware of the interconnectedness between soil, plants, animals and humans, this farm demonstrates the exquisite dance that nature orchestrates when its players are allowed to participate in their natural state. Farmers like Joel are aware that cows by nature absolutely love to eat grass, walk around and poop. This is a fabulously fulfilling life for a cow. Reciprocally, grass loves to be eaten, walked around on and pooped on occasionally, and actually grows stronger and richer in minerals when cows are on it. This is a fabulously fulfilling life for grass. Joel says that "in nature you'll always find birds following herbivores" which is why the chickens graze the land after the cows do. The chickens like to eat the insects that bother cows and also pick insect larvae and parasites out of the cow droppings, which eliminates infestation and disease. They also consume grass which the cows have nicely sheared a few days earlier. The grass is further enhanced by the poop that chickens leave behind. The chickens love this and are fulfilled by this existence. Cows who are raised this way produce meat that is extremely healthy for the humans who eat it. Chickens who are raised this way produce extremely healthy as well as tasty poultry and eggs for us to consume. When we are healthfully fed, we are able to do the things we find fulfilling and live our dreams.

Another practice of biodynamic farming is crop rotation. The plants we grow and the soil that they are grown on have an intimate relationship as well. Different plants take certain nutrients from the soil and replenish other nutrients to the soil. If we keep farming the same vegetable for years and years on a piece of land as is done in conventional farming, over time the health of the soil will suffer and the nutrient value of our food will go down. In many cases, crop rotation leaves the earth better off than before it was farmed by fortifying it with a variety of nutrients.

The bottom line is, there is a right and wrong way to farm to get optimal nutrient values from our food and protect our ecosystem. Beyond organic and biodynamic farmers are humbly respectful of the bio-rhythms of nature and are therefore able to produce food that is superior in taste and nutrients. To visit one of these farms is to experience a level of oneness that we seldom get in our day to day experience.

We in NYC are extremely lucky to have an extensive network of farmer's markets (www.cenyc.org). Or if you would rather order your food in advance and pick it up, I suggest you join the Traditional Nutrition Guild at www.traditionalnutritionguild.org, A.K.A. "the milk club". Why is it "the milk club?" Because from what I know, this is the only way to get unpasteurized dairy in NYC. Our lawmakers, in their infinite "wisdom", have determined that milk producers need to kill their milk via pasteurization before selling it to us and have made it illegal to purchase raw milk at stores. (More on the evil of pasteurization in another newsletter, but just trust me for now that raw milk from grass-fed cows is healthier and safer). So a bunch of people decided to come together and form a club whereby people could purchase healthy food (including pasture raised beef, poultry, pork and eggs as well as the controversial raw dairy) from a farmer in the Amish country in Pennsylvania who drives his truck to the city to make deliveries every other week. Pollan refers to this as a metropolitan buying club.

I have had the distinct pleasure of being a part of this club and ordering their food as well as meeting the other members and administrators. You might think, what kind of people care enough to join a club like this? Some of the healthiest, happiest, and most radiant people I have ever seen in New York City. Many are immigrants from other countries like Russia and Eastern Europe who consumed raw dairy back home (I've heard there are many Jamaicans and Trinidadians in the chapter that delivers in Jamaica, Queens for the same reason). Some of the Russian women I have seen picking up their food are absolute knockouts! And single women 50 and older should rush out to join this club because the older male members are so good-looking that even I would date them! There are many mothers in the club trying to get the best food possible for their children and what's inspiring is that it is apparent that they are from a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Many fitness enthusiasts belong to the club as can be seen from the numerous hot bods present at every pick-up. Even the Amish farmer had the sickest shoulders I've ever seen and forearms that would make the editor of Muscle and Fitness cry.

And how does the food taste. Well, let's put it this way. . .once you go black hat (Amish), you never go back! This is what food should taste like. It is the best meat, eggs, and butter I have ever had in my life. They even have ice cream made from raw cream, maple syrup, vanilla and sea salt. Yes it's still fattening when eaten in excess, but it is at least not toxic like Haagen Daz. And it's delicious. If you really want to be the change that we need to see in our country, I believe that buying local, organic food is the most immediate and effective way to do so by reducing our dependence on oil, protecting our environment and giving support to our local economy. Yes, it's a small step but if we all took it our country would change almost overnight. Not to mention degenerative diseases like diabetes, arthritis, obesity, high blood pressure and irritable bowel syndrome would be eradicated. So would "pesky disorders" like erectile dysfunction (ED). Yes it's true! Viagra is no match for beyond organic food. And I can guarantee that it is way less embarrassing to go pick up your food at the buying club drop off, than pick up your drug of choice for ED.

2. Industrial Organic (The Whole Foods Market, Wild Oats, Trader Joe's)- The relationship with Mr. "Good on paper."

You know the type. He's perfect and has all the credentials of a great partner. He makes a lot of money. He comes from a "good" family. He graduated Harvard Law with honors, and is now going for his MBA at Wharton. He's Jewish (or Catholic or Mormon or whatever the "right" religion is in your family). He drives a Porsche. He has the best health insurance money can buy. You feel so cool talking about him. He really is a decent guy. . .yet you have this nagging feeling that something is amiss. You can't put your finger on it, but in your heart you feel like all of his bragging and showboating is a cover-up for the insecurity he doesn't want you to see. Or maybe it's something else, something worse! In the words of the infamous Samatha Jones from Sex and the City, "good on paper = bad in bed!" Think Charlotte and Tre. Eeek! (Disclaimer: I am in no way implying that successful Ivy league grads that practice religion and have nice cars are inherently bad in bed. I'm just trying to demonstrate that sometimes credentials don't deliver.)

I openly admit it. I also was duped on this one. Not only have I dated someone based on credentials (it was years ago so cut me some slack!) I also believed that The Whole Foods Market was just about the highest experience one could have with regard to buying quality food. I mean, it says "organic." The search was over and mission accomplished. Like the doctor's new wife that comes home from the honeymoon and quits her job, I had found my early food retirement. Just shop at the Whole Foods and make sure it says "organic" and everything would be OK. However, Pollan's description of "industrial organic" shows why this may not be true.

In a chapter titled "Big Organic," Pollan says, "I enjoy shopping at Whole Foods nearly as much as I enjoy browsing a good bookstore, which, come to think of it, is probably no accident: Shopping at Whole Foods is a literary experience too. . .it's the evocative prose as much as anything else that makes this food really special." Amen Michael. I LOVE shopping at Whole Foods (only second to Barnes & Noble). I'm only now wondering if it's because of the cool stories about how the food is produced and the pretty pictures of happy animals and food producers at local farms. Pollan continues, "the story on offer in Whole Foods is a pastoral narrative in which farm animals live much as they did in the books we read as children" and the "grocery store poets do everything they can to encourage us in our willing suspension of disbelief." He calls this literary genre "Supermarket Pastoral." And we love it. We totally get off on words like "certified organic", "humanely raised" and "free-range". At least I did. But only when Pollan described what these words really mean in industrial organic agriculture, did I realize I had fallen for the fantasy of it all.

For one, the Whole Foods Market largely does not support small local farms anymore. They have "adopted the grocery industry's standard regional distribution system,. . .buy produce for dozens of stores at a time, which forces them to deal exclusively with tremendous farms. . .primarily from the two big corporate organic growers in California, Earthbound Farm and Grimmway Farms." For us in NYC, that's a lot of gas to get our veggies to the Whole Foods, not to mention the nutritional value has certainly degraded along the way, even though they look pretty when they get to us. The land that these farms use is also not as well off as a local beyond organic farm. For example, to prevent the overgrowth of weeds on these huge industrial organic farms they must frequently till the land which renders it less fertile, necessitating the use of various "inputs" to restore the fertility of the land. These "inputs" are approved by the USDA, but at best this is a waste of time, at worst it is deleterious to the ecology of the land. Yes, it is a thousand times better than conventional pesticides and fertilizers, but that doesn't necessarily make it good. Mother Nature is brilliant and when land is farmed the right way, we do not need extraneous and costly "inputs." She polices her own pests. When we see the words "certified organic," what it sometimes means is "OK this won't kill you like conventional food will and the land it was grown on is pretty safe, but the USDA may have prostituted themselves to allow people to bend the rules of what Mother Nature intended in the production of this food." Again, this food is still pretty good, but don't be fooled by the great storytelling behind it.

Same with the words "free-range," from which many of us picture animals dancing around like in Charlotte's Web. Not so. Free-range animals may still be lodged in close confinement in a shed with an "option" to go outside. This does not actually mean they go outside, but to be called "free-range" they must have the option to. I go on my fire escape sometimes when I'm bored so by this definition I could be considered "free-range" even if I never leave my studio apartment. They go to the bathroom all over each other and it smells to high heaven. They are not given antibiotics and hormones, but are generally fed so much organic corn and soy (two foods not meant for consumption by farm animals) that some of them get quite fat and sick. Sadly, this is still a far better option than eating conventional meat, but a far second to the true humanity and wholism of beyond organic and biodynamic farms.

Now that the truth is out there I have a confession. I still love The Whole Foods Market. Especially the one in Chelsea. Where else can you stalk Sarah Jessica Parker and Kate Winslet AND buy organic groceries? Man that place is addictive. Well the first step is acknowledging that you have a problem. . . And as for all of the microwaveable organic dinners and soy concoctions like "Tofurkey"? I like to ignore them and forget they are defiling the sanctity of my Whole Foods. After all, infatuation is blind.

3. Local Conventional (Available at Whole Foods and farmer's markets, and random farm stands)- Sounds sweet and quaint but do you know what he did last summer?

He was the paper boy that you had a crush on all through Junior High that you run into 15 years later at the post office. You were an item at Jewish sleepaway camp and now have randomly come across his profile on match.com. He was your high school sweetheart and has contacted you 15 years later to see if you are still available. Remember on Sex and the City when Carrie's high school boyfriend, played by the sexy David Duchovny, contacted her after 20 years to meet for a drink and she says, "imagine after all of these years of dating, if I end up with my high school boyfriend?" Oh it sounds so cute and sweet, but underneath the quaint guise of familiarity could lie a toxicity you don't even know about. The paper boy from Junior High failed to mention that he has an active heroin addiction and starts stealing your stuff to buy drugs. The guy from Jewish sleepaway camp now thinks he's a gangsta' rapper and his MySpace page is more terrifying than Levi Johnston's. Or the high school sweetheart that is now in a mental institution (God bless you Carrie, you fielded that one better than I would have!)

Yes local food is better for the gas crisis and we feel so quaint when we buy it, but buyer beware! You must ask questions about local food to ascertain the quality. As Pollan says, "There's nothing to stop a local farmer from using chemicals or abusing animals-except the gaze or good word of his customers." You can ask at the farm stand how the produce or meat that you are about to buy was raised. I've found that on the whole farmers are pretty honest. They tell you when your food has been sprayed with chemicals or synthetic fertilizer. They tell you if their cows eat grass or grain. Find out if you are allowed to visit the farm. If customers are not allowed to visit the farm ever, don't buy from them. It probably means the animals are being abused and the food is not worthy of eating.

Just like reuniting with an old crush, when you buy from local farms, ask lots of questions and don't assume.

4. Industrial Conventional (Pathmark, ShopRite, Gristedes, etc.)- The prison gangbang.

Some may find this comparison a bit harsh. It's not. One trip to a local conventional supermarket and you are being exposed to untold numbers of pathogens, poisons and chemicals. We've just left Sex and the City and have entered Oz.

Where to begin on this big ugly topic? Let's start with produce. If you are eating conventional produce sprayed with pesticides, you are eating something that is toxic. Pesticides are linked with the incidence of many cancers. But wait, the FDA is protecting us from harmful exposure to pesticides, right? Wrong. When you eat a fruit salad, you are exposed to any number of harmful poisons, not to mention genetically modified organisms (GMO). Guess what? There are NO long-term studies on the effects of GMOs. It looks like our country is about to become one though. If you are eating conventional tomatoes from Mexico, it's likely they were grown with pesticides that have been banned here, used there, and then sold back to us, using lots of gasoline to get here. And you can bet those poor exploited Mexican workers are overrun with cancer, with no access to health care and no other options for income. The worst abuser of pesticides is coffee because it is grown in third world countries with no regulations. If you are not making sure that your produce and coffee are organic, you are exposing yourself to toxic chemicals and funding cancer in the third world. Yes, this IS ugly. We need to look at it so we can be part of the change.

Meat, eggs and dairy are even worse. When you eat conventional meat, you are eating animal growth hormones (linked with cancer), large doses of antibiotics (which can ruin your own immune system), and fecal material. Yes, conventional animals stand in about a foot of fecal material everyday and when they are processed en masse, guess what ends up in your meat? They are abused in ways that are unspeakable including the cutting off of beaks of chickens that are forced to live in cages their whole lives, the cutting of pig's tails, and the hoarding of cows in such close proximity that they go "mad." (You are not safe just because your meat is kosher either. Ask questions!) What do you think happens to us when we eat this stuff? Take a look at all the degenerative diseases that have overtaken our country and you'll get a good idea. Hold on, once you get sick you can just go to the doctor to get on some drugs, right? And then you have to go on more drugs to counteract the side effects of the first drug. And then they've got you. And so it becomes almost impossible to escape the downward spiral of our conventional food and medical system (I would argue that it is much easier to escape even the penal system). There is one crucial difference between prisoners and regular people. Prisoners are aware enough to know that the corrections officers will not always (if ever) protect them. Many people still do not realize that the FDA is more interested in financial gain than our health. Aspartame is legal even though 70% of the complaints to the FDA every year are about aspartame. Please educate and protect yourself!

5. Fast food (McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Burger King, etc.)- The alien probe.

Admittedly, very few of us know what its like to be probed by aliens (hey I'm a Sci-Fi fan so I'm not going to totally rule it out). Even Mulder and Scully couldn't figure out what ingredients compose a standard fast food meal in a two-hour special episode of The X Files. This is where things really get scary. Fast food is not actually food, its really just chemical-laden empty calories. For more on this, please read Fast Food Nation by Erik Schlosser. But I will leave you with one example that scared the living fries out of me.

Hamburger scent can be manufactured. One can make anything smell like char-broiled hamburgers because that smell has been created by the fast food industry to make you want to eat their food. They do not have to list the chemicals that make this smell on the ingredient list. All they have to write is "artificial flavor" (or color). There could be about a hundred toxic ingredients that make up this smell, but because you have no idea what they are anyway, all the food manufacturers have to let you know (by law) is that their product contains "artificial flavor." 90% of the artificial flavors and colors made in this country are made by those scary structures emitting noxious fumes on the New Jersey Turnpike. You know when you're driving through North Jersey and you're like "Man this state really smells!" and you see those alien settlement-looking structures spewing God knows what into the environment. That's where artificial flavors and colors come from folks, so whenever you see them on the label think of the Turnpike. (But please don't think less of New Jersey, 99.98% of it doesn't smell.)

So, would you rather:

A) have an honest, loving relationship
B) marry Mr./Miss Credentials
C) have all your friends laugh at you for dating MC Manischewitz
D) be terrified of dropping the soap
E) be the weirdo that actually owns this T-shirt:

I think the answer is obvious.