-->| The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) current definition states that organic foods are those plants produced without the use of pesticides, sewage sludge (for fertilization) or synthetic fertilizer. . .or those animals raised without hormones or antibiotics.
To read the complete definition, go to the USDA's Web site at www.ams.usda.gov/nop/NOP/ standards, html.
Organic foods, including produce, meat, milk and other dairy products, typically cost more than nonorganic varieties. |  The second reform asked "Why does agriculture have to use so many toxic, synthetic, persistent, dangerous chemicals? Do we really need all that?" This led to the organic food standards. "In the third reform, we asked the same questions about skin care, cosmetics and body care products. Why do these products have to have so many objectionable ingredients? And that takes us to Consciousness in Cosmetics."
The phrase refers to his company's recent efforts to reformulate products in response to the Compact for Safe Cosmetics. Morris explained the history of Avalon's change of consciousness. | | EWG liked to tell the story about the time the US Department of agriculture called them to ask for a sort on the database.
The Power of Information. The goal of the Environmental Working Group is to shine light on industry and government dealings and empower the public with facts. When complete, Skin Deep would score thousands of personal care products for toxicity and show safer alternatives in each product category. It would be the only tool of its kind. But first, a lot of not-so-glamorous work had to happen. |  In a recent editorial for Nutrition Action Health Letter, a publication of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Michael Jacobsen named the major officeholders in the USDA and described what each had done for a living before going to work for the Department of agriculture.4 Every single one had previously been employed by the dairy, meat, or poultry industry. And as recently as October 2000, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine successfully litigated to find out exactly who was compensating the members of the USDA's U.S. Dietary Guidelines Committee. |  To this you will add researches into their agriculture, manufactures, trade; and while you inquire with pleasure into their musick, architecture, painting and poetry, will not neglect those inferior arts by which the comforts, and even elegancies, of social life are supplied and improved.5
In fact, Jones cited Engelbert Kaempfer (see Chapter 2) as a model for such inquiries, and suggested that 'native' authors too be published in the papers of the Society. A year later, however, his address focused much more tightly on medicine—and on indigenous plant medicines and local decoctions. |  Certainly some of our success was due to social adaptation—many scientists think that the Younger Dryas helped to spur the collapse of hunter-gatherer societies and the first development of agriculture. But what about biological adaptation and natural selection? Scientists believe some animals perfected their natural ability to survive cold spells during this period—notably the wood frog, which we'll return to later. So why not humans? |  Fredrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf, former Vice President of the agriculture Committee of the European Commission
1. Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone is injected into dairy cows in the United States and elsewhere, to increase milk production.
2. Milk from treated cows has much higher levels of IGF-1, a hormone considered to be a high risk factor for breast, prostate, colon, lung, and other cancers.
3. The milk also has lowered nutritional value, increased antibiotics and more pus from infected udders. |  And in another study, published in the Journal of agriculture and Food Chemistry, a compound in onions inhibited the activity of the cells (osteoclasts) that break down bones. The popular drug Fosamax works in a similar way, but onions have no side effects, unless you count the need to have a breath mint before kissing someone!
Onions belong to the allium family, which also includes leeks, garlic, and shallots. They contain a whole pharmacy of compounds with health benefits, including thiosulfinates, sulfides, sulfoxides, and other smelly sulfur compounds. | | A recent article in the Journal of agriculture and Food Chemistry found that an extract from a baked sweet potato has chemopreventive (cancer-fighting) properties. Finally, sweet potatoes contain other phytochemi-cals like quercetin, a powerful anti-inflammatory, and chlorogenic acid, an antioxidant. And a medium-size baked sweet potato has only 103 calories (the operative word there is "medium"!).
Potatoes Take a Hit in the Low-Carb Craze
Potatoes in general have suffered a reversal of fortunes recently. |  Poisonous Plants in Britain and Their Effects on Animals and Man, Ministry of agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Pub; HMSO (1984) UK.
Proliac A, Chaboud A, Raynaud J, Isolement et identification de trois C- glycosylflavonews dans les tiges feuillees d'Arum dracunculus. In: PA :47:646-647'. 1992.
Arum maculatum
See Arum
Arundinaria japonica
See Bamboo
Asa Foetida
Ferula foetida description
Medicinal Parts: The medicinal part is the oily gum-resin extracted from the plant.
Flower and Fruit: The flowers appear after 5 years in yellow umbels on a 10 cm thick naked stem. | | Poisonous Plants in Britain and their effects on Animals and Man, Ministry of agriculture Fisheries and Food, Pub; HMSO, UK 1984.
Roth L, Daunderer M, Kormann K, Giftpflanzen, Pflanzengifte, 4. Aufl., Ecomed Fachverlag Landsberg Lech 1993.
Teuscher E, Lindequist U, Biogene Gifte - Biologie, Chemie, Pharmakologie, 2. Aufl., Fischer Verlag Stuttgart 1994.
Wi3ner W, Kating H, Botanische und phytochemische Untersuchung an europaischen und kleinasiatischen Arten der Gattung Helleborus. In: PM 26:128-143, 228-249, 364-374/1974. | | Ministry of agriculture Fisheries and Food (Ed). Poisonous Plants in Britain and their effects on Animals and Man, HMSO, UK 1984
Lewin L, Gifte und Vergiftungen, 6. Aufl., Nachdruck, Haug Verlag, Heidelberg 1992.
Willems M. Quantitative Determination and Distribution of a Cyanogenic Glucoside in Ilex aquifolium. Planta Med. 55; 195. 1989
Willems M. Quantification and Distribution of a Novel Cyanogenic Glucoside in Ilex aquifolium. Planta Med. 55; 114. 1989
Teuscher E, Lindequist U, Biogene Gifte - Biologie, Chemie, Pharmakologie, 2. Aufl., Fischer Verlag Stuttgart 1994. | | Poisonous Plants in Britain and Their Effects on Animals and Man, Ministry of agriculture Fisheries and Food, Pub; HMSO UK 1984.
Steinegger E, Hansel R, Pharmakognosie, 5. Aufl., Springer Verlag Heidelberg 1992.
Teuscher E, Lindequist U, Biogene Gifte - Biologie, Chernie, Pharmakologie, 2. Aufl., Fischer Verlag Stuttgart l$94.
Wagner H, Wiesenauer M, Phytotherapie. Phytopharmaka und pflanzliche Homoopathika, Fischer-Verlag, Stuttgart, Jena, New York 1995.
Wichtl M (Hrsg.), Teedrogen, 4. Aufl., Wiss. Verlagsges. Stuttgart 1997. | | Poisonous Plants in Britain and their effects on Animals and Man, Ministry of agriculture Fisheries and Food, Pub; HMSO (1984) UK.
Roth L, Daunderer M, Kormann K, Giftpflanzen, Pflanzengifte, 4. Aufl., Ecomed Fachverlag Landsberg Lech 1993.
Teuscher E, Lindequist U, Biogene Gifte - Biologie, Chemie, Pharmakologie, 2. Aufl., Fischer Verlag Stuttgart 1994. | | The dwindling supplies of our natural diet of wild animals and wild plants, together with the huge expansion of the planet's population, made agriculture a necessity for survival.
Why Cereal Grains Are a Nutritional Compromise
But on the other hand, cereal grains are a nutritional compromise. They are not nearly as healthy, nor as nutritionally complete, nor as perfectly suited to our ancient digestive wiring, as the foods they have replaced. | | In one study published in the Journal of agriculture and Food Chemistry, bananas were hands down the most potent fruit source of these valuable compounds. (The Jerusalem artichoke, see page 44, won in the vegetable category, followed by onions.) Bananas and rice have long been a folk remedy for digestive upset, especially diarrhea.
Not as High in Sugar as You Might Think
Among advocates of controlled carb eating (especially hard-core low-carbers) bananas got a bad rep as being a high-sugar food. That's partly true, but not as bad as people think. The glycemic load of the average banana is 12. | | Just recently, in the May 4, 2005, issue of the Journal of agriculture and Food Chemistry, it was reported that blueberries contain a beneficial compound called pterostilbene. Pterostilbene's lipid-lowering ability was superior to both resvera-trol (the antiaging compound also found in grapes) and the prescription drug Ciprofibrate. On a cellular level, it works much like resveratrol in regulating fatty acid metabolism and fats in the bloodstream—and it helps prevent the deposition of plaque in the arteries.
Need more reasons to eat blueberries? How about fighting cancer? |  American agriculture's single-minded focus on increasing yields created a blind spot," Halweil writes, "where incremental erosion in the nutritional quality of our food . . . has largely escaped the notice of scientists, government, and consumers." The result is the nutritional equivalent of inflation, such that we have to eat more to get the same amount of various essential nutrients. | | Fish for Smarter Babies
Scientific findings presented at a conference sponsored by the governments of the United States, Norway, Canada, and Iceland, and assisted by the United Nations' Food and agriculture Organization, supported the notion that all Americans—especially pregnant and nursing women and children—should eat seafood twice a week, despite the current concerns about pollution contamination (see "What about Mercury?" page 218). |  That's not fiction: It's the status quo in modern agriculture today. No special effects required.
The FDA and various food processing companies are also pushing for new regulations that would mandate the mass irradiation of all foods. This would be done under the guise of "protecting the people" but would, in fact, lead to the creation of toxic byproducts in those irradiated foods. Those substances, when ingested, are carcinogenic to the human body, leading to huge increases in the risk of cancer and possibly DNA mutations. |  When the United States Department of agriculture (USDA) did a survey to see how many Americans were eating their fruit and vegetables, they found that most of us fall far short of the recommended five to seven servings a day. About 9,000 people recorded the foods they ate over a twenty-four hour span—and the results of those surveys showed that only 11 percent had eaten adequate servings of fruits and vegetables. |  Department of agriculture and their counterparts from Pakistan tested the effects of cinnamon-containing capsules on 60 people with diabetes. The subjects' fasting blood-sugar levels ranged from 140 to 400 mg/dl at the beginning of the study. They were asked to take 1, 3, or 6 grams of cinnamon daily after meals, and others were asked to take the same number of capsules containing placebos for forty days. One gram of cinnamon is about one-quarter teaspoon of the ground herb.
Fasting blood-sugar levels decreased by 18 to 29 percent among people taking cinnamon. |  Nevertheless, there is agreement among the sources that in their semi-desert homeland, they were little better than uncouth rustics: they wore skin clothing and killed game with the bow-and-arrow, and also eked out their existence with a little agriculture.
Their tribal god Huitzilopochtli ("Hummingbird on the Left") had given them a prophecy: they would leave Aztlan, and would eventually reach an island in a lake where they would see an eagle perched on a prickly-pear cactus, holding a serpent in its beak. | | The Great Temple at the center of the capital was actually divided into two halves: at the summit of one half was the temple of Tlaloc, god of rain and agriculture, while the other half was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, patron of warfare and of the sun, its steps splattered with the blood of sacrificial victims. The Aztecs were fond of contrasts of this sort.
The warriors were the backbone of the Aztec state, and were graduates of the telpochcalli, the military academy. | | Department of agriculture nutrition data, shows the percentages of Americans who do not obtain the recommended amounts of many vitamins and minerals.
We believe that nutritional supplements are essential for health, especially for people who have prediabetes or weight problems. There are several reasons behind our thinking, which you may want to share with your own physician.
• People who are prediabetic or overweight have a history of eating nutrient-poor foods. (Otherwise, they would not have developed these diseases. | | Department of agriculture established standards for the labeling of organic foods. As a result, certain terms have specific meanings:
• "100 percent organic" means all the ingredients are organic.
• "Organic" means that at least 95 percent of the ingredients are organic.
• "Made with organic ingredients" means at least 70 percent of the ingredients are organic.
Unfortunately, the term organic may sometimes imply a healthier product when it is not. For example, organic bleached white flour and sugar are no better, nutritionally speaking, than nonorganic bleached white flour and sugar. |  In a world which is one degree warmer overall, the western United States could once again be plagued by perennial droughts - devastating agriculture and driving out human inhabitants on a scale far larger than the 1930s calamity. If this happens, deserts will reappear across the High Plains, particularly in Nebraska, but also in eastern Montana, Wyoming and Arizona, northern Texas and Oklahoma. Even as far north as the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, dunefields - which once covered over 9,000 square kilometres of prairie - will begin to remobilise. | | Rich people might be able to afford expensive bottled water trucked in from afar, piped through the mountains or perhaps squeezed out of desalination plants whose output would be too costly for the poor. agriculture will also suffer, putting hundreds of thousands out of work up and down the coast. | | Soils wouldn't support agriculture were it not for the organic matter broken down by bacteria. Crops wouldn't set seed unless pollinated by bees. The air wouldn't be breathable were it not for photosynthesis by trees and plankton. Water wouldn't be drinkable were it not for the cleansing action of forests and wetlands. Many of the medicines that extend our lifespans were first developed from natural substances produced by plants and animals, and many more undoubtedly remain to be discovered. | | Like the American High Plains, much of the Kalahari region currently consists of 'stabilised' dunefields - sand seas which long since stopped blowing, and which support large areas of pastoralist cattle herding and subsistence agriculture. Millions of people support themselves and their families across the area by growing staples like sorghum, millet, pumpkins and maize in small, hand-tended fields. To the untrained eye the dormant dunes are not immediately obvious; the landscape simply looks like gently rolling hills, like a browner version of the English South Downs. | |
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