|
In This Issue
Is Organic Food Really Worth The Price?
Meats, Eggs, & Dairy Products
Seafood
Fruit & Vegetables
- The Dirty Dozen
Coffee
GMO Food
Recipe: Chicken & Egg Rice Bowl (Oyako Donburi)
|
| Did you miss any of the past issues? |
|
|
|
If you have any questions about the topics discussed in this newsletter, please feel free to send me an email. |
|
| |
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."
- Martin Luther King
|
|
|
Is Organic Food Really Worth The Price?
by Carol Chuang
 With food and gas prices rising the way they are, many people are having trouble affording food, let alone organic varieties. Therefore, it is even more important to know how to spend your money wisely by choosing the highest quality food without making too many health compromises.
A recently released four-year EU funded study called the Quality Low Input Food (QLIF) project found that organic food is far more nutritious than non-organic and can help improve health and longevity. This study found that organic produce contains up to 40% more antioxidants and has higher levels of beneficial minerals like iron and zinc.
In addition to getting more nutrients, the key attraction of buying organic is to avoid potentially undesirable chemicals like synthetic pesticides and other pollutants, hormones, and antibiotics. Other reasons include the need to support the environment and sustainable agriculture, a more humane animal husbandry, and economic justice for family farmers.
Meats, Eggs, and Dairy Products
The most important foods to buy organic are animal products, not vegetables. This is because animal foods tend to concentrate pesticides more.
Non-organic meats have up to five times more pesticides than non-organic vegetables.
Non-organic butter can have up to 20 times as many pesticides as non-organic vegetables.
Commercially raised chicken
 While organic producers are prohibited from giving their animals antibiotics, U.S. rules only require famers to stop giving feed with antibiotics to their conventionally raised animals for some period before slaughter. However, conventional cattle, pig, and poultry farms can use antibiotics both therapeutically and sub-therapeutically (below the therapeutic dosage in disease treatment) to prevent disease.
A good example is veal, which comes from calves that are taken from their mothers soon after birth. Since they are susceptible to a host of diseases, veal producers routinely give them antibiotics and other drugs to wart off infection.
Seafood
Organic seafood doesn't mean anything because the USDA hasn't defined the term. When buying fish and seafood, ensure it is wild-caught.
Virtually all seafood, whether from fresh or salt water, is now contaminated with toxic metals and dangerous chemicals. Farm-raised seafood is the least healthy and most contaminated.
Bigger fish species are usually higher in mercury. Avoid cod, grouper, halibut, mahi-mahi, monkfish, orange roughy, sea bass, shark, snapper, swordfish, and tuna.
As a simple rule, choose smaller fish species. The ones from cold water, such as wild Alaskan salmon and butterfish, are even better because of their higher omega-3 content.
Fruits and Vegetables
If you can afford to buy more organic items, substitute conventional produce that tend to have the most pesticides. The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. that advocates for policies protecting global and individual health, ranked the 43 most commonly consumed fruits and vegetables based on pesticides concentration.
The following is a list of The Dirty Dozen, with the top one being the most contaminated:
- Peaches
- Apples
- Sweet bell peppers
- Celery
- Nectarines
- Strawberries
- Cherries
- Pears
- Grapes (imported)
- Spinach
- Lettuce
- Potatoes
Soft-skinned fruits and vegetables have the worst residues compared to produce with thicker skins or peels. According to the EWG, you can lower your pesticide exposure by almost 90% just by avoiding The Dirty Dozen and by eating the 12 least contaminated instead.
The following is a list of The Consistently Clean, with the bottom one being the cleanest:
- Papaya
- Broccoli
- Cabbage
- Bananas
- Kiwi
- Sweet peas (frozen)
- Asparagus
- Mango
- Pineapples
- Sweet corn (frozen)
- Avocado
- Onions
 Coffee
Most commercial coffee is laden with herbicides and pesticides. Many chemicals banned in the U.S. for their ultra toxicity are exported to South American countries. Some of these chemicals are known to be used on coffee plantations which export their coffee back to the U.S. Therefore, if you must drink coffee, opt for organic coffee.
GMO Food
Many have heard about the most common GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) food sources, such as corn or soybean, but most people are clueless about just how much of the produce is now available in GMO varieties. Although the U.S. does not require GMOs to be labeled, you can still find out whether or not the produce is genetically engineered by looking at its PLU (Price Look-Up) code.
- A conventionally grown product carries a 4-digit PLC code (e.g. conventionally grown papaya - 5492).
- An organic product carries a 5-digit code, starting with the number 9 (e.g. organic papaya - 95492).
- A GMO product carries a 5-digit code, starting with the number 8 (e.g. GMO papaya - 85492).
Therefore, even when buying produce from The Consistently Clean list, double-check to make sure you are not buying a GMO variety.
© Copyright Carol Chuang, 2008.
|
|
Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl (Oyako Donburi)
Oyako Donburi is a popular, traditional Japanese lunch item and is a meal by itself.
No. of servings: 4
Cooking time for brown rice: 45 minutes
Total preparation time: 60 minutes
Ingredients:
4 cups cooked, hot brown rice
8 ounces chicken meat, sliced thin
4 eggs
1 bunch green onions, sliced thin (or ½ cup frozen green peas, thawed)
Cooking liquid:
1 cup dashi* or chicken broth
¼ cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons mirin* (or ¼ cup sake* + 1 tablespoon sweetener such as agave nectar)
1 small sheet toasted nori seaweed, cut into strips
Directions:
1. Boil cooking liquid. Add chicken and green onions or green peas. Simmer for 1 minute.
2. Pour in lightly stirred eggs, cover and turn off heat. Let stand for 1 minute. The eggs should be only half cooked.
3. Divide rice into 4 bowls. Ladle chicken and egg mixture over rice, pour in the remaining liquid, and top with the nori. Serve hot.
* Note:
- Dashi is a Japanese basic soup stock made from bonito flakes and dried kelp.
- Mirin is a sweet cooking rice wine.
- Sake is a Japanese rice wine.
- Most ingredients can be found in the Asian section of a grocery store.
|
|
About the Author
 Carol Chuang is a Certified Health Counselor from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and Columbia University. She is board certified by the American Association of Drugless Practitioners. Apart from having her private practice counseling individual clients, she is also the nutrition and wellness consultant for San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Council and the APA Family Support Services in San Francisco. She conducts regular workshops for their clients on various topics of nutrition and wellness. | |
Schedule For a Free Consultation
I believe that the way to a happy, healthy and fulfilling life is to have loving relationships, a satisfying career, regular physical activity, and a spiritual foundation.
Together with a diet that is wholesome, natural, and suitable for your individual biochemical makeup, your mind, body, and soul would thrive and flourish.
If you would like to live an energized and passionate life, I invite you to a free consultation to discuss your health history, concerns, and goals, and learn how to use food as a means to achieve optimal health.
|
Carol Chuang
Certified Health Counselor
415-652-9942 |
|
|
