Organic foods: foods that fight for you

IF I asked you what fighting food was all about, you wouldn�t necessarily think of organic food. I haven�t mixed up my words, I�m not talking about food fights, or fighting about food. So what is fighting food?

Organic food has a fairly soft and cuddly image. Well, it turns out that food produced organically is actually fighting food, if the explanations suggested by some recent researchers are taken on board.

It turns out that there are two ways in which organic food can be seen to be fighting food.

But first, let me tell you about the research. A June 2007 publication in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (which is ranked #1 in total citations, impact factor and articles published in the agriculture multidisciplinary category) measured the amount of two flavonoids � quercetin and kaempferol � in dried tomato samples that had been collected as part of a long-term study on agricultural methods.

Foods containing flavonoids can be called fighting foods because research studies have consistently suggested an association between consuming them and reduced risk of cancer and heart disease. That's the first fighting food meaning.

Dr Alyson Mitchell, a food chemist at the University of California, and colleagues, found that on average they were 79% and 97% higher respectively in organic tomatoes than in the conventionally grown fruit.

Flavinoid levels for the organic tomatoes also grew during the course of the ten year study, but stayed the same for the conventional tomatoes.

More recently again, preliminary results from a large University of Newcastle study found that organic fruit and vegetables contained up to 40% more antioxidants (another substance which may play a role in the better cardiovascular health of those who consume more fruit and vegetables).

Organic milk produced in the summer contained up to 60 to 80% more antioxidants than conventionally produced milk; in the winter, it contained 50 to 60% higher levels. Along with this, organic milk also was found to contain higher levels of vitamin E.

In what has been hailed as one of the most comprehensive studies into organic production ever conducted, researchers on the Quality Low Input Food (QLIF) project grew fruit and vegetables and reared cattle on a 725-acre site at Nafferton Farm, Northumberland. They grew organic and conventional test crops side by side � including cabbages, lettuces, carrots, potatoes and wheat � and compared factors such as nutritional quality.

What makes this research especially fascinating is a theory being postulated to possibly explain why organic food is showing up so often with some very specific nutritional benefits.

The theory is that plants grown to certified organic standards have to fight harder to fend off threats, from nutritionally deficiencies to pests. To do this, they produce more of these very things scientists are finding in them, the antioxidants which are believed to help us fight cancers and cardiovascular diseases.

In the study on organic tomatoes and flavonoids, the researchers suggested, �Flavonoids are produced as a defense mechanism that can be triggered by nutrient deficiency, such as a lack of nitrogen in the soil.�

This is the second fighting food definition - plants fighting to exist. This point about plants fighting hard and difficult growing conditions to produce flavonoids reminded me of a book written recently by an expert in cardiovascular health and Professor of Experimental Therapeutics at the William Harvey Research Institute, Dr Rodger Corder.

This book has a brilliantly bamboozling title, �The Wine Diet: drink red wine every day, eat fruit and berries, nuts and chocolate, live a longer, healthier life�.

The book suggests that these foods and drinks are very high in polyphenols, which are a beneficial type of flavinoids. However, the production conditions have to be specific for these foods. Only some dark chocolates with over 70% coca solids were found to have these beneficial properties.

In the case of wine, some traditional, regionally embedded idiosyncratic wines produced in places like Crete and Sardinia, wines made with grape varieties such as Tannat, scored best in his research.

The best wines also came from grapes with plenty of seeds, seeds and skins left in contact for a longer time, fermentation in wooden barrels and, importantly for the point I�m making here, difficult, hilly growing conditions where low yields were usually produced. So the harder the vine fights, the more nutritious the wine. Hence the longest longevity rates in Europe for those islanders in the Mediterranean. This despite their isolation from a modern interventionist medical system and some other negative dietary and lifestyle habits � heavy consumption of saturated fats and cigarettes in particular.

So it turns out that naturally produced foods fight for us. Which makes them all the more worth fighting for.