People's Birthday & Member Picnic 2009

Harvest Feast 2009: Tommy Early's organic farm biodiversity walk

One of my favourite things about autumn, along with the fact that we often get an Indian summer, is the food festivals.

There are a plethora in the south west. The season and the region begins with Mitchelstown (August 28th-30th), features a real gem with Skibbereen's a Taste of West Cork (September 14-20th ), and is bookended by the gorgeous Dingle Food and Wine festival (October 2-4th).

But if you want to get away and find a foodie haven, then try the Harvest Feast in Drumshanbo, Leitrim (September11th-13th).

According to John Brennan of the Leitrim Organic Farmers' Co-op and chair of the Festival Committee: �This year there is a real focus on the best of seasonal, local produce, on getting back to basics with gardening and cooking, and on innovative ecotourism activities.�

Now in its third year, there is a real cost saving focus at this year's Harvest Feast. This is obviously incredibly apt, considering the new omnipresent fashion for frugality.

Not only are many events free, there is also a free talk and demonstration on reducing your food bills by 30% without compromising on quality. Sian Breslin of the Donegal Manor Cookery School will reveal how to better plan your meals, how to develop recipe lists while keeping your focus on good healthy and nutritious food.

Eye catching events include the excellent 40 stall regional food market; a Neven Mcguire cookery demo; children's cookery classes and Tommy Early's organic farm walk.

Tommy Early has about 100 acres of IOFGA certified farmland. His farm is a treasure trove for nature lovers. Along with the farmland, there's lakeshore, untouched bog, wetlands and woodlands old enough to be marked on the first ordinance survey maps.

The farm stocks the rare breed Moiled cattle, which will form part of the walks. �Moiled are a dual purpose rare breed, with dappled coat, dating back to the Vikings� he tells me.

I asked Tommy Early about how and why he started doing biodiversity walks on his beautiful, lakeshore farm: �We have the perfect spot for it: we're on the shore of Lough Allen. A lot of the habitats haven't changed - none of it was ever intensively farmed�.

�Along with that, the land is marginal. Marginal land, especially the boggy land, is the first to get wet and the last to dry.�

He continues �And with the summer's we've been having, its getting more and more difficult to cut silage. So I think there's potential in nature tourism�

He seems to be thinking correctly. The farm now hosts school tours, various nature appreciation groups and the broad Harvest Feast walks, which covers a wide range of events.

From a farmer perspective, he tells me that �this sort of tourism is fairly low cost. There are a number of walks on the farm, due to its diversity. We could do heritage, birds, bats, historical: you could develop it from several angles�.

He now even has moth tourism. A bird expert told a moth expert, photographer Philip Strickland, and now people visit to experience the fantastic range of moths on the site.

The light hand with which Tommy has farmed allows incredibly rare and delicate flora and fauna to flourish.

�With moths, its all to do with variety of habitats. The healthier and longer established they are the better: Some moths can only live in habitats that are a couple of hundred years old.�

�We're preserving the bog, and have changed some drains which has created ponds. The bog is also untouched � it was never harvested. We have a rare species of butterfly called March Fritillary�.

�On the lakeshore of Lough Allen we've a rare orchid � the Irish Ladies Tresses. That only flowers after a flood and without too much rain following it. It might only flower every couple of years. We've been maintaining the shoreline to promote the orchid.�

Its sensitive work, requiring a light hand, but combines well with an organic approach and ethos.

For more see: here or ring 071 9640868

UK FSA report on organic vs conventional food's nutrition: part 2

As revealed last posting on this, the recent UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) report, comparing the nutritional levels of organic and conventional foods from 1958 to February 2008, actually left out every publication from before 1990.

In total, 2/3 of all the relevant peer reviewed research was rejected.

The logic given in the report is that in the 66% of rejected work, various failings in the peer review process were uncovered. The biggest single fault found was that no certification body was listed or inferred for the organic produce analysed (p 15).

In many cases this was because certification was in its infancy.

This is a very big and very important decision to make. Many state bodies, such as our own Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (DAFF), does not actually have a certification body.

DAFF is what is called the competent authority: it delegates to private inspection and certification bodies. However, it does not have private certification bodies inspect its own research centres.

Thus, any research done by DAFF would not have been included in this report, irrespective of which scientific journal it appeared in.

It is reasonable to assume that the same could also hold for at least some other state institutions across the world, who inevitably delegate authority to private certification bodies.

Often, the state does not see the need or value in inspections on its own research by these private bodies: after all, it delegates power to these bodies.

This certification issue is especially significant because in this rejected 66%, the findings are far more positive for organic than in the 34% considered at the quality level.

Interestingly, the report itself does actually list nutritional findings taken from an analysis of all 162 publications.

It is just that the official findings and conclusions, which suggest that there are no significant differences between organic and conventional in nutritional terms, come from their analysis of just 55 publications: i.e. the smaller 1/3 or 34%. For example, they claim:

�Organically produced crops were found to have significantly higher levels of sugars, magnesium, zinc, dry matter, phenolic compounds and flavonoids than conventionally crops� (p 17).

These significant differences were found when taking all 162 peer reviewed published papers into account.

When taking the narrower quality criteria, and considering just a maximum of 55, or 1/3, only three differences were found: Conventional crops were found to have more nitrogen, and organic crops more phosphorus and titratable acidity.

Based on the latter three findings from the smaller set of publications, the authors claim that no significant differences were to be found between organic and conventional nutritionally.

The same holds for livestock products: 3 out of ten significant differences were found between organic and conventional. However with the narrower selection criteria, which leaves out 2/3 of all published research, just one was found. The other two were rejected due to insufficient data.

Out of a possible 162, just 25 in total dealt with all livestock products: i.e. all meat and dairy products.

Incredibly, within these 25, it seems that hardly any were considered to actually have met the quality criteria: according to appendix 13, p.3, no more than 6 publications were at the required level for the authors.

To say that more research is needed sometimes just sounds like an appeal for funding: in this case, it seems fairly clear that this handful of livestock product papers, supposedly spanning five decades, is fairly paltry.

Professor Carlo Leifert co-ordinated the major EU Quality Low Input Food (QLIF) initiative, which involved 31 research and university institutes.

Leifert's own research, suggesting organic milk's nutritional superiority, appeared in April 2008 - technically 2 months too late for inclusion in the study.

He said: "I'm worried about the conclusions. The ballpark figures they have come up with are similar to ours. I don't understand why the FSA are not going away and saying, 'Right, there's something you can do on a farm to improve food.' But they are so blocked by not wanting to say positive things about organic farming."

maana organic store hits the Kerry coast for the summer

The strategies for coping with economic challenges are many and varied.

Haggling is de rigeur these days. In food terms, there's the 'farmers' market 5E office lunch' made pret a manger from the produce available that day.

Or restaurants charging no corkage. Remember shopping trips to Northern Ireland? The Sterling Euro price match seems to have halted that one.

Manna organic food store in Tralee has come up with two novel strategies. The first, earlier in the year, involved Ryan Coote of Manna, trained in Ballymaloe cookery school, offering himself as a raffle prize.

Coote cooked a full organic 4 course meal for the winner Pauline Mannix and her book club buddies.

Ryan Coote, is one part of a trio who run the Manna Organic Store at 1 New Street in Tralee.

Coote, along with Claire and Thomas O'Connor all studied Organic Horticulture and Farming in the Organic College in Dromcollogher, Co. Limerick.

The shop is the region's organic haven, an oasis of calm and wholesomeness, adorned with an array of organic foods. Along with their own farm's produce, according to Claire O Connor, �we buy from 2 local organic growers, and excess from the college [Dromcollogher] when they have it�.

Local and Irish organic cheeses such as Kate Carmody's Beal, and Siobhan Ni Ghairbhith's St. Tola's are especially popular.

More recently the trio have decided to kick off their heels and take to the coast for the summer. A surfing holiday?

Not quite. According to Manna's Claire O Connor:

�July and August can be a bit slower for the shop while the coastal areas of Kerry are mobbed with tourists. So we decided to open a temporary shop in the Marahees�.

I asked Claire how the new venture is going: �very well� she tells me. �It's mainly weekend business, whereas in the town its still Monday to Friday.

�The new shop is getting a lot of tourists, and they want different sorts so things than our town customers�.

She elaborates: �lots of people want fruit rather than veg: we've stopping bringing out large quantities of veg to be cooked from scratch. Instead, its fruits like nectarines and cherries that are flying out.� And when its veg there are after, she points out, �its the ready to eat variety � cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers�

In other words, fruits masquerading as vegetables.

�Wholefoods and dried goods are also going well for us out there: pasta and pasta sauces, peanut butter and the like.�

Again there is a convenience dimension to this. People do not necessarily want an abundance of fresh foods going off in the caravan or mobile home.

�We're also selling a lot of drinks � organic cans of fizzy cola, juices, real summery treats. People are constantly asking us about opening a coffee shop out there� she tells me.

The shop is adorned with funky cow print oil cloths on the shelving and the art of Stephen Holt on the walls, which adds to the causal, summery vibe.

Meanwhile, they have a farm to run. The three share a four acre site which provides produce for the shop. Along with this, the O' Connors have 25 acres, 13 of which are in FEPs, the forestry environmental protection scheme.

�We've just planted with 60% oak, 20% ash, 20% shelterbelts of alder and larch, and 10% set aside for trees bought from Ted Cooke grown from Ballyseedey stock, and the organic college�.

They plan to expand on this: �We have planted 1 acre of apples from the Irish Seed Savers, are planning a large soft fruit area, and an experimental fruit tree polytunnel.�

She goes on: �We have 2 tunnels up for growing in already and have our own salad bags, lettuce and wheatgrass in the shop, now being followed by herbs and tomatoes.�

�We also hope to get in geese to weed the FEPS trees and some chickens and ducks for eggs and meat.�

Meanwhile, if you are out at the Marahees this month, you know where to drop by for an organic treat.

Manna is here (too)

Sunscreen Safety

How to Sunbathe Safely

~ Samuel S. Epstein, M.D

Soon we will see summer's fading days and the seasonal end of our culture's annual fixation with slathering sunscreen products on exposed skin in pursuit of 'safety' or vanity.



You have all heard -- and probably warned your children -- what will happen if they don't use sunscreens. Not only will they get sunburned, their skin will get wrinkled and aged prematurely.



But what if you were warned that the dangers of sunscreens to health, besides the environment, outweigh their proclaimed benefits? Your first response would probably be incredulity. How can a product that's been championed by health agencies the world over possibly be a threat?



The answer hinges on a state of denial, and a false sense of security. This reflects ignorance of the toxic effects of sunscreen ingredients, says the chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.



Sunscreens absorb short-wave ultraviolet light, which is responsible for sunburn. However, they do nothing to block long-wave ultraviolet radiation which is the major cause of a skin cancer, known as malignant melanoma," Dr. Epstein explains.



A Sun Protection Factor (SPF) was introduced in 1962 as an international standard for measuring how much protection sunscreen products are supposed to afford. So a SPF of 25 claims that you can stay safely in the sunshine for 25 times longer than if you had not applied the sunscreen.



However, there are two glaring problems with reliance on the SPF standard, Dr. Epstein warns.



First, swimming and sweating sharply reduce the effectiveness of sunscreens, so they must be applied repeatedly during exposure to sun. How many people actually do this? Second, the SPF number labeled on sunscreens is determined by laboratory tests based on an internationally agreed application rate. However, most people use only a fraction of the required amount - between 10 and 75 percent of the lab test quantity - which renders the listed SPF number meaningless and ineffective.



All this means that people using sunscreens are encouraged to remain in the sun far longer than is safe. This is the reason why, since 1975, the incidence of malignant melanoma has increased by about 200 percent in white men and women, and its mortality has increased by about 10 percent. Dark skinned races are largely protected by pigment, known as melanin, which largely blocks long-wave ultraviolet radiation.



Dr. Epstein cautions that another major and generally unrecognized problem with sunscreens is due to their undisclosed toxic ingredients.



As detailed in Dr. Epstein's most recent book, "Toxic Beauty," (Benbella Books) sunscreen products contain unlabeled dangerous ingredients. These products are also labeled with false and misleading promises about their effectiveness, such as 'all-day protection' and 'blocks all harmful rays.'



Apart from these concerns, he warns, common sunscreen ingredients pose toxic effects.

• Benzophenone is a "hormone disrupter" which mimics natural hormones produced by the endocrine system. It is also an allergen, causing allergic reactions, and a "penetration enhancer," which penetrates the skin, and is absorbed into the bloodstream and invades body wide organs.

• Octyl-methoxycinnamate is also a hormone disrupter and penetration enhancer which has been detected in breast milk.

• Oxybenzone, another hormone disrupter, has also been detected in breast milk.

• Parabens are still other hormone disrupters.

These ingredients pose further dangers. Once absorbed through the skin, they generate what are known as "free radicals." "These accelerate skin damage and skin aging, along with sharply increased risks of skin cancer," Dr. Epstein warns.



Some of these ingredients also pose unrelated threats. Once washed off sunbather's bodies, oxybenzone accumulates in sea life and damages their reproductive systems. In 2006, it was found that oxybenzone had transformed the males of coastal fish near California beaches into fish with ovarian tissue.



"Now that you've heard the bad news, you're probably wondering how you can protect your children and yourself from harm," says Dr. Epstein. "Sunblocks containing zinc oxide and titanium dioxide offer protection as they block long-wave ultraviolet light by reflecting the radiation off the skin's surface."



"But beware of recently developed sunblocks," he cautions. "These contain nanoparticles, a technological innovation which reduces ingredient particles to an ultramicroscopic size. These then readily penetrate the skin, invade the blood stream, and pose major toxic threats to distant organs such as liver and bone."



"Fortunately," Dr. Epstein advises, "a new generation of sun protective natural organic ingredients is on the horizon. These range from SoyScreen, a 'green' sunscreen, based on ferulic acid and soybean oil, to sulforaphane, a broccoli ingredient that significantly reduces ultraviolet light damage."



Until these new natural ingredients, and products based on them, reach consumers and the marketplace, the best advice for self-protection is to limit exposure to the sun, says Dr. Epstein.



Under the explicit provisions of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, it is anticipated that Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the newly appointed FDA Commissioner will prohibit the sale of sunscreens containing toxic ingredients, and also sunblocks based on nanoparticles.



Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; and author of over 200 scientific articles and 15 books on cancer, including the groundbreaking The Politics of Cancer (1979), and Toxic Beauty (2009). You can contact Dr. Epstein at epstein@uic.edu Visit the Prevent Cancer website at www.preventcancer.com

UK FSA report on organic vs conventional food's nutrition: part one

I'll be giving my interpretation of the UK FSA report into organics and nutrition in two postings here. However I'm not in a position to put the second part up until next week.

The recent report comparing nutritional levels of organic and conventional food excluded 2/3 of all relevant peer reviewed research from its findings.

The report claims to be the most comprehensive study into this subject ever conducted, examining every relevant publication from 1958 to 2008.

However, through a controversial selection process, most publications, including every single publication before 1990, were considered below the authors' quality standard.

Pre-1990 publications were omitted because no organic certification body was listed or inferred in the relevant journal articles, as organic certification was then in its infancy.

Slightly bizarrely, the exclusion of pre 1990 publications was obscured by an unfortunate typo on page 15 of the report. This typo resulted in half a paragraph being omitted from the report, a fact acknowledged in correspondence with lead author Dr. Alan Dangour.

Here, precisely, is what he said to me what I spotted this typo:

BEGINS

Thank you for spotting this. Not sure how it happened as it is not in my final version of the report. The second half of that paragraph should read:

Finally, more than half the studies in the review (54%) failed to provide a clear definition of the organic production methods used (we required a statement of certifying body, although if no certifying body was named it was inferred when possible from the text provided). No study published pre-1990 met this final quality criterion, largely due to the general lack of certifying bodies at that time, although even recent studies often failed to state the name of the organic production certifying body. In total, one third of studies included in the review (34%) met the pre-defined quality criteria (see Table 1).

ENDS

While a careful examination of the publications lists in the appendices would reveal this to the intrepid scholar, the vast majority of readers would have lost this fact.

The study was carried out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) for the UK's Food Standards Agency.

The LSHTM�s team of researchers, led by Dr. Alan Dangour, claims to have reviewed all papers published over the past 50 years that studied nutrient content and health differences between organic and conventional food.

According to Dangor �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.�

To date, many of the criticisms of the report have been well aired. It: rejected publications with foreign language abstracts (i.e. summaries); excluded areas of health concern such as biocide residues and additives; left out important nutritients, downplayed its own significant findings where they suggested organic is superior nutritionally.

For the latter, this includes the findings with regard to polyunsaturated fats in dairy and and meat products.

Indeed, the mean differences revealed in the report do point to the following higher levels in organic food: Protein 12.7%; Beta-carotene 53.6% Flavonoids 38.4%; Copper 8.3%; Magnesium 7.1%; Phosphorous 6%; Potassium 2.5%; Sodium 8.7%; Sulphur 10.5%; Zinc 11.3%; Phenolic compounds 13.2%.

When I put this to Alan Dangor, he replied �It is important to distinguish between "mean differences" and "statistically significant differences".�

However many consumers would be pleased to hear of almost 40% more Flavonoids, over 50% more beta-carotene, and indeed any extra zinc and magnesium.

One of the underreported problems with the report is the fact that individual foods are not considered. Instead, every product within the broad categories of livestock and crops are considered together.

So if, as recent research suggests, organic tomatoes and kiwis are superior nutritionally, this is balanced out by the overall grouping of all fruits and vegetables into one category.

According to the report itself:�The authors understand that combining all crops and all animal products into single groups and analysing the results by nutrient category may have obscured possible nutrient differences within specific foodstuffs. Certain types of foodstuffs may be more

responsive to organic or conventional production systems than others, and these

differences may have been diluted or lost when all foodstuffs were combined in this

manner�.

Considering Dr. Dangor's statement above on mean vs significant differences, this is ironic to say the least.

However leaving out 2/3 of all the relevant research is surely the most glaring issue.

162 publications were identified. Only 1/3, or 55 of these, were considered as at the authors' pre-defined quality criteria.

Yet all of the 2/3 considered below the quality level were actually accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals.

In other words, the scientific community examined them and found them to be up to the required level for publication in a scientific journal.

So the authors of this report have peer reviewed the peer reviewing process, and rejected 2/3 of what others in the scientific community accepted.

This is especially significant because it is in the 2/3 of peer reviewed publications the authors reject, that the majority of positive research into organic food's nutritional levels is found.

Next posting on this will further examine the rejection of 2/3 of all relevant publications.

Organic Farming Scheme under review: suspended until September

The details of this review, announced on 29th July, seem to suggest that without a detailed and decent business plan, you won't actually be allowed into the organic agri-food system.

Here are some key elements taken from the press release:

Trevor Sargent TD, Minister for Food and Horticulture at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, today announced a review of the Organic Farming Scheme, under which support is paid to farmers in the sector. The review will look at how available funds are used to best effect to deliver increased organic production and attain the 5% Government target

The outcome of the review will be announced during National Organic Week, which begins this year on 14 September.

Minister Sargent emphasised that like all Schemes operated by the Department, participation levels in future would be determined by the amount of funding available. "Funding for the Organic Farming Scheme will be determined later in the year when the Government are preparing the Estimates for 2010. It is my responsibility to make sure that what funding we have is used to bring maximum benefit and to realise the growing potential of organic farming in Ireland", he said.

The Minister indicated that he was likely to amend the Scheme to include selection criteria that would identify those applicants who were most likely to deliver increased output, particularly in those areas where production is not meeting the demands of the home and export markets. "Some prospective applicants may have more to offer than others, and I would urge anyone who is thinking of applying to do some research first, undertake some training and talk to an organic adviser or one of the organic certification bodies," said the Minister.

The existing Organic Farming Scheme is suspended for new applications from today, pending the outcome of the review.

See full text here