Before I became vegan, I didn’t really give much thought as to what was organic and what wasn’t. Fast forward a couple of years and I won’t eat anything else. I know it’s the best thing for my own health and the health of the planet (not to mention the farmers who aren’t spraying toxic chemicals).
Since leaving the US, I’ve been astounded at how tricky it is to buy organics. Big chain supermarkets in New Zealand only offer a very limited selection — hardly enough to fill a dinner plate. I won’t even talk about how astronomically expensive they are.
So the question remains, how do we bring real, affordable organics to the masses while keeping the big corporations honest? It’s the big businesses that threaten the future of organics, because they come at it from a money-making point of view—not from what’s best for the consumer. Get it out quick at as little cost as possible to them. If it looks like an apple, it’ll sell as an apple. Who cares what the nutrient content is.
Science has helped these corporations meddle with nature, with genetically modified produce on supermarket shelves just about everywhere. Studies have shown such meddling is at a huge cost to human health. Big corp organics could be mutant potatoes that resist anything nature throws at it. It may have grown without pesticides and without a scratch, but it won’t mean it’s healthy to eat.
Organic Nation TV caught up with The Environmental Working Group‘s President Ken Cook (see video below) to chat about the potential issue of big corporations hijacking organics, threatening its quality and the current standards.
Host Dorothee Royal-Hedinger asked Ken to talk about the anxiety some consumers and activists feel about the trend of big corporations taking over organic brands as well as the tension between making organic food affordable and maintaining the standards on which organics were founded.
He was interviewed at Kickapoo Country Fair held by Organic Valley, a farmer-owned cooperative of more than 1,300 organic family farmers nationwide, in LaFarge, Wisconsin.
Courtesy of organic.org, I’ve included a top 10 list of reasons to grow and buy organics, as well as why we all can benefit from supporting the organic industry, regardless of where you live in the world.
1. Reduce The Toxic Load: Keep Chemicals Out of the Air, Water, Soil and our Bodies
Buying organic food promotes a less toxic environment for all living things. With only 0.5 percent of crop and pasture land in organic, according to USDA that leaves 99.5 percent of farm acres in the U.S. at risk of exposure to noxious agricultural chemicals. Our bodies are the environment so supporting organic agriculture doesn’t just benefit your family, it helps all families live less toxically.
2. Reduce if Not Eliminate Off Farm Pollution
Industrial agriculture doesn’t singularly pollute farmland and farm workers; it also wreaks havoc on the environment downstream. Pesticide drift affects non-farm communities with odorless and invisible poisons. Synthetic fertilizer drifting downstream is the main culprit for dead zones in delicate ocean environments, such as the Gulf of Mexico, where its dead zone is now larger than 22,000 square kilometers, an area larger than New Jersey, according to Science magazine, August, 2002.
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I was thrilled down to my organic cotton socks when I heard that the Vegan Society of Aotearoa New Zealand had been revived. Perfect timing for my arrival in this beautiful part of the world.
The dedicated folks have wasted not one minute since their relaunch on World Vegan Day (November 1), getting fluorescent tans in some of the country’s big-chain supermarkets in the effort to sort through products that are helpful and harmful—all while making veganism more accessible the public and to those flirting with the idea of living animal-product free.
The result is The Big Book of Vegan Products, which lists, you guessed it, all vegan-friendly products available in supermarkets nationwide. It includes a huge range of crackers, biscuits, cereal, desserts, ready meals and convenience foods. It’s also free to download.
“We want to demonstrate how easy it is to eat ‘normal’ food on a vegan diet. You don’t need to go to a specialist store or spend a lot of money,” said co-ordinator Alice Leonard. “People don’t have control over the environment but they do have control over their diet. Veganism is a solution to the environmental crisis as well as health issues and animal welfare concerns.”
The proactive peeps also have plans to develop a supermarket tour video, a ‘vegan-approved’ tick for food products and branch out in local communities through stalls and market days. Watch this space!
For those living outside the Land of the Long White Cloud, check out The Vegan Society international site to see what initiatives your local branch is undertaking. Better yet, get involved!
It’s great that more and more companies are coming out with vegan product lines. But just because no animals were harmed in the making of these lipsticks, moisturisers and the like, does it mean they’re good for you? Not always.
Unless the ingredients are natural and organic, chances are you could be slapping man made chemicals on your bod. These chemicals are absorbed through the skin, into the bloodstream and contribute to toxicity that can lead to various dis-eases. Yikes. Whoever coined the phrase “beauty is pain” was right on more than one level.
The Environmental Working Group has a comprehensive list, called The Cosmetics Database, that’s well worth keeping handy. It features many of the products we’ve all come to know and love, complete with their toxicity/carcinogen level. You’ll never look at your mascara the same again.
Vegan Peace also has a comprehensive listing of ingredients and products that can help determine if your beauty products are indeed vegan friendly. Then it’s just a matter of determining which of those are human friendly.
A great natural beauty line worth Googling is Living Nature, which is made “of” New Zealand and is low on the scale of harm according to The Cosmetics Database.
Better yet, find beauty fixes right from your own kitchen. Here’s a handy how-to intro from The Green Dove.
Bursting the Beauty Bubble
For all of my eating-out-woes while exploring the land of the long white cloud, I was a happy girl to find a vegan diamond in the dining rough.
Randomly stopping off at Hislops Cafe in Kaikoura turned into a stroke of luck, with the organic cafe proudly boasting a vegan dish on their menu (sure it’s just one, but it’s a good one). The roast cashew and curried lentil burger on fresh salad, finished with homemade tartare sauce was a vegan’s dream — and enough to share between two. Completely, utterly yummy.
Travelling around New Zealand’s beautiful south island these past few days, not only gave me the opportunity to see breathtaking landscapes, but also newborn animals being reared to become nothing more than a slab of meat on a diner’s plate, or a commodity to produce clothing.
Mother sheep with their lambs were ultra-protective of their young ones, wary of humans wanting to get a close up look at their babies — little ones who clung to and played by their mother’s side. Meanwhile, doe-eyed calves that had already been separated from their mothers, craved attention, clamouring at their fence enclosure for some love and company.
It was heartbreaking to meet these life-loving animals, knowing too well their fate.
The only positive to draw from seeing these beautiful creatures was the amount of room they had to move, the fresh air they got to breathe and knowing they had been spared from the all-too-common factory farming that is well hidden from the public eye.
Doe-eyed calves, already complete with slaughter tags, craved attention and radiated love
Protective mothers guard their newborn babies
