It seems to me that the volume of produce (fruit and greens) required on an 811 diet is astronomical compared to any SAD or even cooked vegan diet, or even a high fat raw vegan diet. I then wonder, would a high fruit and green diet still be beneficial to one's health if only conventional produce were consumed? Lettuce, spinach, and kale, are some of the most highly contaminated produce items, along with many common fruits. If you are eating a high volume of contaminated produce then you would be exposed to much more pesticide than say a cooked vegan or high fat raw vegan. So, would the health benefits of the low fat, high green diet outweigh the toxic effects of all those extra pesticides?

I'm sure there is no right answer, I just thought it would be interesting to hear some opinions. Of course, organic is the way to go, but that is not always available or affordable for many folks.

Here's a list of the most and least sprayed fruits and veggies. I shop accordingly when I can to minimize exposure to toxic chemicals when I can't avoid them completely.
[lowcarbdiets.about.com]

Eating any other sort of diet doesn't reduce exposure to these things in my opinion, it's all the same foods in a different form.

It is hard to tell most of these diets/lifestyles are relatively new so there is no way of telling long term how these effect you. With 811 in particular your getting a much higher percentage of beneficial nutrients, phyto-nutrients due to the amount of raw fruits and vegetables that you eat.

If you can as always go organic as you'll already know this is can rectify your problem but for many this isn't possible maybe due to money or availability. From there its up to your own judgment really as we all know ingestion of these pesticides and sprays are bad for us.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

I have that list in my wallet! Right were my condom used to be.

LOL! Does it make you feel any better that there's never been one of those in my wallet?

hmm... I wouldn't have suspected otherwise!

Follow the Dirty Dozen list, and if you cannot spare money for organic fruit, put it into organic greens. I eat several punds a week, and I roughly calculated that it's worth the cost of buying organic to limit the toxins. We eat stuff in these foods in such concentrations--think green smothies--and pesticide effects aren't reckoned for people who eat produce in humongous amounts. Be on the safe side.

Last time I checked, the dirty dozen list metric was # of pesticides, not levels. Avoiding conventionally produced vegetables because of a fear of pesticide residues is a mistake. People who consume more conventionally produced fruits and vegetables have less cancer not more than those who consume less. Frozen organic berries if you have access to a Costco or BJs or Sams Club makes it cost effective. But if not, wash the produce under warm (not cold or hot) water and let it drip dry. And know that empirically, that people who eat more rather than less fruits and vegetables have less cancer and less heart disease.

[www.drmcdougall.com]

the important article follows, the dose is the poison, there are tradeoffs between organic, ipm and conventional but the bottom line is more veggies vs. less. [onlinelibrary.wiley.com]

Paul

It's an interesting question Johnathan, and one I'd like to try and answer from a biological perspective.

Even the copious quantities of fruits and greens eaten by 811ers/LFRVers pales in comparison with the amount of grass/grain a cow must consume to produce a kilogram of meat.

There is a phenomena called 'biomagnification', where pollutants and pesticides, especially fat soluble ones, are concentrated up the food chain, so that the end eaters, the predators and those that eat other animals, end up having the highest levels of pollutants in the food chain. This is a demonstrable fact and one that is backed up by years of research. As a quick rundown, look at the wiki entry for biomagnification:

[en.wikipedia.org]


Multiple studies have shown that vegetarians have lower rates of such biomagnified pollutants than omnivorous eaters, clearly demonstrating the biomagnification process in the human food chain. I'm not sure if they separated out vegetarians and vegans in these studies, but I'd take and educated guess and say that vegans on average would have an even lower concentration of a range of these pollutants due to the non consumption of any animal products (including dairy from ruminants, who need to consume huge amounts of, often sprayed, grass/grain to produce the milk) this would be in keeping with the biomagnification principle.

Many of these collected pollutants come out in breast milk, this has been demonstrated in a wide number of species including humans and very sadly dolphins (one of the most polluted creatures on earth, with tragic results for their first born offspring).

So in conclusion, from my Uni studies on biomagnification and all I've read on it since, I'd say the average 811er just COULDN'T eat enough fruits and veg to concentrate these pollutants as much as would be eaten from animal products, especially animal products which contain significant amounts of fats.

I know 811ers eat a lot pf fruit, but doing some quick calculations, it'd be PHYSICALLY impossible for them to eat the amount of fruit we are talking about!

So, the basic gist of it is, the lower down the food chain you eat the lower the levels of persistent pollutants in your body, and you'd have to eat ridiculously impossible amounts of fruit and veg to mimic eating up the food chain.

And remember, most of the grass/grain fed to cows and other animals is also conventional produce, sprayed with all sorts of pesticides and artificial fertilisers.

very interesting Klomasius...it also seems we would rid our bodies of these chemicals much quicker because they are not contained in the undigested animal products that stay in our bodies for much longer than fruit, and also because we are thinner, less body fat to store these toxins in.

februarygirl

This is another proof of the organic produce is overrated argument.
The most important requirement for healthy eating is for the food to be raw and fresh.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2011 05:37AM by madinah.

The consumption of no animal fats would be the biggest plus.

Even organic animal fats have residual pesticides and environmental pollutants in them. Which country you come from makes a difference as to the levels of pollutants in organic animal products due to the levels of environmental pollutants and the pollution regulations. Unfortunately America has some of the highest rates of food pollution in the western world.

Madinah, I still don't think the organic argument is overrated, just that the concerns about eating lots of conventional fruits and veg are perhaps over exaggerated when it comes to the levels of pesticides as compared to your average SAD eater, especially one who consumes lots of animal products.

Eating organic has many benefits that extend far further than just the health perspective. Organic farming methods on the whole are way less harmful to the environment and the animals within the area of cultivation (not to mention the much reduced levels of pollutant runoff into waterways etc.). There's also the fact that much of the produce grown organically is not from hybrid plants that do not breed a second generation (as is the case with many conventional crops) and the fact that organic produce is seen as being ok to have a few bumps and marks on it whereas conventional must be 'perfect' (thus wasting HUGE amounts of less than perfect fruit and veg each year).

There are so many other reasons, and it's for all these reasons (health being just one of them) that I choose to buy as much organic as my budget will permit.

`klmasius` said it right!

Out of all the posts you nailed it. Everyone is so concerned about " their own health " and not everything else surrounding them. The environment alone should
be a reason to ban all these chemicals, let alone shoving them in your body.

My friend was a banana sprayer when he was young, and developed cancer at an early age. Why would you want to support such methods. It's just wrong, and our bodies cant evolve quick enough to cope with all these pollutants. My take on it.
There are a lot of other products in the world that we should have a look at, but
thats another forum.
Fairtrade is also a must too!

I've been eating 100% organic for 5 years now. I understand it's hard for everyone to do it, but do your best it is important.

Thanks Eddie, it often amazes me that people think it's simply the health aspect of organic that is the only reason to eat it!

I don't eat 100% organic, my percentage goes up and down the closer or further away I am to a paycheck, lol.

Plus there are some things I just can't get organic here, coconuts (young and mature) being the major one. But when I am in a better financial position, I'll defintily be easily upping my organic percentage to 90+%.

coco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here's a list of the most and least sprayed fruits
> and veggies. I shop accordingly when I can to
> minimize exposure to toxic chemicals when I can't
> avoid them completely.
> [lowcarbdiets.about.com]
> cides.htm
>
> Eating any other sort of diet doesn't reduce
> exposure to these things in my opinion, it's all
> the same foods in a different form.


According to your list celery is the worst. I have been living on raw non organic celery for years, I juice celery every morning and evening and I am in the best shape of my life. Non organic celery is easily available, cheap, fresh, organic celery is hard to find, expensive, not as fresh. The supply of non organic produce is replenish every day in local food stores, which is not the case for organic. It is true that organic is healthier but the advantages over non organic is over exaggerated and there is no good evidence to prove that organic farmers are not using pesticides. A good study will be to find the amount of pesticides in organic produce as compared to non organic.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2011 11:47AM by madinah.

The organic foods i get are just as fresh as conventional. It depends on the demand for it wherever you are buying it.
Secondly, if organic foods have even 1/10 of the chemicals as conventional, then it is still worth not putting that in your body. It may cost more, but if everyone participated the cost would go down...already is actually

You are correct but the advantage of non organic is that I can walk one block from my house to buy raw non organic celery for about one dollar. I cannot wait that the cost of organic goes down or drive to the other side of the town to find organic food store. The cost and the distance do not justify the advantage over non organic



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2011 01:08PM by madinah.

madinah,

The household budget argument is a fair one; if you cannot afford organic or it isn't stocked by local shops in such a way as to make it cost-effective, just buy fresh conventional. But where do you get this from?:

" . . . there is no good evidence to prove that organic farmers are not using pesticides."

Heh?

there is quite a stringent process they have to go through to be considered officially organic, with many routine checks on their farms to ensure they still are... they are being watched way more closely than any normal farm ever is...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Organic farmers are using pesticides just not petroleum based pesticides. A pesticide is anything used to deter or kill a pest. Usually copper or sulfur is used.

And organics is important as stated for all concerned: people, animals, plants, the earth, etc.

When I cannot afford or have access to organic, I buy fruits that have peels, greens rich in chlorophyll, the brassica (cabbage, brocolli) family because they are hardy and do not harbor many pests, and grow much of my own food. I have indoors pots of leafy greens: lettuces, spinaches, baby kales, chards, mustards, chois, and herbs: basil, cilantro, parsley, thyme, and more.

vermontnl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Organic farmers are using pesticides just not
> petroleum based pesticides. A pesticide is
> anything used to deter or kill a pest. Usually
> copper or sulfur is used.
>
> And organics is important as stated for all
> concerned: people, animals, plants, the earth,
> etc.
>
> When I cannot afford or have access to organic, I
> buy fruits that have peels, greens rich in
> chlorophyll, the brassica (cabbage, brocolli)
> family because they are hardy and do not harbor
> many pests, and grow much of my own food. I have
> indoors pots of leafy greens: lettuces, spinaches,
> baby kales, chards, mustards, chois, and herbs:
> basil, cilantro, parsley, thyme, and more.


"like" button!

Do you really believe that routine checks of organic farmers is effective, how often, and what happens in between?
Unless it is family farm grown or backward or indoor, there is no evidence that Joe's tomatoes at the farmer market are organic.
There may be a placebo effect here, you feel good more so because you think it is organic. Thoughts have power.

they do soil tests madinah, those cant be faked, if they use dangerous chemical pesticides at anytime in the year, it would show up in the soil tests... So if people dont agree with you they are brainwashing themselves? I hate to break it to you, but all scientific fact disagrees with you on this, every single study ever done has shown that chemical pesticides are bad for humans, even the FDA tells people to wash their fruits and veggies thoroughly because of this... Also, ive done blind taste tests with organic vs normal, and every single time I could pick out the organic, it tasted better, with every thing we tested it tasted better, the only exception being ice burg lettuce, I couldn't tell the difference with it.

the repeated arguments you make against organic have been non-sense, I understand not wanting to buy it for money reasons, heck I hardly ever get organic anymore cause I cant afford it, but every single thing you have said besides the cost issue, has been flat out wrong, you are starting to sound like an anti organic troll (in case you dont know,a troll in this context, refers to a person who goes on the internet and says something they know doesn't make sense over and over again, for the express purpose of pissing people off.) If you are not a troll, please at least start posting some kind of scientific studies to back up your claim, so it can add to the discussion in a useful manner, instead of making claims about things you have obviously not even done even studying on... if you had, youd know its near impossible to fake your way through organic certification... youd have to pay off a LOT of people to make it even possible.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

I actually agree with you Curator but my main point is based on my personal observation that eating non organic fresh produce has not hurt me at all, I feel healthier than before when I was buying organic produce, it was not readily available at that time. Maybe I will collapse one day from all that pesticides. My diet is 80 percent liquidarian with weekly period of dry fasting. It works, I get my greens for juicing from the one-block-away food store. The greens are replenished every day, most buying them to cook them, I buy them for juicing. I need a lot of juices so it is not convenient for me to wait the next supply at the other-side-of-city health food store. I will choose 10 pounds of collard greens non organic to 2 pounds of organic collards greens, it just me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2011 05:32PM by madinah.

If you haven't tried a diet of all or high organic you don't know if it is similar or better than one of conventional produce. I can say that fresh local foods are "better" in my experience than those shipped in from great distances and purchased at a grocery store. And I can say that organic in my experience is better than conventional in the same way. There is a difference that I perceive and no, I don't think it's psychological.

80 percent liquid wow do you ever wonder about getting sufficient fiber madinah hopefully this isnt coming across as brass as im genuinely interested. Or are you meaning smoothies here too?

Im a big fan of juicing but only to an extent, pure fructose without the fiber has been shown to be implicated as a cause of fatty liver disease. So i either add a little bit of the pulp back in or a teaspoon of a fiber source to slow down the absorption rate of the sugars also.

I eat very little solid food. Green smoothies are not digestible or take too much energy to assimilate. Pure green juices (celery, cabbage, collard greens, dandelion), wheatgrass, indoor sunflower greens, the rest of food are fruits that when eaten turn into juices by the time they reach the stomach (ripe pears, pineapple, kiwis), that means no constipating bananas. You can read more here.
[www.fastingconnection.com]
I have a high speed blender that has been idle for months.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2011 06:28PM by madinah.

"Green smoothies are not digestible or take too much energy to assimilate." For YOU. Please qualify these sweeping statements. I have no problem at all with green smoothies.

The only useful thing the fiber does in the green smoothies is help control the rate of nutrients assimilation by the system. I prefer to chew on some raw okra, raw coconut, more nutritious, more digestible, better fiber. I juice the greens.
We cannot chew the smoothies so the tendency is to swallow them, the blending make it easy to swallow more than we should.