Inside Yoga 113
Finally, science has caught up with experience: with recent reports that scientific research has found “significant differences” between organic food and conventional food.
Some of us who have already on the side of organics must be found mumbling to ourselves that “we told you so”! But this is how the science establishment operates – needing scientific and rational proof.
The team, led by Professor Carlo Leifert at Newcastle University, concluded that there are “statistically significant, meaningful” differences, with a range of antioxidants being “substantially higher” – between 19 per cent and 69 per cent – in organic food. This is the first study to demonstrate clear and wide-ranging differences between organic and conventional fruits, vegetables and cereals.
The scientists say the increased levels of antioxidants are equivalent to “one to two of the five portions of fruits and vegetables recommended to be consumed daily and would therefore be significant and meaningful in terms of human nutrition, if information linking these (compounds) to the health benefits associated with increased fruit, vegetable and whole grain consumption is confirmed.”
Of course, there are some who dispute the report’s claims. We would expect this. It is good news for those who advocate a change to what we eat and how we produce our food.
There are stumbling blocks, however, that prevent many of us partaking in these healthier options, and this is the higher costs of organic produce, though it is getting better, and also to be able to trust what you consume is really what it says it is.
Call me a cynic, but I recently discovered that egg producers are able to call their eggs “free range” even though their chickens are running around in dark (albeit, lit by artificial lights) and large warehouses/barns – simply because they are no longer battery chickens locked up in a cage unable to move, they can be called free! This is not what I call free range: free range for me means chickens running around outdoors in fields (not necessarily large but at least outdoors). That is why it is worth checking if the egg box states (outdoors as well as free range, and even organic).
Keeping food bills down is one of the reasons many of us do not eat organic, but making the effort is worth it. It would be great if food production was changed so much that organic and healthy became the norm and prices matched it. It might be possible but I suspect certain manufacturers are quietly resisting and preventing such changes.
Where does that leave us mere citizens? It’s a personal choice, and part of yoga’s teachings is the understanding that we are what we eat. If we want to change the world outside, change within first and this does not just include the way we think it terms of anger, stress and so forth through meditation.
It is also refers to being in union with our body and its needs, and with this closer relationship to our internal world we learn what kinds of food are good for us, and which are not – and much of this is personal and not a broad brush stoke that we need to eat the same.
After all “healthy body is a healthy mind”. And also, everything in moderation is great advice not just for our body but also our bank balance – we learn to control our urges, desires and addictive behavior. Less greed brings more to others and helps us to be healthier – selfishly altruistic you could say!
To read the news story about the organic food study, see Guardian, click on http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/11/organic-food-more-antioxidants-study
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