Time magazine’s cover story, ‘The Real Cost of Cheap Food’ (Aug 31, 2009) links farm animal health and welfare with consumer health, the big missing link in current debates over human health care reforms. About time indeed! But the statement ‘There’s no firm evidence that organic is more nutritious than conventional food’ is incorrect. Studies comparing the nutrient content of organic versus conventionally grown crops report significantly lower levels of potentially toxic aluminium, mercury and lead in the organically grown, that also had higher levels of many essential trace minerals and other nutrients, notably boron, calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, selenium and zinc; also more vitamin C and other antioxidants, and less nitrates and water.

The animal and human health benefits of taking prebiotics and probiotics, which nurture beneficial gut bacteria, mirror those organic farming practices that benefit soil micro-organisms essential to crop health and nutrient content. Both gut and soil bacteria are harmed by agrichemicals, antibiotics and GM (genetically modified) crops and foods.

As Hippocrates advised, ‘Let your medicine be your food, and your food be your medicine.’ Knowing what you are feeding yourself, your family, and your animal companions, and making informed choices in the market place, are responsible steps toward sound health care maintenance that will help lower your medical and veterinary expenditures. The basic currency of a Green economy as I see it is mindfulness. That includes the duty of care–for one’s own health, one’s animal companions, and the environment. The compass of a Green society is therefore compassion, the moral and legal expression of which is bioethics as detailed in my book Bringing Life to Ethics: Global Bioethics for a Humane Society.

Tags: Whole Green Catalog