Today in Organic: Nov. 2nd, 2010

• It's voting day! Be sure to find your polling place and support candidates that will help make your community more sustainable. Check out Sierra Club's Voter Guide to find representatives in 12 key states who support clean energy.

• The Washington Post covers a story about a young Chinese farmer who is sowing the seeds for an organic revolution.

• A USDA grant aims to enhance sustainability of beginning farmers and ranchers. The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) will fund projects to to train, educate and provide outreach and technical assistance to beginning farmers.

• Amber Turpin at Civil Eats writes about what happens when a small organic farm fails.

• TreeHugger.com features the slideshow Urban Farm Prototypes Reveal the Future of Urban Farming with a mix of practical and unusual ways to grow food indoors.

• Yikes! Environmental Health News reports that pesticides taint one-fifth of kids' food.

• Rodale.com shares a delicious Black Barley and Autumn Vegetables recipe, perfect for a warm fall lunch.

Dirty Dozen: Why to Always Eat Organic Kale

Dirty Dozen is an ongoing Organic Nation series that seeks to explain the benefits of certain organic foods and products over their conventional counterparts. To see other recent posts in this series, click here.

When the Environmental Working Group released their latest wallet-size "Dirty Dozen and Clean 15" scorecard last spring, kale, the most crinkly of the hearty greens, was catapulted into eighth place on the list of conventional fruits and veggies to be avoided.

Kale is tasty and nutritious stuff, and it's great in salads, soups, or even just sauteed with onions and olive oil. The other neat thing about kale is that it can survive year-round -- even in deep snow. When I visited my parents near Buffalo, NY last month, my mom went out and picked some fresh kale from beneath a six-inch layer of snow for our dinner.

However, according to EWG, it's one of the foods that should always be grown organically.

It's surprising to see that kale is sprayed with so many chemicals, because it seems like such an easy plant to grow. Because of it's heartiness, kale is great for gardens, but it can attract some pretty pesky pests when it's grown on a larger scale in an agricultural setting. Aphids, diamondback moths, and flea beetles are all considered to be major pests to kale.

The EWG's list isn't based on the total amount of chemicals sprayed on fruits and vegetables in the field or on the vine. Instead, most of the data they use to compile the "Dirty Dozen" list comes from tests taken from foods that are ready to be eaten. According to the website, "nearly all the studies used to create the list test produce after it has been rinsed or peeled."

In addition to EWG's scorecard the new website whatsonmyfood.org gives conventional kale very low marks. According to that site, conventional kale contains 49 pesticide residues found by the USDA pesticide data program. Those chemicals include two dozen possible hormone disruptors, 10 neurotoxins, and seven known or probable carcinogens. Yummy!

-Mark

Dirty Dozen: Why to Always Buy Organic Potatoes

There are foods that I buy organic only occasionally, when I'm feeling flush, and then there are those, like potatoes, that I always make sure to buy organic. I think I got that from my mom, who was the first to tell me about how heavily conventional potatoes are sprayed with pesticides and herbicides. She always recommended that I either buy organic, or be sure to thoroughly peel conventional potatoes.

A list of "the seven foods experts won't eat" that's been making the rounds caught my eye this morning, particularly the potato entry, which offers some supporting evidence to my mom's claim. Because they're root vegetables they absorb just about anything that's in the soil, so any excess chemicals in the soil will likely make its way into the plant, according to the article. And to make matters worse, potatoes are among the most-sprayed vegetables.

Here are a few blurbs about pesticide and herbicide use among conventional potato growers.

Prevention:

"They're treated with fungicides during the growing season, then sprayed with herbicides to kill off the fibrous vines before harvesting. After they're dug up, the potatoes are treated yet again to prevent them from sprouting."

The New York Times:

"A 2006 U.S.D.A. test found 81 percent of potatoes tested still contained pesticides after being washed and peeled, and the potato has one of the the highest pesticide contents of 43 fruits and vegetables tested, according to the Environmental Working Group."

Michael Pollan's 'Botany of Desire':

"The typical potato grower stands in the middle of a bright green circle of plants that have been doused with so much pesticide that their leaves wear a dull white chemical bloom and the soil they're rooted in is a lifeless gray powder."

Another good reason to eschew conventional spuds is that organic potatoes aren't much more expensive.

-Mark