Can one apple make a difference?

One fresh apple instead of a bag of chips in a kid’s school lunch is healthier for the child, obviously, and it’s one small step to fight climate change. Potatoes grown with conventional fertilizers and pesticides require fossil fuels, more are used when they’re processed into greasy chips, and still more used for packaging and shipping those little bags in bulk across the country. It’s easy to see how the carbon footprint of an apple beats that of a bag of chips.

One local apple keeps local orchards from being converted to housing developments. One local apple — or jar of fresh-pressed apple cider — supports local farmers in their efforts to preserve vanishing apple species. Buying fresh apples instead of apple juice — 80% of the world’s apple juice now comes from China — saves American farms. Protecting farmland fights climate change.

One fresh, local apple can save the world. Send your kids to school tomorrow with an extra apple and encourage them to share with a friend. Together, our many small acts will change the world!

This post is my contribution to Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change. It’s also our 2nd anniversary here at Foodie Tots, which was founded in part to help save the world one family’s diet at a time. Read our previous Blog Action Day posts here and here, or click over to the official site for live posts and tweets from around the world.

Part III in the Sustainable Family Supper Project

The second villain in the duo of toxic commercial farming practices is fertilizer. I recently heard a radio ad touting the benefits of chemical fertilizer, euphemistically called, “nutrients for life.”

If you’ve read Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, you know that nitrogen fertilizers used today have a rather unsavory history. In a classic example of good intentions gone awry, scientists discovered a way to apply highly concentrated nutrients to crops to increase their yield. Sounds good, right? The problem is that the nutrients run off into streams, rivers and oceans and suffocate aquatic life. It sounds strange, but there is in fact such a thing as too much nutrients. Agricultural run-off from the Midwest is contributing to an ever-growing dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico – nearly the size of Massachusetts in 2008. Chemical fertilizers are also derived from petroleum, keeping much of the world’s food supply inextricably linked to fossil fuels.

Recent studies have shown that organic crops in fact have higher nutrient levels, and are higher in vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants. This has a great deal to do with the soil in which they are grown, and the fact that it hasn’t been smothered with heavy doses of chemicals. Sustainable farming also utilizes crop rotation practices that rotate planting so that different nutrients are absorbed and replaced each growing season. I mentioned last week that our CSA farm produces exceptionally sweet onions as a result of their attention to the soil. Leafy greens also benefit from well-tended, chemically-unburdened soil. Organically-grown, fresh greens from a local farm have far more flavor then the limp pre-bagged mixes found at the grocery store, so much so that when my husband tasted our first delivery of CSA greens he exclaimed, “Who knew lettuce had flavor?!”

As mentioned last week, the best way to find food grown without toxic fertilizers and other chemicals is to buy organic and support your local, sustainable farmers. Stay tuned for a look at several CSA farms from around the country, and this week’s sustainable supper recipe.

For our next installment in the Sustainable Family Supper Project, we turn to farming. I was honestly surprised to learn when first beginning to research organic and sustainable food that conventional farming still uses heavy amounts of pesticides. I just assumed that since it was common knowledge pesticides were bad for you and bad for the environment, that we’ve reduced our use. After all, Silent Spring was published before I was born! But in fact, while some highly toxic pesticides have been banned in recent decades, there are still dangerous amounts of pesticide residue on our fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains. The National Center for Food and Agriculture Policy tracks 637 chemicals currently in use in the United States. Others are lingering residue of now-banned insecticides that remains in the soil for decades. Because of the latter, it is impossible to completely avoid pesticides but we can reduce our exposure by buying organic as much as possible. As with most environmental toxins, the risks are greater to young children whose developing systems are more heavily impacted.

Why are pesticides bad? Chemicals commonly applied to food crops are linked to cancer, developmental and neurological problems, asthma, allergies, autism, birth defects and reproductive disorder in humans, and kill birds, bees and fish. The use of pesticides also leads to significant health risks for farm workers (and their children). The UK’s largest supermarket chain has recently banned the use of eight pesticides linked to honeybee deaths.

Best to Buy Organic: The Environmental Working Group has a list of 43 fruits and vegetables ranked in order of their level of residual pesticides, including their “Dirty Dozen” wallet guide. Generally, look for organic options for produce with thinner skins or peels, including strawberries, grapes, peaches, apples, winter squash, green beans, spinach and potatoes.

Many small farms are not certified but may use similar practices, so the best option is to get to know your local farmers, through a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program and/or farmers markets, and ask about their pest management practices. They generally range from organic or “eco-ganic,” to integrated pest management (IPM, which emphasizes natural techniques before chemical) or conventional. Generally speaking, small farms will use fewer toxic chemicals than industrial farms even if they are not organic, and many are actively involved with local and regional environmental efforts to minimize the impact of farming practices on soil and water.

When not buying direct from a farmer, we generally look for certified organic produce from the US. In the winter, we eat significantly less local for the obvious reason that winter produce options in the DC area are slim. I try to buy Florida citrus as much as possible, since it travels less than produce from California or South America. And I try to avoid produce from China, even if it is certified organic, because recent events seem to indicate that Chinese standards are a little more laxly enforced than I am comfortable with. Unfortunately, some of the more affordable “organic” products are imported from China, particularly apple juice and frozen vegetables.

Support Local Farms: If you’re looking to get closer to your food’s source, now is the time to consider signing up for a CSA program. CSA farms accept customers who basically invest in the farm by purchasing a share in that season’s crops. Many CSA farms also sell at farmers markets, but the CSA program enables them to minimize some of the inherent risks in farming and gives them much-needed capital up front. You take on some of that risk as a member, as drought or other problems could reduce the amount of food you will take home. Look for a farm that has a cooperative arrangement with other farms to help reduce the fluctuations in quantity that might occur from week to week. Visit www.localharvest.org to find a CSA farm near you. We belong to Potomac Vegetable Farms here in Virginia, which will be opening registration to the public on February 15.

To learn more or take action, sign up for the Pesticide Action Network’s email alerts.