Ask Professor Produce

I had the weirdest experience last night at dinner. I had grilled chicken and a sweet potato. As I bit into my last bite of sweet potato, there was a "pop!" and then an acrid taste in my throat and then smoke was wafting in front of my eyes. Yikes, my head was on fire!! My husband's eyes just about fell out of their sockets as he stared at me, smoke pouring from my nostrils. Apparently there was a pocket of spores or something in the potato, and when I bit into it with my mouth closed, it backed up my throat and out my nose. It dissipated very quickly, leading my husband to think it was steam; but it wasn't hot like steam, and the acrid taste and grey "smoke" leads me to believe it was a pocket of mold or spores or some such thing. Have you ever heard of such a thing? -Nancy, The Internet

Let's see. Call Homeland Security or write Professor Produce? The Professor has been writing this column for nigh on seven years, and he's proud to report that he has never, ever heard of such a thing.

Did you see the Star Tribune's article claiming that organic produce had pesticide residue? This can't be for real, can it?? -June, Wayzata

Have you read the report that says organic food isn't really organic? Is that a reputable report? -Janice, Oakdale

Yes, the Professor has read the very reputable Consumer Union report on pesticide residues in store-bought produce, and he also paid close attention to how its story was handled in the media. For example, contrast the Strib's headline on the matter, "Report: Organic Produce is not pure," with The New York Times headline for the same story: "Study Finds Far Less Pesticide Residue on Organic Produce." When studies like this one receive negative newsroom spin, it's doubly hard for the emerging organic industry to convince a skeptical public of its integrity.

Though its importance was dismissed by headline-writing interns at Associated Press wire-fed newspapers across the nation, the Consumer Union report was intended to be a landmark study. It's the first credible analysis to measure pesticide residues in store-bought produce, and it proved what many less scientific studies have been asserting since the mid-nineties: A diet of organic foods will reduce the amount of pesticides and other chemicals in the American diet.

Yeah. I know. Mind-blowing news for Wedge members. But would it kill the Strib to report that news for its readers? Apparently so.

Instead, the Associated Press, whose version the Strib printed on May 8, chose to focus on the negative, even at the risk of misinformation: "Almost a quarter of the organic produce in grocery stores could contain traces of pesticides, including long-banned chemicals such as DDT, according to a Consumer Union study."

"What could this mean," we're supposed to ask, hands wringing, brows sweating? Does this mean that farmers are paying tens of thousands of dollars to be organically certified, only to sneak into their fields at night to hose down their organic green peppers with DDT? I don't know what the AP writer intended with the above sentence, but I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, what the Consumer Union's study shows is that organochlorides (like DDT) are showing up in our produce even after being disallowed for use as a pesticide over 30 years ago! Rather than casting doubt on the integrity of farmers, we should be holding the manufacturers of DDT and other organochlorides accountable for the ongoing poisoning of our farm fields.

Nevertheless, organic consumers and growers alike need to wake up and pay attention to the CU report. And the Professor must tip his hat to the Associated Press for pointing out a hard truth: Organic food sometimes has pesticide residue, despite the farmers' best efforts.

How can this be? Well, we live in a toxic society, folks. Organic farming means the farmer didn't spray with pesticides, but we live in a post-apocalyptic world where pesticides literally rain from the skies, where DDT is still detectable in our topsoil a generation after being banned in 1970. This Consumer Union study strongly bolsters the argument for buying organic, in the Prof's opinion, since it shows that organics are the cleanest option in a thoroughly, chemically tainted food supply. In this study, the USDA (!) found that 73% of conventionally grown foods had residues from at least one pesticide, while only 23% of organic foods had residues. Eliminate DDT and other organochlorides from the analysis and that number drops to 13% for organic produce.

The organic food industry is growing at a whopping rate of 20 percent each year in the United States, but only 0.1 percent of U.S. agricultural research is devoted to organic farming practices. This is an absurd imbalance for a time when evidence is mounting against dangerous, chemical pesticides. We don't know for certain that eating a diet rich in organic foods is healthier, but we do know that epidemiological analysis suggests a significantly higher rate of cancer incidences among U.S. farmers and farm workers than among non-farmers in the same areas. In these high-risk populations, there is strong evidence for associations between lymphomas and soft-tissue sarcomas and certain herbicides as well as between lung cancer and exposure to certain insecticides. (Public Health Risks Associated with Pesticides and Natural Toxins in Foods, by D. Pimentell, T. W. Culliney, and T. Bashore). We need more studies that openly discuss the prevalence of pesticides in our food and a media that's willing to get the information to the people who need it.

So we should applaud the Consumer Union report and its discoveries regarding the relative "cleanliness" of organic produce, even if it didn't get very good coverage in our local paper. (To the Star Tribune's credit, editor Lou Gelfand later admitted that their headline had "turned upside down the point of the study.")

With the Minneapolis Public Library closing, where will you do all your fruit and veggie research? -Wanda, Minneapolis

At the way cool interim site for the library, of course. It's located in that big blue suspension-bridge sorta lookin' building, 250 Marquette Ave. S., kitty-corner from the current/old library.