We evolved with plants. Our bodies recognize them. Plants were our main source of medicine less than one hundred years ago, and they remain a source of inspiration and information for pharmaceutical development today. Unlike pharmaceuticals, however, plants are complex and contain countless compounds that are in constant conversation with our cells. From their aromas and flavors to their vibrant colors, plants insinuate themselves into every nook and cranny of our physiology by way of antioxidants, enzymes, pheromones, stem cells, and phytonutrients that influence our bodies to be strong and resilient.
Fruits and vegetables are more than a vehicle for delivering vitamins, minerals, and fiber into your body. A wealth of impressive studies show plants’ curative powers in all manner of conditions. A meta-analysis of 34 studies found that high consumption of fruits and vegetables reduces asthma symptoms in children and adults.1 In 2011, a Phase I trial at Ohio State University showed that consuming 60 grams of black raspberry powder—a variety of raspberry exceptionally high in phytonutrients—slowed the growth rate of colorectal cancer cells and the blood vessels that supply them in just two to four weeks.2Black raspberry also showed powerful benefits in preserving intestinal tissue in models of ulcerative colitis.3 Capsaicin, found in hot peppers, combined with diindolylmethane (DIM) in kale and other cruciferous vegetables, has powerful anticancer properties.4
I also see these benefits firsthand in my practice. Cranberries—ideally unsweetened—effectively prevent H. pylori and urinary tract infections (UTIs) by discouraging adhesion of bacteria to the bladder or gut wall5 and they reduce recurrent infection almost as effectively as antibiotics.6 When I’ve given cranberry juice or extract in pill form to children suffering from chronic UTIs—including those with chronic illness requiring catheterization—they’ve no longer required frequent rounds of antibiotics for prevention or treatment. After reading a compelling study that beet juice boosts physical performance,7 I began to recommend one to two cups daily of freshly juiced beets to fatigued teens struggling to recover from severe illnesses—and not just the teens but their families and teachers indeed noticed a big difference in areas like school attendance, homework completion, and return to sports.
Garlic has been used as an antimicrobial for everything from impetigo, staph, clostridia, pseudomonas, and other chronic or resistant infections. It helps to dissolve biofilm, a slimy substance secreted by bacteria trying to evade antibiotics or our immune systems. Garlic is effective alone or as an adjunct with antibiotics.8 Scientists were amazed when a thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon “Eye Salve” recipe—made from garlic, onions or leeks, wine, and oxbile—decimated MRSA, a superbug resistant to our most powerful antibiotics.9 Hearty doses of chopped fresh garlic mixed with pastured butter, ghee, or olive oil, spread on sourdough bread or steamed veggies, act as an effective treatment for severe sore throats. Even picky kids find it helps to relieve their symptoms.
Elderberries prevent proliferation of different strains of influenza virus.10 Every season, I hear from parents that my patients on regular elderberry were the “lucky ones” in their family to avoid flu. I’ve seen it with my own family: the elderberry bushes we planted as part of my “food forest” now provide a bumper crop of elderberries each summer from which I make syrup. When my children drink a teaspoon every day—more frequently at the first signs of sickness—our winter is free of the illnesses everyone else gets. They ask for homemade elderberry syrup—with added star anise and cinnamon—because it’s delicious. But it also makes them feel better. It also happens to deactivate bronchial viruses and act against methicillin-resistant staph aureus (MRSA),11 reduce inflammation in the brain,12 and improve mood.13
Fruits and vegetables aren’t just medicine for when you’re sick. Plants help maintain balance in the body, with benefits that are ongoing and cumulative. Eating plants regularly balances your gastrointestinal, endocrine, immune, and neurological terrain so that you don’t become acutely or chronically sick. Their phytonutrients and other components kick up our immune function while simultaneously absorbing inflammation and free radicals created by the immune response.
Though most of us make cancer cells occasionally, healthy immune systems eliminate them before they proliferate. Studies show that alliums such as garlic, onions, and leeks,14 cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage and kale,15and berries,16,17—just to name a few—reduce our risk of developing many conditions including cancer. We often can’t easily detect why a child’s immune and detoxification systems go awry, as both genetics and “invisible” exposures also play roles—with or without healthy food. But we can empower children’s immune systems simply by feeding them diverse, seasonal produce every day. This way, their terrain becomes considerably less hospitable to severe infection, unbridled inflammation, and cancer cell proliferation.
Eating diverse plants is the closest thing we have to a “magic bullet.” Your mission—should you choose to accept it—is to offer plants in all forms as the biggest part of your meals, starting today. Pay the farmer instead of the doctor.
PHYTONUTRIENTS
Like us, healthy plants benefit from some stressors. Phytonutrients are the immune system of plants; they increase a plant’s ability to survive and overcome hardships—insects, microorganisms, UV rays, drought, and nutrient deprivation. Why do the brightest, best apples grow at the top of the tree? They’re most stressed by UV radiation and predators, and produce copious phytonutrients to compensate. Phytonutrients provide flavor (the bite of the onion), fragrance (citrus), and vivid color (berries). When plants want to attract pollinators (humans included!), they present an appealing phytococktail of color, fragrance, and flavor. Phytonutrients can also repel predators by creating a bitter taste, rancid smell, or even unpleasant pheromone release. Contact with plants that have a healthy internal terrain enhances our own internal terrain.
Take Brussels sprouts. It turns out Grandma was right when she forced you to eat those green minicabbages. That’s because all brassicas—Brussels, cabbage, kale, collards, cauliflower, broccoli, and watercress, to name a few—contain a powerful phytocompound called sulforaphane, which powers up gene transcription factors like Nrf2 that act to protect our cells: they prevent brain, breast, ovarian, and testicular cancer;18,19,20,21 enhance learning and memory;22 aid in better recovery from concussions or brain injury;23,24 decrease inflammation;25,26,27,28 encourage better detoxification; and complete a nourished microbiome. A 2012 study reported that eating just a few grams of broccoli sprouts a day reduced insulin levels and insulin resistance within four weeks’ time.29 Sulforaphane can help shut down the neuroinflammatory response,30 which can target the neuroinflammation and microglial activation that exacerbate neurological disorders like seizures, migraines, tics, and ADHD.
Broccoli got another huge gold star when a 2014 Harvard study found that sulforaphane may effectively treat some physiological abnormalities in children with autism.31 All fruits and vegetables have phytochemicals that demonstrate not just one but many such benefits. When children eat their fruits and veggies, they change the present and future health of their bodies and brains.
Is My Produce Really Fresh?
If you’ve ever eaten fresh-picked fruits or vegetables, you know that they taste entirely different from what you buy from the store. The taste and texture reflect high amounts of phytonutrients and antioxidants that naturally preserve freshness, but begin to deplete the moment the produce is picked. Most store-bought produce was picked long ago, shipped from afar, stored in a warehouse, then placed on shelves in the grocery store for you to buy and eat. Most plants are bred to maintain good looks, but not to retain taste and fragrance.
Enhance your phytonutrient boost by buying fresh carrots and radishes with tops still attached (greens go bad long before most roots, which last for months), cauliflower with no brown spots, and cherries or apples with sturdy stems still on. If you buy from farmer’s markets (or grow your own), be prepared for a transformative produce experience!
Why Bitter Is Better
Most of us are drawn to sweet flavors in produce, which we’ve evolved to love. Sweet sends a message to our brain that says, “This food is calorie dense! Load up, so you’ll have energy to get through another day.” A bitter taste, on the other hand, alerts us to the possibility of poison. Yet bitter foods confer enormous health benefits.
Bitter receptors extend far beyond our mouths. They line the digestive tract—esophagus, stomach, intestines, liver, pancreas, and gallbladder—and even our nasal and respiratory tracts. When activated they stimulate the immune system to prevent infection (sugar receptors do the opposite). They’ve even been found in breast, testicular, and brain tissue.
An important way that plants benefit us is by stressing us. When cells in the body perceive bitter phytonutrients—which they interpret as potential poison—they kick into action, especially those in the immune system and detoxification machinery of the liver. The “kick” is an example of hormesis, a beneficial health effect that results from a low-dose exposure to an agent that may be toxic at higher doses. As discussed, our cells respond to teensy challenges—in this case bitter compounds, accompanied by antioxidants and dense nutrients—which prepare us for the many, truly nasty poisons that will inevitably come our way. Think of hormesis as a military drill. Eating most bitter plants primes the liver and other cells—especially our mitochondria—to jump into action in case of adversity. Then they are prepared to prevent accumulation and damage when real dangers like heavy metals, pesticides, plastics, and industrial chemicals come their way. Bitters improve the drainage of our basins and help maintain homeostasis on all levels, while simultaneously nourishing us with nutrients. This is a big deal.
When manufacturing industries are under fire for causing toxic exposure, they like to throw around hormesis as a last-ditch argument against taking responsibility: We didn’t poison your children with lead; we’re actually helping them! Please don’t fall for that. Every person has a different threshold between hormesis and being poisoned. Heavy metals and industrial waste are toxic.
The importance of bitters, however, has been recognized for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda. Bitters stimulate the T2R receptor, which in turn impacts every organ system in the body. As usual, everything begins in the gut. Bitters promote gastrointestinal balance from motility to digestion to absorption to immunity.
The skins and peels of fruits and vegetables tend to hold the highest concentration of bitter elements, so we’re often throwing away the most concentrated areas of these phytonutrients! Dried orange peel, for instance, is a bitter that modulates hunger,32 improves digestion and absorption of nutrients, and speeds up the metabolism.33 It reduces gas, heartburn, and burping, relieves nausea, and promotes normal liver function. Bitters are also known to regulate appetite both for those who eat too much or too little.
Bitter compounds have powerful metabolic function in the body, affecting fat storage,34 insulin release,35 blood sugar levels, and wound healing, even in diabetics.36 In my practice, I’ve used bitter melon as an adjunct treatment for children with types 1 or 2 diabetes. The result? Their blood glucose levels and need for insulin dropped noticeably.37
All bitters increase the gut’s nonspecific immune system response, which prevents gastrointestinal infections.38 The immunity extends beyond the gut; nasal fluids that contain bitter compounds protect us from infection in the sinuses, while nasal fluids higher in sugar content (as in diabetics) actually suppress the important immune response in the ear, nose, and throat, which can lead to more colds, coughs, and sore throats. Bitter receptors that line our nasal passageways and respiratory tracts powerfully stimulate our immune system, which dissolves phlegm, reduces coughs, and alleviates asthma.39 In my practice, many children who had asthma unresponsive to medications improved only after they incorporated bitters—culinary and medicinal—into their regimen. Eating bitter is like insurance against infections for your family.
Avoid too much sweet and add some bitter to your family’s regimen for better digestion, detoxification, and immune function. You might even say that a spoonful of bitter helps the sugar go down.
By introducing bitter (and reducing sweet) in the diet, your child can have
1. balanced appetite,
2. better digestion, including less reflux, burping, gas, and bloating with more regular bowel movements,
3. stronger immune response,
4. better absorption of nutrients due to increased release of stomach acid and bile, which improves protein breakdown and healthy fats,
5. reduced risk of food allergies due to better breakdown of proteins from stomach acid,
6. more balanced blood sugar levels by modulating insulin, helping to reduce inflammation and obesity, and
7. better detoxification.
And all this is just what we know so far in one category of plant compounds! What were we saying before about plants being the magic bullet?
Even so, you may be thinking, “Bitters? No way!” Allow me to introduce you to two very popular bitter plant tonics enjoyed by many—if not most—adults around the world: coffee and beer. The bitter compounds of coffee can confer impressive health benefits, reducing risk of conditions like Parkinson’s disease and type 2 diabetes.40,41 No, I’m not recommending that children drink coffee—though organic roasted dandelion root tea tastes somewhat similar and is truly wonderful for kids—just keep in mind that bitter is an acquired taste. Even whole-grain bread has a mildly bitter flavor (manufacturers add high-fructose corn syrup to disguise it), as do peels of apples and carrots. And for children, with their sensitive palates, a little can go a long way. Kids need less bitter flavor than adults to achieve the same physiological benefits. Taming bitter vegetables so they’re appealing to your family can be as simple as cooking them with a little fat, salt, and some umami. More on that in Chapter 15.
MORE FRUIT, LESS FRUIT, OR NO FRUIT?
Most people take for granted that fruit is healthy and, for the most part, it is. For a healthy child, some organic fruit in the diet is ideal. Fruits that are smaller and naturally less sweet (i.e., crabapples, currants) tend to be higher in phytonutrients, because a plant that budgets energy toward making carbohydrates has less to “spend” on producing phytonutrients. Wild fruit is inherently higher in phytonutrients than their grocery store cousins, because no one is looking out for their well-being—pulling off bugs, spraying them with herbicides and pesticides, or fencing out deer.
Don’t give your children fruit-flavored products because they usually have lots of sugar without the benefits of the real plant. The food industry has surmised that the word “fruit” means “healthy” to many parents and uses terms like “enriched fruit juice,” “sweetened applesauce,” “fruit leather,” and “fruit roll-ups” to sell essentially high-fructose corn syrup with artificial dye and fruit flavor thrown in.
Some diets demonize fruit as “sugar” and recommend avoiding it. On the one hand, it is nonsense to equate eating fruit with consuming high-fructose corn syrup or processed sugar. Isolated chemical structures can be similar, but neither food nor children are just a bundle of isolated chemical structures! Fruit contains vitamins, minerals, insulin-stabilizing fiber, and powerful phytonutrients. Extracting and using only the fructose removes those healthy benefits. On the other hand, fruit becomes a problem when children consume vast quantities to feed their sweet tooth, to the exclusion of vegetables and other foods. Such craving can both reflect and feed dysregulated gut flora.
NOTE: Some phenol-sensitive children have sulfur-related polymorphisms that can trigger symptoms in response to fruit’s colorful phytonutrients. Remember that phytonutrients can act as tiny poisons. Some children simply don’t yet have the reserve and resilience to come back stronger. These children can present with symptoms that include frequent red ears and cheeks, hyperactivity or tantrums, bloated belly or loose stool, dark circles under the eyes, headaches, difficulty falling/staying asleep at night—which can crop up immediately after having certain fruits. These include but are not limited to reds and purples (including tomato—yes, it’s a fruit!). If you recognize these symptoms in your child, stick with pears, mangoes, papayas, and pineapples for one month and look for improvement.
Juice Is Not Fruit
Fresh juice can pack a punch of produce all in one go. By fresh, I mean juicing whole fruits or veggies with a juicer and promptly drinking it—right away or within 24 hours if it’s well sealed and refrigerated. Most people, however, aren’t drinking juice that’s fresh. Once juice has been pasteurized or stabilized to sit indefinitely on a shelf in a container at room temperature, the benefits decrease significantly.
Almost all “fresh-squeezed” orange juice has undergone a deoxygenation process to “maintain freshness.” Your fresh OJ can sit in storage for more than a year before you buy it (losing much of its inherent nutrition—especially vitamin C—in the process)! To add back flavor, fragrance, and appeal, manufacturers add extracts from pesticide-laden orange peels, “natural flavorings,” and GMO-derived enzymes that break down nutrient-dense pulp. The frozen juice concentrate so popular in the 1970s actually contains more phytonutrients than the big-name so-called fresh-squeezed OJ of today. And if you want to “drink” apples as a treat, very cloudy, unfiltered cider contains four times the nutrients of commercial apple juice—just stick with organic.
Remember how “no sugar added” juices can have undeclared fruit sugar added? Well, even if you juice yourself, it takes many fruits (four to five apples) to make one cup of juice. The high natural sugars in fruits mean even the freshest fruit juice should be a treat rather than a many-times-a-day beverage.
In general, unless you juiced it yourself, watched it be juiced, or know the people who juiced it: AVOID IT.
This leads me to . . . My “Food How-Tos.” Here’s a simple guide to enjoying fruits and vegetables to get the most benefit from them:
1. Use all parts of plants, from root to leaves to flowers, flesh to seeds.
Different parts of plants are optimally nutritious at different points in the season. Early in the season, sprouts are tremendously nutrient-dense and are a great way to get a powerful punch of nutrients in a small package. Leaves or stems tend to be most nutritious during the spring, before the plant flowers. When the flowers blossom, the plant focuses on producing a delightful flower—making it most nutritious. The flowers from arugula plants taste deliciously peppery and a touch bitter, just like arugula—same with those of broccoli, mint, ginger, and other flowers that you might not have thought you could eat. As the season continues, ripe fruits and vegetables are the most nutritious, followed by edible seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, squash) as the plant goes to seed, which are wildly nutrient-dense and tasty. Edible roots—potatoes, carrots, parsnips, beets, for example—are most nutritious in the autumn/winter, when the plant is storing nutrients to survive the cold weather.
2. Eat fruit, with a side of peel.
The peel tends to be the most nutritious and gorgeous part of our produce—apples are rosy red or golden, nectarines a blushing pink, and grapes a deep purple or vibrant green. The color comes from being “sun-kissed,” which means that UV radiation from the sun stressed the fruit enough to boost colorful phytonutrients. Birds know that fruit at the top of the tree is far more nutrient-dense than lower-hanging fruit. The slightly bitter taste of the peel means that it’s doing a body good, in many cases even more so than the flesh of the fruit. I leave stripes of peel intact if I peel a carrot. You can add organic lemon or orange zest to veggies, fruit dishes, soups, smoothies, and desserts to enhance flavor and nutrient content.
3. When it comes to fruit, bigger is not always better.
Hybridization created bigger fruit with fewer phytonutrients. Almost every modern fruit started out as a smaller breed with more phytonutrients. It makes sense—the energy a plant has is finite. Plants that budget less energy to grow have more energy to produce phytonutrients. Apricots have more phytonutrients than peaches or nectarines. Crabapples have many times higher nutrients than regular apples; currants have more than raisins. Even smaller cherries and grapes have higher nutrient content, which also often means more intense flavor.
4. Choose an array of fruits and vegetables, including the “ugly” ones.
Eat an array of the most fragrant, brightest, and freshest-looking produce. Sometimes the nose knows better than our eyes how to detect hybrids bred to look nice but taste bland. Take a chance on the “uglier” options, too; especially produce with mouth-watering aromas. Rougher, green, or even brown-skinned fruits of heirloom varieties may be far more delicious than the more common commercial options. Don’t always look for the perfect specimen, either. While wilted produce connotes spoilage, imperfect apples sporting a little bug hole or bruise may have undergone more stress and therefore actually may have a higher phytonutrient count—and more unique flavor—as a result of mounting a “pest defense.” By eating an array of produce choices, you’re getting tens of thousands of biodiverse phytonutrients.
5. Go wild for wild.
Wild plants have grit—they have to look out for themselves and produce their own kick-ass defense system. From stray dandelions to surprise apple/pear/plum trees, less hybridized plants hold a treasure trove of flavor and nutrition. Many wild foods enhance liver cell function and promote detoxification of the very toxins kids’ bodies need to flush—including pesticides like Roundup and atrazine, endocrine-disrupting plastic chemicals like BPA, and industrial contaminants like carbon tetrachloride.42 You can forage these goods yourselves (many kids adore that—just avoid pesticide-laden areas such as those bordering conventional agriculture fields or golf courses), or find them at a farmer’s market, which is a great place to find prized foraged foods. At our market in New York, we get seasonal feasts of fiddlehead ferns, morels and chanterelles, garlic ramps, and lion’s mane mushrooms. Yum!
When we consume plants like dandelion, burdock, yellow dock, goldenrod, elderberry, barberry, and even wild radish, we derive not only nutrients but physiological protection. And wild food doesn’t have to mean exotic: A cup of pine needle/bark tea is an exceptional source of vitamin C (five times that of a lemon and ten times that of orange juice!), vitamin A, and many other phytonutrients that boost your immune system and protect against disease. In fact, white pine needles are a source of shikimic acid, the compound used in the conventional flu treatment Tamiflu. (Avoid consuming yew, Norfolk Island, or Ponderosas, however, as these can be toxic.) Wild blueberries have been shown to boost cognition and memory, and they generally promote optimal health—even as juice (when 100 percent juice). You can make jams, syrups, and preserves using natural sugars to enjoy these concentrated phytonutrients long after harvest.
6. Enjoy fruits and vegetables in season.
Buy or pick in season whenever possible. Out of season, root vegetables, winter squash, apples, and pears maintain their nutrients for longer than other produce. You can store them in cold cellars, attics, garages, or your refrigerator. Freeze or dehydrate produce that doesn’t store well, or preserve them by pickling, fermenting, or making jams or sauces.
THE REAL DIRT ON EATING ORGANIC
USDA Organic is one of the few meaningful certifications on labels today. It exists because many people do not want to expose themselves and their families to synthetic pesticides and chemicals. Children’s rapidly developing nervous systems are particularly vulnerable to pesticides. A study of more than a thousand U.S. children showed that those with higher organophosphate pesticide traces in their urine were twice as likely to have an ADHD diagnosis as those with lower levels.43 A meta-analysis of several studies concluded that exposure to pesticides around the time of birth (in or out of the womb) disrupts the baby’s thyroid and neurotransmitter function and is associated with ADHD and autism spectrum disorder.44 Many pesticides are also endocrine disruptors that elicit premature puberty, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), miscarriages, or infertility; hypo- or hyperthyroidism; obesity or growth delay; as well as neurodevelopmental problems.45
Pesticide exposure may be contributing to a “silent pandemic” of developmental neurotoxicity46 by crippling mitochondria and reducing liver enzyme activity necessary for detoxification.47 These chemicals affect different people differently, depending on genes, epigenetics, and previous exposures. The problem is that we don’t know how much pesticide exposure will push a given child past his or her tipping point.
A growing body of research shows that pesticides affect children before they’re even born. In a study of eight hundred women with prenatal exposure to common organochlorine pesticides like DDE or PCBs, their children, ages zero to eight, had a significant increase in the occurrence of ADHD, depending on pesticide exposure and amount.48 Prenatal pesticide exposure increases the risk for neurological problems including autism spectrum disorder by 24 months.49 Even when exposed mothers had no apparent adverse health effects from exposure, their children’s development was adversely affected in long-lasting ways.
Pesticide exposure during childhood affects children’s health as well, and it has been linked to obesity, asthma, cancer, the increasing incidence of food allergies,50,51,52 and delayed or abnormal development. The famous Guillette study showed that the children exposed to pesticides in a Mexican community demonstrated significant developmental delays that nonexposed children didn’t.53
Does eating organic make a difference? Children who eat conventionally grown food excrete higher levels of organophosphate pesticide metabolites than those who eat organic foods,54 metabolites associated with a six-times higher risk of ADHD.55 The good news is that those metabolites drop within days of switching to an organic diet.56,57 Whatever has happened before today, changes that you make right now can affect your children’s health from this moment forward.
FARMING, THEN AND NOW: WHY LEAD AND ARSENIC ARE IN FOOD
For most of human history, farming was more sustainable than it is today. Our ancestors rotated selections of crops (instead of season after season of a single crop) and occasionally allowed land to remain fallow, which naturally discouraged pests, kept the soil nutrient-rich, and also preserved its health. For pests, families developed their own remedies of black walnut hulls, tobacco, or lye. They knew that the real defense mechanism of crops was in healthy soil, facilitated by compost and plant clippings.
The driving force behind new “technologies” in pesticides conveniently came from industries that were no longer permitted to dump their toxic waste in rivers and lakes. They saw farmland as a receptacle of hundreds of thousands of acres. Industry figured that by convincing farmers to buy toxic waste as a “product,” it could reduce illegal dumping and make a profit to boot. Companies advertised in agricultural journals, remaking lead and arsenic into pesticides like Paris Green and London Purple (both pigments used in paints and fabric dyes), touted as the latest and best in fighting mold and insects.
Many farmers, experts, doctors, and the population at large were reluctant, as they already knew that these substances were toxic and could accumulate in the soil and in animals and people.58 Even in the nineteenth century, toxicologists warned the USDA and Bureau of Chemistry that arsenic would cause health problems. The Bureau, fearful of political repercussions, meekly asked farmers to spray less. But there was no going back, because pests had become resistant as quickly as farmers ramped up pesticides.
Fast forward a few decades’ worth of events: physicians detected clear cases of arsenic poisoning in people throughout the United States; the British embargoed American fruit because of high arsenic levels; and an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association linked cases of pediatric eczema to arsenic in breast milk (in the 1930s!). Yet the U.S. government and industry insisted all the while that use of these poisons was safe.
When arsenic no longer had any effect on newly resistant pests, producers added lead, which helped the arsenic stick better to leaves. Lead arsenate is a particularly dangerous poison for children.59 By the 1950s, the arsenic and lead combo predictably had become utterly ineffective against pests, and was mostly (though not entirely) retired as a pesticide. Something new and sinister was available: DDT.
Thanks to a surplus of nerve gas after World War II and a great advertising campaign designed by Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), nerve poisons like organochlorines and organophosphates used in warfare were reconfigured as pesticides. These wreaked havoc on plant, animal, and human health. After decades of damage, Rachel Carson’s 1969 book Silent Spring, which described the devastation caused by DDT on birds, butterflies, amphibians, and beneficial insects, helped end the use of DDT in the United States. But close behind was yet another wartime chemical, 2,4-D, aka Agent Orange, used to kill huge swaths of Vietnam jungle and, in the process, poison half a million U.S. serviceman and a generation of Vietnamese people. Roundup (glyphosate) was next in line—more on that in Chapter 9 when we discuss genetically modified organisms. In October 2014, the U.S. EPA approved adding the pesticide Agent Orange to Roundup on non-organic crops that we will feed our children. Unfortunately, industry and government have historically colluded to minimize and—when possible—conceal the impact of pesticides on public health rather than protect individuals. And so these poisons continue to be used extensively in our food supply.
When you read headlines like “Arsenic in Apple Juice: How Much Is Too Much?” or “Rice Linked to Arsenic Poisoning” (and more alarmingly, “More Than Half of Popular Rice Cereals Exceed Limits for Arsenic”60), you are witnessing the result of our country’s past reliance on arsenic-based pesticides. Though some arsenic formation occurs naturally and can contaminate groundwater, inorganic arsenic didn’t just happen to be in our soil. It’s there because we put it on our crops! And that’s how much of it got into our drinking water, too. Even California, which has some of the strictest regulations for pesticide use, still uses hundreds of thousands of pounds of arsenic in agriculture every year. It’s used also for cottonseed, which is not regulated as a food, even though 80 percent of it is fed to dairy cows (and occasionally to us in the form of cottonseed oil). Yikes.
Testing by numerous reputable sources has shown that certain apple juice and rice products—including cereal bars, rice pasta, and organic nondairy baby formula—have arsenic levels far exceeding the “safe level” set by the EPA.61 Further, the amount of inorganic arsenic in rice according to 2013 FDA data was significantly higher than in 2012. Regular exposure to even small amounts of arsenic can increase the risk of bladder, lung, and skin cancer, as well as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. A baby exposed to arsenic in utero may have a compromised immune system. Yet there’s still no federal limit for arsenic in rice and rice products.62
TIP
Systemic pesticide administration, a common process by which pesticides are injected into the plant, means that a careful washing of our food is not an effective way to eliminate our exposure. Buying or growing food organically or biodynamically offers the safest and most optimal choice.
While reducing toxin exposure is benefit enough, growing data also show that organic produce is more nutrient-dense. Studies not funded by industry (or its front men) show that organically raised vegetables develop much higher levels of vitamin C, antioxidants, carotenoids, and polyphenols.63,64 Not surprisingly, these plants are also better at surviving stressful conditions like drought. Phytonutrients at your service!
Plants grown organically are healthier, and enable us to be healthier.
FERTILIZERS: A FORMULA FOR NUTRIENT DEPLETION
For the past 70 years, the most widely used chemical fertilizers have been made from a simplistic, man-made combination of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. During that time, chronic disease has increased. Some scientists see a connection. The late, great soil scientist Dr. William Albrecht conducted studies on this topic for almost 50 years: he demonstrated that chemical fertilizers create nutrient imbalances in soil and increase growing plants’ vulnerability to attack. He noted that a less fertile soil also results in malnutrition and health problems in animal and human populations. Sound familiar? Albrecht also correlated soil infertility with tooth decay (people in areas with better soil fertility have less tooth decay) and fitness for the army (men from areas with the worst soil fertility were more often found physically unfit to serve).
Albrecht noted that red clover, often used in feed for animals, is a magnesium-rich plant. Yet as soil fertility—and as a result, soil magnesium levels—dropped, red clover became increasingly difficult to grow and thus increasingly expensive. Chemical fertilizers decrease magnesium in plants by flooding soil with potassium, which competes with magnesium uptake. As plants have become magnesium-deficient, so, too, have animals who eat those plants. And in turn, so have we.
Magnesium is a critical nutrient for neurological and overall health, yet many of us suffer from symptoms of magnesium deficiency. Normally, it acts as a neurorelaxant, calming the brain from overstimulation of excitatory neurotransmitter function of glutamate. Children who are deficient can suffer from constipation, asthma, anxiety, ADHD, migraines, tics, and seizures. Adults can have similar symptoms, as well as hypertension, muscle cramps, and preterm contractions during pregnancy. In many cases, administering a daily magnesium glycinate or threonate supplement in sufficient quantity (up to 400 mg) can ameliorate symptoms relatively promptly. But synthetic vitamin supplementation, taken from somewhere else that needs its minerals, is not a sustainable answer in the long run. Ultimately, we should be getting this and other minerals from the plants and animals living off our own rich soil that we nourish by giving back to it.
The complex minerals we need come from rocks—yes, rocks—that release potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and many other necessary elements for our metabolism. Healthy plants obtain minerals from rocks with the help of mycorrhizae by secreting mild acids and enzymes that extract nutrients from rock particles, atom by atom. And a healthy ecosystem holds on to these minerals, recycling them. Falling leaves or dying plants in a forest ecosystem, for example, recycle 98 percent of calcium and magnesium again and again. In contrast, chemically fertilized land retains only about 40 to 50 percent annually.
We need to reject this outdated, harmful, and simplistic practice of chemically fertilizing our soil. Composting is a better option, which creates complex, nutrient-dense fertilizer from waste that nourishes soil. This, in turn, liberates precious minerals and organic waste that would otherwise sit forever in plastic bags in landfills. Win-win.
Synthetic Nitrogen Degrades Soil, Water, and Plants
• Degraded soil lacks nutrients that make food nutritious.
• Plants in poor soil have weak root systems, are vulnerable to drought and disease, and require increased irrigation and application of pesticides.
• Increased erosion promotes rapid runoff into our water supply, causing surface algae bloom that results in dead zones where no aquatic life can survive.
• Nitrates from fertilizers cause tumors in laboratory animals and are linked to reproductive problems, urinary and kidney disorders, and bladder and ovarian cancer.
• Nitrates in drinking water used for infant formula can cause potentially fatal blue-baby syndrome.
• Nitrates contribute to smog, greenhouse gases, and acid rain, while destroying protective ozone.
Changing your child’s food can change your child’s health. Ultimately, eating organically guarantees that you’re reducing your exposure to food and animals grown with pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, irradiation, GMO, hormones, sewage sludge, and antibiotics. That’s serious benefit! To ensure you’re feeding your family the best possible produce, keep the following in mind:
GUIDE TO BUYING QUALITY FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
1. Eat fresh. The sooner you consume just-picked produce, the more phytonutrients you get—which means superior texture, taste, and health benefit.
2. Eat organic and biodynamic whenever possible. Buying organic food is healthier and supports organic growers, which minimizes the impact of pesticides that affect your family and children everywhere. Biodynamic has even higher standards than organic and specifically nourishes soil in ways that nourish us.
3. Eat diverse plants. We’re learning that no food is 100 percent “toxin-free”—especially because plants act to clean the soil by internalizing toxins like arsenic, lead, or thallium. But this need not cause despair. The healthier the soil—replete with microorganisms and nutrients—the lower in toxins the plants will be. Eating diverse plants is key, both for the full array of nutrients that support effective detoxification and for a lower exposure to any unwanted compound as well. Well-nourished bodies are effective at detoxifying.
4. Avoid the “Dirty Dozen Plus.” If you can’t afford to buy all organic or don’t have access to a variety of organic produce, at least you can avoid what the Environmental Working Group has dubbed the “Dirty Dozen Plus,” conventional foods that consistently test high for pesticide residue. Their list currently includes:65
Apples
Strawberries
Grapes
Celery
Peaches
Spinach
Sweet bell peppers
Cucumbers
Cherry tomatoes
Snap peas (imported)
Potatoes
Hot peppers
Kale/collard greens
Conversely, you could buy the “Clean Fifteen,” the conventionally raised fruits and vegetables that test lowest for pesticide residue. Check the Environmental Working Group’s website for the most recent list:66
Avocados
Sweet corn
Pineapples
Cabbage
Sweet peas (frozen)
Onions
Asparagus
Mangoes
Kiwi
Eggplant
Grapefruit
Cantaloupe
Cauliflower
Sweet potatoes
5. Support local farmers who grow organically and who care about soil. By supporting these farmers through farmer’s markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), or buying directly from them, you are investing in small-scale agriculture that allows for careful farming from soil to seed to plant to plate. Farmers who use biodynamic or permaculture methods see themselves as custodians of soil. Let your conventionally growing farmers know that minimizing pesticide application is important to you and that they will have your support as they shift their practices. And consider growing some food yourself, even fresh herbs in a sunny corner of an apartment.
Pickle Me! Fermenting for a Healthy Microbiome
Fermenting foods at peak season means you can enjoy them long after harvest time while also boosting your gut, immune system, and brain. Cabbage, cucumbers, and even watermelon rind taste delicious after sitting submerged in brine for six weeks. I pickle organic Meyer lemons in sea salt and their own juice; the rind is a tangy addition to meat and veggie dishes. Pickled veggies are easy to make from scratch with pickling salt and spices. Try it! If you’re intimidated by the process, get your feet wet this way: Save brine from your jar of full sour pickles, then add cut-up kohlrabi, beets, turnips, or carrots, keeping veggies fully submerged. Let the jar sit on the counter with the lid loosely on for up to a week. Bubbles mean fermenting bacteria have shown up. Store them in the fridge and enjoy for a week or two. Be warned, they’ll go fast!!
TAKE HOME
1. Eat all parts of plants, from seeds and sprouts to stems, leaves, flowers, and fruit. Eat all colors—make a rainbow on your plate. In rare instances, certain parts of edible plants, like rhubarb leaves, are not safe for consumption. Double-check for safety before you experiment too wildly.
2. Buy food seasonally, preferably locally. The sooner you eat food from when it’s harvested, the higher the phytonutrient content. Get your fix out of season by eating preserved forms: jams; flash-frozen products; and pickled, dehydrated, or dried options. DIY options are higher in phytonutrients than what you can buy from the supermarket.
3. Look for organic and especially biodynamic, permaculture, or “beyond organic” produce, grown by farmers who cultivate superior soil. Flavor, aroma, and nutritional content will be superior as a result. For more information on biodynamic growing: http://www.demeter-usa.org
4. Avoid power-washed vegetables, though it’s fine to rinse your veggies before eating. Just keep in mind that a teeny film of soil and the microbes therein are good for you.
5. Shop at farmer’s markets. Join a CSA or a community garden. Grow your own food and swap with other people who grow their own.
6. Forage. Wild foods are free and delicious, and kids love gathering and eating them. Learn how to identify what you’re looking for and avoid foraging in heavily sprayed or toxic areas.