The
week before last we spoke briefly about changing public attitudes in the
US to 'Big Food' - what might more commonly be called 'junk food'. The
US governments IRS (Internal Revenue Service) recent decision to enable
tax deductions to be made by individuals on monies spend by them in
trying to fight personal weight/obesity problems indicates that the
'fight against fat' may now become the next major fight in the US health
arena. 'Big Food' is not so influential in most areas of Europe as it is
in the US, but this forthcoming struggle may spread to Europe in the
same way as the changing attitude to tobacco did in the 1990s.
But
what are the alternatives available in our 'modern' world to this 'junk
food'? Most anthropologists who have worked with isolated, small-scale,
traditional societies that are still based in their traditional
territories (i.e., not pushed aside into inhospitable, drought-stricken,
poor land by encroaching 'civilization') would probably note, if pushed,
that their diets were possibly healthier than many peoples living in,
say, Europe or the US. We all know that our parents - and doctors - have
been telling us for years that we should all eat more greens, more leafy
vegetables and more fresh food. Will we all be healthier if we do that?
Well, we should, but in fact such may not necessarily be the case: it
all depends where we get them. Periodic reports surface that unless one
purchases organically raised vegetables maybe we are getting more than
we bargained for, and then these reports are quickly forgotten. They
should not be. Almost all vegetables purchased in modern shops, unless
they are specifically stated to be grown organically, have been raised
with the assistance of artificial fertilizers and sprays. We all know
that we should wash such vegetables to get rid of possible spray
residues - and most of us should know that some residues are rather
difficult to get rid of. But for some of these crops, no amount of
washing may get rid of certain possible unwanted 'additives', as the
latter may be in the plant itself.
The
last few months have seen a rather shocking airing of certain rather
scandalous aspects of agriculture in the US and Australia and leads one
to think that the practices may not be restricted to these two nations
(am I putting this carefully enough?). Plants take their nutrients from
the soil (and air and surface and rainwater): what if the soil they grow
in is not good enough? Our modern system has an answer for that: nourish
the soil with fertilizer and you will get better crops. That is fine if
the fertilizer is good, normal traditional manure ('pure shit'), etc,
but what if there is something a little bit 'off' with these extra
nutrients that are given? Well (and rumours have been circulating about
this kind of stuff for decades), it seems that the latter may be the
case in some very modern parts of the world. One can actually say, if
you will excuse me, that 'the shit is finally hitting the fan'. Look at
this quote that begins the review (published in the April 2002 issue of
'The Ecologist') of author Duff Wilson's excellent recent book "Fateful
Harvest: the True Story of a Small Town, a Global Industry and a Toxic
Secret" (Harper Collins 2001, ISBN 0060193697):
"One
might imagine that disguising highly toxic industrial waste as
fertilizer and selling it to unsuspecting farmers would be a serious
criminal offence, but in the US it has instead been a rather profitable
industry. As a result, millions of Americans have been consuming food
adulterated with a cocktail of cancer-causing substances for a
generation, while big business has pushed up profit levels by avoiding
landfill charges".
Here
I am not necessarily talking about the bags of properly-produced
fertilizer that one can get from accredited garden shops, but about
certain types of 'fertilizer' produced on a vast scale and used also on
a vast scale in certain areas of the US and - as we shall see - in
Australia as well. The point is that some of it is not fertilizer at
all, but industrial waste. This 'extraordinary tale of corporate greed'
was begun by Patty Martin, elected mayor of a small farming town in the
northwest US in 1993. She began an investigation of unexplained crop
failures and strange land deals in the area, but came under fire from
'big business'. This produced exactly the opposite effect hoped for by
the latter: she turned her information over to investigative journalist
Duff Wilson, whose subsequent research and series of blistering articles
in 'The Seattle Times' brought the massive scandal to public attention.
Certain industrial refineries face a serious waste product disposal
problem: thousands of tons of industrial waste that needs to be
deposited in landfills away from the public. This disposal costs money,
and landfill costs in the US have risen 10-fold in the last decade.
However - and as the public in Australia are only beginning to realize -
there may be certain loopholes in the law, and it seems that some
companies have been only too quick to exploit them. Wilson (in the US)
discovered how some big industries avoided landfill charges by
'changing' 120 million pounds of industrial waste into fertilizer each
year, not by modifying the waste but, it seems, just by arranging to
have it 're-classified' and, sometimes, even going so far as to pay
certain fertilizer companies to use their waste.
Doesn't it make you wonder why, for example, cancer rates in the
'modern' world never really seem to decrease (leaving aside the 'spin'
publicity that may say the contrary) in spite of the vast sums spent in
cancer research? This is just an example, and I am not necessarily
making any connection here, just trying to point out that if governments
want healthy people it is important to ensure that their food is grown
in a healthy way. And it does look as if, in the rush for 'more food at
cheaper prices', certain segments of the population may actually be
getting 'fresh food that packs a little extra punch'.
It
may have been Wilson's book that led journalists of Australia's
prestigious 'Sydney Morning Herald' to begin investigating similar
occurrences in Australia, resulting in the publication of a series of
shocking revelations last month. In the early 1990s, the Western
Australian Agricultural Department began a series of experiments that
would 'stop unwanted phosphorus from entering waterways' by asking
farmers to use a reddish, earthy, substance on their soils - and at a
cost to the farmers of only 50 cents a tonne. Interestingly enough, the
project was co-funded by the (Western Australian) Alcoa aluminium
refinery, and the reddish substance was actually industrial waste from
that refinery. Although the waste had a certain amount of fertilizing
potential, it also contained amounts of potentially dangerous chemicals.
I should point out here that it was not sprinkled in small amounts on a
few garden plants, but amounts varying from 20 to 200 tons per hectare
were used. By 1994 some local farmers were said to have noted an
increase in cattle illnesses and other phenomena. Upon examination, the
'reddish substance' (at 20 tons/hectare) was found to typically contain
30 kilos of radioactive thorium, 6 kilos of chromium, two kilos of
barium and one kilo of uranium (plus 24 kilos of fluoride, more than
half a kilo each of arsenic, copper, zinc and cobalt plus smaller
amounts of lead, cadmium and beryllium). Some of these substances are
natural in soils - but maybe not in this combination nor in these
quantities. The farmers were beginning to get worried, and examined
water run-off from these areas, finding elevated levels of mercury,
selenium, copper and lead in water running off these fields. This was
easily explained away by the western Australian Agricultural Department
who told the farmers that someone had probably dumped a car battery
nearby (!). More and more farmers began to complain, but even the
Environmental Protection Agency seemed to support the project and in
1999 even wanted to organize the spread of another 360,000 tons of this
bauxite waste across the Swan coastal plains. A strange thing then
happened: the Alcoa Company said it would not release any more of the
waste 'unless it got indemnity from any environmental damage'. Well,
life is strange, and the Western Australian State Government granted
Alcoa this indemnity in September 1999. Alcoa were actually saving
themselves a lot of money by not having to put this material in
landfills elsewhere, but playing with words can do wonders: an Alcoa
spokesman said at this stage, "It costs us money to make this material
available, but we do that because we have been convinced by the science…
we think that due diligence has been done to make sure this is a safe
product to use". The spokesman did not, however, mention that in the
opinion of certain people 'many of the independent studies used to
rationalize the experiment were paid for by Alcoa'.
Never a dull day, eh? So do we really know what our food contains? Well,
if you are a traditional Ibicenco peasant growing all your own food, you
do. But if you are just an ordinary person living in an ordinary town in
an ordinary country in the 'modern' world, you don't (unless you buy
organic), even if you think you do.
Enough cheerful thoughts for the week. |