Text by Yves Gagnon - written in December 2016 but still very relevant today.
For the difference
On Sunday, November 27, when I heard Olivier Bernard, nicknamed the Pharmachien, vilify the basics of natural health without nuance or foundation, on Tout le monde en parle , I was deeply outraged. In front of guests and hosts of rare complacency, the pharmacist attacked with disconcerting arrogance green juices, turmeric, blueberries, black radishes, artichokes, antioxidants, homeopathy, Josée Blanchette, Daniel Pinard, and Richard Béliveau. He also attacked all those involved in organic food—producers, gardeners, teachers, therapists, nutritionists, retailers, and consumers—by gratuitously asserting that eating organic makes no difference! The problem with such claims is that they have a considerable impact on a poorly informed population that often looks for a reason not to make an effort or not to pay more. I therefore feel obliged to repeat once again the fundamental importance of organic food for health.
Brief flashback
It was during my 3-season stay in Western Canada in the late 1970s that I discovered that industrial apples were sprayed 25 times per season with various pesticides. Shocked by this sad reality, I then invested myself in the study and practice of organic farming. I devoured all the publications that dealt with this discipline. I understood, thanks to the book by the French agronomist Claude Aubert, Organic Farming - Why and How to Practice It , the natural processes of plant nutrition as well as the lure of chemical fertilization which relies on soluble fertilizers, directly assimilated by plants. "When we add a chemical nitrogen fertilizer, we artificially introduce nitrogen compounds into the biological cycles. (...) But this nitrogen is always a factor of imbalance: (...) imbalance in the plants which are forced to absorb significant quantities of directly assimilated nitric ions; This influx of ions leads to abnormally rapid development of the plant, which is undoubtedly spectacular, but leads to unbalanced plants that are abnormally sensitive to parasitism.
In a natural context, it is the bacteria of the rhizosphere that make mineral elements available and assimilable for plants. The French agronomist Dominique Soltner explains in his book The Bases of Plant Production - The Soil the fundamental role of microorganisms in plant nutrition and their mineral balance: "The plant stimulates, through the nature of its root excretions, the development of microbial strains capable of providing it with food that meets its current needs. (...) In return, the stimulated microbes attack the soil's nutrient reserves, both organic and mineral, through their enzymatic action, thus making them directly available to the root hairs." This close collaboration between soil microorganisms and growing plants guarantees their mineral balance, their nutritional value, and their superior flavor.
In organic farming, the soil and plants are mainly nourished by organic matter; here, buckwheat green manure and compost.
Since 1984, when I published Introduction to Organic Gardening , my first book on organic growing, I have been collecting and publishing objective information on the superior nutritional value of organic foods. This information can be found in Organic Farming for Small and Large Areas , Organic Vegetable Growing, and The Organic Garden . I have included some of the information here from The Daily Feast in the chapter Ten Reasons to Eat Organic .
Spinach and other leafy vegetables are most prone to high nitrite levels.
Various studies report high levels of carcinogenic nitrites in industrial foods, fertilized with massive doses of nitrates, which transform into nitrites after harvest. In his book Organic Farming - Why and How to Practice It , agricultural engineer Claude Aubert reported back in the 1980s that spinach fertilized with 160 kg of nitrogen per hectare - a common dose in industrial agriculture - contained, four days after harvest, nitrite levels 50 times higher than those observed in naturally grown spinach. (...)
Modern dietetics recognizes the importance of bioactive substances present in fruits and vegetables in preventing cancer and degenerative and cardiovascular diseases. These include lycopene, polyphenols, glucosinolates, anthocyanins, phytosterols, sulfides, and flavonoids, to name a few. However, numerous studies, notably reported by the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA), demonstrate that organic foods contain more of them. Claude Aubert cited in an article published in Les Quatre Saisons du jardinage entitled "Does eating organic protect against cancer?" a Danish study by Grinder-Petersen conducted in 2003, which reported that "with an otherwise strictly identical diet, the quantities of polyphenols absorbed and those present in urine were significantly higher when they ate organic than when they ate conventionally." Another Danish study found that organic vegetables contain more flavonoids, a powerful antioxidant 1 . Studies conducted by Dr. Henri Joyeux, professor of cancerology at the Montpellier Faculty of Medicine, indicate that organic tomatoes contain more vitamin C, beta-carotene, and protective lycopene. Finally, a study conducted by the University of California showed that organic kiwifruit had higher levels of polyphenols and vitamin C than non-organic kiwifruit 2 .
1 — Study conducted by the Danish Ministry of Food and the Royal Agricultural University.
Source: IFOAM 2003.
2 — AMODIO, Ml, COLELLI, G. et al, “A comparative study of composition and postharvest performance of organically and conventionally grown kiwifruits.” Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture . Health Passport. 2007.
And I'm not even talking here about the scandalous contamination of industrial foods by pesticide residues. According to the website www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty_dozen_list.php published by the American organization Environmental Working Group, strawberries, apples, nectarines, peaches, celery, grapes, cherries, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, chili peppers, kale, and collard greens were, in that order, the most contaminated industrial foods in November 2016. Another website www.whatsonmyfood.org published by the American organization Pesticide Action Network lists the pesticides detected by the most recent analyses of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for most vegetables and the main consequences of their consumption on human health.
Grapes, chili peppers, and apples are still on the Dirty Dozen list published by Pesticide Action Network.
Now, if the pharmacist doesn't see the difference between organic and conventional, let him make himself a green juice with apples, strawberries, celery, and kale: he'll be ingesting a cocktail that could contain up to 200 pesticides, according to figures from the Pesticide Action Network. On that score, I agree with him: better to drink Coke than green juice! A little Roundup with that?
And the joy in all this?
Before hearing the pharmacist utter his insanities, I thought I would share with you in this last Champs libres of 2016, the recipes for my Christmas meal, which this year has the theme "nothing like before." I actually suggested to my 87-year-old mother that we think outside the box and leave out for this year the smoked salmon mousse, my grandmother's burnt vegetable soup (149), the turkey, its stuffing, and the cranberry tart, all staples of the Christmas meal. So I will cook a chicken with yellow wine and mushrooms. To prepare it, I use the coq au vin recipe (236), in which I use yellow wine instead of red wine. I serve the dish with mashed potatoes and celeriac (178) and glazed carrots.
The numbers in parentheses correspond to the pages of The Daily Feast where the recipes are found.
To conclude, I leave you with some links that will allow you to view my work on stage with my colleagues Marc-Antoine Sauvé and Daniel Heikalo. Have a wonderful holiday season and see you next year!
The Reality of the Trees | Growing Old | Lo Ting
On the Jardins du Grand-Portage website, you can find his books . And now his youngest daughter, Catherine Gagnon-Mackey, is in charge of seed sales. You can view the catalog here !
And to take the thought a little further, here is the Québec Bio website concerning organic food and containing a wealth of information and resources.
Here is also the article from Vigilance OGM . The author also talks about glyphosate residues in our river water...
And finally, here is also the article that Jean-Yves Dionne wrote in response to a certain appearance on the TLMEP show mentioned above.
Happy reading!
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