5/26/10
BabyCenter News
BPA in cans poses health threat, report says
Tue, May 18, 2010 (HealthDay News) -- Bisphenol A (BPA), a common chemical used in the metal linings of some canned foods, poses a serious health threat to consumers and should be banned, a new report claims.
BPA is ubiquitous in plastic products, found in baby bottles and sippy cups, and it has come under scrutiny in recent years, with studies linking it to a host of health and developmental problems. This latest research looked at its presence in the metal linings of canned foods.
"We tested a wide variety of canned food products to determine whether BPA leeches from the can into the food," said report co-author, Mike Schade, the PVC campaign coordinator at the Center for Health, Environment & Justice in New York City.
Foods tested included fruits, vegetables, fish, beans, soups and tomatoes, according to the report, which was released Tuesday.
"We found BPA in 92 percent of the canned food that we tested," Schade said. "Potential exposure to BPA, not just from one can, but from meals you prepare over the course of a day with canned food, can actually expose consumers to potentially harmful levels of BPA."
So, if you prepare a meal with canned tomato, beans and fish, you may be exposing yourself to levels of BPA that have been shown in animal tests to cause health problems, Schade said.
A group representing the canned food industry took issue with the findings.
"We are extremely disappointed that in their zeal to educate consumers, the workgroup pursued a clear agenda. In doing so, it failed to provide readers with the full story on BPA in canned foods," Dr. John Rost, chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance Inc, said in a statement released Tuesday.
"BPA-based epoxy coatings in metal packaging provide real, important and measurable health benefits by reducing the potential for the serious and often deadly effects from food-borne illnesses. Although the science supports the continued safe use of epoxy coatings, the industry is actively pursuing alternatives to meet growing consumer demand brought on by reports like this. However, there is simply no drop-in alternative available for the widest spectrum of food and beverages. Without a thoroughly tested substitute, the report's recommendation to forgo canned goods sacrifices a technology that has prevented food-borne illnesses for more than 30 years," Rost stated.
Schade noted there are alternatives to BPA available and some companies are starting to replace it in their cans. For example, Eden Foods has been offering food in BPA-free cans for more than 10 years, he said.
Muir Glen, a subsidiary of General Mills, is planning to take BPA out of its canned tomato cans, Schade added.
Schade is also concerned that the substitutes for BPA are safe. "We are very concerned and interested in ensuring that any material that companies switch to doesn't pose any significant health hazard," he said.
There are other packaging options, including glass and non-toxic plastics, Schade said.
The goal of the report's writers is to get the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban BPA in food packaging. "From our perspective, BPA has no place in food packaging," Schade said.
In addition, Congress needs to act to reduce BPA exposure by banning BPA in food and drink containers. In fact, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), is proposing just such an amendment to the Food Safety Act currently being considered in Congress.
Schade noted that the ban is needed because BPA is in so many products that consumers are bound to buy products that contain the chemical.
"Unfortunately, we can't shop our way out of this problem, because BPA is widespread in many different consumer products and that's why we need Congress to take action to ban BPA," he said.
Dr. Sarah Janssen, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco, said that "in animal studies, exposure to BPA is associated with reproductive harm, alterations in behavior and brain development, increased risk of prostate and breast cancer, and an earlier onset of puberty."
And, she added, "The fact that BPA causes such a wide range of effects at low doses is really very concerning."
Laura N. Vandenberg, a postdoctoral fellow at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, said BPA is an estrogen-like hormone that can cause reproductive problems.
"BPA has been linked to so many different disease and dysfunctions that it's not safe," she said. "It's not safe in any aspect of that word."
While exposure to BPA from canned food is relatively low, "the problem is we don't know all sources of BPA," Vandenberg said. "So canned food is probably a major source, but it's now been found in air, dust, water and medical equipment. So we are being exposed from sources we don't even realize and things we can't control."
The FDA has decided to take another look at BPA, which it has continually maintained is safe for human consumption.
In January, the FDA and other U.S. health agencies pledged $30 million toward short- and long-term research aimed at clarifying the health effects of the chemical.
Report co-author Bobbi Chase Wilding, organizing director of Clean New York, said consumers can switch from canned foods to fresh and frozen foods.
"But consumers should also be reaching out to the manufacturers of the products they like and tell them that they want their cans to be free of BPA," she said.
-- Steven Reinberg
What you can do:
- Learn all about BPA and other controversial chemicals in plastics and how they may affect your child's health.
MORE HONEY!
5/25/10
HOW DO I KNOW IF THIS FOOD IS GOOD FOR ME?
Always, always check the ingredients of anything you buy in a package. Why? Because ingredients are what makes any food nutritious and good for you, or... nutrition-less, bad for you, unhealthy for your body. If you check the nutrition label, and forget to check the ingredients, you may well end up with stuff like Fruit Loops, Frosty Flakes and potato chips in your shopping cart, thinking all the while that you are buying the healthiest and best for yourself and your family just because the nutrition label looks so good and ''healthy''.
One day I passed by a McDonalds, and decided to go inside to ask for the food ingredients list. Not available. They only have ''nutrition facts''. If you want ingredients, you have to go online to find them. So I did. These are the ingredients for Chicken McNuggets, which kids love and many parents consider to be a pretty harmless food (Perdue Chicken Nuggets, by the way, are just about the same):
Chicken McNuggets®/Chicken Selects® Premium Breast Strips/Sauces
Chicken McNuggets®:
White boneless chicken, water, food starch-modified, salt, seasoning (autolyzed yeast extract, salt, wheat starch, natural flavoring (botanical source), safflower oil,
dextrose, citric acid, rosemary), sodium phosphates, seasoning (canola oil, mono- and diglycerides, extractives of rosemary). Battered and breaded with: water,
enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, food starch-modified, salt, leavening (baking
soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, whey, corn starch. Prepared in
vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.
TBHQ is short for butylhydroquinone: BUTANE. That is correct, lighter fluid.
Dimethylpolysiloxane is silicone. The stuff that spatulas and breast implants are made of.
Maybe it is worth checking our food label ingredients after all... because it is their quality and freshness that will give you health and life.
As for the nutrition facts, one thing is for sure: you will not be getting much health or nourishment from the butane, sylicone, hydrogenated oils, sodium acid pyrophosphate or dextrose... not to mention the antibiotics and growth hormones in the ''white boneless chicken''... only the best for growing children.
5/23/10
5/20/10
War On Tap: America's Obsession With Bottled Water
May 17, 2010 - TERRY GROSS, host:Heard on Fresh Air from WHYY
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.
When you're drinking bottled water, do you ever wonder where it comes from? Is it really from the spring that it's named after? Is it really just purified tap water from a municipal system? Is it worth lugging home gallons of bottled water when you can turn on the tap in your kitchen sink? My guest, Peter Gleick, has written a new book called "Bottled and Sold" that answers a lot of questions about bottled water and also describes some of the problems it's causing. Gleick says every second of every day in the U.S., 1,000 people buy and open a plastic bottle of commercially produced water and, every second of every day, 1,000 plastic bottles are thrown away. Bottled water may taste good, but Gleick says it's producing billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. He says Americans should be insisting that their municipal water systems are maintained and upgraded so that they can provide public tap water that is safe and tastes good. Gleick is a water expert who was named a MacArthur fellow in 2003. He's the co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, based in Oakland. Peter Gleick, welcome back to FRESH AIR. Most bottled water has such healthy-sounding names, like with springs and glaciers in the title. But the water isn't often - often isn't from a spring, or at least it isn't from the spring you'd think it was from. You give a few examples in your book, like Arctic Spring Water is actually from Lakeland, Florida. Glacier Mountain Natural Spring Water is actually from New Jersey. Are they from springs?
When you're drinking bottled water, do you ever wonder where it comes from? Is it really from the spring that it's named after? Is it really just purified tap water from a municipal system? Is it worth lugging home gallons of bottled water when you can turn on the tap in your kitchen sink? My guest, Peter Gleick, has written a new book called "Bottled and Sold" that answers a lot of questions about bottled water and also describes some of the problems it's causing. Gleick says every second of every day in the U.S., 1,000 people buy and open a plastic bottle of commercially produced water and, every second of every day, 1,000 plastic bottles are thrown away. Bottled water may taste good, but Gleick says it's producing billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. He says Americans should be insisting that their municipal water systems are maintained and upgraded so that they can provide public tap water that is safe and tastes good. Gleick is a water expert who was named a MacArthur fellow in 2003. He's the co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, based in Oakland. Peter Gleick, welcome back to FRESH AIR. Most bottled water has such healthy-sounding names, like with springs and glaciers in the title. But the water isn't often - often isn't from a spring, or at least it isn't from the spring you'd think it was from. You give a few examples in your book, like Arctic Spring Water is actually from Lakeland, Florida. Glacier Mountain Natural Spring Water is actually from New Jersey. Are they from springs?
Mr. PETER GLEICK (Author, "Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water"): Well, we get most of our bottled water in the United States from two kinds of places. We get them from springs, and if you actually see the words spring water on the bottle, it's required to come from either a spring or, more likely, from a groundwater well that's drilled into where that spring comes from.Or about 40 or 45 percent of our bottled water actually comes from reprocessed municipal water. And that - I mean, that's a story all by itself. But there are a bunch of strange names for bottled water. We get Arctic water from Tennessee or from Florida, certainly not from the Arctic. Yosemite water comes from Los Angeles. Everest water comes from Texas, and there are plenty of big things in Texas, but Mount Everest isn't one of them. And so, part of the challenge is thinking about what's on the bottle and what they're really trying to tell us versus what's actually likely to be in that bottle.
GROSS: Now, you mention that a lot of bottled water actually comes from municipal water and is then purified and reprocessed. So examples of that kind of water, bottled water that's actually from municipal water supplies includes Dasani, which is produced by Coke; Aquafina, which is produced by PepsiCo; and Pure Life, which is produced by Nestle. So, when bottled water actually comes from the municipal water supply, how is it transformed into bottled water? What do they do with the tap water to - you know, to the municipal water to make it bottled water?
Mr. GLEICK: Many bottlers, and some of the big ones like Coca-Cola and Pepsi that produce Dasani and Aquafina, they take municipal water, they often run it through additional processes, other filters, some kinds of purification systems. For Dasani, for example, for the Coca-Cola product, they actually strip out all of the minerals and then they put minerals back so that Dasani that's bottled in New York or Dasani that's bottled in Detroit or Dasani that's bottled in the San Francisco Bay Area actually all tastes the same. They call it pixie dust or magic dust to make all of these bottled waters taste the same, but it originates...
GROSS: The pixie dust is the packet of minerals that they put in to reinstitute the taste that they took out when they took out the minerals during the purification process?
Mr. GLEICK: Yes, that's right, but you have to understand, this stuff originates as potable tap water in the first place.
GROSS: When you buy bottled water that's actually purified tap water, as opposed to spring water, does it tell you that on the bottle? Does it say this water is actually from, like, the Philadelphia water supply or the New Jersey municipal water plant?
Mr. GLEICK: There is no requirement at the federal level that water bottlers put the source of the water on their bottle. There has been some pressure in recent years to make them do that, and some of the big bottlers are beginning to list their sources, but there's no requirement. But if it doesn't say spring water, you can be pretty sure it's probably coming from some purified municipal water system. And interestingly, Poland Spring, which I think you mentioned earlier...
GROSS: I didn't, but go ahead.
Mr. GLEICK: Oh, I'm sorry - is a Nestle brand. It's pretty well-known on the East Coast. It's one of Nestle's many brands. But in the old days, Poland Spring came from Poland Spring, a spring in Maine that was known for its high-quality water. But the demand for bottled water from Nestle's and from Poland Spring has gotten so large that in fact there's almost no water coming out of Poland Spring anymore. They've over-pumped it and now, Poland Spring water is no longer a source of water, it's a brand name. And the stuff that's in a Poland Spring water bottle may come from any one of half a dozen or more springs somewhere in the Northeast.
GROSS: But it's still spring water, but you're saying that you think the name is misleading, that most people think it's actually the Poland Spring that they're getting the water from, not just a brand name now?
Mr. GLEICK: I would think that if I didn't know better. I would think that Poland Spring water would come from that famous Poland Spring.
GROSS: Actually, there was a class-action suit that you write about in your book in 2003 that accused the company of false advertising. What was the outcome?
Mr. GLEICK: Well, that's right. Yeah, when the news sort of started to filter out that, in fact, Poland Spring water no longer came from Poland Spring, I think some consumer groups in Connecticut and Massachusetts sued the company, sued Nestle. And now, if you look carefully at the fine print on a Poland Spring bottle, you'll see it says this water comes - and I don't have one in front of me - but this water comes from, and it lists six or seven or eight different springs. They do list Poland Spring as one of the many springs without specifying actually where it comes from.
GROSS: As you point out in your book, when you buy bottled water, you're unlikely to find out exactly where the water has come from, but you are going to learn that the water has zero calories, zero carbs, zero protein, which you kind of already knew. So why don't you explain those - that labeling issue that you don't have to tell where it's bottled, but you do have to say that it's got zero calories.
Mr. GLEICK: I think bottle water labels are remarkable for how little information they really provide the consumer. They have a name. They have a company. They have often a beautiful logo of a mountain or a, you know, some pristine natural scene.
GROSS: A nice bird flying by.
Mr. GLEICK: And sometimes they have the FDA nutrition label that we're all familiar with from the back our food products that tell us calories, fat, cholesterol, carbohydrates, protein, that kind of thing. And for bottled water especially, that label is just ridiculous. There is no fat. There's no cholesterol. There's no carbohydrates. There's no protein. There are no calories in bottled water. And so you look at a nutrition label for bottled water, and it's zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. But there are things in water. There are always natural minerals in water. And, in fact, you don't want to drink water that doesn't have natural minerals in it. There's calcium and iron and magnesium and potassium and sodium and zinc, and you know, there are all sorts of natural things that are perfectly healthy for us. But our labels in the United States don't tell us what is in our - what really is in our bottled water.
GROSS: So who decides what needs to be on the label? What agency is regulating that?
Mr. GLEICK: Bottled water in the United States is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. They determine the rules for labels. They determine the rules for water quality testing and monitoring. They determine inspection routines. It's odd that in the United States, where our tap water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency under the rules set by our law called the Safe Drinking Water Act, that bottled water is actually considered a food product. It's different and, hence, regulated by the FDA.
GROSS: So that's interesting. So if you have two glasses, and you pour bottled water into one glass and tap water into the other glass, both glasses are regulated by different agencies.
Mr. GLEICK: And the rules are different and the monitoring - what they measure is different and who does the measuring is different and how often it's measured is different and the rules for notifying the public about problems are different. I think this is one of the big problems with bottled water. I can't come up with a good argument why they shouldn't be identical, why the rules for tap water and bottled water shouldn't be the same, but they aren't.
GROSS: So what are some of differences in how tap water and bottled water are regulated?
Mr. GLEICK: Well, there are lots of differences. One of the big ones is that, first of all, the EPA regulates all of our tap water under federal law. The FDA regulates bottled water but only bottled water that is in what we call interstate commerce, that crosses state lines. And so, if somebody bottles water and sells it within the same state, the FDA doesn't have any regulatory authority over that to begin with. And so, right off the bat, 60 to 70 percent of our bottled water actually isn't regulated by the federal government because it doesn't enter interstate commerce. But then the kinds of things that we measure are sometimes a little different. The rules are supposed to be the same. They're supposed to be no less protective than federal rules for tap water. But we often monitor tap water dozens of times a day.
A big city will do water quality tests dozens of times a day. Bottled water might be tested once a week and once a month or once a year or even less often for certain kinds of constituents. It's often measured by laboratories that aren't independent. The companies often do their own bottled water testing, and they're supposed to report to the FDA, but they rarely do. There are a lot of differences.
GROSS: One of the things you did as research for this book is you filed a Freedom of Information Act. What were you looking for? What did you ask for?
Mr. GLEICK: There is this question about how good our bottled water quality really is, and I believe mostly it's fine, but I also believe that we don't test and measure and report bottled water quality as much as we ought to. And one of the things that I wanted to try and find out was the extent to which the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, is really keeping track of problems with bottled water. One day, I heard about a recall of a brand of bottled water and that made me think, all right, have there been other recalls of other bottled water? And when I went to the FDA website, where in theory they're supposed to list food recalls, and I looked around for bottled water recalls, I found a few but I didn't find the one that I knew about. And so I wrote to the FDA and said, look, I'd like to know all of the bottled water recalls that you've had. And it took months of back and forth before they finally released all of that information, but it turns out we do have problems with bottled water. There have been more than a hundred official recalls of bottled water, many of which have never been - that aren't publicly available. There's been contamination with mold and with kerosene and with algae, and bottled water's been found with yeast and fecal coliforms and other bacteria and glass particles, and probably - and my favorite example, with crickets. There was an instance in the mid-1990s with a bottler in Nacogdoches, Texas, where they produced bottled water with crickets, and they ended up recalling the water very late, months after the contamination was found and probably months after those crickets were sold.
GROSS: Were the crickets actually in the bottles?
Mr. GLEICK: Apparently. I didn't buy one but there were crickets or - not to be too graphic - maybe cricket parts in some of the bottled water that they bottled and sold.
GROSS: So what's your conclusion based on the FOIA information that you got?
Mr. GLEICK: Well, there are a couple things that I think are worrisome. One is when we really do look at the quality of bottled water, we find problems. Now, that's bad. It suggests we need to be much more aggressive about regulating and protecting bottled water quality and all water quality. Another one is that the rules aren't working right. I think the public ought to know more regularly, more frequently, more openly, about what's in our bottled water. With these recalls, often the recalls themselves were not issued until literally months after the contamination was found and months after the product hit the shelves and probably was bought and consumed. When we have a contamination problem with our tap water, the rules say the public needs to be notified the same day, but with bottled water, the rules are much less strict.
GROSS: So, one of the problems that you have and that many people have with bottled water is that it wastes - it creates and wastes all this plastic. You have, you know, a gazillion water bottles that are thrown out every day, and many of them are not recycled. So what happens to the not-recycled plastic bottles?
Mr. GLEICK: In the United States, probably 70 or 75 percent of the plastic water bottles that we buy and consume are never recycled. The industry likes to tell us that PET plastic is completely recyclable. And that's true, but there's a big difference between recyclable and recycled, and the truth is we're bad at recycling. We don't recycle most of the materials that we use that could be recycled. And the stuff that isn't recycled, it goes to landfills. And when it goes to landfills, it's buried, and it lasts forever, effectively forever. PET, because it's, you know, it's a wonderful food - it's a wonderful packaging for food, but it's wonderful because it's incredibly stable, and that characteristic makes it a bad thing for our landfills.
GROSS: So what is PET plastic?
Mr. GLEICK: The vast majority of the bottled water that's sold in the United States is sold in something called PET, polyethylene terephthalate. It's the plastic with the little symbol number one, for those people who look at the bottom of their plastic containers. And it was invented in the very early 1940s, in 1941, by two British chemists, and it's a wonderful plastic for food. It's resistant to heat. It's impermeable to carbonation, so we can put bubbly things in it. It's strong. It's light. It's impact-resistant. It's transparent, and it's recyclable. It's a pretty good plastic for food products. But it's not so great for the environment.
GROSS: So when you do recycle your bottles from bottled water, what happens to them then?
Mr. GLEICK: Well, it would be nice if we recycled our PET and we collected it, and it was transported to someplace where they turned it back into bottles and closed the loop so that we didn't have to use raw petroleum, a very expensive material to make new, virgin PET. But that's not what happens. When we recycle our plastic, it typically goes, ironically enough, to China, where it's turned into fabric, it's turned into rugs, it's turned into strapping material, it's turned into polyester clothing. It's what we call down-cycled rather than recycled, really.
GROSS: What's wrong with the recycling because isn't it preventing - yeah.
Mr. GLEICK: No, recycling's great. I'm a big fan of recycling. I think 100 percent of our PET ought to be recycled, but I believe that the bottles that we make ought to be made from recycled material rather than from virgin petroleum, from raw resources. If we could close the loop, if we could recycle all our plastic bottles and turn them back into plastic bottles, first of all, we wouldn't have the environmental impact dealing - we wouldn't have to deal with huge quantities of plastic in landfill, and then we wouldn't have to take tremendous amounts of raw energy, petroleum, and turn it into stuff that we throw away.
GROSS: So I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that a lot of America's recycled plastic water bottles go to China for the recycling.
Mr. GLEICK: Yeah, it's sort of amazing, in part because there's not much demand for recycled material here in the United States. Coca-Cola's actually just opened a new plant in South Carolina that is going to turn recycled plastic bottles back into plastic bottles, or they're going to use some of that material for plastic bottles. But it's one of the weird things about the world economy today that it's economic to collect recycled plastic in the United States and then ship it across the Pacific, which is a really big ocean, to China, where they turn it into toys and carpets and other things that they then ship back to us. It's a strange - we live in a strange world, economically, when that sort of thing is practical.
GROSS: You know, I think one of the concerns with tap water is that long after the water system, the municipal water systems were built, new chemicals were dumped into, you know, into lakes and rivers and so on, and so that there's all kinds of pollutants in the water that our system was never designed to filter out and that the EPA doesn't necessarily even test for. So in that sense, you don't know what you're drinking.
Mr. GLEICK: There's no doubt that our tap water system, which is good, could be better and should be better. The federal government should reassess the Safe Drinking Water Act, the law that determines the kinds of things that we measure and the kinds of things we monitor and protect in our tap water system precisely because there are new things in the environment. There are new chemicals. There are better testing methods that let us detect smaller and smaller quantities of things. There are more and more things in our tap water system that might be bad for human health, and we ought to know whether they're bad, and we ought to remove them. And that requires, I think, supporting and expanding state-of-the-art tap water systems. Our tap water's not as good as it could be. It's good, but it ought to be better, and one of the reasons people move to bottled water is because they either are afraid that our tap water system isn't good enough, or it isn't. And it ought to be fixed. The answer to problems with our tap water isn't bottled water, though. We can't afford bottled water for everybody, and I think it would be a big mistake to let our tap water systems decay.
GROSS: Well, Peter Gleick, thank you so much for talking with us.
Mr. GLEICK: Sure, happy to be here.
GROSS: Peter Gleick is the author of the new book "Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water." He's the co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute.
GROSS: Now, you mention that a lot of bottled water actually comes from municipal water and is then purified and reprocessed. So examples of that kind of water, bottled water that's actually from municipal water supplies includes Dasani, which is produced by Coke; Aquafina, which is produced by PepsiCo; and Pure Life, which is produced by Nestle. So, when bottled water actually comes from the municipal water supply, how is it transformed into bottled water? What do they do with the tap water to - you know, to the municipal water to make it bottled water?
Mr. GLEICK: Many bottlers, and some of the big ones like Coca-Cola and Pepsi that produce Dasani and Aquafina, they take municipal water, they often run it through additional processes, other filters, some kinds of purification systems. For Dasani, for example, for the Coca-Cola product, they actually strip out all of the minerals and then they put minerals back so that Dasani that's bottled in New York or Dasani that's bottled in Detroit or Dasani that's bottled in the San Francisco Bay Area actually all tastes the same. They call it pixie dust or magic dust to make all of these bottled waters taste the same, but it originates...
GROSS: The pixie dust is the packet of minerals that they put in to reinstitute the taste that they took out when they took out the minerals during the purification process?
Mr. GLEICK: Yes, that's right, but you have to understand, this stuff originates as potable tap water in the first place.
GROSS: When you buy bottled water that's actually purified tap water, as opposed to spring water, does it tell you that on the bottle? Does it say this water is actually from, like, the Philadelphia water supply or the New Jersey municipal water plant?
Mr. GLEICK: There is no requirement at the federal level that water bottlers put the source of the water on their bottle. There has been some pressure in recent years to make them do that, and some of the big bottlers are beginning to list their sources, but there's no requirement. But if it doesn't say spring water, you can be pretty sure it's probably coming from some purified municipal water system. And interestingly, Poland Spring, which I think you mentioned earlier...
GROSS: I didn't, but go ahead.
Mr. GLEICK: Oh, I'm sorry - is a Nestle brand. It's pretty well-known on the East Coast. It's one of Nestle's many brands. But in the old days, Poland Spring came from Poland Spring, a spring in Maine that was known for its high-quality water. But the demand for bottled water from Nestle's and from Poland Spring has gotten so large that in fact there's almost no water coming out of Poland Spring anymore. They've over-pumped it and now, Poland Spring water is no longer a source of water, it's a brand name. And the stuff that's in a Poland Spring water bottle may come from any one of half a dozen or more springs somewhere in the Northeast.
GROSS: But it's still spring water, but you're saying that you think the name is misleading, that most people think it's actually the Poland Spring that they're getting the water from, not just a brand name now?
Mr. GLEICK: I would think that if I didn't know better. I would think that Poland Spring water would come from that famous Poland Spring.
GROSS: Actually, there was a class-action suit that you write about in your book in 2003 that accused the company of false advertising. What was the outcome?
Mr. GLEICK: Well, that's right. Yeah, when the news sort of started to filter out that, in fact, Poland Spring water no longer came from Poland Spring, I think some consumer groups in Connecticut and Massachusetts sued the company, sued Nestle. And now, if you look carefully at the fine print on a Poland Spring bottle, you'll see it says this water comes - and I don't have one in front of me - but this water comes from, and it lists six or seven or eight different springs. They do list Poland Spring as one of the many springs without specifying actually where it comes from.
GROSS: As you point out in your book, when you buy bottled water, you're unlikely to find out exactly where the water has come from, but you are going to learn that the water has zero calories, zero carbs, zero protein, which you kind of already knew. So why don't you explain those - that labeling issue that you don't have to tell where it's bottled, but you do have to say that it's got zero calories.
Mr. GLEICK: I think bottle water labels are remarkable for how little information they really provide the consumer. They have a name. They have a company. They have often a beautiful logo of a mountain or a, you know, some pristine natural scene.
GROSS: A nice bird flying by.
Mr. GLEICK: And sometimes they have the FDA nutrition label that we're all familiar with from the back our food products that tell us calories, fat, cholesterol, carbohydrates, protein, that kind of thing. And for bottled water especially, that label is just ridiculous. There is no fat. There's no cholesterol. There's no carbohydrates. There's no protein. There are no calories in bottled water. And so you look at a nutrition label for bottled water, and it's zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. But there are things in water. There are always natural minerals in water. And, in fact, you don't want to drink water that doesn't have natural minerals in it. There's calcium and iron and magnesium and potassium and sodium and zinc, and you know, there are all sorts of natural things that are perfectly healthy for us. But our labels in the United States don't tell us what is in our - what really is in our bottled water.
GROSS: So who decides what needs to be on the label? What agency is regulating that?
Mr. GLEICK: Bottled water in the United States is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. They determine the rules for labels. They determine the rules for water quality testing and monitoring. They determine inspection routines. It's odd that in the United States, where our tap water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency under the rules set by our law called the Safe Drinking Water Act, that bottled water is actually considered a food product. It's different and, hence, regulated by the FDA.
GROSS: So that's interesting. So if you have two glasses, and you pour bottled water into one glass and tap water into the other glass, both glasses are regulated by different agencies.
Mr. GLEICK: And the rules are different and the monitoring - what they measure is different and who does the measuring is different and how often it's measured is different and the rules for notifying the public about problems are different. I think this is one of the big problems with bottled water. I can't come up with a good argument why they shouldn't be identical, why the rules for tap water and bottled water shouldn't be the same, but they aren't.
GROSS: So what are some of differences in how tap water and bottled water are regulated?
Mr. GLEICK: Well, there are lots of differences. One of the big ones is that, first of all, the EPA regulates all of our tap water under federal law. The FDA regulates bottled water but only bottled water that is in what we call interstate commerce, that crosses state lines. And so, if somebody bottles water and sells it within the same state, the FDA doesn't have any regulatory authority over that to begin with. And so, right off the bat, 60 to 70 percent of our bottled water actually isn't regulated by the federal government because it doesn't enter interstate commerce. But then the kinds of things that we measure are sometimes a little different. The rules are supposed to be the same. They're supposed to be no less protective than federal rules for tap water. But we often monitor tap water dozens of times a day.
A big city will do water quality tests dozens of times a day. Bottled water might be tested once a week and once a month or once a year or even less often for certain kinds of constituents. It's often measured by laboratories that aren't independent. The companies often do their own bottled water testing, and they're supposed to report to the FDA, but they rarely do. There are a lot of differences.
GROSS: One of the things you did as research for this book is you filed a Freedom of Information Act. What were you looking for? What did you ask for?
Mr. GLEICK: There is this question about how good our bottled water quality really is, and I believe mostly it's fine, but I also believe that we don't test and measure and report bottled water quality as much as we ought to. And one of the things that I wanted to try and find out was the extent to which the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, is really keeping track of problems with bottled water. One day, I heard about a recall of a brand of bottled water and that made me think, all right, have there been other recalls of other bottled water? And when I went to the FDA website, where in theory they're supposed to list food recalls, and I looked around for bottled water recalls, I found a few but I didn't find the one that I knew about. And so I wrote to the FDA and said, look, I'd like to know all of the bottled water recalls that you've had. And it took months of back and forth before they finally released all of that information, but it turns out we do have problems with bottled water. There have been more than a hundred official recalls of bottled water, many of which have never been - that aren't publicly available. There's been contamination with mold and with kerosene and with algae, and bottled water's been found with yeast and fecal coliforms and other bacteria and glass particles, and probably - and my favorite example, with crickets. There was an instance in the mid-1990s with a bottler in Nacogdoches, Texas, where they produced bottled water with crickets, and they ended up recalling the water very late, months after the contamination was found and probably months after those crickets were sold.
GROSS: Were the crickets actually in the bottles?
Mr. GLEICK: Apparently. I didn't buy one but there were crickets or - not to be too graphic - maybe cricket parts in some of the bottled water that they bottled and sold.
GROSS: So what's your conclusion based on the FOIA information that you got?
Mr. GLEICK: Well, there are a couple things that I think are worrisome. One is when we really do look at the quality of bottled water, we find problems. Now, that's bad. It suggests we need to be much more aggressive about regulating and protecting bottled water quality and all water quality. Another one is that the rules aren't working right. I think the public ought to know more regularly, more frequently, more openly, about what's in our bottled water. With these recalls, often the recalls themselves were not issued until literally months after the contamination was found and months after the product hit the shelves and probably was bought and consumed. When we have a contamination problem with our tap water, the rules say the public needs to be notified the same day, but with bottled water, the rules are much less strict.
GROSS: So, one of the problems that you have and that many people have with bottled water is that it wastes - it creates and wastes all this plastic. You have, you know, a gazillion water bottles that are thrown out every day, and many of them are not recycled. So what happens to the not-recycled plastic bottles?
Mr. GLEICK: In the United States, probably 70 or 75 percent of the plastic water bottles that we buy and consume are never recycled. The industry likes to tell us that PET plastic is completely recyclable. And that's true, but there's a big difference between recyclable and recycled, and the truth is we're bad at recycling. We don't recycle most of the materials that we use that could be recycled. And the stuff that isn't recycled, it goes to landfills. And when it goes to landfills, it's buried, and it lasts forever, effectively forever. PET, because it's, you know, it's a wonderful food - it's a wonderful packaging for food, but it's wonderful because it's incredibly stable, and that characteristic makes it a bad thing for our landfills.
GROSS: So what is PET plastic?
Mr. GLEICK: The vast majority of the bottled water that's sold in the United States is sold in something called PET, polyethylene terephthalate. It's the plastic with the little symbol number one, for those people who look at the bottom of their plastic containers. And it was invented in the very early 1940s, in 1941, by two British chemists, and it's a wonderful plastic for food. It's resistant to heat. It's impermeable to carbonation, so we can put bubbly things in it. It's strong. It's light. It's impact-resistant. It's transparent, and it's recyclable. It's a pretty good plastic for food products. But it's not so great for the environment.
GROSS: So when you do recycle your bottles from bottled water, what happens to them then?
Mr. GLEICK: Well, it would be nice if we recycled our PET and we collected it, and it was transported to someplace where they turned it back into bottles and closed the loop so that we didn't have to use raw petroleum, a very expensive material to make new, virgin PET. But that's not what happens. When we recycle our plastic, it typically goes, ironically enough, to China, where it's turned into fabric, it's turned into rugs, it's turned into strapping material, it's turned into polyester clothing. It's what we call down-cycled rather than recycled, really.
GROSS: What's wrong with the recycling because isn't it preventing - yeah.
Mr. GLEICK: No, recycling's great. I'm a big fan of recycling. I think 100 percent of our PET ought to be recycled, but I believe that the bottles that we make ought to be made from recycled material rather than from virgin petroleum, from raw resources. If we could close the loop, if we could recycle all our plastic bottles and turn them back into plastic bottles, first of all, we wouldn't have the environmental impact dealing - we wouldn't have to deal with huge quantities of plastic in landfill, and then we wouldn't have to take tremendous amounts of raw energy, petroleum, and turn it into stuff that we throw away.
GROSS: So I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that a lot of America's recycled plastic water bottles go to China for the recycling.
Mr. GLEICK: Yeah, it's sort of amazing, in part because there's not much demand for recycled material here in the United States. Coca-Cola's actually just opened a new plant in South Carolina that is going to turn recycled plastic bottles back into plastic bottles, or they're going to use some of that material for plastic bottles. But it's one of the weird things about the world economy today that it's economic to collect recycled plastic in the United States and then ship it across the Pacific, which is a really big ocean, to China, where they turn it into toys and carpets and other things that they then ship back to us. It's a strange - we live in a strange world, economically, when that sort of thing is practical.
GROSS: You know, I think one of the concerns with tap water is that long after the water system, the municipal water systems were built, new chemicals were dumped into, you know, into lakes and rivers and so on, and so that there's all kinds of pollutants in the water that our system was never designed to filter out and that the EPA doesn't necessarily even test for. So in that sense, you don't know what you're drinking.
Mr. GLEICK: There's no doubt that our tap water system, which is good, could be better and should be better. The federal government should reassess the Safe Drinking Water Act, the law that determines the kinds of things that we measure and the kinds of things we monitor and protect in our tap water system precisely because there are new things in the environment. There are new chemicals. There are better testing methods that let us detect smaller and smaller quantities of things. There are more and more things in our tap water system that might be bad for human health, and we ought to know whether they're bad, and we ought to remove them. And that requires, I think, supporting and expanding state-of-the-art tap water systems. Our tap water's not as good as it could be. It's good, but it ought to be better, and one of the reasons people move to bottled water is because they either are afraid that our tap water system isn't good enough, or it isn't. And it ought to be fixed. The answer to problems with our tap water isn't bottled water, though. We can't afford bottled water for everybody, and I think it would be a big mistake to let our tap water systems decay.
GROSS: Well, Peter Gleick, thank you so much for talking with us.
Mr. GLEICK: Sure, happy to be here.
GROSS: Peter Gleick is the author of the new book "Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water." He's the co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute.
A Visit From the Priestess of Waste-Free Living
By MICHELLE SLATALLA
Published: February 15, 2010
MY neighbor Bea produces no garbage. I am serious. None.
Hadley Hooper
It’s like some kind of amazing magic trick. Bea has a husband, two sons (ages 10 and 8) and a dog, and yet her household generates no empty containers, no food scraps, no dirty paper towels, no broken toys, no crumpled wrapping paper, no empty ketchup packets from fast-food restaurants, no orphan socks with holes in the toes.Nothing.Ever.Except toilet paper. And one time, a year or so ago, one of her boys used a Band-Aid, which generated a wrapper. But luckily it was paper — no wax — so at least she could recycle it.Zero waste is her passion, her mission in life, something she thinks about constantly — some might say obsessively — because, as she has written on her tough-love, anti-garbage blog at Zerowastehome.blogspot.com, “The Earth has been trashed. Enough is enough.”The goal, she said, is to prevent unnecessary things from coming into your house in the first place. Then there’s nothing to throw out. She takes a meat jar to the store so the butcher doesn’t have to wrap her order in paper.From where I sit, in a disheveled-before-a-move house, Bea’s life seems so thought-out. Serene. And unattainable. Yet I went over to see her one day last week, hoping to figure out how she does it.O.K., a small part of me also was hoping to unmask a secret trove of garbage; she had to be hiding it somewhere.But where? At Bea’s house, every room and all the floors are painted a soft white (Benjamin Moore’s Swiss Coffee). There is barely any furniture — in the living room, a sectional; in the dining room, a table and chairs; and in the kitchen, a white wall clock, with no hands. Walking around in there was kind of like what I imagine it would feel like to be inside an eggshell, sort of pearly but less fragile than you would expect.The only non-white objects were an orange pillow in the living room, a bowl of oranges on the dining table and a little orange ball that belongs to Bea’s dog, who is perhaps the world’s tiniest white Chihuahua.“Cute dog,” I said.Doesn’t shed, she said.While I was snooping around in the pantry (stocked with bulk-bought grains in plain glass jars) and her freezer (stacks of frozen, unwrapped baguettes) and her echo-y clothes closet (one pair of jeans), I saw two small lemon trees — bushes, really — in pots on her balcony, their branches heavy with hundreds of lemons in various stages of lemon development. I’d never seen so much fruit on any single plant, so I asked about the fertilizer, and Bea said she has her sons urinate in the pots. Lemon bushes like their soil acidic, she said.“Your life is the total opposite of mine,” I said, as if this were a revelation. As if I hadn’t already devoured every one of her blog posts, as if I hadn’t shivered, thrilled in some strange way, when I read what she had to say on the subject of avoiding dental floss waste (“Switch to a brass gum stimulator with a rubber tip”).“How much stuff do you have?” she asked.“In the past weeks, I’ve gotten rid of about 400 boxes of books,” I offered.At the words “400 boxes,” Bea actually staggered, then clutched an (entirely bare) kitchen counter to steady herself.But she recovered. “I can help you simplify,” she said.“No one can help me,” I said, thinking about the exercise bike in a downstairs closet, my Junior Girl Scout handbook in the attic, and the infant-size car seat in the crawl space beneath my house. I have not had an infant since 1998.“You got rid of your grandfather’s suitcase,” Bea pointed out.“No, I didn’t,” I confessed. “I tried to. Then, in the middle of the night, I brought it back in the house.”“I’ll come over tomorrow at 11,” Bea said.This terrified me.So when the doorbell rang at 10:59, I tried to divert her.“Would you like tea?” I asked.She opened a drawer — overflowing with tins of jasmine and roibos red and black oolong, with boxes of Sleepytime non-caffeinated tea, and forlorn single bags of lemon verbena and “Mother’s Milk” herbal flavor and green Salada and raspberry. And from this cacophony, she chose one box. She held it up, shook it and said, “It’s empty.”“Bea,” I asked, “have you always been someone who didn’t want to own too many things or create garbage, or is it something a person can learn?”“When I was a child, I thought I should have collections,” she said. “I had coins, and I had dolls from all over Europe, but they were for collecting, and my mother never let me take them out to play with them.”Then, when she was 18, she moved from France to the United States to be an au pair. “The family I lived with had lost everything in a fire, and they didn’t replace a lot of it, so I saw how simply you can live,” she said.As she talked, she opened drawers, examined contents, frowned at cheese graters. (“Why two? They do the same thing.”)I put one in a box to send to Goodwill.It was painful at first, going through stuff, having to admit to someone that yes, I was so wasteful that I had bought a second jar of cardamom before using up the first.“What is King Kullen?” she asked, peering at some dried basil flakes.“A store in New York,” I said.“When did you live in New York?” she asked.“Seven and a half years ago,” I admitted.But then it started to feel cathartic, this process of putting all sorts of unnecessary chaos into a box to send away forever.We had words, though, over my beloved Rosenthal soup bowls with handles shaped like wings.“If you don’t use something all the time, you don’t need it,” she said firmly. “You have 20 other soup bowls in a cabinet.”“I love these,” I said.“O.K., make a list of 10 things you love, even though you don’t need them, and keep the 10,” she said. “But just 10.”She found my mother-in-law’s silverware in a drawer. “Use this every day,” she said. “Silver gets more beautiful with use, and you love it, so why use anything else, ever?”After three hours, we had filled three big cardboard boxes — salvaged from behind a store down the block — with things to give away.The next morning, I felt buoyant.“What’s gone?” my 12-year-old daughter, Clementine, asked.I couldn’t really remember.
MY neighbor Bea produces no garbage. I am serious. None.
Hadley Hooper
It’s like some kind of amazing magic trick. Bea has a husband, two sons (ages 10 and 8) and a dog, and yet her household generates no empty containers, no food scraps, no dirty paper towels, no broken toys, no crumpled wrapping paper, no empty ketchup packets from fast-food restaurants, no orphan socks with holes in the toes.
Nothing.
Ever.
Except toilet paper. And one time, a year or so ago, one of her boys used a Band-Aid, which generated a wrapper. But luckily it was paper — no wax — so at least she could recycle it.
Zero waste is her passion, her mission in life, something she thinks about constantly — some might say obsessively — because, as she has written on her tough-love, anti-garbage blog at Zerowastehome.blogspot.com, “The Earth has been trashed. Enough is enough.”
The goal, she said, is to prevent unnecessary things from coming into your house in the first place. Then there’s nothing to throw out. She takes a meat jar to the store so the butcher doesn’t have to wrap her order in paper.
From where I sit, in a disheveled-before-a-move house, Bea’s life seems so thought-out. Serene. And unattainable. Yet I went over to see her one day last week, hoping to figure out how she does it.
O.K., a small part of me also was hoping to unmask a secret trove of garbage; she had to be hiding it somewhere.
But where? At Bea’s house, every room and all the floors are painted a soft white (Benjamin Moore’s Swiss Coffee). There is barely any furniture — in the living room, a sectional; in the dining room, a table and chairs; and in the kitchen, a white wall clock, with no hands. Walking around in there was kind of like what I imagine it would feel like to be inside an eggshell, sort of pearly but less fragile than you would expect.
The only non-white objects were an orange pillow in the living room, a bowl of oranges on the dining table and a little orange ball that belongs to Bea’s dog, who is perhaps the world’s tiniest white Chihuahua.
“Cute dog,” I said.
Doesn’t shed, she said.
While I was snooping around in the pantry (stocked with bulk-bought grains in plain glass jars) and her freezer (stacks of frozen, unwrapped baguettes) and her echo-y clothes closet (one pair of jeans), I saw two small lemon trees — bushes, really — in pots on her balcony, their branches heavy with hundreds of lemons in various stages of lemon development. I’d never seen so much fruit on any single plant, so I asked about the fertilizer, and Bea said she has her sons urinate in the pots. Lemon bushes like their soil acidic, she said.
“Your life is the total opposite of mine,” I said, as if this were a revelation. As if I hadn’t already devoured every one of her blog posts, as if I hadn’t shivered, thrilled in some strange way, when I read what she had to say on the subject of avoiding dental floss waste (“Switch to a brass gum stimulator with a rubber tip”).
“How much stuff do you have?” she asked.
“In the past weeks, I’ve gotten rid of about 400 boxes of books,” I offered.
At the words “400 boxes,” Bea actually staggered, then clutched an (entirely bare) kitchen counter to steady herself.
But she recovered. “I can help you simplify,” she said.
“No one can help me,” I said, thinking about the exercise bike in a downstairs closet, my Junior Girl Scout handbook in the attic, and the infant-size car seat in the crawl space beneath my house. I have not had an infant since 1998.
“You got rid of your grandfather’s suitcase,” Bea pointed out.
“No, I didn’t,” I confessed. “I tried to. Then, in the middle of the night, I brought it back in the house.”
“I’ll come over tomorrow at 11,” Bea said.
This terrified me.
So when the doorbell rang at 10:59, I tried to divert her.
“Would you like tea?” I asked.
She opened a drawer — overflowing with tins of jasmine and roibos red and black oolong, with boxes of Sleepytime non-caffeinated tea, and forlorn single bags of lemon verbena and “Mother’s Milk” herbal flavor and green Salada and raspberry. And from this cacophony, she chose one box. She held it up, shook it and said, “It’s empty.”
“Bea,” I asked, “have you always been someone who didn’t want to own too many things or create garbage, or is it something a person can learn?”
“When I was a child, I thought I should have collections,” she said. “I had coins, and I had dolls from all over Europe, but they were for collecting, and my mother never let me take them out to play with them.”
Then, when she was 18, she moved from France to the United States to be an au pair. “The family I lived with had lost everything in a fire, and they didn’t replace a lot of it, so I saw how simply you can live,” she said.
As she talked, she opened drawers, examined contents, frowned at cheese graters. (“Why two? They do the same thing.”)
I put one in a box to send to Goodwill.
It was painful at first, going through stuff, having to admit to someone that yes, I was so wasteful that I had bought a second jar of cardamom before using up the first.
“What is King Kullen?” she asked, peering at some dried basil flakes.
“A store in New York,” I said.
“When did you live in New York?” she asked.
“Seven and a half years ago,” I admitted.
But then it started to feel cathartic, this process of putting all sorts of unnecessary chaos into a box to send away forever.
We had words, though, over my beloved Rosenthal soup bowls with handles shaped like wings.
“If you don’t use something all the time, you don’t need it,” she said firmly. “You have 20 other soup bowls in a cabinet.”
“I love these,” I said.
“O.K., make a list of 10 things you love, even though you don’t need them, and keep the 10,” she said. “But just 10.”
She found my mother-in-law’s silverware in a drawer. “Use this every day,” she said. “Silver gets more beautiful with use, and you love it, so why use anything else, ever?”
After three hours, we had filled three big cardboard boxes — salvaged from behind a store down the block — with things to give away.
The next morning, I felt buoyant.
“What’s gone?” my 12-year-old daughter, Clementine, asked.
I couldn’t really remember.
5/18/10
Raw milk's popularity spurs debate over safety
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated; Monday, May 10, 2010 12:00AM
Photo by JASON BLEVINS/The Denver Post
Raw-milk dairy farmers such as Keith Lafferty collect and bottle milk from the cows on their farms. Consumers purchase shares of the cows, which entitles them to raw milk.
The Laffertys' milk - hand-labeled and stored in Mason jars with a thick head of cream - is straight from the cow. No pasteurization. No processing.
Every afternoon, customers who own a portion of the family's dairy herd visit the 30-acre farm, pulling jars of the farm-fresh, raw milk from a small refrigerator in a spotless room next to the milking parlor.
Whether those people are playing Russian roulette with their health or getting a safer - and tastier - product than the milk found in grocery stores remains a source of contention. That debate is growing in intensity as state health officials crack down on dairies offering other unpasteurized milk products, such as butter and yogurt.
Health officials repeatedly warn that raw milk sickens dozens every year. But since Colorado lawmakers in 2005 allowed farmers to privately sell shares of their dairy herd to drinkers of unpasteurized milk, the number of Colorado dairies offering straight-from-the-cow milk has climbed to 60.
Colorado is one of 29 states - and Wisconsin is about to join them - with cow-share programs that use communal ownership to get around laws forbidding the retail sale of raw milk.
Those who drink raw milk say pasteurization removes some of milk's health benefits. They herald its creamy taste and the security that comes from knowing the source of their food.
“I have more faith in Meg, my farmer, than FDA officials who are being lobbied by industrial food lobbyists," says Michael O'Brien, whose Fort Collins family gets its milk directly from a Windsor dairy.
In the late 1930s, a quarter of all food illnesses stemmed from milk, but with pasteurization, milk has all but disappeared from the Food and Drug Administration's annual list of food-caused ailments.
Now raw-milk sicknesses account for 70 percent of all milk-related outbreaks reported to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Eating should not be risky behavior, and we know better now," said Judy Barbe, a dietician and senior director of nutrition affairs for the Colorado-based Western Dairy Association. “The protection provided by pasteurization is too great to forgo."
Between 1998 and 2008, the FDA counted 85 bacterial outbreaks connected to raw milk. Last year, Colorado health officials suspended operations for two weeks at Montrose's Kinikin Corner Dairy after a Campylobacter outbreak afflicted 12 people who reported drinking the dairy's raw milk.
Scott Freeman, Kinikin's owner, said many people in the region were suffering from intestinal issues at the time, and he's not convinced the outbreak was connected to his milk. He says he lost only four of his 175 share-holding customers after the suspension.
Still, those bacterial eruptions fuel the conventional dairy industry's disdain for raw milk.
“What is happening nationwide as advocates push for raw milk and it becomes more mainstream, you are going to see more outbreaks and more illnesses, and you will see more sick or dead kids, and that will create a pushback effect on raw milk," says Bill Marler, a food-safety attorney who represents food-poisoning victims and helped form the website realrawmilkfacts.com.
“Governors and legislators are going to be facing more difficult choices with raw milk, addressing issues of personal freedom versus science."
Colorado's lawmakers may soon be asked again to ponder raw milk. In April, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment sent a letter to the Windsor Dairy — the state's largest raw-milk dairy — saying its supply of raw-milk products, such as butter, yogurt and soft cheeses, violates the state's raw-milk exemption.
“The position of the department is that you can only have raw milk," says Patti Klocker, assistant director for the department's consumer-protection division.
Doing some risk analysis In response, the state's raw-milk dairies are crafting a proposal to expand the raw-milk laws to include all foods made with such milk.
Marci and Michael O'Brien did their own risk analysis when they opted to go raw. Every batch of milk the O'Briens get from veterinarians Meg Cattell and Arden Nelson at their Windsor Dairy comes with results of pathogen tests.
“We go to the farm and see the cows in clean condition and our kids pet the baby calves," says Marci O'Brien, whose 5-year-old daughter loves raw milk. “I think if people saw how typical dairy cows are treated, they would understandably fear for their food safety."
The Laffertys, who have run a raw-milk cow share for the past year on their family's longtime farm, say they build relationships with customers — customers they want to keep safe and healthy.
“We are just petrified at the notion of getting someone sick," says Nickie Lafferty. “We've built relationships with these people. They're our friends. If anything goes wrong, we are over."
The Laffertys regularly test their milk and their cows. Each animal has a name. Nora, a top producer, gets a little nervous when strangers watch her getting milked.
Customers pay a one-time $40 fee and $30 a month for boarding.
Raw milk boasts higher fat content than traditional whole milk. That gives it a creamy taste that raw milkers champion. Yet most of the 18 families who own 35 shares of the Laffertys' cows drink raw milk for its health benefits, Nickie says.
Among those people is Dana Shier, who at college developed a growing intolerance to milk.
“If I drink a regular glass of milk, I'll throw up," says the 27-year-old from Golden. “I have no problems with raw milk. It seems to help my allergies too."
That sort of anecdotal evidence of raw milk's benefits is plentiful. Raw milkers say pasteurization limits immune-enhancing and beneficial bacteria and is another example of the sterilization of American food.
“The FDA is the real villain in that story. They refuse to even listen to any of the health benefits of milk, and they deny even the possibility that raw milk could be beneficial, yet they push those drugs like crazy," says Mary Blair McMorran, executive director of the Raw Milk Association of Colorado.
Milk safety, while complex, basically boils down to storage and poop. Storage is the easier of the two problems: Make sure the milk is always cold.
Contamination, however, is a challenge. Cows, being cows, tend to sport manure. Making sure it is nowhere near teats, containers, milk or any part of the bottling process is a critical task, says Michele Jay-Russell, a veterinarian and food-safety specialist with the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at the University of California.
“That contamination is a big concern for people in food safety," she says.
For industrial dairy cows, manure in crowded feedlots is an issue. But grass-fed cows that spend their days roaming pastures aren't wallowing in their waste.
“The conventional dairy industry produces milk designed for pasteurization. That milk will certainly get you sick if you drink it raw," McMorran says. “We design milk for drinking."
15 Reasons to Eat Organic Food
posted by Michelle Schoffro Cook Apr 7, 2010 1:01 pm
1. In study after study, research from independent organizations consistently shows organic food is higher in nutrients than traditional foods. Research shows that organic produce is higher in vitamin C, antioxidants, and the minerals calcium, iron, chromium, and magnesium.
2. They’re free of neurotoxins–toxins that are damaging to brain and nerve cells. A commonly-used class of pesticides called organophosphates was originally developed as a toxic nerve agent during World War I. When there was no longer a need for them in warfare, industry adapted them to kill pests on foods. Many pesticides are still considered neurotoxins.
3. They’re supportive of growing children’s brains and bodies. Children’s growing brains and bodies are far more susceptible to toxins than adults. Choosing organic helps feed their bodies without the exposure to pesticides and genetically-modified organisms, both of which have a relatively short history of use (and therefore safety).
4. They are real food, not pesticide factories. Eighteen percent of all genetically-modified seeds (and therefore foods that grow from them) are engineered to produce their own pesticides. Research shows that these seeds may continue producing pesticides inside your body once you’ve eaten the food grown from them! Foods that are actually pesticide factories…no thanks.
5. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that pesticides pollute the primary drinking source for half the American population. Organic farming is the best solution to the problem. Buying organic helps reduce pollution in our drinking water.
6. Organic food is earth-supportive (when big business keeps their hands out of it). Organic food production has been around for thousands of years and is the sustainable choice for the future. Compare that to modern agricultural practices that are destructive of the environment through widespread use of herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers and have resulted in drastic environmental damage in many parts of the world.
7. Organic food choices grown on small-scale organic farms help ensure independent family farmers can create a livelihood. Consider it the domestic version of fair trade.
8. Most organic food simply tastes better than the pesticide-grown counterparts.
9. Organic food is not exposed to gas-ripening like some non-organic fruits and vegetables (like bananas).
10. Organic farms are safer for farm workers. Research at the Harvard School of Public Health found a 70 percent increase in Parkinson’s disease among people exposed to pesticides. Choosing organic foods means that more people will be able to work on farms without incurring the higher potential health risk of Parkinson’s or other illnesses.
11. Organic food supports wildlife habitats. Even with commonly used amounts of pesticides, wildlife is being harmed by exposure to pesticides.
12. Eating organic may reduce your cancer risk. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers 60% of herbicides, 90% of fungicides, and 30 percent of insecticides potentially cancer-causing. It is reasonable to think that the rapidly increasing rates of cancer are at least partly linked to the use of these carcinogenic pesticides.
13. Choosing organic meat lessens your exposure to antibiotics, synthetic hormones, and drugs that find their way into the animals and ultimately into you.
14. Organic food is tried and tested. By some estimates genetically-modified food makes up 80% of the average person’s food consumption. Genetic modification of food is still experimental. Avoid being part of this wide scale and uncontrolled experiment.
15. Organic food supports greater biodiversity. Diversity is fundamental to life on this planet. Genetically-modified and non-organic food is focused on high yield monoculture and is destroying biodiversity.
Michelle Schoffro Cook, RNCP, ROHP, DAc, DNM, is a best-selling and six-time book author and doctor of natural medicine, whose works include: The Life Force Diet, The Ultimate pH Solution, and The 4-Week Ultimate Body Detox Plan. Learn more at: www.TheLifeForceDiet.com.
Study Links Pesticides and ADHD
posted by Melissa Breyer May 17, 2010 3:15 pm
Exposure to pesticides is associated with increased risk of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children, according to a team of scientists from the University of Montreal and Harvard University. Published in the journal Pediatrics, the study focused on 1,139 children from the general U.S. population and measured pesticide levels in their urine. The authors conclude that exposure to organophosphate pesticides, at levels common among U.S. children, may contribute to a diagnosis of ADHD.
In the past, exposure to organophosphates has been associated with negative effects on neurodevelopment, such as behavioral problems and lower cognitive function. However earlier studies have focused on populations with greater pesticide exposure relative to the general population. This study was conducted with 1139 children 8 to 15 years of age, representative of the general U.S. population. The findings showed that children with higher urinary levels of organophosphate metabolites were more likely to meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD.
According to the study, approximately 40 organophosphate pesticides are registered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for use in the United States. The EPA considers food, drinking water, and residential pesticide use major sources of exposure. Residential pesticide use is common, but the important source of exposure to pesticides for infants and children would be from the diet, says the National Academy of Sciences.
The U.S. Pesticide Residue Program Report for 2008 notes that measurable concentrations of the organophosphate malathion were found in 28 percent of frozen blueberry samples, 25 percent of strawberry samples, and 19 percent of celery samples. Children are thought to be at greatest risk from organophosphate toxicity because the developing brain is more susceptible to neurotoxicants and the dose of pesticides per body weight is likely to be larger for children. Children 6 to 11 years of age have the highest urinary concentrations of dialkyl phosphate (DAP) metabolites (markers of organophosphate exposure), compared with other age groups in the U.S. population. As well, children have fewer detoxifying enzymes, which contributes to their vulnerability.
What to do:
The best way to limit exposure to pesticides is to limit the intake of foods with high pesticides loads. What are the worst culprits for pesticide residue? The Shopper’s Guide developed by Environmental Working Group (EWG) is based on data from nearly 87,000 tests for pesticide residues in produce collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Here are the top 15 fruits/vegetables from the guide that contain the most pesticide (number one being the worst). It is advised, whenever possible, to purchase these items organically:
1. Celery
2. Peaches
3. Strawberries
4. Apples
5. Blueberries (Domestic)
6. Nectarines
7. Sweet Bell Peppers
8. Spinach
9. Kale / Collard Greens
10. Cherries
11. Potatoes
12. Grapes (Imported)
13. Lettuce
14. Blueberries (Imported)
15. Carrots
2. Peaches
3. Strawberries
4. Apples
5. Blueberries (Domestic)
6. Nectarines
7. Sweet Bell Peppers
8. Spinach
9. Kale / Collard Greens
10. Cherries
11. Potatoes
12. Grapes (Imported)
13. Lettuce
14. Blueberries (Imported)
15. Carrots
BPA Found on Cash Register Receipts
posted by Becky Striepe May 17, 2010 5:05 pm
The chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA) has been making headlines lately. Consumers have been warned to avoid number 4 plastic as well as canned foods and even cans of soda pop. Back in October, though, Science News reported that cash register receipts also contain BPA, and that it’s present in higher quantities than other sources.
The tricky thing about BPA in these receipts is that it’s “free” unlike with plastic. That means it’s not chemically bound, so it’s easier to get it on your hands. Although there is some debate about whether you can absorb BPA through your skin, it’s pretty much a no-brainer that once it’s on your fingers, you’ve got a good chance of ingesting it. Unlike in something like a plastic bottle, which contains nanograms of the stuff, BPA-containing cash register receipts can have 60-100 milligrams. To put that in perspective, one milligram is equal to 1,000,000 nanograms.
Yikes! So how can we avoid coming into contact with BPA-laden receipts? There are a couple of precautions that can help.
Know Your Paper
First off, not all receipts contain BPA. The type to keep an eye out for is thermal coated paper - the kind that’s shiny on one side. Regular “bond” paper receipts should be safe. There are two reasons that companies use BPA to make thermal paper: it allows the cash register to print the receipt without ink, since the ink is essentially part of the paper and BPA is the cheapest coating that achieves this effect.
There is a company that makes BPA-free thermal paper receipts. Appleton Paper in Wisconsin sells receipt paper that uses a different chemical coating. You can ask at the store if they use Appleton Paper. If they don’t you could even express your concerns. Stores often take customer feedback very seriously. Not only is BPA a concern for shoppers, think about the clerks who handle receipts all day long!
Play it Safe
The easiest way to avoid BPA from receipts is to just not take one, but sometimes turning down the receipt isn’t an option. Maybe you paid with a credit card and need to sign or you have to document expenses for your business. In those situations, your best bet is to minimize your contact with the paper and make sure to thoroughly wash your hands before putting your fingers in your mouth or handling food.
Children are especially susceptible to BPA’s effects, since their bodies are still developing. It’s probably not a good idea to let them handle receipts unless you’re 100 percent certain they’re BPA free. You might also want to wash your hands thoroughly between contact with a receipt and playing with children.
Of course, some folks say that BPA is not harmful, and that the amount we encounter daily isn’t enough to be a concern. I’m inclined to err on the side of caution here, but that’s just me. What do you think?
Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by timo
Becky Striepe is an indie crafter living in Atlanta, GA with her husband, two cats, and her trusty sewing machine.She runs a crafty business: Glue & Glitter, sewing handmade housewares from vintage and revamped materials. Her mission is to use existing materials in products that help folks reduce their impact without sacrificing style!
5/17/10
Time for some complaining.
- The store: if you want to be sure that you are getting a good product, you have to search for the stores that have it, then look in the stores for the product that has the right packaging, study the labels to make sure you are not getting something funky.... and of course try to fit all that into your budget, meaning always on the look for sales. And, on top of that, the products that you trust, or think you trust, change their ingredients all the time, so it seems that if you forget to ''check'', you might end up with more than you asked for (more unknown ingredients, that is...). It's time consuming, stressful, and exhausting, really.
- Everything comes in plastic. Everything!!!! I had decided not to buy anything wrapped in that stuff. But I've had to forgo on so many foods, that tonight at the store I had to relax the rule a bit just to be able to give the kids a little variety. I haven't bought in 4 months now: tofu, corn tortillas, taco shells, frozen vegetables of any kind, yogurt smoothies, orange juice, cereals of any kind, sandwich bread, cereal bars, English muffins, corn chips, chips, pretzels, Goldfish... in short, anything that you can only find in... plastic. I must say, there is definitely less junk consumed when one avoids plastic...
- You just can't make everything. I have been making yogurt, butter, muffins, scones, cookies, bread, and even pasta. But I cannot, and don't know how to make tofu, or corn chips, or tortillas... and I do miss some of this stuff. Making your own stuff is not hard; I'd much rather bake a cookie myself, or with the kids, than wonder around in the store trying to find a decent one. But we tend to cook and bake things the same way... and it gets boring. And when it is boring, it is tiring and impossible to continue without a little variety and/or change of pace. Wouldn't it be wonderful to just be able to walk to a nearby store, and pick up some scones or muffins for the next morning, and know that they are made by people that really care for their customer's health, and take the time to make the food with the best possible ingredients? And fresh. Not wrapped in all that plastic to protect it for the months that it sits in the ware houses and supermarket shelves before being picked up to be eaten. Or to be able to buy peanuts (in their shells) that don't come in a plastic bag! Do peanuts really need to come in plastic bags??? I really wanted to buy peanuts today at the store, but decided to wait and see if I can find fresh ones somewhere else... frustrating.
But this post would not be complete without the upside of all this.
- The household trash has decreased to 1 half-full bag every other week... thanks to less plastic, and "plasticky'' things such as OJ cartons, milk cartons etc.
- Only one trip to the store (for bulk items and meat for the dog) every month! Less stress, less gas, less stuff bought on a whim... more time for more interesting stuff.
- A lot of money saved from avoiding packaged and processed foods. I used to come out of Costco with a weekly bill never less than $100, most of it spent on kids ''snacks'' for school. Now I come out of a health food store with a $100 or $200 bill monthly. It does pay off not to buy processed food. Not to mention the money that you will save on medical bills later in life...
- Got to meet really great farmers who we buy from weekly, and who sustain us with their vegetables, milk and eggs. I know where my stuff comes from, and where my money is goes to. It does not go to big corporations and executives salaries. It goes, instead, directly to the farmers who make an honest living growing products that they care about, and which sustain the people that have the fortune of eating it fresh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)