Sanet Post, Patricia Dines,
Re: Quality of Organic Food
December 11, 1996

Hi David -

Thanks for your thoughts - important points.

I agree that true nutrition is missing all along the food system - in production, store, consumer eating habits. But I don't think that's unrelated to the conversation about the nutritional value of food as it leaves the farm, nor does it make that conversation unimportant. They're all part of the same sickness - all need to be seen to shape the healing - and we each can find our own way to help bring better nutrition into whatever phase we choose to put our attention on. It's good to remember that we're part of a larger system. This list just happens to focus on ag issues.

I remember that my relationship to food completely changed when I started eating organic food - it was so alive! I didn't know food could taste that good! And I was raised on fresh foods, not canned and TV dinners as some are. As I've grown my own, I've come to understand how wonderful food can be.

So I wonder how many people are susceptible to marketing slogans and the easy charm of food colorings, sugars, salt, and fats (including hydrogenated and Olestra) because the fresh food they have access to is pretty but lifeless and tasteless - and they turn to the packaging for the zing?

This seems to me just one of the ways that ag folks focussing on alive food - and communicating that effectively to the public - can help return America to the joy of healthy eating. And then, if people want to help influence other parts of the distribution network - and keep its values in mind when making their products (such as putting "easy recipes" on the package) - all the better. I'd be delighted if those focussed on growing the food could influence more of those packaging it, marketing it, and selling it, to make an overall nutritious product (whole grains, low fat/salt/sugar, no synthetic additives, etc.) - and sell the value of that, not the additives or glitz.

Still, there are food companies selling just such products - I see them all the time in my health food store - and organic sales are consistently rising every year - so I think there is a market for truly healthy food - and I think a lot can be done to serve and stimulate that market by making the food as alive as possible when they leave the farm.

Anyway, thanks for your reminder of the marketing/sales context/process that brings food to America's tables - and influences the net health/illness it brings.

P. Dines

P.S. You say "Organic agriculture might do well to realize that pesticide contamination (though a much more valid issue in other regards) and inferior nutritional quality of non-organic foods (if true) have less to do with America's dietary inadequacy and lamentably high rate of chronic degenerative diseases than the negative aspects of our modern food supply and eating habits mentioned above."

I just have to disagree. Both are relevant, but I don't see evidence that one is more relevant than the other, or even that they're unrelated. Corporate ag and corporate product sales and marketing are very much cut from the same cloth - image over substance, etc. And many organic farmers and those making those into products are cut from similar cloth, having the same values in creating and packaging/selling their food - and creating a conversation of health in products over sexy marketing techniques. Not all, we can still be wise consumers, but I see many quality producers/products when I go to the health food store, and I don't think that should be ignored.

In short, I think we can look at the overall nutrution in this country's food products (the valuable points you bring up) without negating or minimizing or setting as a lower priority the importance of starting with healthy nutritious food as the foundation - for that's what enlightened consumers and producers both know has the most importance in any food product.