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When deciding to buy organic, I often wonder about the treatment of the seeds as this is the originating source of all fruit and vegetables.
You may have chemical free soil and farm practices but what about the evolution from the seed itself. Does this comprimise the premise of what truly is organic food?

Well according to the Australian Certified Organic Association, there must be a declaration from non-organic seeds suppliers that the seeds are declared GM free and not derived from a GM source.

According to the Australian Organic Standard, as of the 1st June 2008, seed and propagative material shall be required to be sourced from organic sources only.
Furthermore they state that Genetically modified products and genetically engineered processes involved in the organic production processes are prohibited.

The interesting thing is genetic contamination whereby GM crops situated within close proximity to a non GM area may lead to compromising the integrity of the non GM crops, a difficult situation to mange given the natural processes of pollination by insects and the traveling of seeds and other material by winds and insects.

There must according to the Australian Organic Standard be a risk management policy in place to regulate cross contamination.
The interesting point is whether ultimately all non GM crops will suffer from some level of contamination as you cannot quarantine any area from the natural process, even a vast ocean cannot limit this contamination if a country is totally GM free.

Very funny fitness quote this morning about a Fitmate who went to the supermarket and deciding weather to buy the Godzilla style strawberries, her reaction was “eat mutant strawberries or starve” Meaning that there weren’t many other options available.

When we look at today’s strawberries, they are the big, steroid versions from California called the “Albion” which has a patent, “United States Patent PP16228″

I guess when it comes to production, a bigger strawberry means less strawberries per punnet, which means less picking labour and packing labour, less chances of damage while in transit.

The downside is that you have this mutant looking strawberry that has less taste than smaller varieties.

Unfortunately today’s typical strawberry cultivation techniques involve a lot of chemicals if you buy the non-organic variety. Strawberries are in the top 10 of fruit and vegetables most likely to contain pesticides and chemicals.

Consumer magazine, Choice did a study into strawberries in January 2008 and the results were very disturbing with a staggering 11% containing chemical residue above the accepted level as government by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand. Furthermore out of the 27 samples, 63% contained residues from more than one pesticide.

Some of the nasty chemicals included:
Boscalid
Captan
Carbaryl
Chlorpyrifos
Dimethoate
Endosulfan-beta
Iprodione
Pirimicarb
Pyrimethanil

While there are set “safe” limits of chemical residues, maximum residue limits (MRLs), there is some conjecture on whether even consuming these low levels of chemicals in quantity over a long period together with all the other food types containing other chemicals leads to the gradual poisoning of our bodies. Many of these chemicals are NOT removed through the bodies regular processes and build up over a period of time.

Recently a study in Europe has documented the link between phosphates and Parkinson’s disease study so it’s alarming to the extent we have exposure to these chemicals.

So the best thing is to go organic, better still pick your own strawberries with the season commencing in October as strawberries like the more temperate climates of 20º days and overnight temperatures of 10º.

Chemical free garlic verses imported garlic, well after going to the local farmers market last Saturday, I decided to do a test to determine whether the local chemical free garlic is better.

Well this image was taken today, exactly 1 week after purchasing the chemical free garlic and an imported variety from my local supermarket.

A big test of freshness and the state of the fruit and vegetables is how quickly it rots and deteriorates. Try this out with your onions as well as it starts to sprout some stalks if it is still living and hasn’t been killed by chemicals and pesticides.

Most imported Garlic contains Methyl Bromide, a very nasty chemical.

So while the chemical free garlic may not more expensive than the imported garlic, what price can you place on your health.