Organic, Shmorganic? Not so fast..

If you haven't read it, run — don't walk — to your local bookstore and buy Michael Pollan's brilliant new book, The Omnivore's Dilemna. Go. Now. I'll wait till you return. Better yet, go to Amazon and get it, and then come back to this blog.

Good work. Pollan's book — which I quoted heavily in my forthcoming book, "The 150 Healthiest Foods in the World" (coming soon to a bookstore near you... soon, as in Christmas 2006) — is the first really thorough journalistic exploration (notice I didn't say "exposé") of what "organic" really means — and doesn't mean — in today's marketplace. (Pollan himself is becoming an amazing resource for people who care about what they put into their bodies. Check out his website — especially his articles and links.)

Michael, if you're reading this, I'm a huge fan! Meanwhile, here's the cliff note version: As organic becomes "Wal-Mart-ized," the standards for what the term means are bound to go slack. And it's not just Wal-Mart that's going to drive the definition of the term "organic" down the inevitable path to meaningless — where it can join "natural" in etymological purgatory. It's also Whole Foods.

Why? Because the very nature of producing and distributing huge volumes of food across huge distances for large consumer populations — as Whole Foods does, though obviously on a way more "niche-y" scale than Wal-Mart — requires production methods that simply fly in the face of everything organic is supposed to stand for. So you have what Pollan calls "big organic." And you also have the Orwellian experience of seeing foods like "Organic Cocoa Krispies."

There is a huge difference between the organic movement and the organic industry. The movement for organic food was fueled by two things — One: A deep desire on behalf of consumers to feed their families actual food rather than food products — and Two: A backlash against the increasing chemicalization of everything that we put into our mouths. "Organic" conjured up images of small, sustainable family farms where chickens ran free and eggs were collected from happy hens, pasture-grazing cows were milked by hand, and fruits and vegetables were grown in rotation out in Aunt Ella's garden. Now, with the co-opting of labels and the wheeling-dealing of lobbyists and Political Action Committees, "free range" may — if you're lucky — mean that the chicken in question got to see the outdoors maybe once in its short miserable life.

The New York Times today — Saturday July 29 — had an article in the business section called What Does Organic Really Mean? I can see the handwriting on the wall — the backlash against organic is already starting, even before the movement has defined itself and gotten its legs. The writer, MP Dunleavey, had some good points — the meaningless of "organic" salmon, the now-legal inclusion of 38 synthetic ingredients in some organic products due to persuasive lobbying on behalf of the food industry, the general untrustworthiness of many of the "eco-friendly" labels. But I fear that too much of this "backlash journalism" is going to lead to the far-too-quick conclusion — in this sound-byte mad culture of ours — that organic "is just a crock."

And that would be a big mistake.

Yes, there are problems with the labeling. Yes there are huge business interests working very very hard behind the scenes to water down some of the regulations. Yes organic by itself is not as meaningful a label as we would like — for example, beef that has been fed "organic grain" is still grain-fed and not grass-fed and therefore not a superior product. Sorry. And "organic" Captain Crunch... well, don't get me started.

But we would be really really wrong to give up on the desires the started the organic movement in the first place. The deep desire in many people for food that hasn't been sprayed, contaminated, overly processed, colored and put on steroids to make it bigger, redder, and prettier. The deep desire in many people to eat meat and poultry that has not been raised on antibiotics and steroids. The deep desire in many people (even if they can't articulate it) to eat salmon that actually has omega-3 fats in it and didn't have its color chosen for it from a Benjamin Moore paint wheel on a salmon-farm. And — dare I say it — there is a growing nascent movement of people who actually care about humane farming and the lives of the animals we sacrifice so that we can eat well, and would like those animals — many of which by the way are as intelligent as dogs — to actually have some modicum of a stress free, drug free life and a quick and painless death before we eat them.

These desires shouldn't be trivialized — or worse, put to sleep — by the "organic skeptics." Sure, there are problems with "organic" labeling. But it's a move in the right direction... a first step towards a more responsible food supply. And in many cases, it's the difference between eating a thin layer of carcinogenic pesticides with your strawberries, and not eating said layer.

Don't give up on organic.

Like they say about life — it might suck sometimes, but it really beats the alternative.

Hidden Factors in Weight Gain

In case you missed it, a recent journal issue of the International Journal of Obesity — (I know, you never miss an issue, it's your favorite thing to read next to People)— reported on ten "novel" factors for explaining the collective expansion of America's waistline.

It was interesting, because it was the first time — that I know of — that a respected scientific journal has put together a lot of the factors that popular diet writers like Elson Haas and Ann Louise Gittleman have been talking about for a while — so called "hidden factors" in weight gain that go beyond the obvious.

For example: Sleep deprivation. I wrote on AOL ages ago that there was an easy weight loss technique that you could do in bed and took no effort. The article got more hits than almost any other I ever wrote. The "magic technique?" Sleep. Why? Lack of sleep (or non–restfulsleep) raises cortisol and reduces nightime secretion of both melatonin and human growth hormone. People who are tired all day also eat more — ever notice that? The hormonal environment caused by the stress of undersleeping is a prescription for disaster when it comes to weight gain.

The International Journal of Obesity also listed endocrine disruptors, a subject that's been relegated to the back rooms of nutritional conspiracy theories and never taken nearly as seriously as it needs to be. I first read about the syndrome in Lindsay Berkson's excellent book "Hormone Deception" and I've been talking about it ever since. Briefly, there's stuff in the environment — toxins, chemicals, breakdown components of plastics — that act in the body like hormones and basically mimic or intefere with the natural action of our body's hormones. Screw around with the endocrine system and all bets are off. Hormones direct weight gain — just like they direct zillions of other metabolic processes — and when the environment is filled with endocrine disruptors, it's like spreading Elmer's glue all over smoothly functioning machinery. The results aren't pretty. Take a look at the beach on Coney Island. Come to think of it, take a look at the people laying on the beach on Coney Island. Get my drift?

The Journal also mentioned medications. The PDR (Physican's Desk Reference) is filled with thousands of pages of drug descriptions, a good portion of which has to do with "side effects." Many of these have to do with weight, either directly or indirectly. Anyone who's had experience with Prednisone knows this first hand, but there are subtle ways medications can affect weight gain/loss indirectly as well, by adding to the burden on an already overtaxed liver which has to get rid of the stuff in the first place, all while doing triple duty as the body's premiere fat processing plant. Talk about multitasking.

So there you have it. The establishment is starting to "get" that it's more than just diet and exercise. That doesn't mean those twin pillars of health don't matter — they do.

They're just not the whole picture.

Media Reporting 101

"Seatbelts Found to be Ineffective in Two Major Studies"

Suppose you opened the newspaper tomorrow and read the above headline.

You read a little deeper and you find the following: "Seatbelts were ineffective in preventing some of the most important causes of death, researchers said today. A study, published today in the American Journal of Anti-Seatbelt Research, found that seatbelt users were no less likely to die of cancer, heart attacks or hepatitis than non-seatbelt wearers. In a second, related study, it was found that seatbelts did not offer any protection from divorce."

Sound incredible?

But wait... there's more. How about this summary: "Seatbelts found ineffective in preventing three major causes of death."

This is exactly what happens every day when the media reports vitamin research. Research which is often — though not always — funded by drug companies. And which is always published in a medical culture (Journal of the American Medical Association, New England Journal of Medicine) in which pharmaceuticals are king and contempt for "natural" cures is rampant. (I don't recall seeing any attention-grabbing headlines on the hundreds of pro-nutrient studies published weekly in journals like the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.)

The recent spate of headlines proclaiming that some of our most important vitamins "don't work" have driven me mildly mad. Why? Well, for one thing, the information is dead wrong. For another — and this is the one that's more frustrating — explaining why it's dead wrong takes more than ten words and requires a modicum of sophistication in how science works and how studies are done.

Few people have time to read the small print and fewer still — unless you've been trained in statistics — would understand it. Everyone however, can — and does — form a strong impression from the headline "Omega 3's Found Useless Against Heart Arrhythmias," (which can easily be shortened to "Omega 3's Found Useless" and translated over coffee to "Hey Joe, did you hear? They found out that that fish oil stuff doesn't do anything!"

And while I know that you, dear reader, would never make such an leap, I'll bet you know someone who does. Only always.

When I used to teach personal trainers about how to interpret research results, I'd use the following example: "Suppose," I'd say to the class of muscle-heads, "I want to find out which of two particular exercise routines is better at building muscle. Let's divide the room in half. Half of you — everyone to my left — will try exercise routine number one for a few weeks, everyone on my right will try exercise routine number two. Sound OK?" (Actually it's very far from OK, but let's not get into that for now. My trainers thought it was just fine.)

Then I'd say: "Now suppose, right before we divide the room in half, a dozen guys, average height 6'3", average weight 260, average body fat 4%, all of whom are competing in the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding competition next door at the Beacon Theatre, happen to wander into our classroom and sit together on the left side of the room. What just happened to my experiment?"

That they got.

How a study is done — what criteria were used to measure success, how the subjects were matched, what variables were studied — makes all the difference in the world. And, in case you don't feel like reading further, let me cut to the proverbial chase: you should completely ignore such recent headline grabbers as "B Vitamins Don't Prevent Death," "Omega-3's Useless for Preventing Arrhythmias" and "Calcium Doesn't Help Build Strong Bones." They're pretty much cut from the same cloth as "Seatbelts Don't Work."

Which they don't. If you're measuring heart disease.

Let me set the stage for you:

Suppose you were reading the "car ratings" issue of Consumers Reports, where they tell you the "Top Ten Cars for 2006." Which you really want to know, because you're about to buy a car and would like to know what the "best" ones are. So far, so good. Now suppose I told you that the criterea used for determining the "best" car included what station the car's radio was tuned to. Would that influence your opinion of the results? I hope it would. Why? Because obviously what station the car's radio is on has absolutely nothing to do with anything. But most people do not know — or care — what the "fine print" of a study says, or, in our example, what criteria was used to determine the "best" car. They just read the ratings. Or, in the case of a study, the CNN headline that "summarizes" the results, written by a reporter who has no more science literacy than the average high school student.

Now, you might say, the people who do these studies are really smart. They wouldn't make such silly mistakes as using criteria analogous to "what station the car radio is turned to." Well, I can understand your feelings, but I respectfully submit that the reason you think that is because you don't hang around with enough researchers. They can and do make mistakes just like that, and just as unforgiveable. And when economics gets into the mix — i.e. when the studies are funded by people who have a vested interest in the results — the "mistakes" or "omissions" are all the more maddening.

As Upton Sinclair once said, "It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon him not understanding it."

Take home point: There are an infinite number of "data points" when you're collecting statistics. What you pay attention to, what you underline, what you take-home is a subjective act of interpretation. Statistics are simply numbers. They need to be organized and interpreted. Interpretation is never objective, and always dependent on many criteria such as what you consider important and what you're looking at. What you hear on the news is almost always interpretation. Contrary to conventional belief, the "facts" do not speak for themselves — they require an interpreter to extract conclusions from them (Facts: We've built some hospitals in Iraq and they just had elections. Interpretation: the war in Iraq is going well. Facts: We’ve lost 2500 people and 47% of the population thinks it's fine to kill Americans. Interpretation: The war in Iraq is going horribly.) Pick your numbers, draw your inferences.

Welcome to the world of statistics. Or as they like to say, "God is in the details."

Back to the vitamin studies.

Recently, a headline proclaimed that fish oil did not reduce the risk of serious abnormal heart rhythms, leading to the widely reported sound byte that omega-3's "didn't work." Well, by the criteria of reducing serious abnormal heart rhythms, they don't. And seat belts don't reduce the risk of divorce. Does that mean we shouldn't wear them?

No one ever said that omega-3's reduce the risk of serious abnormal heart rhythms. What omega-3's do is prevent strokes and heart attacks, reduce both systolic and diastolic blood pressure, reduce inflammation and improve mood. To "evaluate" their use by looking at a criteria that's fairly irrelevant and then — even worse — proclaiming them "useless" based on their inability to affect that criteria, is like deciding Kobe Bryant is a terrible athlete because he can't play tennis. Or that a car doesn't deserve a high rating because its radio station is tuned to Heavy Metal 101.

But don't get me started.