Natural and Organic Food

Here are some rather shocking facts about pesticides that Natural and Organic Food blog has unearthed:

UK Government tests have suggested that one in every four items of food that you buy contains traces of pesticides. No less than one hundred and fifty of the most commonly used pesticides are potentially cancer causing. Some pesticides cannot be washed off with water, as has been previously believed.

Around 31,000 tonnes of chemicals are used annually by farmers in the UK to kill weeds, insects and other pests that attack crops. In 2004, around 40% of the fruit, vegetable and bread samples tested in the UK contained measurable amounts of pesticides.

There is very little control over the way these potentially dangerous chemicals are used and in what quantities or combinations in the non-organic farming sector.

The Food Standards Agency now recognises that the vast majority of people do not want pesticides in their food.

Modern pesticides have a devastating effect on the environment. Added to that are the very real uncertainties about the actual effectiveness of official safety regulation of pesticides. Yet unbelievably their use is allowed to continue unabated despite the fact that some of the enormous risks to human health are virtually unknown.

By way of a comparison with modern, intensive farming methods, where a cocktail of pesticides are used on arable land and the crops that we commonly eat, organic farmers with the Soil Association are allowed to use (and then only as a last resort) a mere four of the 350 pesticides that are in use. Although two of these chemicals are strictly controlled, the Soil Association wants to take this further and are actually phasing out one of these completely.

All the more reason for everybody to stand up and say a resounding “NO MORE” to non-organic produce and force governments and the farming industry into changing the way they operate completely, before it’s too late.

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food

Natural and Organic Food has been given some Google love in the form of a PR2, which came as a bit of a surprise as I haven’t been promoting this site as much as some of my others, but a nice surprise nevertheless.

I’m sure it has a lot to do with the amount of good quality content in here and less to do with the eternal scrabble to obtain back-links from other sites that most marketing bloggers seem to be hell-bent on. Ah well, sometimes it’s good to take things at an easy pace and let things like this happen when they happen!

As for this site in general, I’ve not gone overboard in trying to turn it into a money making machine as it’s not really that sort of site. True, there are a few affiliate books and other bits and bobs here and there that I’ve put up to earn a few dollars from it so it can pay its way and justify my time in looking after it. But in the end, there are my other higher profile sites that can do that much more effectively. That leaves this place to run at a nice, sedate pace - which fits in nicely with an organic lifestyle!

So don’t despair if you notice the odd advertising banner appear here and there - it’s not a sign that tons more will follow, just me trying to make an honest buck from my writing and blogging.

Lastly, hows this for a neat organic tip:

If you’re worried about burning wood in a stove because of the CO2 emissions, don’t. If left to rot naturally in the wild, that lump of wood will give off exactly the same amount of CO2 as it decomposes naturally as it would if your burned it, so in actual fact you are not doing the environment any more damage by burning it and actually saving on other non-renewable sources of fuel like oil.

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food

There are lots of people who have various concerns about compost heaps.

Most of these concerns and fears can be allayed by having the composting process explained and some urban myths dispelled. Here is a mini FAQ about compost heaps to help you to understand them better:

1. What is compost?

Compost is the end result of naturally biodegraded or broken down organic matter. This happens when organic matter such as plant cuttings, grass mowings vegetable peelings and discarded leaves, in fact anything that is vegetative matter is mixed together and piled up in a heap. As long as the air can freely circulate throughout the pile, sufficient moisture is present and natural bacterium are present, the heap will start to rot, or degrade. As this happens the heap will heat up as the bacteria in the heap increase in numbers and break down the organic material speeding up the rotting process. After several weeks, the material changes from it’s original appearance into a brown, odourless, crumbly material that is packed full of nutrients and minerals which will enrich any soil that it is added to.

2. Do compost heaps smell bad?

A correctly built and managed compost heap will not smell of anything except a sweetish smell not dissimilar to freshly cut grass. Badly built heaps that do not allow air to circulate or are built exclusively of one material, for instance grass mowings, will not break down correctly and will smell bad. It is important when building your compost heap that you include many different types of plant material mixed well together and aerated. A compost activator should be added and mixed into the heap. Propriety activator pellets can be bought from garden centres and DIY stores, but a natural activator can be made by adding fresh stinging nettles throughout the pile or adding fresh horse manure. This will not make the heap smell bad, but actually make it smell good!

3. Do compost heaps attract rats and other vermin?

Firstly, it is possible that vermin will be attracted to a compost heap only if fresh vegetable kitchen waste is dumped on top and not covered. The best way to stop vermin being interested in your heap is to use a tight wire mesh cage inside the outer walls of the compost bun and to cover the heap with a heavy well fitting square of old Hessian backed carpet or, completely cover the whole bin with a square of ply or chipboard. as long as there are air holes in the sides of the compost bin’s walls to allow the air to freely circulate, the inner wire mesh will keep rats out.

Secondly, many people don’t realize that wherever they live, no matter how sterile you believe your habitat to be, you are never further than six feet away from a rat. Fact! So a compost heap should be least of your concerns.

4. Can I put paper on a compost heap?

Of course you can! Remember, paper is made from pulped wood which is an organic material. So paper and cardboard roughly torn up into smallish strips can and should be added to a compost heap to aid with the variety of the mixture of organic material.

5. Can I put rotten meat or leftover bones on a compost heap?

technically, anything that once lived can be composted, but meat and bones can contain certain bacteria that might not be beneficial to the heap, so these are best disposed of. Better still, if you have a dog, you can give any leftover food to him! Don’t give a dog chicken bones though, as they have a tendency to splinter.

6. What about my cat or dog’s poop?

That’s a definite no-no, as cat and dog faeces contains harmful bacteria.

One last “however” is that as long as you’re healthy, human urine is actually a good compost activator! Just don’t let your neighbours catch you “activating” your compost bin the way nature intended!

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food

It doesn’t take much, but there are several small things that everyone can do that will go a little way to helping the environment.

First, I notice a lot of people don’t think when throwing stuff away. I don’t mean they become stupid the moment they throw something into the garbage, I mean they don’t think about what impact their action has when you multiply it a few thousandfold as everyone else does the same thing.

Landfill sites are bursting at the seams because people throw away so much stuff. A lot of it needn’t even go into landfill, it’s just that people don’t realize they can dispose of things in a different way that will have a huge impact on the rate at which landfills get filled up.

Here are a few things that just a tiny bit of extra thought will make a difference.

Plastic bottles. If there is no recycling bank near you, then the next best thing you can do is at least reduce the volume of the waster that you dump. That means squeezing up the bottles when they’re empty to make them as small as possible. That will in itself save a huge volume in landfill if everyone did this.

Milk and juice cartons. These shouldn’t be chucked in the bin whole either. It doesn’t take much to fold them into a small block and reduce their volume by 90%.

Paper and cardboard - don’t even throw it out. Why would you? If you have a garden then you should have a compost heap. If you have a compost heap, rip up paper and cardboard into manageable pieces and mix them into your heap. It all biodegrades with the rest of the composting material.

Kitchen waste. Again, if you have a compost heap, you should be throwing all peelings and unused leafy and vegetable material onto the compost heap. Some gardeners don’t like throwing potato peelings on the heap because they have a tendency to grow in the heap. What are they worried about? As the things grow, just turn them in and let the composting process break the additional plant matter down!

Incidentally, if you don’t have a garden or a compost heap, surely you know a friend, relative or neighbour who has and could be convinced to take your compost-able material for their own heaps.

These are just a few things you can do to help make a difference.

For one person to do these things the effect will be barely noticeable, but for a thousand people to do these things an impact will be felt!

I’ll post more ideas like this in future posts.

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food