John Reganold has been comparing organic and conventional agricultural systems since he noticed the drastic difference between them in a soil sample 25 years ago. He is an agro-ecologist who has always been interested in how land is used, and is the lead author of a study on the sustainability and nutritional benefits of organic farming, which was published in the journal PLoS ONE yesterday.

The demand for organic food continues to increase, and as we are huge fans of the benefits of organic produce here at HLife, we were thrilled to see such definitive information on a much-debated subject. While everyone knows that conventionally grown produce has more pesticide residue that the liver then has to discard, there wasn’t conclusive data regarding nutrition – until now. This study of strawberries grown on commercial farms is among the most comprehensive of its kind: A team of interdisciplinary researchers checked indicators like soil DNA, microbe diversity, fruit taste, antioxidant activity, and even appearance. Twenty-six strawberry fields were analyzed, and side-by-side comparisons found that the organic farms produced more flavorful and nutritious berries while leaving the soil healthier.

HLife chatted with Professor Reganold about the groundbreaking implications of this study, among which are the relationship between organic farming and better nutrition, a longer product shelf life, and quality soil.

Maryl Celiz: How was the study conducted?
John Reganold: Our research team was interested in looking at both the soil quality and also the strawberry quality, including the nutritional quality on real commercial farms. So it had to represent reality. The strawberry capital of the world is in Watsonville, California, so I made phone calls over a couple of weeks and visited Watsonville with growers to see if we could actually get these side-by-side comparisons of organic and conventional strawberry farms where the soils were the same, and where the strawberry varieties were the same and planted at the same time. I found out that we could do this in certain locations, and that’s very critical – that is one of the most important things about this study is the methodology: the varieties are the same, they are planted at the same time, and the fields from these farms are directly adjacent – they are probably about 20 meters apart – and we tried to get a sample, not right on the edge but fairly close, so the soils would not have a differing effect on the berries.

MC: The soil was the same but the difference was on the process of farming and the seeds?
JR: The seeds were the same – there were no genetically modified seeds on either side. We didn’t deal with any GM crops, the varieties are classically bred by either University of California, or, in the case of the Driscoll growers, they have their own breeders. Those seedlings are brought out and put in the ground in November and they grow through winter and in the middle of March you have strawberry production. Then they harvest every three or four days all the way until November, so it’s a seven month production. Strawberries go through cycles so you’re gonna have periods of time when there is high production, but it may be that the organic berries have a little bit of a different cycle than the conventionally grown berries. So, to make sure we took that into account, we sample all three seasons over two years. We samples in spring, summer, and fall and we did that across 26 farms – 13 organic and 13 conventional farms, they were in pairs – same variety, same soil.

MC: You found farms that produce both organic and conventional?
JR: Absolutely. In fact, Driscoll’s is probably the biggest strawberry producer, or one of the biggest in the world, and they grow both organic and conventional berries. Pacific Gold Farms, they were the other big company. The setting was really made possible by the cooperation of these two companies. When we were out in the fields, we didn’t pick the berries because that wouldn’t represent reality. We would make sure that the berries were picked on our study fields when the rest were normally picked by the pickers. And we would have them pick from the spots on the field that we wanted, and they would put them in the clam shells and take them to Driscoll’s. They were very cooperative – they have a big refrigeration system and they would cool the berries down and then the berries would be on their trucks all the way up to Washington state. They were on trucks that were coming to Washington state anyway, but when the berries got up to Spokane, which is near us, we would then take our research berries off the truck. Our berries would go right into the taste test and the other berries would go right into the store, so every part of the process represented reality.

MC: The only difference then was the actual farming process.
JR: That’s correct, and that’s all we wanted. We wanted to be able to say you have two different management systems. If you have these two management systems producing strawberries, what are the effects on the soil, and the soil DNA, the genetics – and what are the effects on the berries, meaning, their shelf life (how fast do they rot), their nutrition (vitamins, antioxidants), and taste? People often will say, “well, these particular berries taste better than these berries,” or, “organic berries taste better than conventional.” But that’s anecdotal. You really need to have scientific evidence for that. So we actually tested that. Our hypothesis was that organic strawberries produce healthier berries from healthier soils, because those are some of the reasons why people buy organic berries. We didn’t know that was the case, so we decided to check it out. So we had to make sure that the methodology was strong enough and done correctly so that we could test the hypothesis.

MC: So taking the hypothesis one step further, since your findings support your hypothesis, would you add that these healthier berries from healthier soils support healthier people because of the benefits that you found?
JR: One thing about strawberries is that they are one of the higher foods in antioxidants and vitamin C, so our study found that with the organic berries tended to have significantly more dry weight. So, if you have more dry weight, that means you have “more strawberry” in the strawberry, which means you’re getting more strawberry when you eat an organic strawberry. We also found that organic berries have more antioxidants, more phenolics, and more vitamin C – all very important for the health of humans. And, organic berries – we didn’t test this, but we know this from other studies that have been done – have much lower residues or no residue of pesticides on the berries, so, in that sense, it’s healthier. If people are concerned about eating pesticides or if they want more vitamin C, it would be better to eat the organic berries.

MC: What did you find about taste?
JR: When we did the taste tests on the berries – these were blind taste tests done with untrained panelists, ranging all the way from 20 years old to folks in their 60s. They would go into a little tasting cubicle and it’s all professionally done, there’s even a red light on so they can’t see the color of the strawberry because that could affect their judgment. They have no idea they’re comparing organic and conventional berries – that would bias them. They just know they taste two berries, and they have to rank them, score them, and we evaluate the scores. We looked at the sweetness and the overall flavor and the firmness of the strawberry. Then the red light goes off and they can see the strawberry and they have to evaluate color. With two of the varieties there was no difference – but with one of the varieties, the organic berry was sweeter, more flavorful, it was even preferred aesthetically, it had better color to the tasters. There are very few taste tests done comparing organic to conventional foods, so, that was quite a finding right there.

MC: How significant was the antioxidant difference?
JR: About 10%. The organic had about 10% more total antioxidant activity than the conventional berries, and the numbers were similar for vitamin C and phenolics.

MC: What did you find about the health of the soil?
JR: When we looked at the soil, there are traditional properties that one can look at, chemical and biological, that give you and indication of soil health or soil quality, and we looked at about 31 properties. And if you were to say, summarize that, there were about 12-14 differences of the 31 properties. And it was with some of the major properties, like the amount of organic matter in the soil, the amount of nitrogen, or the amount of microbial activity in the soil. All those factors, every one, were higher in the organic. Then we took soil samples and inspect the DNA from the soil. You might say, “well, what do you mean DNA?” Soils are living – they have microorganisms in them, both soils that are farmed conventionally and organically. You can go in and kind of get a shot of what the gene pool is like in these systems. We know from doing this enough that certain organisms, or genes that we can see, carry out some important processes in the soil, such as nitrogen fixation or pesticide degradation. When we looked at what we call the signal intensity coming off the organic soils versus the conventional, the signal intensity was greater in all 11 of these processes, meaning, the gene pool, the microbial activity was greater in the organic in every case. There was also more diversity. We can basically say that the organically farmed soils were not only healthier and higher quality, but they were also more genetically diverse, and likely more resilient to stress that might come upon that soil system. Those were pretty significant findings too. We really got to look at soil as well as the berries themselves.

MC: How does the organic process differ from the conventional process?
JR: Both of these management systems are intense. They grow strawberries on mounds that they have to build with special equipment. They plant the strawberries and the mounds on both systems are covered with plastic tarp, which basically knocks out weeds, and it is interesting because the use of this tarp basically excluded the need for herbicide in both systems. The big difference is though, before they put on that tarp usually all the conventional growers use methyl bromide to fumigate the soil, which is basically a brief sterilization of the soil. A lot of the microbes come back, but during that time it helps cut down disease. The organic can’t do that because certification processes don’t like it. Other differences were that the conventional growers could use an arsenal of synthetic pesticides. The organic growers don’t have that, they can’t use synthetic pesticides, however, they can use organically certified pesticides but they are much more limiting. For example, sulfur, which is a more natural pesticide. Organic growers do use pesticides, it’s just that they have to be certified and they’re usually natural. Another thing is that the number of pesticides used is relatively small in the organic systems but in the conventional systems it’s relatively high. And then the conventional growers can also use synthetic fertilizers, but the organic not. So the organic had to use organically certified fertilizers, and they used compost. Now the interesting things is that both systems used compost – the conventional growers used compost to bring back some of the microbes lost during fumigation more quickly. But the organic used twice as much. I think that was one of the main reasons we found so much of a difference in soil quality – and probably not having the methyl bromide might have helped too. But that’s the difference: It comes down to pesticides and fertilizers. The harvesting and irrigation is similar.

MC: How much of a difference was there in shelf life?
JR: We basically took the strawberries and set them on the counter and did what we called the rotting test. You can, basically, watch them rot over a series of days. Most growers and stores that buy strawberries want them to have a long shelf life, maybe five days and not rot. We actually thought that the conventional berries would rot more slowly because they had this array of pesticides. But what happened was the opposite: The organic berries rotted significantly more slowly. So, after a five or six day period, you could have 25% more good organic berries than conventional, on average over the varieties. That’s a plus when you’re selling berries because you want the berries to be able to last longer. And be fresher. To me, that was a surprise.

MC: Any guess as to why that happened?
JR: We don’t really know. If you would have asked me before the study, “ok, which soils are gonna be healthier?” I would’ve probably said the organic. But if you would’ve said about the rotting test, I would’ve said that the conventional is gonna rot more slowly, which is why it was so amazing to me that it was the opposite.

MC: With so many benefits – nutritional, soil health, shelf life – to the organic system, what would be the advantage of farming conventionally?
JR: The advantage for a grower is yield. You get higher yields in general. The industry data from these two companies for these two years showed that the conventional strawberries were producing 25% more yield. Now, at the same time, organic berries were more than making up for that in price premium. The price that a grower can get for an organic berry will more than make up for that 25% yield difference. A grower may get about 40% more for growing an organic berry. Another advantage to conventional farming is that it’s easier to grow conventionally – you have an arsenal of pesticides to use which the organic farmer can’t use, and because there are more conventional farmers, there is more information out there to help you farm conventionally. Organic farming is more intensive and there is less information out there on how to do it.

MC: Did you measure pesticide residue?
JR: We didn’t look at pesticide residues because there’s already information out there on that. The Environmental Working Group has information on pesticide residue, and strawberries are usually in the top 5, they’re certainly in the dirty dozen. The three main reasons people buy organic are because they think it’s healthier, it tastes better, and they think it’s better for the environment. Now, we already know there are more pesticide residues on conventional strawberries. But where the jury is out is on the nutritional differences between the organic and conventional, so we wanted to look at the antioxidants, the vitamin C and the phenolics. Then there’s very little information on taste, so we ran some taste tests. And then as far as better for the environment, I’ve looked at other farming systems where we’ve looked at the effects of organic/conventional farming on, say, soil erosion. And while soil erosion wasn’t part of the study, what is better for the environment is what is better for the soil. People think that organic growers are doing a better job with the soil and we thought, if that’s the case, let’s look at these 31 soil properties and see if that is the case. And let’s look at the DNA, and from those two things, we should get an indication of soil health.

MC: Can you define what sustainability means from a soil studies perspective?
JR: Sustainability is kind of a Utopian concept. What it says is, if we meet sustainability guidelines, or if a particular farm is to be sustainable, it needs to be economically sustainable, environmentally sustainable, and socially sustainable. Then within those three there are all kinds of variables. How do you measure that? You have to test the farm. You can have a farm that is not profitable – that is not sustainable. Or a farm that is causing erosion or polluting a lake – that’s not sustainable. So, when we do studies, we look at different sustainability indicators. For example, soil quality, crop yield, crop quality – if it’s a strawberry, more vitamin C. The farm also has to make money. It has to be good for the environment. But it also has to be socially just – the people working there should get fair wages, benefits, and it should be good for the community. When you look at all of these things you say, wow, that’s a tough business to be in – and it is. But if you look at those variables in general, and you look at the studies that have been done, in general, organic systems are more sustainable than conventional systems.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Mrs. Franca Canonico, channel of El Ser Uno (”The One Being” in Spanish), a series of books that explains who we are as a race, where we come from, and where we are going, among other profound universal concepts. While the current three books in the series are not available in English yet (they are coming soon, Spanish only for now but available for free download here), we were fortunate enough to chat with Franca and bring you some of the themes in the books, which are of great importance for everyone’s personal growth and the evolution of the planet as a whole.

Maryl Celiz: What is El Ser Uno?
Franca Canonico: El Ser Uno is channeled information that has been received since the beginning of 2002, for more or less six years, from beings that come from the anti-material worlds of Alpha Centauri, a reality that is different from ours. They presented themselves and said they came here to help us, so that we can transcend and elevate our thought-energies or what we call “spirit”. El Ser Uno itself is a universal body of knowledge. It’s a belief, but it is a universal belief, not a religion. El Ser Uno is the universal knowledge, understanding and love. This means that the all of the human species that is dispersed throughout the Universe has this knowledge called El Ser Uno. Why? Because everyone is aligned with all and is as one. Every person is aligned in knowledge, understanding and love. That is why it is called El Ser Uno – because all humans together make up the Universal Mind. Now, just as we write these books for  people here, the older brothers we call Ayaplianos are the beings that give us this knowledge; they are the ones in charge of transmitting El Ser Uno.

Silvie Celiz: What is the purpose of these books?
FC: The goal with these books is, first and foremost, self-knowledge – to know how we work. Something fundamental with these books is that they are written in order. Up until now, three books have been written, but there will be six. So, in the first book, they explain to us where we come from, and how the Universe was created. It is knowledge that spans from the creation of the Universe, through what we currently are in the present, and to what we will be tomorrow. They have come to explain things to us so that we may know our origins, which is necessary because a cosmic alignment of great universal proportions is approaching, and that will begin to take place on July 7th, 2014. This means that four dimensions will line up one behind the other, and this will bring us extraordinary advances. But since we don’t have global knowledge of things, they have come to explain why this is all happening, and why we are all going to take part in it.

MC: What is going to happen in 2014 and why do you speak of this date and not of the popular 2012?
FC: This is a big confusing thing that many readers have emailed about, exactly that: Why does El Ser Uno say 2014 and the Mayans and their prophecies speak of the year 2012? Until now, those that have explained the Mayan prophecies say there are going to be natural disasters, others say there will be a spiritual change within us, and El Ser Uno says something new, which nobody has mentioned yet: It speaks of a cosmic alignment, not of disasters. In the year 2014, specifically July 7th, 2014, just like there are solstices and equinoxes, there will be a cosmic alignment that we say is of large proportions due to the fact that, not only will there be planets aligning – there will be planets, constellations, and universes. Therefore, this will be a tremendous alignment, one that we will not be able to perceive in its entirety, only to a point but no more than that, because we do not have the technology to do so. Now, if we speak of a cosmic alignment, we are speaking of the macro and microcosm.

SC: What does this mean for us?
FC: This means that, there will also be an alignment taking place within each of us. Our brain is designed in the image and likeness of the Universe, it is made up of zones: zone one through nine. Those zones have thought-energies within them. Those thoughts are going to align, meaning that we are going to find a DIRECTION, and we will no longer be so confused, no longer be unsure of what will happen, no longer ignorant of what our past was – we are going to have knowledge, and that knowledge is what is going to give us ORDER. Order is what will align our zones, and this means that we are going to have: congruence, direction, placement…we are going to find our place in the Universe. There will be a great opening within us and from that point on, we will have the ability to have extraterrestrial contact.

MC: How can we prepare ourselves for this moment of change?
FC: If we are speaking of change within us, then preparation does not mean acquiring a lot of knowledge, but having understanding instead, the understanding of what exactly is happening within us. The internal preparation is not how many people think it is – that we have to be more religious or have more faith in God. It means that we have to do the internal labor of working out our emotions. We have to begin to align our own selves, meaning that we have to start to understand what happens to us internally and to begin to understand ourselves as the human beings that we are. Because, what has been happening until now? We have been following religions, ascended masters, we have always had guides, gurus and teachers that have guided us, but we have never been our own teachers. And this is a very important thing in this alignment. It’s like saying, “the time has come for me to take responsibility of myself and what I think has to be congruent with what I want to be.” Because, generally, we have been of the perspective that by doing certain things, like going to church to pray, that we are spiritual beings. To a certain point, we won’t say this is not the case, because that is an action. But action has to be joined by work and thought. Work, action and thought – it is three things that together conform our alignment. This alignment means responsibility for myself and responsibility for everything that is around me. And by that, we  mean responsibility for all of the beings on this planet, and the planet itself.

MC: What do you mean by “what I want to be”?
FC: First of all, we have a lot of knowledge already. We are not people who are adrift. We have religions, we have literature, many sources of information that can give us a focus of what we want to have, to be and to advance in life. This is first an analysis of conscience: Who am I and why am I here? What is going on with me? Why am I not happy? There are many things within us that we have to work out. Therefore, you can say that this is psychological work. And you can say, “But how can we do psychological work when we are not psychologists?” True, we are not psychologists, but we have something intuitive within us that let’s us know what is working well within us and what is not. That’s where we have to be conscious of ourselves, and if we cannot do this work on our own, we have many people around us who can help – friends, relatives, people who love us, people who respect us – and it is with those people that we should talk about this. One way to do this  that I recommend is through group work. Working with a group is very beneficial, very productive.

SC: Why is that?
FC: Because by working in a group setting, oftentimes other people make you see something you didn’t see yourself – they are like mirrors. The people around you are like mirrors that show you what is right and what is wrong. Many times when they tell us something true, we shouldn’t get upset, we should think, “if this person is telling me this,  it must be because something is going on with me.” And that’s where I can then reflect upon things. Then comes the awakening of conscience, and more reflection, self-knowledge, group work – all of the things we must do. But group work does not mean one person telling us what to do and how to do it. Group work is group therapy, it’s group psychoanalysis, discussions about our emotions, talks about everything that we are as human beings. And that is when we can get answers to the questions we have. We have to read, we have to dig, we have to investigate, research, we have to get nourished by knowledge. Nowadays, computers are something amazing where we can find just about everything, all kinds of information on various things we are looking for. And many times, if we can’t find something, it’s because we don’t really want to. But for this alignment, anything that we want to be, we can achieve it. It all depends on our will, our perseverance, our curiosity, and on knowing that something is about to take place with us, humans. That is a quality we call “belief”. We have to have belief – if we don’t have that, then we won’t be able to do anything with ourselves.

SC: What are the guidelines for working in a group setting?
FC: First of all, to do group psychoanalysis, there always has to be someone who is a coordinator, someone who coordinates and has knowledge, be it spiritual knowledge or knowledge of psychoanalysis itself. Now, group work that has been taking place generally up ‘till now in a sort of conference setting, with people who speak in front of an audience, is more about capturing a concept that we must then develop ourselves later. When someone goes to a conference, he doesn’t just go to listen, he goes to analyze what he is hearing. The person needs to write down the topics that most impacted him or her, whatever activated something within that prompted thinking, and then that person has to work with this individually or in his or her own group setting. For example, if you have a group that likes to work on these types of topics, then get together once a week and work, develop these things. It’s the same thing with reading a book. Reading a book doesn’t just mean that you read the text – it involves underlining the parts that most grabbed our attention, researching a word in the dictionary to see what it means exactly, analyzing the concepts in the book, if they touched me and how. If something was interesting to me, then it means discussing it with someone else, for example, saying, “look what I read in this book, I’d like to know your thoughts on it.” When you work in this way, your mind begins to undergo tremendous growth. The mind begins to be nourished with knowledge and understanding. When people gather in a group setting, it is not so that one person says what goes and what doesn’t. When people gather in a group, it’s for an EXCHANGE of knowledge and information, not just for listening. That is wonderful because only then can you truly have amazing results.

MC: You mentioned the word “belief”. What is this concept exactly?
FC: Belief is activated when someone has reached a certain level of internal maturity. We’re talking about spiritual belief here, of a more elevated type of belief, not of believing in general, but of a belief that we call “spiritual path”. So, when someone begins to feel inside himself that he has a need for answers, a need that many religions have not been able to fill, that many gurus have not been able to respond, then that person activates within himself a wonderful quality called “creative desire”. Creative desire is a need that the spirit and mind ask for in order to get help so that the person can get on a path of spiritual elevation. But what is spiritual elevation? Spiritual elevation is a deeper understanding of those answers. Generally, we can find them in books, but there is something that we call internal life and the experience of each person. That is not written in any book – it is something that each person has to go through and live. That life experience comes with something else, called cause and effect. This means that, if I understand something, this something produces a cause and if this cause generates a positive effect for me, then my belief will be reinforced because I believe in the work that I am doing. If, for example, I go to a conference, and the person that is presenting this conference activates certain needs within me so that I can get an answer, that cause that is the moment of going to that conference and hearing that person and having that activate something positive in me, if I take this and put it into practice in my daily living, and the effects that I get are positive – all of this  compounded is what we call “belief”. But it’s not believing in the person that is presenting the conferences, it’s believing in what that person activated in me, in the words that this person said that helped me. What we usually do is worship the person that said the words instead of worshiping the words that were said, but this latter is actually what is important.

SC: What is the underlying theme in most questions that you get from readers?
FC: The most common thing people say is that the amount of information that is out there is very confusing. The large quantity of information that comes from so many different sources is confusing and people don’t know how to deal, what to do with it all. St. Germain says this, the other says that, the amount of information from various schools of thought, metaphysics, mystical teachings, ascended masters – people don’t know what to do with it all. So, we go back to what we were saying before: That’s where we get the worshiping toward the people that are giving the information, and not toward the words that are being given. In general, I always address this in the same way: You shouldn’t see the person that is giving you the message, what you have to pay attention to is the words that are being said. And, ultimately, if you study the words, everyone is saying the same thing: Everyone speaks of fraternity, of love, of spiritual elevation, that we are going to transcend. So, in order to avoid confusion, take the basics from all of them because they are all saying the same thing. That is your truth, that is your internal belief. After that, begin your own path – alone. Walk on your own. Because everyone else is a crutch that you are using. Drop the crutches and begin to walk your own path, built on your own experiences, your own life, your own beliefs, your cause and effect. And from each message, from each book that you read, take the best and make it a part of you.

]]> http://hlifemedia.com/2010/06/hlife-interview-franca-canonico/feed/ 5 http://hlifemedia.com/2010/03/brendan-brazier-vegan-4-life/ http://hlifemedia.com/2010/03/brendan-brazier-vegan-4-life/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:00:45 +0000 Silvie Celiz And Maryl Celiz http://hlifemedia.com/?p=3653

You saw him as one of the poster boys for our Protein Myth Part 1 article first, and now professional Ironman triathlete and bestselling author Brendan Brazier sat down with HLife for an extensive interview where we get down to the nitty-gritty of plant-based nutrition. As one of the principal advocates for a vegan diet and the creator of the Vega line of nutritional products, Brazier has also written Thrive and Thrive Fitness, books in which he discusses the benefits of eating everything the plant kingdom has to offer, especially for athletic performance, and physical as well as mental health.

In this interview we tackle the usual suspects – protein and calcium – as well as policy and education, food issues (the topic of his upcoming third book, to be published next year), travel, and even his favorite salad recipe.

Silvie Celiz: Have you been vegan all your life?

Brendan Brazier: No, just since I was 15.

Maryl Celiz: What made you go vegan?

BB: I just wanted to be a better athlete, speed up recovery time, so I could train more, improve faster, and I tried a bunch of different diets. I would eat whatever would make me a better athlete. And I tried vegan. It didn’t work well at first, but then I learned how to do it properly and it was totally an advantage.

MC: What didn’t work, specifically?

BB: I was eating a lot of refined carbs at first – pasta, lots of bread, lots of peanut butter, high-calorie food. Then, I just did a lot of research and found out what I was lacking. It took a while to really sort it out, and now I find it really is an advantage. Now, when I get interviewed by a conventional newspaper, they’ll say “wow, you do all this stuff and you’re vegan. That’s amazing.” Well, actually, I am able to do all this stuff because I am vegan. They think that it’s a disadvantage somehow, but it’s the opposite, there’s definitely an advantage. Fortunately, I’m becoming less and less unique. More people are doing this – because it works. To be a vegan athlete is becoming more common, which is great. All the top level athletes I know eat mostly plant-based, if not completely. It’s not simple, but it works – when you do it right. Yeah, sure, if you fill up on vegan junk food, you’re gonna feel terrible. But if you eat really good plant-based, whole, nutrient-rich, alkaline-forming foods, you’ll feel good, and you’ll perform well.

SC: You highlight the benefits of a plant-based diet for strength training in particular on your site.

BB: It totally works for strength athletes, too, for building muscle. This is because plant-based food is alkaline-forming, and when you eat alkaline foods, it reduces inflammation, and if you reduce inflammation, you increase functionality. And more functional muscles have the ability to lift heavier weight. Lifting heavier weight is what builds bigger, stronger muscles. So, being vegan doesn’t make you a stronger, better athlete, but it allows you to make yourself a stronger, better athlete. It allows you to work harder, and that’s what ultimately makes you a better athlete. It’s just facilitating your body’s ability to work harder, more efficiently.

MC: You mentioned the benefits of coconut oil in your lecture. Can you expand on that?

BB: Coconut oil has medium-chain triglycerides. So it’s a type of fat and it acts more like a carbohydrate than a fat, and it goes to your liver, gives you energy straight away. I often put coconut oil on dates and have that right before a workout – it’s just quick, simple energy. I use it as part of some of my recipes too in Thrive. It’s in Vega Sport, too, in powder form. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Coconut oil is also great for cooking because, unlike olive or many other oils,  it can be moderately heated without creating toxic by-products.]

SC: Is organic important to you?

BB: To me, “grown without herbicides and pesticides” is important, but not necessarily certified organic. Certification is very expensive and a lot of small farms can’t afford it. When we were choosing ingredients for Vega initially back in 2004, only one or two were certified organic. They were all grown without herbicides or pesticides, but farms were small and didn’t have certification. But we would rather buy from them than buy from the major ones that were now also getting into Walmart and by supporting these small farms we made an agreement that they had to use part of the money that we give them towards their certification. So, now they are certified. And the ingredients haven’t changed – just the paperwork. You can go to Walmart and get certified organic – from China – and that’s really not important. What’s important is to help these small, local farms get their certification by buying from them.

SC: So, doing your homework with the small farms and supporting those that have good practices so they can get their certification.

BB: It’s also good because there’s more competition, more farms that are certified organic, so that means that one isn’t going to get the upper hand and get too big, which is what happened with Monsanto – they have too much power. If there would’ve been competition that came in earlier, it would’ve prevented that from happening. It’s good for everyone, it’s good for the consumer because it keeps the prices down, good for manufacturers because then we have a broad group of farmers to buy from, so if there’s a flood in one region, we can get from the other region. And it’s good for local farmers, because now they have more people to sell their stuff to.

SC: How easy is it for you to travel so much being a vegan?

BB: It’s actually really easy because I’m in places like Whole Foods all the time giving talks, so I’m always around good food. I just go to the produce section and buy a lot of it, go to the salad bar, eat really simply. For me it’s really easy because I don’t need to sit down and have a meal – I just graze as I go.  So if I have a grapefruit, oranges, bananas, figs, dates, things like that, just kinda eat them as I go. I have Vega bars with me, of course, too. I just keep it pretty simple.

MC: What did you tell Congress when you went to talk to them in 2006?

BB: The gist was trying to get government-funded programs that would help get the education in schools, so that at a young age people would know, not just what is good and what is not good in terms of food, but they would know how to apply that information. Also, wherever there is unhealthy foods sold, there should be healthy food options. Because kids will take the path of least resistance. So, if there’s a vending machine there, full of junk, kids are gonna eat it. If there’s one full of junk and one full of good food and kids know the benefits of the good food – they know they’d perform better in sports, think more clearly, and they feel better when they eat it – they’re gonna give that a try. So, it’s not about getting rid of bad food – if people want bad food, fine, but I think giving healthy food an equal opportunity is important.

MC: And also the subsidies for specific foods.

BB: The subsidies. We, the taxpayer, subsidize the meat industry, because it takes so much energy, land and water to produce meat that if we charged fair market value for that meat, hamburgers would be $25-$35 – out of range. So, government has to subsidize that to make it viable. It’s not a free market system, which is not good. To make that worse, we then subsidize the system to fix that – the medical system – to treat people with problems that have been developed by eating the wrong types of food. So, whether you eat meat or not, or support the meat industry or not, your taxes do, and that’s kind of frustrating because a percentage that we make is paying for, and goes directly to, these industries. And then, for people who don’t take care of themselves, we subsidize health care. I would rather have programs in place and spend our government/taxpayer money to help prevent people from getting sick and not being dependent on this health care system and the insurance premiums. It’s the goal of government to have everyone insured – and that’s great – but how about just making it so people don’t get sick?

SC: Answer the calcium question for us. Vegans always get asked how they get enough calcium without dairy.

BB: It’s not that we don’t get enough calcium in our diets – it’s that we take too much out of our bones by eating acid-forming foods. If you eat meat, dairy, white flour or synthetic drugs – it’s all acid-forming. Calcium, which is alkaline, is pulled from the bones into the blood, so that the blood can always be neutral (the body is very resourceful). But over time, one, two, three decades of eating the standard American diet of acid-forming food, you get weak bones, because the calcium just gets drawn into the bones to balance that acidity. And that’s why we’re seeing people getting osteoporosis int heir 20s now, having grown up with the standard American diet. It’s not lack of calcium – it’s that we’re taking it out of our bones. And milk too, you know, it’s acid-forming when you pasteurize it. There are much better sources. We’re not really meant to drink cow’s milk, it just doesn’t make sense, an adult human drinking something that was designed for a baby calf. It’s the wrong species eating this. It doesn’t  digest well, it doesn’t help our bones. It’s not a coincidence that the top five countries with osteoporosis are also the top five dairy-consuming countries. The connection is pretty clear.

MC: What about protein?

BB: Well I think quality is way more important than quantity. I’m 165 lbs, so I should, according to a conventional sports-nutrition book, eat about 165 grams of protein a day – and I don’t eat half that. The protein I get is from leafy greens, which is about 45% protein, pretty high, and hemp, a natural source of protein, as well as lentils, legumes, beans, peas, so it’s about quality. I get probably about 70 grams a day.

SC: Do you eat them cooked or sprouted?

BB: Sprouted when I can, sometimes cooked. The whole foods have protein in them, it’s the refined foods that don’t. White flour doesn’t have protein, but if you have amaranth or quinoa or buckwheat, they’re 20%-25% protein. That’s good quality.  When I cut back on protein, I did lose a little bit of weight but I didn’t lose any strength at all, so my strength-to-weight ratio went up. So, as an endurance athlete, it was good because my endurance went up. It’s all about function.

MC: What’s in your typical salad?

BB: Different types of lettuce, kale, sometimes a bit of nutritional yeast, different types of seaweed like dulse, a good dressing made up of apple cider vinegar and Vega oil. Also, usually avocado, different sprouted things, carrots, beets, sometimes cucumber.

SC: Lets talk about Vega. How does Vega play into the whole foods recommendation, since it is a powder?

BB: The first ingredient in Vega is hemp. Hemp is a seed and it is harvested and pressed. What’s left is hemp oil and what is called ’seed cake’, that is then milled. So, the change is pretty minimal in what you get from the seed and what goes into the powder in Vega. It stays intact – rice protein, pea protein is the same, maca is a root vegetable that is just dried and put in there. It’s just the liquid removed. I live on a property where you can grow stuff. If everyone lived like that, grow their own lentils, and make all their stuff, great. But we’re busy. And we want quick stuff. The number one store for Vega is in Manhattan, because people need food, they need it fast and they want healthy food that makes them feel good, so it’s a great option for that. If you’ve got the land and time and wanna grow all your stuff, I’m totally for that and do it myself. But reality hits and most other people in the country don’t have that advantage that Southern California has in land.

MC: In Thrive Fitness, you mention that exercise has benefits – for the mind.

BB: Yeah, it’s all about the mental benefits, not just the creativity but your subconscious benefits, you solve problems more quickly, keeping your brain active. There are reports that say that your chances of developing neurological diseases are less likely. Learning new things, like playing basketball until you start getting good at it, has a benefit. Once you learn it, that benefit goes away. Then you gotta try something new. That actually builds physical mass in your brain. Your brain actually physically grows, and that will make it less likely that you’ll get diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Repeat pattern exercise will stimulate the right-brain creative side, but then there’s the learning of new movements that will help those neurological receptors be created. So there’s two different types of movements you can do to work on different aspects of your brain. And it’s in the process too, this is about the end result but it’s also about the doing.

MC: And you’re writing a new book.

BB: It won’t come out until Spring of 2011, but it’s a food issues book, to do with food and the resources it takes to produce food. But not just food – nutrients. It’s about looking at the value of nutrition as opposed to the value of volume of food. So, it’s the opposite of genetic modification. It’s about using as few resources to create nutrient-density, pointing to plant-based nutrition. The amount of resources it takes to produce animal foods and the nutrients you get in exchange, it’s way out of line, not even close to what you get with plant-based foods.

]]> http://hlifemedia.com/2010/03/brendan-brazier-vegan-4-life/feed/ 11 http://hlifemedia.com/2009/10/htalk-with-silvie-maryl/ http://hlifemedia.com/2009/10/htalk-with-silvie-maryl/#comments Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:14:30 +0000 Silvie Celiz http://hlifemedia.com/?p=55

HTalk with Silvie and Maryl features discussions on hot topics, interviews with prominent experts on relevant health issues, as well as your favorite inspiring celebrities.