Choose your food based on the facts
Why I stopped peddling ‘holistic’ nutrition plans
For years, I was deeply embedded in the wellness world in my own life. Then I decided to work in the industry as a holistic nutritionist, praising and promoting the newest alternative health treatments and products.
But not only was I unable to back it all up, I was dripping with self-righteousness over my lifestyle.
At the time, I thought my credentials were sufficient. In Canada, where I live, there is no professional governing organization for holistic nutritionists, and I had only a year of education before I was certified in 2015 — nowhere near what it takes to qualify as a medical practitioner. My program discouraged us from saying “treat,” “cure,” “heal” or “prevent” when addressing health-related issues. Although I was very careful to abide by these guidelines, many others in wellness are not.
My work as a holistic nutritionist — “holistic” because I was trying to improve clients’ health by addressing the “whole person,” including their mind, body and spirit — was primarily online. I had a successful blog, but found prospective clients primarily through an Instagram account I started in 2014, when I was in nutritional school.
During this phase, a meal in my home would have included only organic and non-genetically modified organisms (non-GMO) foods. I thought this was the best way to rid your diet of toxins and pesticides. In reality, this isn’t quite the case. The U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a list of synthetic substances that organic growers are permitted to use on their crops and still maintain their “organic” label.
Marketing that organic food is cleaner is all around us. Just take a look at the campaign “Skip the Chemicals.” It encourages consumers to fear the scary-sounding names of chemicals and adopt a better-safe-than-sorry attitude toward their food. Ultimately, though, it steers consumers toward more costly organic foods, although there is no evidence that organic foods are more nutritious.
Residue doesn’t equal risk
The “Dirty Dozen” list is another marketing ploy. Not only did I have this list stuck to my fridge at home, I also encouraged my clients to download and share it. Using pesticide residue data from the USDA, it ranks food by the levels of detected pesticides to generate a list of the top 12 fruits and vegetables consumers should avoid in their conventional versions.
“Remember, though, that the presence of a residue is not equal to the presence of risk!” wrote Joe Schwarcz, director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. “What matters is not the variety of residues detected, but whether these are in excess of the amounts regulatory agencies deem to be safe.” In fact, there are “virtually no cases in which the levels deemed to be safe are exceeded.”
But this important contextual information isn’t included. After all, scared consumers send donations.
A 2011 study in The Journal of Toxicology found that the levels of residue detected are 1,000 to 30,000 times below the Environmental Protection Agency’s already conservative safety limits (known as “tolerances”). Nonorganic versions of these foods are incredibly safe for us to eat.
GMOs aren’t unsafe
Don’t underestimate the influence that labels can have. One example of deceptive marketing is slapped on roughly 61,000 food products — the little butterfly seal from the Non-GMO Project. This perpetuates the false idea that GMOs are unsafe. It has gotten so ridiculous that products like salt, which has no genes, are labeled non-GMO. You’ll see this label on other goods like lettuce and blueberries, even though genetically modified versions of these products don’t exist in the marketplace.
Government agencies, international health organizations and the scientific community have affirmed the safety of genetically modified foods. But the science position is losing people’s hearts and minds. A 2015 Pew Research Center survey found that only 37% of the general public believed that genetically modified foods were generally safe to consume, versus 88% of American Association for the Advancement of Science scientists polled.
I started looking into the sources of my sources, only to find anecdotes being presented as evidence and antiquated, and outdated studies being used to confirm biases.
In 2017, I eventually made the difficult decision to turn away from the faddiet and corporation-hating lifestyle I was living and ended my business. My intention is not to demonize the organic food industry — I simply incorrectly believed that my dogmatism against toxins and pesticides was based on solid science. But I was actually rejecting science. I sought out media that only confirmed my preexisting bias.
Do what I wish I had done sooner and open yourself up to the research. Don’t take the word of a parent you met at your kid’s soccer practice or from a theory you overheard in yoga. Choose based on facts. Your pocketbook and peace of mind will thank you.