Errors or Credibility Issues in sustainability writings

I still recommend the sustainability writings of Sharon Astyk and Sally Fallon, but be aware of some errors and credibility issues in those materials:

1. According to blogger and author Sharon Astyk, it's a good idea to freeze grain in order to kill insect eggs. The downside of freezing grain is that the freezing also kills off the symbiotic organisms that are responsible for the rising of naturally fermented bread dough. Certainly another downside is the energy inefficiency of most home freezers.

2. Astyk's recipes feature a number of frozen green vegetables, but the Vitamin E content of fresh green vegetables is completely destroyed by freezing. Astyk's recipes often list refined sweeteners as an ingredient (sugar, molasses, etc.), although the December 2012 issue of Mother Jones magazine documents 40 years of the sugar industry hiding clinical evidence of sugar's involvement in the rise of both diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Thank heaven I removed all refined sweeteners from my kitchens 5 years ago. Here's the text of that article: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/10/sugar-industry-lies-campaign

3. Sharon Astyk and Sally Fallon are 2 sustainability writers who appear to have serious problems with being overweight. Many of their recipes include high-fat ingredients. I adapt their recipes to the low-fat protocol that I follow. See the website of Caldwell Esselstyn, MD (his M.D. degree is from Yale Medical School, and he practiced medicine at the world-famous Cleveland Clinic), who has published the largest amount of clinical follow-up data (complete with control groups, etc.) in leading medical journals on the prevention and reversal of cardiovascular disease:
http://www.heartattackproof.com/
It is not necessary to wipe out your cardiovascular system in order to follow a sustainability lifestyle.

4. If, as Astyk suggests, you want to use old large metal popcorn containers for grain storage, do yourself a favor first and check the inside of the cans for possible lead contamination before using the cans for food storage.

5. Astyk and other sustainability writers recommend the British Berkefeld water filter, but remember that that recommendation was given in the pre-Fukushima Daiichi era. I am working on a magazine article about Fukushima, but in the meantime, my advice on water filtration is that commercially available spring water from deep springs (brands such as Crystal Geyser, Mountain Valley, for example) is really worth the money. In California, Crystal Geyser is sold at various dollar stores, such as Dollar Tree, 99 Cent Store, etc. Any single-purpose water filtration strategy (such as reverse osmosis only) is insufficient to remove radioisotopes from surface waters in the Western Hemisphere, thanks to the ongoing burning of radioactive rubble on the Japanese main island of Honshu that releases radioisotopes into the air currents. The term "surface waters" refers to streams, ponds, rivers, lakes, municipal water reservoirs, wells, other groundwaters, and the like. Spring water is different, coming from great depths of the earth's crust, See the bottler website for detailed analysis of the exact mineral contents of their spring water.

6. Sally Fallon is associated with a foundation that has received financial support from various meat and dairy producers. Be aware that the bolded opinion pieces in her books are both controversial and unreferenced.

7. If you use newsprint to do "sheet mulching," (as suggested on page 237 of Independence days: a guide to sustainable food storage & preservation , use only the black-and-white pages, since color sections of newspapers contain lead.

8. If you cook with a gas stove, as I do, be aware that both natural gas and propane gas indoor cooking requires an over-the-stove air removal system. Also be aware that over-the-stove microwave ovens that have an air removal system internally installed provide inadequate ventilation for the air removal needs of natural gas and propane cookstoves. We're yanking out our microwave oven (installed by the previous owner) for that reason.

Some types of granite kitchen countertops are radon emitters. We will be testing our granite kitchen tiles.

I would attach some recommended readings, but I haven't yet found a sustainability writer who is up to speed on these 2 topics (gas stove ventilation and granite countertops).

9. Several writers of sustainability materials recommend collecting human urine to use in fertilizing garden food plants in a diluted form. They claim that human urine is safe to use on food plants. That was probably true pre-Fukushima Daiichi. In the medical testing, however, of persons who may have suffered some body contamination from exposure to airborne radiation created by Japan's burning of radioactive rubble, the gold standard is the urine test, for cesium and other longer-lived radioisotopes.

My recommendation is therefore that you get your urine tested for radioactive isotopes before you use the urine on food plants.

Edit April 2013: Carla Emery's The Encyclopedia of Country Living has the same weaknesses in the subject area of nutrition as do Sharon Astyk's writings. (The freezing of grain and greens is recommended, which unfortunately destroys all the Vitamin E content.) Vitamin E cannot survive freezing.

Carla's encyclopedia is otherwise well worth buying ... it's now on its 10th edition.