The Quest for Nutrient-Dense Food--High-Brix Farming and Gardening

[Guest guest]

To see whole article go to url

The Quest for Nutrient-Dense Food--High-Brix Farming and Gardening

http://www.westonprice.org/farming/nutrient-dense.html

An Interview with Rex Harrill by Suze Fisher

 

Rex Harrill of Keedysville, Maryland has been farming and gardening for the

better part of thirty years. Seventeen years ago he moved to a 16-acre farm and

started a new garden.

 

In the first few years his crops were tasteless and ridden with spittle bugs,

caterpillars and several other garden pests. Yet his previous garden had

produced delicious, pest-resistant crops, although he didn’t know why at the

time.

Only later did he realize he’d inherited a garden with exceptional soil

fertility at his previous farm. But after two years of bitter turnips, radishes

and

other crops from his new garden, Rex set out to find answers. That’s when he

came across a book called The Anatomy of Life & Energy in Agriculture by Dr.

Arden Andersen. He’d finally found what he’d been seeking--a program that

developed fertile soil which in turn produced delicious nutrient-dense crops

that

were resistant to pests, weeds and disease, year after year. Rex also learned

from Dr. Andersen that the brix level of the crop correlated with its

nutrient-density--that brix was a valuable measurement in determining the

nutritional

value of the crop. Ever since then, Rex has followed a high-brix gardening

approach, strongly influenced by the works of Dr. Andersen along with those of

Dr. William Albrecht, Dr. Carey Reams and Dr. Dan Skow.

 

Suze: Rex, can you explain what Brix is? Most people I’ve spoken to about

Brix insist that it’s only a measure of a plant’s sugar content. Is this

true?

 

Rex: I’ve come across many ways to dispel that " only sugar " notion. A

favorite is to sit a Doubting Thomas on my back porch and pour him a glass of

ordinary store-bought orange juice. Once he has sipped a little, I add a

spoonful of

sugar to his glass. Most people quickly understand that sugar is not what

makes orange juice taste good--most report that the added sugar just makes the

orange juice taste yucky. And it certainly does. The point is that adding the

sugar raises the apparent " Brix, " but it does nothing for the taste. True Brix

measures a combination of sugar, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids,

minerals and other goodies. Sugar is merely one of the components of Brix. This

same

scenario holds for any fresh juice you wish to name.

Interestingly, the above doesn’t hold true for the artificial juices made

mostly from chemicals, sugar, and water. Most of them do taste a little better

if

you add plain sugar.

 

Suze: By " fresh juice " do you mean the sap of any plant?

 

Rex: Fresh juice means liquid squeezed from a fruit. Be warned that much

orange, apple, and other fruit juice is reconstituted from concentrate.

Reconstituting can lead to false results. For instance, if you were to use 2

cans of

water (instead of the recommended 3) when preparing frozen orange juice, you

would get a terrific high " Brix " reading but not a true Brix reading. Many

people

are unaware of the fact that the juice they buy in a carton at the grocery

store was once in a very concentrated state so that it could be cheaply shipped

from another country. If the company reconstituting the juice adds too much

water, you get lower " Brix. " If they don’t add enough water, you get higher

" Brix. " Neither is true Brix. To be safe, I guess it is better to use the word

" sap " for Brix test samples. Sap is the juice squeezed out of the leaves, stems,

green fruit or roots of a live plant.

 

Suze: How is Brix measured?

 

Rex: The Brix test requires a refractometer. For a consumer to conduct a Brix

test, they need a few drops of sap (juice) squeezed from the part of any

plant that they wish to eat. In other words, they need to squeeze a small piece

of

lemon, orange, apple, etc., between their fingers and drop the juice onto

their refractometer prism. Harder produce such as cabbage, lettuce, carrots and

pears often requires a garlic press or similar tool.

 

When the drops fall on the prism, you close the cover plate to spread it out

and then look through the viewing end of the instrument where you will see an

etched scale generally calibrated in 0-30 or 0-32 degrees Brix. Just as a

pencil appears bent when placed in a beaker of water, the light passing through

the plant juice droplet is bent so that a clear line is shown against the scaled

background. The amount of bending is directly related to the richness of the

plant juice (richer juice bends the light more).

 

Centuries of wine making and working with other fruits and vegetables have

always shown a direct relationship between higher Brix numbers and higher

quality. This higher quality is reflected in superior taste. The process is

somewhat

altered for the gardener or farmer in that they test the leaf of the growing

plant much earlier and are therefore afforded the opportunity to correct soil

deficiencies before the crop matures. The gardener or farmer also benefits in

that they soon learn that any crop with 12 or better leaf Brix will not be

bothered by insect pests.

 

Suze:

According to your website (www.crossroads.ws/Brixbook/BBook.htm), it was

Carey Reams who first developed the refractive index of crop juices--a chart

that

gives " poor, " " average, " " good " and " excellent " ratings for produce based on

its Brix level. Who was Reams and what was his contribution to high-Brix

farming?

 

Rex: Dr. Carey A. Reams was a Florida native who owned a rather large

agricultural engineering firm and lab in the Orlando area from 1931 to 1968.

When he

" retired, " he only did so to further his research and travel the country

giving seminars and lectures. During his college years, Reams discovered that

there

were huge disparities in the mineral makeup of fruits and

vegetables--depending on how and where they were grown.

 

Reams developed a following of farmers because they found that his methods

produced crops of far superior quality. For many years, citrus and grape growers

had used the Brix measurement to evaluate the quality of their produce. Reams

took that knowledge and formulated a Brix chart, which covers most of the

common fruits, vegetables and forage crops. Sometime shortly after the founding

of Acres USA, Reams noticed that while the paper’s contributors and readers

talked about higher quality farm production, no one had quantified the process.

One day Reams walked into the editor’s office and handed him a copy of his

Brix

chart. The reverberations have been felt from one end of agriculture to the

other.

 

Suze: I understand that energetics was at the heart of Ream’s biological

farming approach. Can you explain what that is?

 

Rex: The genius of Reams-style farming is that he devised a way to calculate

the energy released when various fertilizers worked their way down to

equilibrium. For instance, Reams didn’t suggest that his clients simply

scatter so

many pounds (or so many tons) of ammonium sulfate on an acre of land. Reams

taught his students how to calculate the energy that would be given up by a

single

molecule of ammonium and then determine exactly how many pounds of that, or

any other fertilizer, to apply. In conventional farming fertilizer excesses are

generally wasted and ultimately go off the land into the ground water, while

shortages create a limited crop yield. Reams-style farming not only creates

superior output, it is also very economical because any fertilizer applied is

used by the plants, not lost. Dr. Dan Skow is probably the best known teacher

currently explaining this desperately needed scientific aspect of agriculture to

students around the country.

 

To me, Brix is a measure of energy. A high-Brix plant emits a far superior

energetic electromagnetic spectrum than a low-Brix specimen. Insects " see " in

this range and they " attack " plants with the weakest emanations. When the grower

finally understands that all that talk about how healthy plants " resist "

insects is really another way of saying that the strongest plants don’t

attract

insects in the first place, they are on the road to understanding Reams

agriculture. A refractometer is merely a way for us to see by proxy what insects

see

with their eyes.

 

Suze: How did you become involved in biologically friendly high-Brix farming?

 

Rex: For me it started with a turnip. I was raised on a farm and had always

enjoyed sweet turnips, but I had no idea that there were poor, good and great

turnips. In 1987 I had to move away from a delightful turnip-friendly garden of

many years standing and start a new one at my current place. Those first

turnips I grew tasted awful. Not only were they terrible in the mouth, but they

were attacked by hordes of bugs, including bugs I had never seen before. This

was before the Internet, but I started researching and came across a little book

by Dr. Arden Andersen which gave a basic table of Brix values and what they

meant to various crops. As measuring Brix called for a refractometer, I visited

a winemaker friend and he told me how to get one.

 

I was quite excited the day the instrument came. I pulled one of those

bug-eaten turnips and took it to the kitchen. The 3.5 Brix reading told me

exactly

what I needed to know. A few days later I made the rounds at the local

farmer’s

market and bought samples from every one who sold turnips. It didn’t take me

too long back home to realize that the sweet turnips I liked so much had to

measure about 8-9 Brix, or even higher. I haven’t looked back since then. The

ace is that when you finally get your soil good enough to grow higher-Brix

turnips, the bugs don’t seem interested.

 

Suze: Do you follow Reams’ Biological farming approach?

 

Rex: I certainly do. Dr. Andersen is an open disciple of the Reams approach

as am I. The Reams program leads to outstanding fruit and vegetable quality at

the same time that it creates significantly increased yield. I simply cannot

imagine trying to grow produce any other way. The Reams program, as furthered

by Andersen, lays a well-marked path toward higher quantities of higher quality

food and feedstuffs for both man and animal.

 

Suze: Can you explain what the Reams approach is? What does it entail?

 

Rex: Many years ago I approached Jay McCaman, a mid-west consultant with that

same question. Today, people come to me for simplified explanations of the

Reams approach to farming. As I’ve had to spend 15 years trying to master even

a

few of the fundamentals, I do feel sorely inadequate to provide a decent

response to your question in " 25 words or less. " However, I will try as long as

we

can keep one Reams mandate in sight: higher Brix points to higher quality.

 

Although Reams viewed agriculture entirely as an energetic process, the basic

Reams program requires that cropland have the following water-soluble

available mineral elements per acre in place for a starting point. This is if

you are

truly looking for high quality (high Brix) and very high yield.

 

4000 pounds calcium

400 pounds magnesium

400 pounds phosphate

200 pounds potassium

40 pounds nitrate nitrogen

40 pounds ammonia nitrogen

 

The best system he found for many farmers involved putting down a copious

supply of high-calcium lime, soft rock phosphate, and chicken manure. The reader

must understand that although it has similar overtones, this " formula " is not

the same as the quality improvement methods suggested by Professor Albrecht,

who merely wanted the calcium, magnesium, phosphate, potassium, etc. in a

certain ratio of " cation exchange capacity " or CEC.

 

Suze: What makes the minerals available to the plant?

 

Rex: Many factors. First is the fineness of the mineral supplements added. A

limestone boulder is unavailable whereas the same boulder pulverized is

available. In the old days, local farmers built kilns to burn the boulders until

they turned to dust. Today the job of pulverizing is done by machinery.

Another key factor that makes minerals available is micro-organisms in the

soil. These are what make the minerals available to the plant. Plants can

assimilate very few minerals directly. Plowed in cover crops, compost, molasses,

other organic matter or even raw garbage dug in will all support microbial life

in the soil. As Professor Albrecht said over and over, " The microbes feast

first at the table. " Dr. Reams suggested that you wait at least two weeks to

plant

seeds after plowing in food for the microbes.

 

The pH of the soil has a lot to do with mineral availability. Many minerals

are available only in a narrow pH range, which for most plants is around 6.4.

 

The Brix of the plant is also important. Low-Brix plants can’t develop the

strong extraction fluids to pull minerals from the soil.

 

As a plant matures, it requires more and more soil energy to extract

nutrients from the soil. Reams continually stressed the fact that while a baby

seedling had minimal daily nutrient needs from the soil, a mature plant drawing

down

heavily was an entirely different story. He taught that for a plant to bear a

full crop of high quality produce it must have adequate soil energy (called

" ERGS " or Energy Released per Gram per Second) available to " set " the

high-quality crop and then " bring it home. " ERGS is merely a measurement of the

ionic

conductivity of the soil expressed as microSiemens and directly measured with an

ordinary conductivity meter. The point is that only healthy soils with

teeming bacterial life and full mineral availability can " keep up " when the

plant

roots are most demanding.

 

This is where foliar feeding comes in. Most farmers shifting to the Reams

methods report for the first few years that they either cannot raise the Brix to

the high quality levels needed or, if they do get there, they report it is

tough to keep the Brix high. For most people, foliar feeding serves as a crutch

until they get their soil in tip-top shape. A few, particularly those growing

in such areas as Florida sand, must forever rely quite heavily on foliar

feeding because their sandy soil simply cannot hold the full ration of minerals

required. An important point here is the fact that foliar feeds are formulated

as

both general tonics for use by the novice and as very specialized mixtures for

use by the expert who wishes to compensate for identified plant or soil

deficiencies.

 

Reams insisted that his students had to master wet chemistry test methods so

that they could run tests if, when, and as needed. For instance, he pointed

out that if the farmer couldn’t be sure they had the 40 pounds nitrate and 40

pounds ammonium at each moment required by the plant, the farmer stood a good

chance of a severely limited harvest. He also reiterated thousands of times that

the plant did not care whether the needed nitrogen or other substance came

from " organic " sources or from a chemical such as calcium nitrate. His reasoning

was simple: if the applied fertility agent raised Brix, it was what the plant

needed. On the other hand, if the Brix stayed the same or fell, the material

was either not needed, detrimental or in a form the plant could not use.

 

This system works and works well. Reams was always quick to calculate the

future harvest, at whatever quality level desired, and he did this mostly by

knowing how much available phosphate was in the soil.

 

Bob Pike, a Reams protégé, later developed a system that used high-grade

electronic meters which was much faster than the original wet chemistry

analysis.

At its core, Pike’s system first evaluates the Brix level of the growing plant

and, should that not be high enough, then measures the pH and conductivity of

the plant sap. Then, by applying a chart developed by Bruce Tainio, a West

Coast researcher and consultant, the farmer can program a foliar feed that will

help the crop get back on track toward the highest Brix and the highest yield.

 

 

There is more to it of course. For instance, Pike found that he had to

monitor the soil ERGS both before planting and during the growth phases. His

method

also requires that the soil pH be adjusted to the optimum 6.4 (acknowledged by

almost all consultants as the best). Finally, Pike teaches that the

old-farmer nemesis of hardpan will not occur if the farmer keeps his calcium and

magnesium in his soil in the proper ratio. This can be readily determined at any

season by probing with a soil penetrometer.

 

So, the Pike methods that I follow, and which I consider so true to the Reams

call for high Brix along with good yield, are as follows:

 

 

Conduct an Albrecht-style soil evaluation in the fall and apply amendments as

needed.

Couple this with a broad-spectrum trace element application.

Plant a thick winter cover crop, such as annual rye for pasture or compost on

your home garden, to protect the soil and build organic matter.

Monitor and adjust the soil ERGS before planting and during crop growth.

Monitor and adjust the soil pH before planting and during crop growth.

Track the Brix, sap pH, and sap conductivity of the growing crop so as to

apply just the right foliar feed if the Brix does not stay in the desired range.

One important point: I have learned by bitter experience that if I and 1000

other consultants calculate that the plant needs precisely thus as a foliar

feed, but the Brix does not rise, then we were all wrong. Obviously, our

calculations would not be for naught because we would at that point at least

know one

foliar combination that is wrong. There could not be a clearer case of " the

proof is in the pudding " than the situation where one labors mightily to devise

exactly the right foliar spray and the plant softly says, by way of not gaining

Brix, " Sorry, but that is not the right mixture I need at this time. " And, as

in all of science, this is the point where art must take its turn. The

experienced consultant starts reaching for a few tricks of his trade and finally

makes the connection that shoots that Brix up where it should be.

 

Suze: Do you measure the nutritional quality of your crops with other tests

besides their Brix value?

 

Rex: Once I mastered the Brix concept, I had little reason to be concerned

with expensive chemical analysis. Although I suspect there are some valid

chemical analyses performed here and there, the

higher-Brix-equals-higher-quality

concept renders most analysis redundant.

 

Suze: Can you tell us more about Dr. Andersen? Has Dr. Andersen modified the

Reams approach along the way?

 

Rex: Arden Andersen earned a PhD in plant physiology. His intent, as was the

intent of Dr. Reams, was to help revolutionize agriculture by showing farmers

how to grow superior crops. When Dr. Andersen realized that the medical

establishment, hooked as it is on drugs, did not believe that the food we eat

must

be of high quality for us to maintain good health, he returned to school and

became a doctor of osteopathy. His thought was that perhaps his message would be

better heard if he maintained both a practice of medicine and,

simultaneously, a practice of farm consulting. Dr. Andersen closely adheres to

the path

first blazed by Dr. Reams.

 

I’m amused when I hear that this person or that person has " modified " the

Reams approach. No one modifies the Reams approach, simply because the basic

message that higher Brix equals higher quality is always central. However, it is

fair to observe that although different practitioners use different methods,

they all strive to achieve higher Brix. For instance, I follow the Pike method

of using electronic meters for soil and plant evaluation instead of Andersen’s

preferred messy wet chemistry methods. The goal, purpose, and result is always

the same: higher Brix.

 

While non-farmers sometimes like to imagine that the best farmers have access

to secret or esoteric knowledge, nothing could be further from the truth.

Plants have needs such as proper pH, soil fertility and moisture, and the farmer

who best meets those needs will find his plants doing well. The programs that

Reams worked out over 60 years of agricultural engineering perform

exceptionally well even though they are often treated with disdain by a chemical

industry

that cannot bear the thought of farmers producing abundant, high quality

crops without the need for toxic rescue chemicals.

 

Suze: What characterizes low-Brix plants as opposed to high-Brix ones?

 

Rex: I find low-Brix plants and their produce to be watery, poor tasting,

attractive to insect pests, and quick to mold or rot. But high-Brix produce not

only has a robust taste, it also lasts remarkably well. In all sincerity I can

tell you that the best produce simply will not rot. It will dehydrate, but it

adamantly refuses to rot. Please understand that about 90-95 percent of the

produce in ordinary commercial channels is fairly low Brix.

 

Suze: There seems to be a widely held notion that organic food is more

nutrient-dense than non-organic food. Sometimes it’s even advertised as such.

However, I’ve seen you argue that this is not the case. Can you explain?

 

Rex: I’ve tested food from dozens of organic farms and rarely found Brix

readings higher than the Brix readings of ordinary commercial produce at your

favorite supermarket. Yes, organic food is somewhat safer in that it doesn’t

get

exposed to pesticides . However, the only taste differences I’ve ever found

were attributed to it being local and, of course, considerably fresher than

supermarket fare. To me, that lack of superior taste marks the produce as lower

nutrition.

 

There are exceptions. The most notable was back when the late Ward Sinclair,

quite a name in organic circles, was growing produce in Pennsylvania. Ward

perfected a technique of tilling alternating strips that in essence had him

growing in fresh ground each year. That technique allowed him to grow absolutely

delicious 9-9.5 Brix celery when all his organic competitors’ celery was 4-5

Brix. I made many a trip to his farm to get a week’s supply of his celery

because

I didn’t grow celery and Ward’s was the best. My grandkids loved to eat it

like candy. I still miss Ward all these years later.

 

Ward’s methods bring to mind the ancient technique of " slash and burn. "

Indigenous peoples found they could burn out a section of forest or grassland

sward

and grow superb, bug-free crops that would dehydrate in storage instead of

rot--at least they could grow for a season or two. The minerals released by

burning created an environment that crops love. Once the high-Brix

characteristics

went away and bugs invaded, the natives simply moved to a new area and

started over. What Ward Sinclair did was use micro-organisms to " burn " organic

material on the fresh land. Ward, blessed with plenty of land, " slashed " new

strips

each year with a tractor-mounted roto-tiller and grew superior crops while

the old strips returned to grass and " healed. " He also added standard organic

supplements, but mostly to the healing strips, not the strips currently being

harvested. If I had no other way to judge crops, I would always buy from a

grower who planted in fresh strips each year.

 

Suze: How about biodynamic produce--is it generally high Brix? Please

explain.

 

Rex: I love biodynamic growing and growers. I love all earth-friendly

agriculture. However, all the biodynamic produce I’ve ever measured was the

about the

same as organic. If there is a difference in their produce, it is not

measurable with Brix. What is there to explain? Something is either high-Brix or

it

isn’t.

 

Suze: Do you believe that organic and biodynamic farming approaches can

produce high Brix food? If so, how would organic and biodynamic farmers go about

raising the Brix of their food? Is there anything in these farming approaches

that you think is impeding them from producing high Brix crops?

 

Rex: As I said, I love all earth-friendly agriculture. Any organic or

biodynamic farmer is free to raise the Brix of their crops with no penalty from

their

licensing organization.

 

Suze: Can you explain your theory about low-Brix, low-nutrient foods

" robbing " the body of nutrients in a way similar to that of processed foods?

 

Rex: Every scientific sort I’ve ever talked to has agreed that it requires

lots of energy to digest food. There is a huge expenditure of enzymes and other

digestive fluids involved in breaking down even the most simple food.

 

There is an old farmer’s saying: " You can starve a horse to death quicker by

feeding him straw than by feeding him nothing at all. " That saying only

buttresses the idea that a horse trying to digest non-nutritive straw is going

to

come up short as he wastefully expends whatever digestive energy he had to start

with. I think that poor quality fruits and vegetables create a similar

situation in our bodies. It seems to me that when our systems expend minerals,

energy and enzymes to break down " food " that doesn’t even have enough value to

replace what is expended, then we will lose the battle for life at some point.

 

Suze: The name William Albrecht resonates with many involved in the Weston A.

Price Foundation as Albrecht wrote a chapter in Price’s Nutrition and

Physical Degeneration entitled " Food is Fabricated Soil Fertility. " What

influence

has Albrecht had, if any, on your farming approach?

 

Rex: Professor Albrecht continues to have much influence on my work. For

instance, even though I am retirement age and gradually " giving up " my small

farm,

the Pike methods that I follow call for an annual soil test to be sure the

basic minerals are in place in the right proportions. If they are not, they need

to be added before planting the winter cover crop so they have time to work

their way into the soil life. For instance, crops grown on land with more

sodium than potassium were not only sickly, but the animals raised in such lands

or

fed such crops were also sickly. The whole purpose is to achieve balance and

enhance life, that is, to create healthier soil. And I suspect that you

WAPFers deeply understand that healthier soil leads to healthier plants and,

ultimately, healthier people.

 

Some people like to think that there is an either-or choice to be made

between Albrecht and Reams. If such exists, I have been unable to find it. What

I

have found is that well-executed Albrecht methods produce good healthy crops and

healthy animals. What I have also found is that the Reams approach can be

applied independently or on top of the Albrecht methods to produce truly

superior

crops and yields. The Reams approach allows one to monitor the Brix and

actually do something if deficiencies appear before the crop matures.

 

Suze: So what can consumers do to locate high-Brix, nutrient-dense foods for

themselves and for their families?

 

Rex: The very first step is for them to buy, beg, or borrow a refractometer

and educate themselves about what they are now eating. Once they learn to

correlate their sense of taste to what they see in the refractometer screen,

they

will understand they have to locate better food. That is the easy part. The

tough job is finding the food. As time goes on they will migrate toward better

suppliers. They will learn to stockpile good food when they find it. When I say

" stockpile, " I’m trying to get across the point that they will buy a lot more

of some higher-Brix food they find because people are willing to eat the same

thing more days in a row when they know it is really good. A few seekers of

higher quality will share what they have learned with a local grower friend and

suggest that they will pay more for higher Brix. The family interested in

better food will learn how to mail order, barter and--most importantly--grow

some

of their own. Locating better food is not something you do once and forget. It

becomes important to continually learn which fruit stand has the best items

and which farm or farmette is worth a little " drive in the country. "

 

Suze: How can we use Brix to help determine the quality of animal products

such as meat and milk?

 

Rex: I am sometimes accused of " holding back " when I say that Brix doesn’t

seem all that applicable to me when it comes to evaluating meat and milk.

Certainly, I am the first to admit that 15, 16, 17, or 18 Brix milk tastes

dramatically better than the ordinary 10-11 Brix milk sold in stores or even off

ordinary farms. I’m also one of the first to say that I simply love high-Brix

milk.

16 or better Brix milk is simply yummy. However, milk evaluation is a science

in itself and a commonly overlooked factor by many consumers is the urea

content of milk. MUN (Milk Urea Nitrogen) testing of milk is used to detect and

control the overfeeding of protein to cows. This overfeeding can cause urea

spillage into the milk. You can get a false Brix reading with too much urea,

just

as you can get a false Brix reading by adding sugar to orange juice.

 

If you know the farmer and know that he is not forcing protein into his cows,

then the Brix reading is a valuable measure. Regular store-bought milk has a

Brix reading of 10-11; 15-20 is good. In fact, 20 is the highest recorded for

milk.

 

In a somewhat similar vein, I have had various people suggest that one could

measure the " Brix " of blood and thereby determine the quality of the

associated meat it came from. The big problem in my mind is that blood can be

thick or

thin (concentrated or not, dehydrated or not) and the refractometer would not

be able to adjust for that. So, no, I don’t think Brix is applicable to meat

evaluation.

 

But wait! There is an answer to this problem. Simply measure the Brix of the

pasture the animal is feeding on! The pasture with the highest Brix grass will

produce both the better milk and the better meat.

 

Suze: I’ve heard it said many times that Brix is too simplistic to gauge

something as complex as the nutrient-density of food. What is your response to

this assertion?

 

Rex: The Brix concept is certainly too simplistic for industrialized

agriculture. They would have you believe that all fruits and vegetables are the

same.

Right in step with industry are the Department of Agriculture standards which

call for size and color evaluation and nothing else. So I can understand why

they don’t want consumers running around with an instrument in their hands

that

would give them all the information they need and the courage to reject lousy

quality food. These are the same people who think that your sense of taste is

too simplistic to measure the nutrient density of food.

 

Quite frankly, I don’t trust any of those " experts, " whoever they may be. I

do trust my sense of taste. And I do trust children. So let me tell you a

story.

 

Many years ago I made the rounds of the local farmers’ market and bought a

cantaloupe from every vendor. When I got home my daughter was there with her two

daughters, ages 10 and 3. I took the cantaloupes out on the porch and cut

them all in half. I had a couple of 9 Brix losers and they immediately went in

the compost buckets (Brix measuring 7-9 is the tasteless melon you find on salad

bars). I ended up with several 11’s, several 13’s, and a single 15. I called

the girls out on the porch and gave them their first chance to use a

refractometer to measure each of the fruits. Yes, little kids can use a

refractometer

and they have no trouble calling out the Brix number they see--if they know

how to read numbers. Anyway, I suggested they taste samples as they went. I then

found out that they did not have any cantaloupe at home.

 

" OK girls, " I said, " I’m going to let you take one of these 11’s home. "

 

" That’s not fair, " they both shouted out.

 

" OK--you can have all the 11’s and one of the 13’s. "

 

" Pops, you’re being mean! " they shouted together.

 

" All right, already--you can have all the 11’s, all the 13’s and I’ll keep

just this one. "

 

That, too, was a no-sale. I gave them spoons and they wolfed down the 15.

They then helped me carry the 11’s out to the big compost pile. I was left

with

one of the 13’s, but I have to admit I secretly begrudged them that yummy 15.

 

So you have heard " experts " say that Brix is too simplistic? I say let them

say whatever