seems our cousins know something we are slow to learn...

[Guest guest]

" APES PREFER ORGANIC: Monkeys at Copenhagen Zoo are going ape over organic

bananas and other fruits, rejecting non-organic foods left in their cages.

" The chimpanzees are able to tell the difference between the organic and

the regular fruit. If we give them organic and traditional bananas, they

systematically choose the organic bananas, which they eat with the skin on.

But they peel the traditional bananas before eating them. "

 

[excerpted from:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/bananas022403.cfm

 

 

" ORGANICALLY GROWN FOODS HIGHER IN CANCER-FIGHTING CHEMICALS THAN

CONVENTIONALLY GROWN FOODS: fruits and veggies grown organically show

significantly higher levels of cancer-fighting antioxidants than

conventionally grown foods, according to a new study of corn, strawberries

and marionberries. The research suggests that pesticides and herbicides

actually thwart the production of phenolics chemicals that act as a plant's

natural defense and also happen to be good for our health. Fertilizers,

however, seem to boost the levels of anti-cancer compounds.

 

" If an aphid is nibbling on a leaf, the plant produces phenolics to defend

itself, " says Alyson Mitchell, Ph.D., a food scientist at the University of

California, Davis, and lead author of the paper. " Bitter or harsh phenolics

guard the plant against these pests. "

 

The findings appear in the Feb. 26 print edition of the Journal of

Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American

Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

 

[excerpted from the larger press release at:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-03/acs-ogf030303.php