Choose well: Angela Crocombe wants us to think about what we eat. Picture: Aaron Pocock

When did food become so scary? Fruit and vegetables coated with pesticides. Dairy laden with colours and flavours. Fish riddled with mercury. Canola courtesy of genetically modified crops. It seems every day we read another reason not to eat something previously regarded as safe or healthy.

Throw in questions about the ethics of eating and suddenly heading to the shops takes on the appearance of a minefield. How has the cow that delivered your steak been treated; were those eggs from chickens caged one on top of the other; how many carbon emissions did those tomatoes emit on the way to your salad; is that fillet of fish from a sustainable source; were the coffee beans in your latte produced with exploited labour?

No wonder many of us just simply throw our hands up in the air and keep buying as before. But, argues ethical eating advocate Angela Crocombe, it is not that hard to do the right thing. She has been practising what she preaches for years.

“It does take a bit more effort in the beginning,” she acknowledges. “But once you find the brands and you’ve checked the labels and you know that this product is sustainably fished or doesn’t have any additives, or hasn’t come from too far away… it becomes second nature.”

The author, whose previous book A Lighter Footprint showed us ways to reduce our carbon footprint, spent months researching the topic for her latest release. Ethical Eating: How to Make Food Choices That Won’t Cost The Earth covers topics such as climate change, animal welfare, chemicals, packaging and organic farming, with easy-to-read chapters on different foods (meat, dairy, seafood, drinks etc). Angela hopes the book will give readers a greater appreciation for food and influence our shopping choices. As she writes in the introduction, “What we choose to eat is one of the most important decisions we make on a daily basis.”

She believes more people are thinking about the impact of their choices.  “Climate change is bringing a lot of these issues to the fore,” she says. “We have to make that information available to people there and make it easier for people to make environmentally sound choices.”

But hasn’t the global financial crisis put these concerns on the back foot? “I think with this whole financial crisis has been building up for years. It’s reaching some kind of nexus where people will wake up and start making major changes,” she argues. “(The financial meltdown) may well put the environment on the backfoot for a little while but this (environmental) crisis is far, far bigger and it encompasses everything about our society.”

Angela has long been concerned about what she puts in her mouth, turning her back on red meat from an early age despite her father’s insistence that her mother not cater for “the phase”. A vegequarian (someone who doesn’t eat meat, but eats seafood, dairy and eggs), the issue of eating ethically has come into even sharper focus now she is pregnant with her first child.

“Certainly what goes into my mouth and the baby’s, particularly for those first few years, is really, really important to me.” she says emphatically. “There are so many toxins that you can’t control so it’s imperative to control or minimise the ones I can.”

Health comes first

Angela believes it is important for mothers to take the lead in the ethical eating stakes. “Women are still the main food purchasers and preparers in the house so they are really important in terms of changing the perception of food for the whole family,” she says.

But who has time to read the labels in supermarkets and check for additives, country of origin, sustainable fishing logos and the like when they’re battling fractious children? “In your average supermarket now there are a lot more ethical options available to us… It is possible and very doable to do the right thing,” Angela says. “And to me you can give your child all the material objects in the world, but what really matters is that they have love and that they have good food going into their bodies to give them the best health.”

She thinks many people have their priorities all wrong. “A girlfriend of mine in the States, they’ve got three kids and they’ve got this enormous house and every object  a child could ever want,” she says.  “I went to the supermarket and was trying to encourage her and say, ‘here’s these organic bananas and they’re a really good price’. She was, “oh, no that doesn’t interest me, that doesn’t concern me’. And I think, ‘you’re so concerned about your children and giving them the right start, how can you not be concerned about what they put in their bodies?’.”

Many shoppers, though, would be put off by the added cost of ethical food choices?  “Eating a healthy diet is actually quite cheap.” argues Angela. “Lentils are cheap, fruit and vegies are much cheaper than anything that’s been processed and put in a jar. And even if you can’t buy all-organic by cutting down on or cutting meat out of your diet you can save LOTS of money. My thing is eat less meat, spend that bit that you’re going to save buying organic fruit and veg if you can, especially the ones that retain more toxins, such as apples and grapes… and really it shouldn’t cost any more than it was costing before.”

The power of choice

She acknowledges, though, that depending on where you live it’s not always easy to make the right choice. It’s all very well to buy organic or locally at farmers markets if you live near good suppliers, but if home is a remote town where everything is brought in by road or air, for example, it’s not so simple.

“It’s good to have general principles but not to beat yourself up about it because you’re going to feel guilty and then you’re probably going to give up and it’s going to become a negative thing rather than a positive thing that you feel good about doing,” she says.

“It is very difficult to be 100 percent ethical 100 percent of the time, but it is about awareness. And the more you can think about where something has come from and the implications of that the better off we all are… I think all of us need to be reminded that we do in fact hold a lot of power in our hands and do have the power to make a difference.”

Organic pioneer: Arran Stephens lives his life by his father's dictum to leave the soil as you found it.

Arran Stephens has been offered ridiculous sums of money to sell his family business.

But while the founder of Nature’s Path, North America’s leading organic cereal company, admits to fleeting temptation, he and his wife Ratana have no regrets about turning down each and every offer.

“One day several years ago, I received a phone call from Kellogg at 10am, and another phone call from Kraft two hours later. The dollars offered were staggering,” he recalls.

“We asked ourselves if all the money that was offered was going to improve the character of our children, and would it improve the lives of our many employees and stakeholders, the communities and economies that we worked in, the organic movement that we have served and helped build over so many years. And we decided no.

“We would run our company better independently, and make it strong enough to survive and thrive into the next generations. The offers still come every week, but they find themselves in the round file, and the voice messages are deleted.”

Raised to respect the land

When you take a look at Arran’s background it is perhaps not surprising that he would turn his back on mega bucks for higher ideals. The seeds were sown by his father Rupert, fondly described as an “odd duck” on the company website, and mother Gwen on a farm on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Life was far from easy but Arran says some of his happiest memories are of “helping his Mom and Dad gather and spread kelp on the fields, planting corn with his Dad and wandering through the farm eating sun-ripened berries”.

Rupert, he says, left him with an abiding love of nature and unspoiled beauty and the dictum he lived by: “Always leave the soil better than you found it.”

Natural taste: Arran, with Happy, enjoyed the benefits of growing up on a berry farm.

It’s a dictum Arran, named for that windswept Scottish isle, has been doing his best to follow ever since. After studying spirituality and meditation in India in the 60s, Arran was barely in his 20s when he returned home to open the first vegetarian restaurant on Canada’s west coast in 1967.

“Organic grains and vegetables were on the original menu. There was nothing else like the Lotus in Canada at the time, and like a time-ripe idea, caught on and transformed many lives for the better,” he says. “Money was never my first consideration, but I was forced to learn that ‘if you’re not a profit, you’re a loss’.”

It was challenging sourcing organic produce, too. “There was little supply, little demand, and little understanding. Our job was to educate and take the risks of investing in what others thought were hare-brained ideas.”

He must have seemed something of the odd duck himself, then, to start a natural supermarket in 1971? “I’ve never followed the beaten track, and often celebrated the eccentric,” Arran says. “I wanted my values to proceed ahead of and infiltrate my actions, keeping in mind that deeds speak louder than words.”

Keeping organic farming alive

LifeStream was a pioneering company but was torn apart by a partnership squabble in 1981 and eventually ended up in the hands of Kraft/Phillip Morris. In a nice reversal of industry trends, however, it has been back in the family fold for some years now. “It was so small, they didn’t know how to run it. Fourteen years after Lifestream was sold, my family and I bought it back from Kraft, and it went from losses to profitability within nine months.”

A lot of the suppliers Arran found for LifeStream have also been bought out over time, but there are still independents going strong, such as Eden Foods. Many of them Arran and Ratana helped nurture through the supermarket, and continue to do so today with Nature’s Path.

Family first: Arran as a baby with brothers John and Godfrey, parents Rupert and Gwen, and dog Happy.

The cereal brand the couple started out of the back of their restaurant in 1985, which now sells certified organic waffles, bars, and cereal and baking goods among other products and exports to Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, is responsible for the produce of more than 100,000 acres of organic land.  Hundreds of organic farmers owe their livelihoods to this innovative couple. ”We have also invested in 2240 acres of dry grain farmland and are converting it to organic, with the help of our farmer partners. But this only represents about two percent of our grain requirement,” Arran says.

Given his refusal to sell to the big boys, how does he feel when another independent organic company is snapped up?  ”I can’t help but feel a twinge of regret every time I see another organic brand swallowed up by a Kraft, a Kellogg, a General Mills, or a Cadbury,” Arran says.

“But, let’s move on. As long as more land is being converted to organic, and more family farmers are receiving a decent living for their toil, and less agri-chemicals are introduced into our water, air, earth, and our bodies, the better it is for all.

Organic farming is the only viable option

“Organic is destined for mainstream. In fact, it is already mainstream in a small way, but has great room yet to grow. I believe that eventually, organic farming will be the only really viable farming for the family farms of the world.”

Despite the move of multinationals into the organic market, Arran does not believe that the term has lost any of its value with consumers of authentic brands. “Nature’s Path continues to grow from strength to strength, because we started out on the organic journey decades ago, and that is our single focus,” he says.

“Often, when a non-organic company acquires an organic company, the values start shifting. Some say that the soul is gutted out. Focus is lost.  Sometimes, the sale of an icon brand has helped us because of the acquisitor’s loss of focus. It goes from an ideological commitment to one of profit only. Profit is not bad, but we believe in the triple-bottom line: Socially responsible, environmentally sustainable, and financially viable. Consumers continue to reward us by their support.”

Mother earth: Gwen Stephens, circa 1952, gets her hands dirty.

But, like all companies facing competition, Nature’s Path has had to become much more sophisticated in its financial and operating systems, as well as in areas such as research and development and human resources.

Organic companies also have to battle arguments that their method of farming is too costly, pushing up the price of the resulting produce, and that genetically modified crops are the only way to feed the world.

“One of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated has been the promise that GMO crops have higher yields and require fewer chemical inputs because of desired engineered traits,” Arran says, citing a three-year study at the University of Kansas which showed reduced yields for a GM soya crop as further proof of the wrong-headedness of such a position. Organic supporters are also opposed to the use of GM seed because of its detrimental effect on seed diversity, as well as attempts by the very companies promoting it to control world seed supply.

As for the cost, Arran says any discussion needed to take into account the real effect of substantial farming subsidies. “What is the real cost of food, when all agricultural subsidies are withdrawn? Organic farmers are paid a significant premium for their crops, and you don’t hear of many organic farmers going bankrupt, abandoning third or fourth-generation farms, or even committing suicide as is happening in the chemical farming world.”

Critical of high costs

But while Arran believes that an organic premium is justified for farmers he is critical of the cost of some organic lines. “Consumers will accept a 10 to 15 percent premium, but when an organic counterpart is double or triple the price, the mainstream is left with a major disconnect,” he argues. “Now, if we pay a 50 percent premium for organic wheat, or a 75 percent premium for organic oats and the farmer family is able to make a decent living and not go bankrupt, I have no quarrel with that.

“However, our production, packaging, labour, energy, overhead, administrative, finance and marketing costs do not carry a premium cost over conventional food operations; therefore while we process large quantities of organic grains for which we pay a big premium, our retail prices may only carry a 10 percent to 15 percent premium, and often are at par with non-organic.”

It is also worth noting that while the cost of chemical agriculture continues to climb, the costs of organic farming – other than the higher cost of seeds – are relatively stable.  “I see that the price inequity between organic and non will narrow as volume continues to grow,” Arran says.

Awesome foursome: Arran and Ratana work with daughter Jyoti and son Arjan in the business.

As an innovator in the organic business world, Nature’s Path has won many awards over the years, including for entrepreneurial flair and export achievements. But Arran says his proudest relates to the company’s credentials as an employer: “Being recognized as one of the Best 100 Companies in Canada to work for, three years in a row.”

He is quick to point out that his wife, the “wonderful life companion” whom he wed in an arranged marriage in 1969, deserves us much credit for all their success, if not more. “Ratana is co-founder and chief operating officer, and has saved me from several business blunders.”

Two of their four children are active in the company. Daughter Jyoti heads up the sustainability and stewardship initiatives and son Arjan is the vice-president of marketing and production innovation. The apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree with his other two daughters, either. Shanti lives in Illinois and owns and operates Manna Organics, baking organic sprouted Manna Bread (Nature’s Path’s first product), with her husband Markus; while Gurdeep, who has an MA in biosciences, lives in Italy where she is studying finance and hopes to get involved in the company one day.

Theirs is clearly a family who walks the walk, not just talks the talk. But how does Arran persuade other people without the advantages of such an upbringing that organic is the way of the future? “We need to win new consumers by the taste, quality, elegance and real value of our products. We believe in demoing and sampling; getting our product into the mouths of consumers,” he says. “We need to win over others with the authenticity and values behind our brand. We can do this with viral web campaigns, packaging, marketing, PR and advertising, educating our customers about who and what we stand for as a company, such as our long commitment to the environment (avoiding greenwashing) and social causes through our giving campaigns.

“And, lest we forget: let us each and everyone leave the Earth better than we found it.”

For further information on the benefits of organic food, Arran recommends readers visit the websites of The Organic Center and The Rodale Institute.