An Afghani Writes about Afghanistan

Mark S. Blackburn, Aspiring Farmer

In this article Alan Lundin describes the Brix measurement of Plant health, using a refractometer. By the article's conclusion, you may be more inclined to grow your own food! Organic may be a step in the right direction, but it may not!

-Mark

The Brix Concept of Plant Health

(Organic Produce may NOT be better)!

by Alan Lundin

Brix testing is done almost universally now with a refractometer. It is used to determine the 'quality' of produce and some (better) farmers use it to test
the saps and juices in their crops to assess and improve the health of their plants.

The whole concept of Brix is based on a remarkable 'law' of nature. It seems that as the soil fertility and other conditions (light, temperature, etc.) get closer and closer to optimal, the Brix go up! For instance, if the soil is perfect in every way except that it is deficient is say chromium, the Brix will go up as chromium is added to the soil! Similarly, the Brix will go down as the soil become more deficient in one or more plant nutrients.

This is, of course, one reason why the quality of the produce keeps dropping. Each crop removes some of the minerals from the soil, and if they are not put back, the plants get less and less healthy on the increasingly depleted soil, and the Brix of the produce, not surprisingly, goes down. I've read that about every 25 or 30 years the USDA re-does its food database, and every time they do it they find that the nutrients levels go down pretty significantly. I'm told the British do the same thing with the same results. Most conventional farmers add PNK fertilizer to the soil but tend to ignore the ~60 other important minerals and trace minerals necessary for good plant and animal health.

This is a old theme that's been around for over a hundred years. People have noticed that if they improve the soil by remineralizing it with things like rock dust
or sea kelp, the plants 'magically' get healthier, the produce tastes better, and the animals and people that consume it also get healthier.

Sadly, these warnings have been largely ignored. It seems that the chemical companies have convinced farmers that all they have to do is put down the chemical fertilizers and pesticides that these companies produce, and they'll do ok. This appears to parallel the efforts of the large grain and pharmaceutical companies that similarly have taken over the medical and health industries.

The better produce markets use a refractometer to measure the brix and therefore the quality of the produce before they purchase from the grower or distributor. Even 'walmart', I've heard, does this -- though the threshold for purchasing
is apparently fairly low. While there truly are a very small number of growers producing high Brix food, I'm told that most of their production is sent directly
to Japan.

I called all the 'health' stores here in Albuquerque one day and asked what the Brix of their peaches was, and all but one didn't have a clue what I was talking about. The one that did, though they didn't measure the Brix of their produce did know about it and was curious, so they invited me down to the store to let me measure some of what they had. Since they had the most expensive organic produce in town, I'm sure they expected to turn in high scores. It didn't turn out that way though. They had more or less the same low brix readings as the other health stores and supermarkets, despite the much higher prices they charged (5 to 6
times higher!). I asked the produce manager to start posting the Brix readings of their produce and even volunteered to do the testing myself. After thinking
about it for a few days, the manager told me that me wouldn't do it. He confessed that because virtually all of his produce was picked green and 'ripened' in
transport or storage, his produce would, by the objective measure of Brix, not look good, and that he would continue to sell more if he kept up his deception
of high prices and organic labels.

The lesson I learned is that all the produce I have access to is of low quality and that the markets, even the 'gold-plated' ones, will not make any effort to improve it without a significant fraction of their customers getting wise to their con-game. From my discussions with others doing the same things around this country and many others, it appears that the situation I have is almost universal -- food quality
is consistently low virtually everwhere.

So much for the Brix of the produce. On the farming and gardening end, people have noticed that if the brix readings of the stems and leaves of a plant are fairly
uniform and high (at least 12 brix), the plant will be in good health. They've also noticed that the Brix levels will respond to inputs such as foliar sprays allowing the farmer or gardener to determine what the plant, and hence the soil, is deficent in. Using this method the soil can be improved over time to produce healthy, fertile soil leading to healthy plants leading to healthy livestock leading to healthy people.

Concerning 'organic' produce:

There's some strong evidence to suggest that 'organic' is something of a sham. Organic farming was brought from Northern Indian (the Hunza's) by Sir Albert Howard to England and practiced by a small number of curious farmers there. They enjoyed surprising success and eventually exported it to America via J. Rodale. That part's ok.

The part that is problematic with organic farming is that most have forgotten what true organic farming is. Today's organic farming is, for the most part, nothing
more than conventional farming with a few synthetics replaced with naturals -- it bares little resemblance to the farming practices of the Hunzas.

And indeed the results of organic farming bare little resemblance to Hunza produce. Organic produce is typically ravaged by insects, but that of the Hunzas
mysterious isn't despite the lack of insectacide, natural or synthetic. Organic produce left out often rots and molds, but not that of the Hunza. Hunza produce was described by visitors as being uniquely delicious, unlike anything they'd every had before, while typical organic produce tastes pretty much the same as conventional food (despite what some people say).

People have discovered that produce with high Brix are also not attacked by insects, nor do they rot or mold. Also people sometimes describe high Brix
food as out-of-this-world tasty -- as 'transcendent.' In other words, high Brix and Hunza produce have similar attributes that are not shared, in general, with organic produce. If you use these as measures, organic is almost indistinquishable from conventional.

If you want something simpler, start noting the Universal numbers that is attached the produce. Keep a file of these numbers and where you purchased the produce.
It didn't take me long to learn the the same California peaches I was buying at the expensive organic health food store at $3.50 a pound, were available at the local supermarket for $2.00 a pound, or at a local produce market for $.79 a pound. The grower, I discovered, had a variety of labels all with the same universal code, but some had the word 'organic' above the number which was used on the produce I found in the expensive health store, while the produce at the supermarket and produce market had the same number but didn't have the word 'organic' on it. When I measure the Brix of a sample set from each location, they all fell into the same ranges.

I used to buy organic whenever possible figuring that it was more likely that an organic grower would do it the right way (remineralize the soil, etc.) than a
conventional farmer, but I don't now. The Brix measurements on the stuff with the 'organic' label is in the same range as that of conventional. While there well may be organic growers that do it properly (the Hunza way), it has become painfully clear to me that organic growing is just another big business looking for, and taking advantage of, ill-informed customers.

If I'm ever able to find an organic grower that produces *objectively* high quality produce, I'll be the first in line, but I'm not going to spend those high prices for the same trash I can get elsewhere for *much* less cost. But frankly, I don't plan on
even paying attention to whether something is organic (or biodynamic) or not any more, as I can simply measure the Brix. If it is high Brix, it came from a plant that had everthing it needed for it to be healthy.