News flash: the chairman of the board of one of the largest food companies in the world—whose tripling in profits from 2009 to nearly $43 billion in 2010 was generating from selling mainly processed foods produced with inputs from industrial, chemical farms—is “skeptical” of organic food, reports FastCompany.com.

Don’t you think someone who made $10.7 million in 2010 from a company whose profit primarily depends on chemical agriculture might have a bias in the matter? Yes, it would be understandable to think Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman of the Board of Nestlé, might. It also might be understandable to want to know what others, those without such a financial interest in the food status quo, think about the viability of non-industrial agriculture. But in the FastCompany.com article, like other press that pooh-poohs organic farming, those who disagree, if they’re mentioned at all, are portrayed as marginal or unqualified to speak to the issue.

In FastCompany.com, the other side is represented by unnamed (and unquoted) “nutrition professors and some food scientists.” No offense to nutrition professors and food scientists, but what if you had, instead, learned that the viability, efficiency, and safety of industrial agriculture is being questioned not only by professors and some food scientists but by countless agronomists, food security experts, economists, epidemiologists, public health experts all around the world? What if instead of “nutrition professors and some food scientists,” you heard about the numerous peer-reviewed and meta-studies that contradict Brabeck-Letmathe’s claims.

You’d be more informed, that’s for sure, and you might just begin to see the spin behind Brabeck-Letmathe’s messaging. He has three main talking points to defend fossil fuel-, chemical-, and water-intensive industrial agriculture. Brabeck-Letmathe raises each with strategic discipline: First, he claims that organic farming is a luxury; secondly, that it doesn’t produce food that’s any better for you; and finally (and much worse) that organic food can kill you.

This three-part spin-doctoring should start sounding familiar. I’ve been hearing it reported by uncritical media for more than a decade, dating all the way back to a 20/20 episode with John Stossel in 2000 and to the op-ed pages of one of Canada’s top newspapers, the Globe and Mail. In 2008 Brabeck-Letmathe told the paper, “We cannot feed the world on organic products.” That same year he delivered the same line to the Financial Times. Today, he tells FastCompany.com: “There’s no way you can support life on earth if you go straight from farm to table.”

Yet, numerous studies on the efficiency and future viability of industrial agriculture—especially in an increasingly resource-constrained and climate-unstable planet—keep proving the opposite is true: we cannot support life on earth unless we shift away from industrial agriculture systems.

Consider that in the United States alone, 27 percent of our nation’s farmland is dependent on fossil water from the Olglalla aquifer and we’re depleting it at a rate so fast that in a few decades there could be none left.

Or, consider that chemical runoff from industrial farms throughout the Midwest, especially synthetic fertilizer, creates a Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico every year that kills off aquatic life on the ocean floor and can grow to the size of New Jersey.

Or, consider that one of the three macronutrients industrial farmers rely on for fertilizer, phosphorus—found in the phosphate-bearing rock mainly in Morocco, China, South Africa, Jordan, and the United States—is increasingly rare. Some experts suggest we’ve already passed peak phosphorus; we will find it increasingly difficult to mine for the stuff. And, every ton that we do secure produces five tons of radioactive waste. Today, the U.S. is home to more than one billion tons of this waste now stored in 70 locations, some towering as high as a 20-story building and some as large as 720 football fields.

Meanwhile, studies have found that ecological farming practices, of which organic agriculture is one, can significantly improve water usage efficiency and eliminate farmers’ dependence on petroleum-based chemicals and synthetic fertilizer ingredients, including phosphorus.

And what to make of Brabeck-Letmathe’s second talking point: “From a nutritional point of view studies show no nutritional difference from bio [or organic] to other foods.”

We certainly need more studies assessing the nutritional differences between food items, but research is already turning up positive results—for organic foods. We already know, for instance, that studies of children’s consumption of organic versus conventional foods found those eating organic foods had lower detectable pesticide metabolites. We also know that last year’s President’s Cancer Panel noted that many chemicals used on industrial farms are known or suspected carcinogenic or disrupt our hormone systems, mimicking testosterone or estrogen. The Panel’s recommendation? Stay away from foods raised with pesticides, hormones, or antibiotics. Without calling it by name, the panel was saying: Be safer, go organic.

Finally, Brabeck-Letmathe adds the zinger: Not only is organic food not more nutritious: “it’s more dangerous.” Organic foods in Europe are “often fertilized with livestock manure,” he says, “and people don’t always realize they need to wash it thoroughly.”

More than ten years ago, Dennis Avery, from the Hudson Institute-funded Center for Global Food Issues, made the same attack on 20/20. Avery warned then that organic produce is likely infested with “nasty strains of bacteria” because it is “fertilized with manure.” A wide-eyed Barbara Walters asked, “I’ve been buying organic food. It is more expensive. But it isn’t dangerous?”

Yes, to the typical consumer—and FastCompany.com reader or 20/20 viewer—fertilizing crops with manure probably sounds gross. But Brabeck-Letmathe and Avery conveniently neglect to mention a few things: First, while some organic farmers do use manure as fertilizer, they must do so following strict guidelines so that potentially dangerous bacteria—the kind that has Brabeck-Letmathe so worried—are naturally eliminated. Plus, manure is not the only source of fertilizer for organic farmers. In fact, it’s not even the preferred source. Many organic farmers use no manure at all, preferring instead nitrogen-fixing crops like legumes that naturally pull nitrogen from the atmosphere and make it bioavailable in the soil. Often called green manure, the organic farmer integrates these fertility methods with many others.

These two also neglect to mention that industrial farms also fertilize fields with manure, only without any regulation or oversight. And then, there’s sewage sludge. Industrial farmers can use it; organic ones cannot. (By the way, Avery’s misstatements on 20/20 were eventually retracted by producers online. But I wonder how many people saw the televised episode and how many read the retraction?)

In the FastCompany.com article with Brabeck-Letmathe trotting out this tripartite critique of organic food, he concludes by saying that the demand for organic food has hit a peak. “It will stay the same… I don’t think it will grow much more than it is.”

Need I remind you who you’re listening to? The Chairman of the Board of Nestlé, a man who makes millions of dollars a year selling the world on Nestlé products, including everything from Cinnamon Toast Crunch to Butterfinger and Laffy Taffy and increasingly prepared and frozen foods. In other words, someone with a stake in ensuring that few of us turn to real, whole, organic foods or, even, cook for ourselves anymore. (As the U.S. Chairman and CEO of the company said recently, he was “feeling good about its focus on frozen foods” since, “cooking has become a lost art in the United States.”)

Maybe what we hear in FastCompany.com is a note of Brabeck-Letmathe’s defensiveness? After all, the growth of the movement of food producers allied with consumers who are rejecting short-sighted industrial agriculture, choosing to cook real food, and connecting in direct relationship with farmers means one thing to Nestlé: Loss of market share.

And while Brabeck-Letmathe would like you to believe that demand for organic food is coming just from “elite, wealthier” consumers in the U.S. and E.U.—and, indeed, leveling off here, he couldn’t be more wrong. The movement of eaters choosing organic foods and of food producers embracing agroecological practices is not just gaining ground in the U.S. and the E.U., but all around the world, from the foothills of the Himalayas to the plains of Central Brazil and the outskirts of Seoul, South Korea. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. For a man like Brabeck-Letmathe, that must be scary stuff.

What do Santa Claus and Ronald McDonald have in common? They’re among the most widely recognized children’s figures in the world.  The globe-trotting Ronald launched his career in the early 1960s as the “Hamburger-Happy Clown” in television spots promoting the fast food giant’s fare to kids. Now, nearly fifty years after the clown first starting hooking kids on fast food, a Boston-based nonprofit has launched a campaign to give Ronald the boot.

Corporate Accountability International is calling for Ronald to retire. The organization and allies around the country are calling for the company to end the use of Ronald to lure young kids into liking its unhealthy fast food.

I agree. It’s high time for Ronald to head down to Florida to work on his tan now that diet-related illnesses cost our health care system nearly as much as tobacco-related ones and childhood obesity and early onset diabetes is a national crisis.

Think of the analogy with Joe the Camel, the mascot who ruled the advertising kingdom of the R. J. Reynolds’ brand from 1987 to 1997. Joe, critics charged, was also deployed to lure kids into smoking. While the company has always denied that Joe was designed with kids in mind, evidence to the contrary seems pretty damning.

A 1991 study published in the Journal of American Medical Association, for instance, showed 5 and 6 year olds could better recognize Joe than Mickey Mouse of Fred Flintstone. In the wake of this research, a lawsuit was filed against the company for targeting of kids with its tobacco products. And in 1997, R.J. Reynolds settled out of court, giving millions to California cities named in the suit to use in anti-smoking marketing campaigns. It also replaced Joe with a more “adult” looking camel.

It’s too soon to know the outcome of the Retire Ronald campaign, but considering that the children’s health crisis is now in the national spotlight, his retirement may come sooner than we think. And, maybe down in sunny Fort Lauderdale, Ronald and Joe can play some sounds of golf together.

“What produce is organic?” I ask at my corner market near my apartment.

The women working the cash registers look at me blankly and say, virtually in unison, “None.” (And here I was thinking the fact that the store has “green” in its name meant that it would obviously carry organic products).

Ask moms and dads whether they would like to feed their kids organic food and you don’t have to be a mind reader to know that nearly 100 percent will say yes. None of us would choose to go for foods grown with chemicals that are likely carcinogens, neurotoxins, or endocrine disrupters. None of us would like to pump our kids full of milk and meat raised with growth hormones and drugs, fed a diet that includes animal by-products and chemically raised feed. Yet, just because we want to choose organic food, doesn’t mean we can easily find it.

Even in my relatively affluent Brooklyn neighborhood, where a brownstone can easily sell for a million dollars, it’s hard to find. Yes, we’re lucky enough to have two farmers markets, run by the City of New York’s Greenmarket program and within walking distance of my apartment. But in the dark days of winter, the pickings can be slim and you’ve got to orchestrate your week to make it to them on the one day they’re open. We’re also lucky to have half a dozen grocery stores in walking distance, too, a huge number in the context of a country where entire cities can have zero. But even in this neighborhood, with all our grocery stores, it’s challenging to find any that carry organic options with frequency. That “green” market around the corner from me never does.

So how to explain the disconnect between what Americans want and what we’ve got? Ask an economist and they’ll tell you supply is just a reflection of demand. And in the United States, “only about 0.7 percent of all U.S. cropland and 0.5 percent of all U.S. pasture was certified organic in 2008,” according to our Department of Agriculture.

No supply? There must be something off in our estimate of how much Americans want organic food, or we’d have more organic options and those women at my corner market wouldn’t stare at me blankly when I asked for it.

But the truth is that the market—especially for food—is a lot more complicated than those supply and demand curves you learned in Econ 101. We’re flush with “market distortions,” forces that get in the way of making the market reflect our real desire.

Yes, you and I might want organic farmers to flourish, but they don’t get much of a helping hand from our tax dollars or elected officials.  Farmers who transition to organic generally have to take a huge economic hit—at first. Those who do have to wait three years in the transition between organic and conventional, during which time they can’t market their products as organic, even as they’re following the letter of the law. But unlike many governments in Europe, ours has historically given zero support farmers in the transition period.

Thanks to the new Deputy Secretary of Agriculture at the USDA, Kathleen Merrigan, organic farmers are getting a bit of a boost. A $50 million fund was created to support farmers making the leap and the National Organic Program itself saw a bump in its budget, from $3.8 million in 2009 to $6.9 million in 2010. But this support for organic farming is still just a tiny fraction of what we’d need to invest to spark a radical shift in our food system.

You and I could harangue our supermarket mangers for organic and demand it in our grocery store aisles until we’ve got organic carrots coming out of our ears. But we need to start shouting out our support for organic farmers from the rooftops so our elected officials can hear us, too. Until we do, organic food will continue to play second fiddle to the chemical stuff that grows on most of our nation’s farms and those women at my local corner store will continue to stare blankly when I ask: “Do you have any organic produce?”

My 10-month old daughter is a banana fanatic.

When I get home from the store with a new bunch, I try to discreetly put the yellow bundle in the fruit basket. She always catches me, perks up from whatever is her fascination of the moment (a piece of paper lately) and lets out a squeal. She then looks at me with those impossible-to-say-no-to eyes. Banana. Yes, she will get another banana. Like every other one, it will be organic.

I’ve long been interested in food—where it comes from, who raises it, what chemicals were (or weren’t) used to grow it. I grew up with a mom who penned Diet for a Small Planet—the “vegetarian bible,” as fans would describe it—and a father who battled chemical companies as a toxicologist, it was hard not to be. But it wasn’t until my second book, Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, that I fully grasped why organic food is so important, especially for babies and young children.

The chemical industry likes to quote the 16th-century Swiss chemist Paracelsus: “All things are poisons… It is only the dose which makes a thing a poison.”

But Paracelsus didn’t get it exactly right. Timing of exposure can make the poison, too. At certain times in our lives –when we’re in our mother’s womb, when we’re infants and children, or when we’re elderly or our immune systems are depressed – even very low doses of certain chemicals, particularly endocrine disruptors, can wreak havoc.

But instead of taking into account these truths and embracing a precautionary approach, U.S. regulators historically used uniform tolerance levels which perilously ignored these big differences in susceptibility. Uniform tolerance levels also ignore type of exposure—by air, through skin or eyes—as well as frequency. Are you eating those bananas every morning, or once a leap year? Sorry Paracelsus, it isn’t just the dose.

Landmark research in the early 1990s proved that children and infants are more vulnerable to pesticide residues, in part because pound-for-pound of body weight children eat and drink more. When my daughter first started her banana love affair, a whole one was about as long as her arm. I pictured what that would mean if you and I ate that much banana and imagined that oversized banana chasing Woody Allen in Sleeper.

Children’s immune systems are also less developed and provide less protection than those of an adult. Plus, they eat more of certain kinds of fruits and vegetables—can anyone say, bananas?

When the Food Quality Protection Act was approved in 1996, we finally had national legislation that considered the unique vulnerabilities of children and infants and required, for the first time, additional protections for them. The Act also considered not only the potential for pesticides to cause cancer but the dangers from endocrine disruption, too, with potential impact on fertility, intelligence, and the immune system. But despite these regulatory strides, we are still a long way from a chemical-free cornucopia.

We’re also bound by another important factor: Yes, there are rules and regulations, warnings and labels and websites with all kinds of information on them. But keep in mind what drives all of this: Data. And the data the EPA uses to determine a chemical’s safety comes from the manufacturers themselves. Yes, you heard me right: From the guys trying to sell you the products with the chemical in it.

Now that I have a daughter, this analysis of policy is no longer abstract and far-removed; I think about it every day when I decide what my daughter eats – and especially at those moments when her tiny little hands reach for that yellow bundle she loves so much.

Pick up a box of Quaker Chewy Granola Bars, Pringles, or Philadelphia cream cheese, and global warming is probably pretty far from your mind. But these treats—along with a plethora of other popular products, including cosmetics, soaps, shampoos, and fabric softeners—share a common ingredient: palm oil.

As the push for processed foods skyrockets, so has the demand for palm oil, which is now the most widely traded vegetable oil in the world. (Demand is also coming from the surge in “biofuels;” half of all palm oil is used for fuel, not for food.)

The problem? Today, nearly 100 percent of palm oil originates in Malaysia or Indonesia, where plantations are created by razing the rainforests and draining peatlands, releasing carbon dioxide and methane. The growth of the palm oil industry has given Indonesia the dubious honor of ranking near the top in global emissions.

What can you do about it?

The environmental group, Rainforest Action Network, a long-time defender of rainforests, has launched a “Problem with Palm Oil” campaign to put pressure on companies buying from big palm oil importers, like Cargill, to clean up its supply chain.

Already the citizen action group (I sit on its board) has succeeded in getting some big-name companies that buy from Cargill, like Seventh Generation and Whole Foods, to sign on to a pledge for sustainable palm.

Join the campaign and help take a bite out of climate change.

Unseasonably hot days feel different lately. They don’t just make me feel warm; they make me worried, too. I get to thinking about whether the sweltering is a bellwether of our future. Climate scientists tell us we can’t extrapolate from anecdotal experience like my weather worries, but we now have the data to confirm that spikes in temperature worldwide are indicating an irrefutable fact: the age of climate chaos has begun.

Being aware of the scale of the climate crisis can make us simultaneously want to do something and feel overwhelmed that we can’t possibly reverse this disaster. Thankfully, there’s a lot we can do—from big picture tough-stuff like taking a stand as citizens for forward-looking environmental policies to the most simple act of all: making climate-friendly choices when it comes to the food on our plate.

For the food system—from seed to plate to landfill—is responsible for as much as one-third of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions. The livestock sector alone is responsible for nearly one-fifth of the world’s total emissions–that’s more than every gas-guzzling SUV, jet plane, or tanker on the planet combined.

What can we do to support a climate-friendly diet? Here are a few ideas to inspire you. You might already have been making these choices without realizing you were helping the planet.

1. Choose Real Food: Supermarket shelves are lined with products full of trans fats, high-fructose corn syrup, and multi-syllabic additives. Each of these elements takes enormous energy to create. Choosing real food—fresh, whole foods with minimal packaging—is choosing energy-efficient food that’s good for your body and the planet.
   Check out Eat Well Guide’s resources to find options near you.
2. Don’t Panic, Go Organic: Organic farms are not only good for the birds and the bees, they’re good for the climate, too. By building healthy soil and eliminating the reliance on petroleum-based chemicals, organic farms emit as much as half the carbon dioxide as chemical farms. Because of that healthy soil, organic farms tend to be more resilient, too, meaning they’re better able to withstand the coming weather extremes of climate change.
   Learn more at The Organic Center and the Rodale Institute.
3. Enjoy Meatless Mondays… or Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays: Industrial livestock production is a major source of emissions of greenhouse gases, especially methane and nitrous oxide. Unfortunately, most of the meat and dairy in our supermarkets has been raised in these environmentally destructive production facilities. So try cutting back on meat and dairy in your diet or reach for the sustainably raised stuff, by seeking out local producers through your farmers market or community-supported agriculture programs (CSA).
   Get more ideas for Meatless Mondays from the wonderful Mollie Katzen.
   Find out more about farmers markets and CSAs there.
4. Live La Vida Loca(l): Decrease your food’s emissions by choosing sustainably raised fare from your locally stocked supermarket or nearest farmers market. Help keep those local farmers on the land and thriving by becoming a shareholder of a community farm near you through community-supported agriculture.
   Learn more at Sustainable Table.
5. Skip the Straw: With more and more of us eating on the run, food packaging has become a bigger and bigger problem, filling our landfills and adding to the overall climate toll of our food system. So try to choose less packaged products, travel with reusable mugs, and turn to the tap instead of bottled water.
   To join the “Take Back the Tap” campaign, connect with Food and Water Watch.