Eat natural, cut our processes food, avoid contaminants... that's the message from health experts. But is it possible to maintain a completely pure diet? We sent our intrepid reporter to find out
Words Simeon de la Torre Main image Danny Bird
We all know we should avoid junk food and munch plenty of fruit and vegetables. But I wanted to find out if it possible to go a step further and spend a month eating nothing but wholesome, unadulterated real food. No additives, nothing processes, no man-made contaminants - in other words, a totally pure diet. Would I end up existing on spring water and plain rice? Or could I have a well rounded diet? And, crucially, would it make me healthier?
First I go to see Mr Rupert Gabriel of the Snowberry Lane Clinic in Wiltshire (snowberrylane.co.uk) for a medical. He takes blood samples, checks my blood pressure, listens to my chest, weighs me, monitors my heart rate and finally declares me to be in rude health. But as far the experiment is concerned, he isn't convinced that 30 days on a pure diet will have much of an impact. 'Except on your weight, judging by the amount of alcohol you drink. But a pure diet could well reap rewards in the long term."
This is going to be easy. Surely all i have to do is (a) buy organic and (b) not eat out. I make my way to my local Fresh & Wild, the organic food store chain and 30 minutes later I'm £80 lighter and clutching a lengthy receipt for the Men's Fitness expenses folder.
While the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and some government ministers say there is not enough scientific evidence to be certain that organic food is safer or more nutritious than a non-organic, a £12 million EU study produced in 2007 claimed otherwise. It suggested that organic potatoes, kiwi fruit and carrots contain up to 40 per cent more antioxidants, such as vitamin C, than conventionally farmed produce, while organic lettuce, spinach and cabbage also had higher levels of minerals and antioxidants. Organic milk was found to contain 60 per cent more antioxidants and omega 3 fatty acids than ordinary milk.
I don't normally shop organic. I'd like to, but I'm the sole breadwinner and when an organic chicken at Asda costs £14.49 a kilo, compared with £9.98 for a standard bird or £6.89 for a value roaster, I can't justify it. But for the time three days, I eat corn-fed chicken, organic bread, cheeses and fruit, and drink fair-trade coffee.
Admittedly the chicken is good - the meat is firmer, the flavour more intense - but it should be, given the extortionate price. Depressingly, I can't taste much difference elsewhere. It may all be healthier, but switching back to the regular shopping list will be no great sacrifice.
Speaking of sacrifice, at the first weekend I virtuously decline an invitation to the pub followed by the curry. Instead I stay in and have a few bottles of organic ale with a home-made burger. It's no big deal. As I suspected, this is easy.
It is leading nutritionist Jane Clarke (janeclarke.com) who brings me down to earth. 'You do realise that organic doesn't necessarily mean free from fertilisers and pesticides, don't you?' she says when i call at the start of the second week, i didn't.
In fact, while the laws governing organic agriculture strictly limit the use of chemical agriculture fertilisers or pesticides, some are still acceptable. For example, there are proposals for an EU-wide organic standard due to contaminated with up to 0.9 per cent GM-modified material to be labelled organic. In addition, some animal antibiotics are used in organic farming.
I have to rule out imported organic produce, too, because the UK's strict standards don't apply elsewhere. 'It's going to be an incredibly hard task to eat a completely uncontaminated diet,' she warns me. 'Labelling isn't nearly sophisticated enough.'
'I'll eat fish,' I suggest. 'Wild, organic, free-range fish.'
'You can't get organic wild fish, she replies. "How would you know what they'd eaten?'
Oh. Could you provide me with a month-long meal plan then? It'd be a great help.' There is a pause.
'My silence should speak volumes,' Clarke says. In essence she believes the whole concept of this 'pure diet' is flawed. 'Why are you doing this?' she asks. 'From a nutritional perspective, some organic food is not as full of nutrients as you think it might be. An apple grown with fertilisers is perfectly good for you. A non-organic carrot could be better for you than an organic one - it all depends on the field. Organic meat is a safe bet, but apart from that, it'll be tough. Good luck.'
I promptly call my wife and tell her to get the family back on their usual diet of Cheerios and potato waffles. Now that I know organic isn't necessarily the way to go, I figure the best way to eat straight off the land. I go down to the local farm shop and buy a lot of pork. Almost a whole pig, in fact. And that's pretty much what I eat for the entire week. Breakfast is an apple, to be on the safe side I jettison lunch, and for seven consecutive dinners I'm like an Atkins addict. Chops, ham, sausages, gammon - every cut from snout to trotter, with locally-grown veg or salad on the side. Boring, yet effective.
I avoid mustards, pickles and sauces because I've know idea how they're produced, but I do get a few more bottles of organic ale to keep me sane, trying to stick to ones that don't use imported hops.
By the end of the third week I feel like I'm A Celebrity...contestant (minus the kangaroo's anus) and I'm craving flavour. I begin hunting for flavoursome pure foods in earnest. It takes time and effort, but eventually I find the good stuff. Angus Soft Fruits strawberries from Scotland. Rowse organic honey straight from the honeycomb; Calon Wen unhomogenised milk from Wales; superfruit juices grown in Britain; Demijohn Rhubarb Vodka liqueur, made with fresh Scottish organic rhubarb from Inverness-shire, and Berg water, which is melted down from Canadian icebergs.
At my local farmer's market I question the provenance of each and every product like a Michelin-starred chef. I go home satisfied and looking forward to dinner for once - I've bought a random selection of gourmet (and excruciatingly expensive) ingredients, but at least I've got something to eat apart from pork.
For a few days I eat and drink like a Greek god, but I'm still only really eating meat and vegetables. I miss the little things that make my taste buds tingle. Gravy (I couldn't find a stock I was sure of). Coffee (imported). Marmite and Worcester Sauce (not having any idea how that stuff's made - well, do you? - I decided not to risk it). Stilton (deliberately contaminated with penicillium roquefort mould).
I also find that the local food retailers don't take too kindly to being badgered about their produce. I start going to the farm shop in the next town after pestering my local farmer so much that he exasperatedly points out the window to a field of cows and says, 'That's where this meat is coming from.' It seems churlish to come back with, 'Yes, but are the neighbouring fields agrochemical-free?'
It isn't only such man-made things that make food unhealthy, anyway. Much of our farmland is home to E coli 0157, a microbe that can, within hours, shred the lining of our intestines, cripple our kidneys and kill us. Researchers have discovered the microbe on one in five UK farms, and have established that eight per cent of cattle carry it, with two per cent of them being 'super-shedders' capable of excreting billions of microbes.
My diary entry for the final Monday of this experiment reads: 'Pissed off. Pissed off with thinking about food. Pissed off with research. Skint,' Not exactly Pepys, but it makes it clear how fed up I am with a near-constant diet of plan meat and veg. Even the thought of trying to negotiate a spaghetti Bolognese with uncontaminated ingredients was too much to contemplate.
Mindful of Jane Clarke's comment about the non-existence of 'organic wild' fish, I decided to see what, if anything, from the sea passes muster. The news isn't good in February this year, four supermarket chains withdrew almost 50 salmon product from their shelves amid fears they had been contaminated with diesel fuel. In 2005, several scientists warned that many of the world's fish contain toxin's that build up over time in the human body. Mercury was the headline-grabber, but polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins and flame retardants were also found in coastal chemical soups worldwide - one report described the Mediterranean as 'a toilet that no one has bothered to flush.'
Europe imports 75 per cent of its fish and, as toxins experts Kate Mahaffey of the US Environmental Protection Agency explains, 'Pollution is a worldwide problem, our fish comes from the world. No-one is immune. There is a very narrow range between levels with no effects, subtle effects and severe effects.'
It should be noted that the Government provides clear guidelines about how much fish we should be eating and which kinds are safe to eat (eatwell.gov.uk), not to mention the sparkling clean British waters full of uncontaminated fish, but still - I've gone right off the idea of a salmon salad.
By Wednesday I am almost beaten. As far as health is concerned, I feel marginally better in myself overall (perhaps a touch more clear-headed), but I am mentally crying out for easy, tasty stuff to eat. A pre-packed sandwich, a can of soup, some crisps. Fortunately there's someone who can provide that for me.
A company called Pure Package (purepackage.com) employs chefs and nutritionists to conjure up personalised gourmet meals according to your dietary requirements and deliver the dishes to your door overnight. I contact them and let them know what I need. Although they seem unsure they can produce a 100 per cent 'pure' meat, for lunch on Thursday I get - and wolf down - garlic chilli prawns and lemon barley risotto. While a part of me wants to call them and find out exactly where all the ingredients are from, a bigger part of me doesn't give two hoots.
At the end of the four weeks, I return to the Snowberry Lane clinic to see if my diet has had any effect on my health, The short answer is: no, 'I wouldn't have expected any change in this short a time,' Dr Gabriel says. 'Over three or four years, though, a diet free from toxins and contaminants certainly could reduce your chance of developing chronic diseases.'
Although, naturally, that's good news, the one thing I've discovered over the course of the diet is that it can drive a person mad. I simply don't have time to source all my food directly off the land. And even if I did, there's no way to be completely sure it's 100 per cent free of man-made ingredients. And even if there was a way, as Jan Clarke says, food produced without the use of chemicals isn't significantly healthier - at any rate, it's perfectly possible to eat a healthy diet without forcing yourself to avoid food produced using fertilisers and pesticides.
Oh - one aspect of my health affected by the diet: my weight, I've put on two kilograms, which can be attributed to my enthusiastic consumption of organic beer.
To find out if your food is uncontaminated, follow these rules
In a number of ways, farming, packaging, processing, cooking. Wash fruit and vegetables and don't store food next to household chemicals - even if packaged.
Three of the most contaminated 'healthy' products on the market
In 2006 a WWF report found that a range of toxic chemicals linked to cancer could be found in foods considered healthy across Britain. It said that 15 food types contained at least two of the chemicals, and while the organisations said consumers would 'not necessarily' get sick from eating the items, it expressed serious concerns abut potential long-term effects.
Contaminated with perflourinated chemicals found in packaging and non-stick coating, and linked to liver damage and prostate cancer.
Contaminated with organochlorines, which are linked to brain development defects, diabetes and reduced immunity.
Contaminated with brominated flame retardants, as used in furniture, clothing and carpets. Linked to cancer.