THE PRICE OF ECOLOGY

We are what we eat, so the old philosophy goes. And that also applies to what we drink, what we wear and how we wash and clean. Of course, over hundreds of years our way of life and "consumption patterns" have changed radically: and for that we can thank progress which has made our lives easier so that we don't have to eat the meat of a mammoth for breakfast, lunch and dinner, wash in a water-hole and live in mud huts. But these same achievements, coupled with growing urbanization, are gradually turning our lives into something "synthetic": a jungle of perfectly useless apartment blocks, atmospheric gas pollution instead of fresh ozone and most important of all - our refrigerators are full of the lovingly preserved and carefully packed Mendeleyev table. Today's daredevils, instead of tucking into freshly plucked lamb from our abundant green pastures, calmly stick their forks into fried sausage, and dusky beauties lighten their luxurious curls not with a concoction of camomile but with hydrogen peroxide and ammonia.

Many people will say: but what can you do about it? Do we have a choice? Can we live ecologically? Let us try and answer the questions with which people who try to live ecologically in a big city have such difficulty.

It would seem that the achievements of civilization ought to have improved the quality of our lives and the products we consume. However, it is not as simple as that in practice. The fast pace of our lives and the rate of growth of the earth's population make natural food in its original form a category which is not the most affordable for the average consumer. Let us look at an example of what is called the consumer basket, which includes food products, non-foodstuffs and services necessary to maintain one's health and sustenance.

What are we eating?

Which of us doesn't dream of having lunch at one with nature, eating cream, cheese and butter straight from one's own cow? Or dining out on meat from freshly-dressed and roasted game, and plucking a strawberry from the garden for afternoon tea? Instead, the realities of city life today offer the majority of us at best instant porridge, and at worst the no less valuable achievements of intellect and technology in the form of sausage products (frequently of unknown origin), and for lunch - dried noodles, an invention patented by the Japanese and lovingly acquired by the rest of the world. It is obvious that the naturalness and value of everything we normally consume is in great doubt. Of course, as the manufacturers say, there are state standards and certificates declaring that "all additives are in permissible quantities and cause no appreciable harm to health". Nevertheless, surreptitiously we all understand that ordinary milk cannot keep in its natural form for half a year, and good sour cream goes off and starts to get bitter literally within two days.

Take sausages, for example. Forgetting about a number of negative things, often published in the media, about the manufacture of "home-made" counterfeit products, infringing all possible standards and criteria, it is difficult to find anything beneficial or even convenient in theses products. Proof, as the experts claim, that the sausage, to put it mildly, does not consist of just meat is the very obvious fact of its price. Whereas a kilogram of pure meat varies from AZN 10 to15, a kilogram of "fairly decent" sausage can be bought for AZN 6-7. At the same time, you have to remember that the cost of the sausage should also include the cost of its production. Meanwhile, practically half of its meat consists of soya protein, which has the very significant property of retaining liquid (which, of course, does not increase the mass of the end product), as well as thickening agents in the form of starch, colorants in the form of nitrites, flavouring additives in the form of the well-known sodium glutamate (which is, essentially, unwholesome salt) and preservatives.

It is a similar situation with dairy products. Bearing in mind that the shelf life of natural dairy products is short - only a few days - we can make the relevant conclusions after we have seen the storage times on the packaging which are sometimes up to as much as six months. Milk is usually sold already pasteurized, i.e. processed at high temperatures which kill harmful bacteria (although at the same time beneficial, too). The same applies to other dairy products, on the packaging of which one can also see a strange guar gum which is used as a thickening agent, and also a "strange beast" called "converted starch". The situation is no better with yogurts which are widely advertised as being supposedly highly beneficial for health. The bifidus bacteria which, according to the advertising, is contained in them is also in ordinary buttermilk, but a large part of the cost goes on the brand. In children's fortified yogurts, which are rich in calcium, even if you ignore the "flavourings, which are identical to natural agents" (in other words, obtained chemically) and the preservatives, the calcium content of 100g of the product exceeds the dose of calcium in the same amount of milk by only 60mg, then the sugar content in them is unjustifiably high - 10 grams! Which, of course, must have an effect on a child's organism, whereas natural products for children have a short shelf life and high cost.

If you are lucky enough to find an honest supplier of products from the countryside who will not dilute the milk with water and ground serviettes into sour cream to give the latter thickness, then the price of the product will increase at least 1.5 - 2 times.

And we can see that. Not to mention the fact that the shelf life of such products is not long, and if they are brought in from the regions then the cost of, say, milk can vary depending on the season (it is cheaper in summer because the yield is higher). Besides, the cost price of this product is higher.

The situation is the same in stockbreeding. As farmer and businessman Vusal Karimov says, there is not a lot of pedigree beef in Azerbaijan. The domestic breeds that existed back in Soviet times were sadly wasted in the period of transition (or rather were used as food without monitoring the protection of valuable specimens). Nowadays, the state's agricultural policy provides for a number of wide-scale measures to improve breeds and the rearing of top-quality specimens. Generally speaking, the maintenance of top-quality "beef" is expensive, in view of the need to create special conditions and provide feed.

Businessman Mehman Mammadov has been working in agriculture for seven years. He has an orchard in which he grows varieties that are becoming extinct. The cost of his produce depends on a number of factors, including yield: in "good" years the price per kilo of apples is 30-40 kopecks, and in "bad" years 60-70 kopecks. Of course, reading this you will be surprised at this price because apples cost the ordinary consumer much more. It is common knowledge that the end price is shaped by the dealers, who bring the goods to the shop, and the shops who add their mark-up. At the same time, Mehman makes no secret of the fact that the cost of spraying from pests and fertilizer is also added to the cost of growing the produce, along with labour costs and the cost of the horticulturists and the equipment. "Of course, this is all chemicals, but within permissible limits," he says.

"I wanted to grow natural, completely organic products," he says, "but this is not advisable the way things are today." Mammadov said that in the West there are definite norms for organic produce. "If you want to produce organic products in the West, you have to apply to the relevant authority," he says, "and a special commission will come and inspect the land on which you plan to grow ecologically pure fruit and vegetables. The land is monitored over a period of three years and it must not be enriched with any minerals, fertilizers or phosphates. It is only after these three years that you have the right to plant. But after this the same commission every year checks the land and the produce for any fertilizers or minerals. If everything is OK, the farmer is issued with a certificate which allows him to fix a price for his produce several times higher." We don't have this kind of authority in our country, the businessman says. It is not economically beneficial to engage in the production of organic produce without the possibility of it being certified: unless he applies medicinal sprays and mineral fertilizers - nitrate, phosphate, calcium - he will get only a 10% competitive product. One could say this will substantially increase the price of his product, but it would be more correct to say that this will only have a negative effect on the profit of the producer because the price of the product is determined by supply and the market, and certification, as already mentioned, doesn't come into it.

Chemicals for the home

Our lives would be impossible not just without food products, but also without cleanliness. The market provides us with a whole array of means not just for improving our appearance but also for sterilizing everything that surrounds us. From the very term "household chemicals" we can clearly see there is no point in looking for natural components here.   In the first place, all cleaning and washing substances can provoke allergies among sensitive people. But that's not the worst thing. For example, ammonia and substances containing it (so-called amines) cause irritation of the eyes and the respiratory passages and lead to headaches. Phenyl carbinol leads to disease of the central nervous system, nausea and vomiting and some people even link it to pancreatic cancer. The phthalates that are contained in make-up and chewing gum are particularly harmful for pregnant and nursing mothers as they can cause congenital deformities.  Synthetic air fresheners are toxic and colorants contain carcinogens. Almost all shampoos now contain propylene-glycol and sodium laurel sulphate - the two most harmful chemicals. It has been proved that they dry the skin, have a negative effect on the liver, harm the eyes and also cause a deterioration of memory. The same applies to child cosmetics.

Dish-washing products contain SAS (surface-active substances) which do not wash off and only contact with grease. When we consume greasy food from a plate washed by a liquid detergent we absorb these substances which, added together, destroy cells. The aluminium in cosmetics and anti-perspirants causes swelling.

Naturally, all manufacturers try to assure us that their products are harmless and all the toxic substances in them are in permissible amounts. But all the professed "rapid action" and effectiveness of these products at the same price level are achieved by "building up" the chemically active substances in them. I am not talking about once-only use, but constant consumption, and possibly even the "consumption" of chemicals

Are there options?

In the developed countries of Europe and the USA most families do not have the luxury of ecologically healthy, farm food products. And if it is the poorer among us who deal in the markets, then it is only the well-off who can afford to buy their food at markets and trade fairs.

So things aren't as bad as all that. Seek and ye shall find. But we have to pay for all the best things we can get for our health and the health of our loved ones, for the high price of acquiring ecologically pure produce from reliable suppliers and for our time for obtaining/producing the same produce at less cost.

For example, a good substitute for yogurt could be the yeast from the well known milky mushroom which is a symbiosis of acetic acid, lactic bacteria and dairy yeast. The ready-made product contains polysaccharides, lightly-whipped white of the egg and vitamin D. The benefits from it are much greater and the costs minimal.

Instead of sausage, which is stuffed with chemicals, its home-grown equivalent may be used: for example, from boiled ox tongue - a product which is undoubtedly dietic and beneficial.

In general, for healthy eating try buying products from local producers. As far as fruits and vegetables are concerned, bearing in mind you can get closest to the ecological composition only by growing them in one's own patch (which in urban conditions is fairly difficult to do), try to select not the most attractive looking fruits.

Household chemical agents can easily be replaced by harmless and inexpensive equivalents - dishes can be brilliantly washed by ordinary mustard, powders can replace soda and sodium borate, washing can be done using oriental soapnuts (the fruits of the Sapindus tree), and one can wash one's hair, from the example of our grandmothers, with egg yolk and buttermilk. With such simple means you can stay healthy and reduce the damage to the environment and the biosphere, which we are all a part of.