Top six reasons to eat organic food
When you eat organic foods, you provide your body with vitamins, minerals, filtered water, and much more. These provide us with vital foundations for health. Most food sold in stores is grown with pesticides or other toxins. These chemicals have been proven to adversely affect health. In some cases they cause death. They also pollute the Earth and have been associated with mass animal deaths [1-4]. Your choices make a huge difference in the quality of your life. What you eat builds and maintains your body. Also, supporting organics supports a healthy Earth. You help to improve the quality of water, soil, and air. Animals, plants, birds, worms, and other living beings also benefit when you choose organic foods.
1. You Are What You Eat
In 1826, Anthelme Brillat-Savarin originated the ever-famous "You are what you eat" in his book Meditations on Transcendent Gastronomy. We have heard this truism throughout our lives. Have you considered the depths of its wisdom? Eat an apple, and you eat life: vitamins, minerals, water, and more. Eat pesticide residue, and you fill your body with poisons [5, 6]. These toxins accumulate in your muscle and fat tissues. Some of them are nearly impossible to ever remove from your body. Mothers who breast-feed children illustrate an example of these danger potentials, because poisons are passed to the baby. The Journal for Pesticide Reform reports that "pesticides such as chlordane, heptachlor, DDT, DDE and other organohalogen compounds do not biodegrade in the environment. Instead they bioconcentrate and are stored in the fat of human beings, who feed at the top of the food chain." Also, a 1999 Consumers Union report determined that "pesticide residues found in foods children eat every day often exceed safe levels" [7].
Organic foods are grown with no poisons. They are natural foods that have been grown with more conscious care for the health of the soil, the plants, and the people who will eat them. Over 100 studies have found that the nutritional quality of organic foods far surpasses that of conventional produce [8-10]. Why take a chance and risk exposing yourself, your children, or your friends to chemicals that could destroy their health? Why make this even a negotiable point for yourself? Choose organic, choose natural, and you choose health.
2. Food is your best medicine.
In the 5th century BC, Hippocrates taught that "let food be your medicine and medicine be your food." He was highly respected during his lifetime, and he has been famous ever since. His words have stood the test of time and remain deep wisdoms that we can live by. All medical doctors to this day recite the Hippocratic Oath. In this vow, doctors promise to try never to harm their patient and also to work for their patient’s highest good.
We can all make similar choices. We can all seek to bring about our highest good. We can all seek not to harm ourselves. We can live by that oath and also by Hippocrates’ other famous teaching: Food is your Best Medicine. If this is true, then it makes sense that we should choose foods that are known to bring us health, energy, and peace of mind. Scientists have proven in many studies that organic food choices have far superior nutritional quality than conventional food choices [8-10]. Also, they have proven that foods grown with pesticides are definitely linked with diseases and deaths for humans and animals [11-13].
With all that in mind, the choice seems clear: Choose Organic.3. …
All of these things, I’m sure, are true – I didn’t actually read the article, having descended into a furious fugue over the cost of organic food and the institutionalized non-availability thereof to the underclasses. “Choose organic,” sure, if you can freakin’ afford to eat that way. I have other things to say about this, but I’m too angry about it to argue rationally, right now. Maybe later.
Matt
23 February 2009 at 10:16 am
My grandmother, who was quite poor, ate organically. She kept chickens and rabbits and had a garden. The urban poor are, of course, in another category. I’m not sure, though, of the wisdom of sticking with a diet that anyone, no matter how poor, can afford. It’s probably wise (in my opinion) to make the best food choices that fit within your budget.
LeisureGuy
23 February 2009 at 10:20 am
We have a new food brand that does not (yet) include organic lines but we are working on developing them. In recent years, even the business case for producing organic lines in the UK has been a good one but that driver of development is taking something of a battering at the moment, with falling sales.
I am interested in people’s thoughts on a price premium. Obviously we will try and get to as affordable a price as possible with new organic lines, but what sort of premium would seem reasonable to you when you are shopping? Are people interested in organic olives, cured meats and other Mediterranean lines or is it just about fruit and vegetables?
We are at http://www.discoverunearthed.wordpress.com if you want to comment there as well…
discoverunearthed
24 February 2009 at 12:50 am
The main thing I look for is fruit and vegetables, which I eat enough of to make organic desirable.
LeisureGuy
24 February 2009 at 6:31 am
I am a single mom who is also a full-time student. I have a very limited budget. I recently switched my son over to organic because of the health conncerns. I buy my food from local farmers (I live in Atlanta, GA) a mojor city. There happen to be many local CSA and local famr co-ops in the area if a person is truly concerned and wants to look. The price is only slightly more expensive than the grocery store and just as easy to buy. I am also starting a small garden of vegetables that I will be growing on my back porch (i.e., tomatoes, herbs, peas). I think the problem is not money, it’s a lack of education. Most people are unaware of the health benefits and or easy access and availability of organics foods
Anonymous
30 January 2010 at 9:13 am
Wonderful that you’re growing some of your own food, and I agree that CSA offers great produce at reasonable prices.
LeisureGuy
30 January 2010 at 9:16 am
It is a really helpful information about organic foods. I live in a village which is a small and and isolated place.
We are 120 km far from the nearest city and as a result we produce our own food. While doing that we use extreme caution
of our food to be organic so every information about organic is very important for me, thanks to the authors here.I also
found another useful guide for organic food and also so many other things about agriculturing, i recommend this
site to everyone who wants to learn useful informations.
http://agricultureguide.org/
peio revuelta
10 March 2010 at 6:26 am