Part 10 - Go organic

No doubt, you've seen the signs all around the shops telling you to try the new "organic" versions of your favourite foods. They have fancy new packaging and generally cost a bit more than what you are used to. Most people would just dismiss these new products as a cleaver marketing campaign and stick to what they know and save that extra bit more. But should they? The short term savings is for the most part only a small amount of money and the long term effects on your health and our environment are more significant, though generally ignored by the public. Hopefully this article will help you to make a better informed decision.

Organic food is simply food that has not had its genetics, processing, or manufacturing altered severely by the influence of science and technology. This influence comes in many different forms. Products can be altered at a genetic level to be more commercially beneficial in terms of their look, taste, productivity, lifespan, or transportability. Products might be protected from natural predators, made to be disease resistant, or when chemicals are used to produce or inhibit natural growth and development both in animals and plants. Essentially, the food that we knew has been changed and many of the features of this food have been permanently altered, without a proper understanding of the potential consequences of the future.

It may be argued that using our best scientific advancements in genetics, chemistry and agriculture will allow us to provide food for more people in the world and help end world hunger. However, with every change to the way we produce food; come corresponding changes that must be made in fertiliser, animal welfare and health, and numerous other added issues that only exist when we tamper with the natural way of growing food and raising livestock. Each scientific advancement in agriculture seems to require more alterations by science to the natural mean of food production.

Reasons to Eat Organic

Organic produce is not covered in a cocktail of poisonous chemicals. The average conventionally-grown apple has 20-30 artificial poisons on its skin, even after rinsing.
Fresh organic produce contains on average 50% more vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other micro-nutrients than intensively farmed produce.
Going organic is the only practical way to avoid eating genetically modified (GM) food.
If you eat dairy or meat products it is important to know that dairy cows and farm animals are fed a dangerous cocktail of antibiotics, growth promoting drugs, anti-parasite drugs and many other medicines on a daily basis, whether they have an illness or not. These drugs are passed directly onto the consumers of their dairy produce or meat.
About 99% of non-organic farm animals in the UK are now fed genetically modified Soya. And there has never been a reported case of BSE in organic cattle in the UK.
Organic produce generally taste better and more like the food you might remember from years ago.
Organic food is not really more expensive than intensively farmed foods, as we pay for conventional foods through our taxes. We spend billion of pounds every year cleaning up the mess that agro-chemicals make to our soil and water supply.
Intensive farming can seriously damage farm workers' health. There are much higher instances of cancer, respiratory problems and other major diseases in farm workers from non-organic farms.

While the notion that organic food should be eaten strictly for our health is quite true, we must be reminded of the interconnectedness of our bodies with all that surrounds us. What happens to the health of the animals, plants, micro-organisms, soil, oceans, and atmosphere, happens to all humans as well. There is no person on Earth who is immune to the effects of an unhealthy environment, no matter how much technology or wealth they may possess. When the food we eat is polluted, we carry that pollution in our bodies, some of it remains there and accumulates and the damage it can cause to us can be passed on to further generations.