Friday, 13 November 2009
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Why You Should Go Organic
In today’s society – with an ever vigilant eye towards health consciousness – we are forever in search of those factors that will give us the edge in achieving maximum health. As we’ve learned, a healthy diet, a consistent regime of physical activity, and plenty of rest all has a profound impact on our overall vitality. Subsequently, there has been an overwhelming group of people that swear by the benefit of organic food.
Produced by organic farms, organic food is grown under strict government supervision. Under these guidelines, organic produce is grown and packaged without the use of any chemicals or pesticides. Traditionally grown, non-organic produce is subjected to a myriad of chemicals – most of which are have not been studied thoroughly enough to understand or contemplate their long-term effects on the human body. Researchers are still undecided as to whether or not these chemicals can be linked to everything from food allergies to certain types of cancer. The benefit of organic food is that they are not subjected to these unreliable substances.
Meat and dairy produced under organic guidelines are also chemical free. Traditional agricultural farmers often subject livestock to a bevy of chemical supplements designed to speed their growth and weight. Further, dairy cows are often given chemicals to increase their milk production. The benefit of organic food is that livestock is given only organic feed that is chemical and supplement free.
Another benefit of organic food is its advantage to the environment. Traditionally grown produce are treated with chemicals; naturally the chemicals are then in the soil, changing the landscape and contaminating the ground and surrounding water supplies. The benefit of organic food is the ground in which it is grown is left unchanged.
Making a commitment to organic food means making a commitment to your health; the benefit of organic food lies in the chemical free enjoyment of natural whole food. Further, the benefits to the environment are varied and long lasting. The decision to go organic is a healthy and responsible one.Do you eat organically? Why or why not?
Post contributed by http://health-and-fitness-buzz.blogspot.com/.
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Stats: This Week All Time Posts: 0 65 Views: 0 66593 Comments: 0 968 View all posts by xangasyndicatedsites@xanga
Comments (42)
i don't, but i'd like to
i would love to eat organic, but it's hard to know which products are truly organic vs. those that claim to be. There are a lot of things that are labeled "organic" but still use some herbicides, or only have some organic ingredients. I think with produce it's easier but when it comes to anything with more than one ingredient, who really knows?
can't go wrong with organic food..just wish eating food doesn't involve unfamiliar chemicals or pesticides in it.
I eat a mixture. My rule is that whenever I can, I do. Most of my staple foods I buy (rice, grains, breads, soy milk, etc) are organic as well. In North Carolina (I was there for the past 3 weeks) organic bananas were super cheap. Those were the only bit of organic produce my mom would buy me! I think they were only 75 cents a pound, or 99 cents. Or maybe the girl rang them up as regular. Oh well.
I only eat organic food occaisionally or if it's cheaper than conventionally grown food.
Organic food has no real perks to it, it goes bad faster, and we've been eating conventionally grown food for most of our lives. If it really caused cancer, then we should all be weeping,
New research funded by the organic industry itself
shows that conventionally grown food contains just as many nutrients as
the more expensive food from less productive organic farms, organic farming does take 50% less energy, but conventional farming is 20% more productive. To maintain the same overall level of food production using organic
methods today would require far more land to be used for farming, if we pursued the idea of an organic economy, the effect on
land usage would be dramatic; we use about 37% of our land now to produce food, and if only done organically, then we wouldn't have enough food for our people.
@Loser_Lizzy@xanga - It's always a tough thing to think about when you look at all of the facts. :(
-Organic farmers do indeed use pesticides and chemicals. Don't fall for this sham!
-Organic farming is wasteful; much of the crops produced by organic farmers never make it to market due to insect damage, disease, and poor fertilization. There is a huge amount of lost food and resources.there are so many more reasons to go organic than those just listed, and i highly recommend anybody who doesn't know much about this topic to get informed. it's very important because it's not just your health, but the livelihood of farmers in the US and abroad that are being affected by this idea of corporate monoculture.
i'm just a college student, so it's hard for me to go organic. but i'm trying!!
In response to cutesycharm, I disagree. Conventional farming is efficient and productive, for sure, but completely unsustainable. We have designed this economy based on more is better, no matter what the costs. The effects have been staggering. Small-scale organic farming can actually produce more food per acre than conventional farming, and in addition, works with the existing environment rather than against it. Its about doing things the clever way instead of the easy fix of genetically modified seeds (that put many farmers in debt on acount of they are not allowed to reuse their seeds from big american companies), and milllions of pounds of chemical pesticides and herbicides that seep into the food we eat and the groundwater, streams and rivers. These chemicals are helping to endanger many aquatic species in our rivers and oceans.
Buying organic is important to support the concept, but the best thing you can do for the environment and the world is to buy locally produced food. A lot of local farmers don't use pesticides and herbicides, or use sparingly compared to conventional. Plus, the food is always fresh and tasty because it didn't have to travel far to get to you. And the farmer gets 100% (or close to it) of the profits when you buy direct from a farmer's market or a farm. Processed foods and produce bought from the grocery store support the money going up the chain to a select few CEOs of companies and such, most of whom pay their workers minimum wage and offer no benefits while they swim in cash. The farmer may only get 10% of the price that you pay at the grocery store for that apple you just bought.
Anyhoo, I guess what I am saying is "Think Globally, Act Locally". And organic makes sense too, but should be secondary. Large scale conventional "organic" farming that travels thousands of miles to get to your grocery store may not be any better than the conventional kind, plus they jack up the prices. Go to your farmers market, everything is way cheaper too.
I have and I would continue to if it wasn't so expensive.
I just say the movie Food, Inc last night. I highly recommend it. Everyone should know how their food is produced and where it comes from, as well as the politics supporting big agribusiness. Once you watch this movie, you may be more willing to pay a little extra to buy organic or support local farmers.
I don't buy organic food as it is beyond my budget, but I thought that guidelines for organic food weren't actually as strict as most people believe. So, it could be that we're paying for overly expensive food with the idea that it's good for us when it could be just as bad as non-organic food. I'm not sure though.
If it's so good for everyone, make it AFFORDABLE for EVERYONE. The idea of organic food goes to the people who have higher incomes to support such a thing. What does it leave it to? The people with lower incomes are left to eat the supposed unhealthy food that is filled with "chemicals".
Organic food is fine or whatever. The OP makes a passionate case for switching to organic, all while telling us that research has not established a clear link between the traditionaly grown foods you dislike so much and any health problems. Out of all the ideas that will change the world, it seems that eating organic food is down at about #285729457239 on the list.
I eat organic when i can, its hard to afford though. I also grow my own food when it is seasonally possible because its much more rewarding and I know what goes into it/on it. Its tres yum. Much nicer then anything that has travelled thousands of miles to get to me.
Sadly, the organic food debate is not disimilar to the alternative health issue. If we think something is 'natural' and tastes nice with no horrible side effects then we actually feel that we are being healed or made more healthy. This is mostly an illusion as anyone whose life has been saved by chemotherapy will attest. Whilst it feels real good buying fresh from the farmers, the only real way to get food to the starving millions is by maximizing bio-technology and crop efficiency. Now if that can truly be done with small scale farming then that should be supported. If it needs genetically engineered and resistant seed then that must be correctly and ethically managed. Ultimately we need scientists who care and humanists who are informed and then to get them to work together for a profit driven global food incentive. Right now millions of starving mouths are being fed by genetically engineered crops. The alternative.....death.
You can stick the organic label on anything, isn't regulated. You have no idea what "Organic" means most of the time. It is just a feel-good politically correct buzzword. Lots of people DO buy their foods locally in season from a truck stand or famers market. As I do.
Think about bananas. We buy them here yellow with a hint of green, so they will finish ripening at home and not spoil too fast. Those things are shipped overseas on boats, they travel for sometimes a month before they hit US soil. How is it they don't ripen and spoil on the ship? They are shipped green as a gourd, and chemically ripened when they are ready to be shipped to distribution warehouses and the local groceries. They can go from that distributor on the east or west coast to the midwest in 18 hours, and be in the grocery stores the next day.
Modern growing, fertilizing, shipping practices have been happening in this country for over 75 years. If the chemicals all were deadly and caused birth defects, by this time we'd all either be dead or have three arms. Tree huggers have been playing the blame game and using scare tactics for years. Remember the Alar scare on the apple industry? Google that and read all about it. Damn near destroyed the Washington Apple industry. And alar, a preservative, is harmless in the minute amounts on one or two apples. The fake study revealed that you would have had to eat 100 apples a day to get the concentration of alar they gave those lab rats. Well, who the hell is going to do that? It was all a sham BS scare tactic, designed to paint the "organic" producers are the saviors and the regular industry as "evil corporations that care only about their CEO's swimming in cash while the little guys get minimum wage and starve..."
Don't fall for the politically correct hype. Now go eat an apple or a banana.
I don't eat as much of it as I'd like to. It's just way too expensive...
I'd love to go organic all the way.... but its too expensive
The only organic food I make a point of buying is strawberries.
It's not hard to meet government regulations for the organic label; the regulations are far from strict.
Organic food is stupidly expensive.
The lack of pesticides and use of natural fertilizers in producing organic food leads to crop losses much greater that those grown with pesticides and chemical fertilizers. As such, current farmland could not support an entirely organic crop and still feed everyone.
Watch "Food Inc." !!! It's a fairly new movie - it was a very emotionally intense movie. I cried *laughs*.
It's pretty much about how the massive food corporations are corruption our food, treating the environment, workers and animals poorly, etc. etc.
Very good movie, highly recommend it.
Organic means nothing to me. It's not "healthier" than a "regular" vegetable. I laugh when I see the prices of organic food. Slap on a few dollars more on a bunch of carrots and call them "organic".
What I find even more laughable is that there are now apparently organic DIAPERS? Really, come on. Your baby is pooping and peeing in the diaper. Their poop and pee are more organic than the dang organic diapers.
Eating organically will not make a difference, really. I have a cousin who ate strictly organic foods, didn't eat meat, was all about health.
She died from glioblastoma, the most serious of brain cancers.
I'd love to, but organic is expensive.
@thinprogress@xanga - go shop at whole foods everything is organic there USE YOUR MINDS PEOPLE!