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NaturalWay – Margit Slimáková

care about your health

Organic food in summary

  • Organic agriculture is an environmentally friendly way of producing high quality, healthy food by treating animals, soil, and consumers with real concern for their welfare.
  • For the vast majority of human history, agriculture can be described as organic; only during the 20th century was a large amount of new synthetic chemicals introduced to the food supply.
  • Organic regulations ban or severely restrict the use of food additives commonly used in non-organic foods, including preservatives, artificial sweeteners, colorings and flavorings, monosodium glutamate, and GM foods.
  • A study published by the National Research Council in 1993 determined that for infants and children, the major source of exposure to pesticides is through diet.
  • Organic food products reduce the exposure to pesticides.
  • There is no test that proves the safety of chemical mixtures consumed when eating various conventional foods on a daily basis or the effects of the combination of chemicals from food and environment.
  • Purchasing organic products supports environmentally sustainable practices.
  • Over the years, the organic movement has moved to a widely accepted, if not followed, lifestyle choice.

Organic food

Organic foods are those produced using environmentally sound methods that do not involve “synthetic improvements” such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers. They do not contain genetically modified organisms (GMO), and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives. When raising the animals, they must be reared with regular access to pasture, fed with organic foods and without the routine use of antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic farmers for example may conduct sophisticated crop rotations and spread mulch or manure to keep weeds at bay rather than using chemical weed killers.

Organic farmers work with nature to replenish the soil for a sustainable future. Organic farming emphasizes the use of renewable resources and it ensures that bio-diversity remains available in the foods we eat and in the wildlife that live on the farms. Organic farming practices are designed to benefit the environment by reducing pollution and conserving water and soil quality.

According to the USDA, organic produce carries significantly fewer pesticide residues than does conventional produce. Even though it is true that the thousands of additives used in the conventional food industry are tested for safety, no test exists that proves the overall safety of the cocktail of chemicals consumed daily when eating a variety of conventional foods. Nor do we know the effects of the combination of chemicals from food and the environment. It is common that individual chemicals are multiplying their effects rather then merely adding.

Local or organic? The best answer is both, or ideally, organic from one’s own garden. But living in a less than ideal world, I would recommend a combination of the best available possibilities. To save money I would recommend shopping at the local farmers markets or buying directly from the farm and to save time, use regular box deliveries of fresh organic and/or local products.

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