Health Benefits of Eating Organic Food

Many people want to know if there are health benefits from eating organic food and whether organic farming is all a big lie. The anti-organic food crowd would have people believe that organic food is worthless and wasting time, space, and money. Those who live an organic lifestyle would rather burn at the stake than eat anything that wasn’t at least 95% organic.

So what do you do?  Do you live the organic lifestyle or continue on non organic food? Well here are some common concerns about organic food

What does organic mean anyway?

The term ”Organic” means different things in different countries because it is up to the country to decide what the guidelines and regulations will be. The guidelines that you will see in most countries consist of food that does not contain GMOs, synthetic ingredients, and little to no processing.

What is a GMO?

Genetically Modified Organism. There are many reasons why farmers do this such as injecting genes into a crop so the crop will produce pesticides on its own. Many people are wary of this because they feel it is playing with fire. Genetics tend to be very unforgiving and hard to beat if something goes wrong. Many people do not think it is safe to consume GMOs, and in Europe the regulations on GMOs is extremely tight. Some countries in Europe have banned GMOs in many food areas.

Do organic farmers use pesticides at all?

The regulations on organic farming forbid the use of synthetic pesticides, but if pests do become a problem some organic farmers use natural pesticides.

But don’t pests always become a problem in farming?

Sometimes pests are a problem and sometimes they aren’t. There are things that can be done to get rid of pests that don’t include man made chemicals.. Organic farmers use methods in harmony with nature to prevent pests. An example of this would be to use a bug that doesn’t do any harm to the crop but is a predator to the pests that are becoming a problem. They mainly focus on prevention and on making healthy soil and crops that can be strong enough to use their natural defenses to fight off pests. Barriers of various types are used as well.

But are organic pesticides necessarily safe?

Organic pesticides, or natural pesticides are usually seen as a weakness and an attacking point against organic food. What most don’t know is that organic farmers don’t use them frequently, and if pests get out of control organic farmers must get permission to use a natural/botanical pesticide from the list. Natural pesticides are also attacked by being said to be as harmful as the synthetic ones, but natural pesticides don’t actually linger like synthetic ones do, and therefore don’t have much chance to become absorbed into crops. Most are derived from plants.

But just because something is natural does it mean it is safe?

No. Some natural substances are safe and some aren’t. I hate this question because my friends would always tell me whenever I did a detox or something to ”remember that just because something is natural doesn’t mean it is healthy” as if I was going to go out and smear some cow poop on my face, or I was going to go dig up some poison ivy leaves and use them on my acne or something. I and many people who live organic find this warning to be insulting because we understand that many substances deemed as natural sold on selves are not dangerous in any way and we aren’t going to go out and randomly cook up unknown substances in out kitchens. That is very much not the case. People need to understand that I as well as many organic lovers don’t just buy things without researching it first.

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