Everything you want to know about Organic Food and its Benefits

Organic food is food produced by methods that comply with the standards of organic farming.

Everything you want to know about organic food and its benefits

Organic products are grown under a system of agriculture without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides with an environmentally and socially responsible approach. This is a method of farming that works at grass root level preserving the reproductive and regenerative capacity of the soil, good plant nutrition, and sound soil management, produces nutritious food rich in vitality which has resistance to diseases.

India is bestowed with lot of potential to produce all varieties of organic products due to its various agro climatic regions. In several parts of the country, the inherited tradition of organic farming is an added advantage. This holds promise for the organic producers to tap the market which is growing steadily in the domestic market related to the export market.

Difference between Organic and Non organic food

Why Organic Foods are Better for Health

Can organic food help in making my health better?

Yes. Consumption of organically grown food is a great way to reduce your exposure to contaminants commonly found in foods that have been grown using conventional agricultural practices. These contaminants may include not only pesticides – many of which have been classified as potential cancer-causing agents – but also heavy metals such as lead and mercury, and solvents like benzene and toluene. Minimizing exposure to these potential toxins is an important benefit for your health. Heavy metals can damage nerve function, contributing to diseases such as multiple sclerosis, and interfere with hemoglobin production in a way that increases risk of anemia. Solvents can damage white blood cell function and lower the immune system’s ability to resist infections.

In addition to lessening your exposure to these potentially harmful substances, organically grown foods, on average, contain higher levels of many nutrients including vitamins and minerals.

These two aspects of the organic consumption – decreased intake of contaminants and increased intake of nutrients – have both been topics of controversy in research. While we understand the reasons for this controversy, we are also firmly convinced that organically grown foods contain significantly fewer contaminants than their conventionally grown counterparts, as well as significantly richer nutrient content.

Let’s take the contamination aspect first. One of the largest scale studies, conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on more than 94,000 food samples, found at least one pesticide residue on approximately 75% of conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, in comparison to approximately 25% of organically grown vegetables. Almost half of the pesticide residues found on organically grown vegetables involved DDT or its metabolites. (DDT is a pesticide that has been banned for 40 years for use on food, but because it can be very persistent in the environment, it often shows up in foods decades later.) When DDT and related pesticides were excluded from the results, the percentage of organically grown foods with pesticide residues dropped to about 13%. Studies have been conducted in countries throughout Europe and the Mediterranean comparing one or two specific, organically grown foods to their conventional counterparts, and the results have consistently shown lower contaminant levels in the organically grown foods.

With respect to nutrient content, organically grown fruits and vegetables – on average – appear to contain about 15% higher levels of nutrients than conventionally grown fruits and vegetables. Results in this area have not always been consistent, however, and in some cases, conventionally grown fruits and/or vegetables have been analyzed as having higher nutrient levels than organically grown vegetables. One early piece of research in this area – a review of 34 studies comparing the nutritional content of organic versus non-organic food – was published in 1998. In this research, compared to conventionally grown food, organically grown food was found to have: similar or slightly lower amounts of protein, but higher protein quality (in terms of amino acid composition); higher levels of vitamin C in about half of all studies; and 5-20% higher mineral levels for a majority of minerals. Higher flavonoid content has also been shown in one study of organic versus non-organic foods.

From our perspective at the World’s Healthiest Foods, we are not surprised at either set of results. Organics regulations are quite extensive in their lists of prohibited substances, and lower levels of contaminants in certified organic foods make perfect sense. Foods depend on soil and water for their nourishment, and cleaner soil and water means cleaner food. It’s that simple.

The nutrient concentrations in organic versus non-organic food are another matter, however. Here the relationship is not so simple. Soil quality can vary greatly from region to region, and many differences in soil quality cannot be overridden by organic farming practices. Neither can genetic tendencies in plants, which can be very closely connected with the plants’ harvest-stage nutrient content. In short, nutrient composition in plants is the result of many different factors that interact in a complex way, and organic farming practices – while beneficial – would not be expected to function like an “overriding factor” in terms of nutrient content. The idea of an average improved nourishment level of 5-20% makes good sense to us given this complicated mix of factors.

When you combine a significantly lower exposure to food contaminants with a 5-20% greater intake of nutrients, what you get is a winning combination. That’s exactly the way we think about certified organic foods with respect to health: they are a winning combination, and clearly deserve a place in your meal plan.

What substances do we avoid by eating organic food?

Several thousand contaminants routinely present in the U.S. food supply are, by law, excluded from organic food, including:

Synthetic Pesticides: By far the largest group of contaminants to be largely prohibited from organically grown foods are synthetic pesticides, which are found virtually everywhere else in the food supply. Several hundred different chemicals and several thousand brand-name pesticide products are legally used in commercial food production. The Environmental Protection Agency has classified dozens of pesticides as potential carcinogens (cancer-causing agents). These pesticides can affect much more than the crops on which they are directly sprayed. A 1996 study by the Environmental Working Group found 96% of all water samples taken from 748 towns across the U.S. contained the pesticide atrazine, and at least 20 different chemical pesticides are routinely present in municipal tap water across the U.S. Many of these pesticide residues found in tap water started out in the form of crop sprays to help control infestation of food crops.

Heavy metals: The toxic metals cadmium, lead, and mercury can enter the food supply through industrial pollution of soil and groundwater and through machinery used in food processing and packaging. Cadmium exposure, which can be concentrated in plant tissues at levels higher than those in soil, has been linked to increased risk of lung, prostate and testicular cancers. Despite a well-documented negative impact on health – especially health of young children – lead residues can be found in many foods, including canned foods, which may still contain lead solder. Even low levels of lead intake can be harmful and have been associated with impaired neurobehavioral development, decreased stature and growth, and impaired hearing.

Solvents: Used to dissolve food components and produce food additives, solvents are found in a wide variety of commercially processed foods. Excessive exposure to solvents such as benzene and toluene has been linked to increased risk of several types of cancer. Excessive exposure to benzene has also been lined to increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis.

While food is by no means our only source of exposure to potentially harmful synthetic chemicals or heavy metals, food is something that passes continuously through our bodies, meal after meal, day after day, and year after year. It’s this constant exposure to food that makes its quality so very important in our health

Why Organically Grown Foods Are Better for the Health of Our Planet?

What are the environmental benefits of organic farming over conventional farming methods?

Organically grown foods are cultivated using farming practices that can work to preserve and protect the environment.

Most conventional farming methods depend on a wide range of “off-farm inputs” for success. If the soil does not contain enough minerals, minerals are purchased from off the farm in the form of bagged synthetic fertilizers from a farm supply store. If there is not enough water available, irrigation pumps are installed and natural gas is used to run the pumps and irrigate the fields with groundwater. If insects are a threat to crops, pesticides are purchased from a supply store and sprayed to prevent crop infestation. These methods may result in successful crop production, but they do not result in sustainable use of resources. And in many cases, they can pose a risk to health by contaminating soil, water and air with levels of synthetic chemicals that cannot be readily absorbed by the earth.

Organic farming practices try to minimize “off-farm inputs” and seek to develop farming environment that is more self-contained. Along with the composting of plant materials, animals on the farm may be able to provide much of the necessary fertilizer in the form of composted manure. Crop rotation and the planting of cover crops may be able to improve soil nourishment. Avoidance of moldboard plowing may be able to help preserve soil integrity. Interplanting of crops may help reduce the need for pesticides as might biological balances in which natural predators take care of unwanted pests. Berms may help protect soil and plants from wind.

According to many experts in the field of resource conservation and global warming, changes in farming practices worldwide could very likely form a centerpiece for climate stabilization across out planet. Organic farming practices may be able to greatly reduce carbon emissions associated with production and transport of synthetic fertilizers, and carbon sequestration (retention) by agricultural land could be greatly increased through organic farming practices. By cutting down on carbon emissions and capturing more carbon in croplands themselves, organic farmers might be able to change U.S. agriculture from being a net emitter (releaser) of carbon into the atmosphere to a net retainer of carbon. That change might be able to help reverse the problem of humankind’s ever-increasing carbon footprint.