Organic Food Advantages

Many people don't realize that organic food advantages can make all the difference not only for their personal health, but for the environment as well.

The most common conception about organic food is that it has not been sprayed with pesticides, but that's just a tiny part of the story. The thing that truly makes food organic is that it has been grown in organic soil.

In organic farming, the health of the soil is everything. To maintain the density of the nutrients in the soil, organic farmers rotate their crops regularly, keep the soil aerated with the use of plant-based fertilizers that not only decompose in soil, but boost its nutrients, and control pests by using beneficial insects and companion crops that discourage pests.

So the primary objective in organic farming is to insure the healthiest soil possible, which in turn insures nutrient-rich crops, which in turn make us healthier when we eat them.

What is conventionally grown food?

Organic food advantages become very apparent when organic foods are compared with conventionally grown crops. In conventional farming, farmers plant the same crop over and over again in their fields, which depletes the nutrient base.

Over time, the crops grown in that soil use up all the available nutrients and become less nutrient dense. This makes them less able to fend off pests.

In turn, the farmers increase their use of pesticides, which poisons the soil even more and allows the pests to become resistant to the pesticides. The upshot is that the conventionally-grown crops now being sold in regular supermarkets contain huge amounts of pesticides and only a small fraction of the nutrients and minerals that crops 50 years ago contained.

In order to get the same nutritional value as a peach grown in the mid-1900's, you would have to eat 26 conventionally grown peaches today. I don't think anybody is that hungry!

So what's the biggest advantage of organic food?

Although you may think that one of the biggest organic food advantages is that the food is pesticide-free, the greatest advantage you are getting is the nutrient density.

In her fabulous book, Green for Life, Victoria Boutenko presents a chart that compares a handful of organically grown foods to their conventional counterparts. The chart she uses shows that organic spinach, just as an example, has 102% more calcium, 335% more magnesium, and 3133% more iron than conventionally grown spinach. That's a huge difference!

Also, buying organically grown foods means that you are supporting the environment. Conventional farming is stripping the soil of its nutrients and allowing dangerous chemicals to leach into the water table. This has devasting consequences for local wild life and eco-systems, which in turn hurts us.

And finally, let's not forget about the crops we rely on for things like clothing and cosmetics. Did you know that every time you are putting on that cotton t-shirt, you are clothing yourself in chemicals? About 60% of everything we put on or next to our skin for prolonged periods is absorbed.

That's why there is such a growing market in organic and vegan clothing, organic and eco-friendly shoes, and organic and vegan cosmetics.

The healthy soil and healthy ecosystems promoted by organic farming do not just create healthier products for us, they also promote cleaner air and water and allow the creatures with whom we share this planet to live unharmed.

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