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 Choosing
Organic
– by Jordan Rubin, founder of Garden of Life products
I’m a proponent of natural foods grown organically;
this refers to a system of farming that maintains and replenishes soil
fertility without the use of toxic and persistent pesticides and
fertilizers. Organic agricultural practices cannot ensure that
products are completely free of residues, although methods are used to
minimize pollution from air, soil, and water. Organic foods are
minimally processed without artificial ingredients, preservatives, or
irradiation (like from a microwave oven) to maintain the integrity of
the food.
Most people, when they think of organic food,
picture a head of leafy lettuce or plump red tomatoes fresh from the
vine. Organic foods are much more than that: they include cereals,
dairy products, and meats, the latter coming from livestock that graze
on unsprayed fields of grass and are fed with organic feed, not pumped
up with antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic food production costs
more than conventional foods since larger and more expensive demands
are placed upon the producer.
It’s less expensive for commercial farmers to raise
crops inorganically because they’ve adopted methods that rely on
dousing their fields with chemical pesticides, herbicides, and
fertilizers. These synthetic fertilizers stimulate rapid plant growth,
but they bring along unintended circumstances: the fertilizers are
made up of nitrogen salts, which return little, if any, vital minerals
to the soil. Thus, the nutritive value of foods grown in these soils
has declined significantly in the last hundred years. All told,
Americans are subsisting on a diet of nutrient-poor foods of both
plant and animal origin.
The word is getting out that there’s a healthier
option, which is why the latest buzzword these days is organic.
Many people intuitively know that when they find the
magic word organic labeled on the package or signage that means it’s
something better for them to eat. With thousands of food growers and
manufacturers jumping on the organic bandwagon—and trying to claim
that their product was organic when maybe it really wasn’t—the U.S.
Department of Agriculture stepped in and passed new regulations for
the organic produce industry in 2001. This USDA organic logo gives
consumers more confidence that whatever is labeled “organic” adheres
to the stated definition that the food must be free of genetically
modified organisms, was produced without pesticides or synthetic
fertilizers for plant foods, and must be free from hormones and
antibiotics for animal foods.
Please see the
“Living Green” book by Greg Horn for more information on Organic
Foods.
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