Organic foods?Are they worth it?

People, who are concerned about toxic pesticide residues in food, turn to organic produce and products. Organic foods are more available now than it was years ago. Consumers who are pleased with organic produce are willing to pay the price for the value/quality. Today the organic industry is growing between 20 to 25 percent annually and more than 5 billion dollar organic products are now sold in North America each year.

Organic food is produced by farmers who actively protect the ecosystem for future generations by farming the Permaculture way. Crops are rotated to promote bio diversity among species, the soil is conserved and renewed, and the water source used for growing the produce is protected and conserved as well.

Organic food are grown with care; they are grown, handled and processed without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, artificial ingredient and preservatives. Organic animal products such as eggs are grown without growth hormones or antibiotics. Organically produced food is irradiated; 100 percent organic food do not contain genetically engineered ingredients. However, organic foods are not necessarily superior in nutrition; it can be grown with natural/organic pesticide but not a synthetic pesticide. For example a naturally occurring soil bacterium known as Bacillus thuringiensis, is commonly used as an organic pesticide. It is not toxic to wildlife and humans however it kills the larvae of many kinds of insects.  Another example is prethrins, a natural derived pesticide gotten from flowers, which can cause allergic reactions in some individuals. Natural copper are compounds potentially toxic to some people but are natural or even crude oil that is natural but can be highly toxic. Just because it  is an organic pesticide or herbicide does not mean it is toxic free although it provides us a better option. Sometimes organic foods may be contaminated with synthetic agricultural and industrial chemical residues carried by the wind from other farms and fields thus may remain in the soil. Sometimes it may get contaminated while sitting on the food aisle with all the other foods.The solutions is to make everything less toxic or toxic free so we won’t be troubled about this kinds of problems; this can be done by implementing or using toxic free chemicals and materials for e.g. You can stop adding FLUORIDE to our water supply, toothpaste, foods and drugs; you can reduce the amount of toxic chemicals spilled into land, rivers and oceans etc.

The presence of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, other agricultural chemicals, antibiotics and growth hormones, artificial ingredients and preservative in our food can have adverse effects on our health and body. Also farm workers who use synthetic farm chemicals are at a high risk for respiratory allergies or even cancer. Although, it is hard to determine the long term effects of eating foods that contain this toxic residues over a lifetime for each individual; it was found that families who ate mainly organic foods had much lower urine levels of organophosphate pesticides. However, in large amounts these can be toxic to the nervous system. Kids who eat more organic or cook at home instead of fast-food or processed food have less toxic pesticides to worry about. Today's scientist is concerned about today's agricultural methods and its effects on ecological balance which could create major problems in the near future. e.g. the case with the decimation of bird population that led to the banning of DDT (dichlor-diphenyl-trichlorethylene C14H9Cl5) .

Article to be continued....we will talk about what fair trade means in relation to this topic soon.

Onyinye A