A Case For Organic Food & Better Health
Sub-clinical Vitamin Deficiencies: Alive and Well in the USA!
Many nutritionists and professional health practitioners believe that you can get all of the nutrients your body needs from a “well-balanced diet,” and on the surface, this makes perfect sense. But the key words here are “on the surface.” The problem with this statement is that the nutritional content of fruits and vegetables has severely decreased in just the past fifty years as a result of:
polluted conditions of our air and water
- over-farmed soil
- pesticides
- irradiation
- waxes
- dyes
- and the unnecessary chemicals added to food
Moreover, even if our produce was as vitamin-rich as it should be, how many people actually eat seven to twelve servings of fruits and vegetables daily?
The icing on the cake is that our lifestyle causes further nutritional deficiencies. We live in a fast-paced, stress-filled society full of economic worries, health care concerns, peer pressure, family issues, and of course the ever-increasing technological demands, fashion conformity, and minimal time allowed for relaxation.
Whew…just thinking about that is exhausting!
So What Can We Do?
Organic foods are an option. But even organic won’t provide the high nutrition we seek. Although organic foods are not subjected to poisonous chemicals, they come from the nutritionally depleted soil.
Those against organic food always point to contaminations of salmonella or even E. coli. Without a doubt, these are nasty bugs if you happen to ingest them. But one major component has been left out, and that is food safety practices within our own homes.
Just because the vegetable is “organic” doesn’t mean you have a green light to consume it without properly cleaning it. Nor should you eat raw meats. Now if a product gets contaminated at a packing plant we have an entirely different situation, organic or conventional as there have been “outbreaks” of contamination in both arenas.
Despite conventional food advocates who claim that organic food is no better than conventional, when you eat organic, at the very least, your body doesn’t have to compensate for the added chemicals that are so prominent in conventionally grown products. And this begs the question, how could a product that is laced with toxic chemicals possibly be equal in nutritional content or as safe as a product without the added toxic chemicals?
Not Convinced? Here Is A Challenge For You
If you are one who believes organic is nothing more than a scam, think about the following scenario:
You and I sit down to have a bowl of fruit together. I pay the extra cost for my organic fruit, and you have your non-organic bowl of fruit, but with a little twist.
Instead of your non-organic bowl of fruit with the pesticides and chemicals already added (compliments of the USDA and FDA—and free of charge!), your fruit will be as natural as mine.
However, next to your fruit bowl will be a tincture.
This tincture is free and represents the fact that your fruit is a product of gross mass production and for this reason is cheaper than mine. In the tincture are all the pesticide residues and toxic chemicals that would have been present within, and on, your fruit in the first place.
This is especially true with grapes, strawberries, apples, and plums.
Now, here we sit with our bowls of fruit in front of us. And as it stands at the moment, they are virtually equal—clean and chemical/pesticide free.
But here is the challenge. Before we dig into our beautiful and delicious bowls of fresh fruit, you must first pour all the contents in that tincture (pesticides and chemicals) all over your fruit…come on…all of it now!
Okay, ready? Let’s eat!!
What? You hesitate?
Why no hesitation when you aren’t pouring the poison yourself—when you eat conventional fruit picked fresh from chemical-ridden fields?
Bottom line: It’s up to you if you choose to pour that poison on your food, or to eat foods that conveniently add it for you (IE. conventional produce).
My hope is that you’ll at least think twice from now on.