Going Organic: What's the Real Deal Anyway?

By Hilary Rowland

      Organic foods are becoming more and more popular--and with good reason!

Nowadays much of non-organic produce is GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms.) This means that a field is sprayed with a chemical designed to kill every last bit of vegetation in the field. Then special genetically modified plants that are resistant to the chemical are planted. These GMO plants are, consequently, the only things that are alive in the fields. Doesn't sound too healthy, eh? Not only does this suck all of the nutrients out of the soil and ruin land but we still don't know what long-term effects these chemicals have on humans.

All that and we haven't even talked about meat and dairy yet! Most animals raised for meat, especially beef, are pumped full of artificial hormones to make them grow faster and be leaner. Many scientists have made associations with this fact and the fact that young women have been going through puberty at an increasingly early age. Cows that are raised for meat and for milk are injected with antibiotics over and over again, even though they are healthy, to make sure that they don't get sick and become a problem for the company that owns them. All these hormones and antibiotics end up in your meat, milk and cheese--and then in you and your blood!

Here are ten more reasons to go organic: (courtesy of Whole Foods)

1. Protect Future Generations Children receive four times more exposure than adults to cancer-causing pesticides in food.

2. Prevent Soil Erosion Three billion tons of topsoil are eroded from crop lands in the U.S. each year, mush of it due to conventional farming practices, which often ignore the health of the soil.

3. Protect Water Quality The EPA estimates that pesticides pollute the primary source of drinking water for more than half of America's population.


4. Keep Chemicals Off Your Plate Pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms, and can also be harmful to humans.

5. Protect Farm Workers Health The pesticides that farmers use and are around on a daily basis have been known to cause cancer in many farmers.

6. Save Energy More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers that to till, cultivate and harvest all the crops in the U.S..

7. Help Small Farmers Although more and more large-scale farms are making the conversion to organic practices, most organic farms are small, independently owned and operated family farms.

8. Support a True Economy Organic foods might seem expensive; however, your tax dollars pay for hazardous waste clean up and environmental damage caused by conventional farming.

9. Promote Biodiversity Planting large plots of land with the same crop year after year tripled farm production between 1950 and 1970, but the lack of natural diversity of plant life has negatively affected soil quality.

10. Flavor & Nourishment Organic farming starts with the nourishment of the soil, producing nourished--and nourishing--plants.