Making the change to an organic food lifestyle can be a rewarding process for a person’s overall health. A change to organic food can be a daunting process despite its positive attributes because there is some misleading information out there.
Organic Foods
Organic foods come from organic farming, which requires special certification in many countries. Organic farm standards tend to focus on cycling resources, keeping ecosystems in balance, and ensuring biodiversity remains constant. When discussing organic foods, it is important to remember the difference between them and organic compounds, which are a special class of carbon containing molecules.
Organic foods are grown without certain types of chemicals that may present health problems to some people. Organic foods tend to be grown with less pesticides than regular foods. While there is no direct evidence linking pesticide residues to cancer, there is still a small chance that there may be a causation link here. Without the pesticide residue, organic foods may have the ability to slightly reduce the risk of cancer in people who consume them.
Raising organic meats also comes with its own set of regulations. In the United States, organic livestock must meet these standards throughout their lives to be labeled as such. The livestock have to be fed certified organic foods without any animal byproducts. Such animals are not allowed to receive growth hormone or antibiotics. Organic meats are not irradiated and are free from genetic engineering.
Organic Diet Evaluation
In changing to an organic food diet, a person should take the time to study the implications of the large lifestyle shift. There is still plenty of research being done on organic foods and how they affect human health, so a person who does change should keep up with scientific literature. This means that a person should read studies, determine the goal of the study, and determine the scope of the study.
Many studies show that organic foods do contain less pesticides than conventional counterparts. For organic meats, there have been some studies that find organically raised meats do not have as much antibiotic-resistant bacteria as conventional counterparts. These are both good reasons an organic diet may be considered. Though the risk is small, pesticide exposure may increase cancer incidence; antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose a health threat to humans who consume them.
Organic foods are better for the local environment than conventional foods. Rather than using synthetic fertilizers, organic farmers use manure and compost to support growth of plants. Organic farmers try to avoid pesticides altogether, but sometimes they have to use pesticides. In those cases, they use mostly non-synthetic or one the few approved synthetic pesticides for pest control. They also rotate crops.
Despite the positives of an organic diet, there are a few drawbacks. First, studies have failed to show that organic foods contain more vitamins and minerals than conventional foods. This means that, nutritionally speaking, organic foods will not boost one’s health. Additionally, organic foods tend to be very expensive. The price of organic foods alone may cause a person or family from making the change to an organic food lifestyle.
A Sample Product
Carrageenans are a group of polysaccharides that come from edible red seaweed. Carrageenan is an organic product that can be used to replace gelatin, which uses animal byproducts. This makes it edible for vegan or vegetarian people and ensures people who just want to live healthier that they are consuming a good product. Many other organic products strive to provide this sort of benefit to people.
Conclusion
The world of organic food provides many potential health benefits. It also introduces many products that are safe for vegan and vegetarian people since animal byproducts are avoided. Money is the largest barrier to many who want an organic lifestyle though. In deciding to live organic, a person must contemplate all of the factors, whether positive or negative.
