Do You Buy Organic Food? Here’s Why You Should.
Where To Find REAL Organic Food And Why You Should Buy It.
When you walk through your grocery store and compare prices, you might think to yourself “Why would I buy organic? I can get the same vegetable at a better price!” Your thorough visual inspection doesn’t reveal any major differences but the truth is that there actually are some MAJOR differences that can affect your body, the planet, and even other people’s well-being.
The fact of the matter is that if you genuinely want to improve the health of yourself and your family, you should be trying to buy organic as much as you can. Some people don’t even know if they have access to truly organic food, but before we get into how to find real organic food, let’s talk about why you should.
Why Buy Organic?
With accelerating deterioration in the quality and reliability of conventional food supply, there has never been a better time to start buying organic food.
More Nutrients
You might not know it, but the majority of American soil is depleted of the nutrients that are necessary to grow healthy, sustainable, and diverse crops. As a result, today’s crops contain fewer vitamins and minerals than they did in the past. Imagine that! People from hundreds of years ago eating higher quality produce than you have in your fridge right now! What gives!?
Studies show that truly organic crops contained more vitamin c, iron, magnesium, and phosphorus while containing significantly fewer nitrates than traditional crops. These nutritional deficiencies are beginning to show up in humans. Did you know that 50% of us are deficient in vitamin a, vitamin c, and magnesium? People are becoming more and more micro-nutrient deprived which, over time, leads to health issues and chronic disease. They might be micro, but the effects they have on your body are gigantic! Feeding your body organic food means providing it with the right micro-nutrients it needs to stay healthy for longer.
Fewer Chemicals
When you buy traditional food that is not organic, you expose yourself to synthetic chemical residue from pesticides, even after it has been washed. You don’t like to drink pesticides do you? And no, that isn’t the name of some fancy cocktail. Do you know about the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15 designated by the Environmental Working Group? These are the 12 dirtiest and 15 cleanest fruits and vegetables tested by the EWG each year to see which have the least and most pesticide residue on them after they are washed. Even if you’re a professional vegetable washer or you use one of those classy produce-washing products.
This year’s ratings have not yet come out, but last year, a whopping 98% of strawberries had detectable pesticide residue when tested by federal officials. Nooo… not our precious strawberries! Conventional farming has been using synthetic pesticides produced by major chemical corporations for a very long time and some have been proven to cause health issues. While those that have been proven to do so have been discontinued, many were not proven to be dangerous until after 20 or even 30 years of consumption. Who knows what issues today’s synthetic chemical pesticides will pose in the future? It could be something cool like increased bicep size but that’s probably not very likely. Buying organic food means less exposure to these potentially dangerous chemicals.
It’s Better For The Planet
Speaking of bigger biceps, don’t you want our planet to have the biggest biceps in the universe? We do. The long and short of it is that organic farming is what farming, in general, used to be. But there were more and more mouths to feed in less and less time. This meant that we needed to use synthetic chemicals to grow more food and grow it faster.
Organic farming means pure food, pure soil, and nutrient-rich crops. In order to gain organic certification, farmers have to ensure that they are protecting natural resources, preserving biodiversity, and using only approved substances without the use of synthetic chemicals. A study written by John Reganold and Jonathan Wachter published in 2016 reported that ‘organic farms are more profitable and environmentally friendly, and also deliver equally or more nutritious foods that contain less (or no) pesticide residues, compared with conventional farming.’ Organic farming also means greater soil carbon levels, less soil erosion, and a wider diversity of insects, soil fauna, and microbes. We know, you’re probably not thinking about microbes when you’re grocery shopping. Just keep in mind that there are many benefits that improve the health of the planet when you buy organic.
Organic farming is more sustainable, promotes diversity, and allows organic farmers to continue to grow nutrient-rich crops for generations to come. This brings us to our next point.
Organic Supports Small Farmers
Every time you decide to buy organic food, especially from a farmer’s market or something similar, you are supporting a small, sustainable farmer. This will allow them to grow larger and provide more healthy, organic food to more people. Remember supply and demand? When you purchase organic food, you ‘vote’ with your money that you’d like to see more organic food and that you don’t need non-organic food as much. You’re shifting the demand in favor of organic food. The more demand there is for organic food, the more organic food is produced and the healthier we will all grow together.
Something to note: go down to your local farmer’s market and simply ask how they grow their food. Ask about the pesticides they use. Some farmers grow their food organically but cannot yet afford the price and paperwork required to get certified as an organic farmer. Bureaucratic barriers in agriculture? No way!
Now you know why you should buy organic food, but not everyone can simply drive down to the weekly farmer’s market where organic food is readily available. Some will have to do a bit more searching. Luckily, we’ve compiled a list of ways you can seek out organic food and bring it home to your family’s table. If you’re going to bring home the bacon, you might as well bring home organic, pasture-raised bacon.
How To Find Organic Food
We can start with the easy stuff, like going to a Whole Foods or another organic food store where most of the produce, meats, cheeses, milk, and eggs are organic. For some though, it isn’t that easy and even some of the food at these major chains is labeled organic but is not grown in the way that the term organic originally required. Over the years, huge farms have found ways to skirt the line and use different growing methods and pesticides that didn’t use to qualify as being organic, just so that they could sell their crops at a higher price for being “organic”. Corporations finding loopholes in order to generate more profit… Another shocker! If you want to be certain about the organic nature of your food, use the following resources to locate and purchase organic food that is organic in its truest and original form.
WAPF
No, it’s not the Cardi B song. Start with a search on the Weston A. Price Foundation. It’s an international non-profit dedicated to restoring nutrient-rich food to the American diet. There are around 320 chapters in the US.
Sustainable Organic Farm Websites
For those who don’t live near a WAPF chapter or who live in an organic food desert, use these websites that feature organic farmers who also ship their products:
AzureStandard.com – Azure delivers organic foods to drop points around the US so that customers can go and pick up orders locally.
EatWild.com – Eat Wild has been around for over 20 years building lists of farmers with “100% grass-fed animals or other non-ruminant animals being fed their natural diets,” so that you can find organic, pasture-raised meat, eggs, and dairy products near you.
FarmMatch.com – Farm Match matches consumers with local farmers and buying clubs that sell organic food from local farms. Many of the farmers on Farm Match will also ship their products.
RealMilk.com – Real Milk was established for those in search of real, organic, raw milk. Many of the farmers listed also sell organic beef, poultry, and eggs.
PolyfaceYum.com – Polyface Farms is a name many in the organic community have heard of. This organic farm in Virginia ships organic food throughout the country.
The simplest way to find real organic food is to find your nearest farmer’s market, but we understand that it’s not that simple for everyone. We hope these resources can help you source organic food so that you can feed yourself and your loved ones the healthy food that you all deserve. Together, we can build a world that is less reliant on soil spoiling, pesticide-filled crops and more reliant on sustainable, organic food that is healthier for all of us as well as our planet.
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