Every day we learn more and more about how the food we eat affects our bodies.
Not only does our diet provide us with protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and fiber, but it may also unwittingly expose us to antibiotics, pesticides, and growth hormones.
If you want to avoid these unwanted additives, you may want to consider purchasing organic food.
For fruits and vegetables to be certified organic, they have to be grown on a farm that can prove that for a period of three years, the farm has used no chemical products (like fertilizers or pesticides, for example) in the growth of their foods.
For meats to be certified organic, the animals have to be raised on 100% organic foods and they have to be allowed access to the outdoors at least once a day.
Will you be healthier if you eat organic food? There’s a good chance you may. If you choose organic, grass fed beef, for example, you will be consuming meat that has a better fat profile, including more essential fatty acids, more vitamin A, vitamin E and beta carotene. All this and the food just plain taste better!
It isn’t just meat that is better for you when you choose organic. Organic fruits and vegetables, and organic dairy products, contain higher level of antioxidants.
Natural antioxidants are important because they can help protect our bodies from free radicals which may cause cancer and heart disease.
Organic fruits and vegetables may contain up to 40 percent more antioxidants. Organic produce has higher levels of vitamin C, important for wound healing and tissue health, as well as trace elements such as iron, important for healthy red blood cells, and zinc, which may help ward off disease.
There have been studies that have shown that people who consume organic food are healthier than people who do not. Obviously, the better nourished you are, the more your body has to work with in terms of keeping you healthy and functioning optimally.
You might find you spend a little more on organic food, but hopefully that will translate into spending less on medications and doctor’s visits.
It is also a good idea to avoid the added antibiotics and hormones that are added to many products, particularly dairy and meat.
It is thought the widespread use of antibiotics in food production may be contributing to the rise of disease resistant bacteria.
The consumption of hormone laden milk and meat may be one factor contributing to early puberty in children.
The more natural your diet—the more you consume food grown the way nature intended it to be grown—the healthier you may be.
