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Posts Tagged ‘Organic Food News’

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The Bright Future for Organic Food

It’s been a long time coming, but this year more organic food will be produced than any year to date! It isn’t difficult to see why we are beginning to win this war. It all comes down to money — the almighty dollar. It’s simply becoming more profitable to farm and ranch using organic methods than it is to farm or ranch using conventional methods.

Farmers and ranchers can add and subtract. The fact is that those chemical fertilizers that they put on their crops cost money. (Fertilizer from compost piles is free, and so is the fertilizer from organically fed animal waste.) Those toxic pesticides cost money, too. (The good bugs that eat the bad bugs are free, too.) There’s a cheaper way, and that way is by using organic methods. Farmers and ranchers have discovered what we’ve been “preaching” for years — the land will stay more fertile, and it will produce more and better crops, if natural products are used.

Then there’s the little fact that those farmers and ranchers can get more money for organically produced food than they can for food that is produced using conventional methods. I told you they could add and subtract.

It is still difficult and costly for farms and ranches to be “certified” organic by the government. We don’t want the standards to be relaxed, but we are working toward making the process of being certified a little simpler and a little less costly.

Meanwhile, we can celebrate. There will be more organic food produced on more farms and ranches worldwide this year than there was last year. We believe that there will be more produced next year than this year.

The future for organic food is indeed bright and getting brighter all the time.

Where to Buy Organic Food

The first thing to note is that there are several different descriptive phrases and labels that are used on organic food. You need to understand what these phrases and labels mean so that you are actually purchasing what you think you are purchasing.

*  “Certified Organic”: A product with this label has been produced adhering to the organic standards mandated by the government of the United States.

*  “Organic”: A product with this label contains at least 95% organic materials.

*  “100% Organic” or “Certified Organic”: The term simply means that the fruit or vegetable was grown without the use of chemicals and under compliance with the U.S. rules. 

*  “Made with organic ingredients”: This means that 70% of the ingredients are organic.

*  “Contains organic ingredients”: This term means that the product contains less than 70% organic ingredients; how much less does not have to be specified.

Organic foods and other organic or “green” products are sold at health food stores and at herbal medicine shops. Major grocery chains now carry a line of “organic” food products and other “green” products. You can also find foods that are labeled “organic” at local farmer’s markets. There are many sites online to buy organic products as well.

If you are determined to go organic, you need to remember that you are going to pay more for organic products. They cost more, but they are considered safer for human consumption by advocates for organically produced food.

Another source for organic food is a membership in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Subscribers to CSA programs receive a weekly or monthly basket of locally grown, in-season fruits, vegetables, flowers, eggs, milk, and sometimes other products like coffee or tea.

Truly Yours,

A Alexander Event and Catering

Consumer Demand for Organic Food

Price (whether the market likes to admit it or not) really is controlled by consumer demand for products and services. When demand falls, price also falls. When demand increases, price also increases. It’s a simple formula that isn’t very easily manipulated (although the oil companies are doing a pretty good job of manipulating it at the present, but that’s another article). We’re talking about organic food and the demand for it.

Today all health food stores and most herbal medicine stores carry some organic food items. Big chain grocery stores are also beginning to carry a line of organic products as well. The reason that more retailers are carrying organic products is because more consumers are demanding organic products. And, of course, the price is growing up. Price is going up because demand has increased and supply has not. There is less product desired by more people. Big demand + small supply = high prices.

I also like to think that people are just getting smarter when it comes to food choices. We’ve become a weight-conscious nation. You can hardly find a person who doesn’t know what calories, carbohydrates, and proteins are. Even little kids know the difference between saturated fat and unsaturated fat. Now the population is becoming more and more aware of how the food on grocery store shelves is produced. The problems with contaminated products from China raised awareness, I think, and that’s a good thing. (Not the contaminated products, but the awareness of the contaminated products.)

There is a rule, however, that says that what goes up must also come down. As more and more people demand organically produced food, more and more producers of food will choose to grow their products using organic methods. As more supply becomes available, the prices will go
down. It’s going to take a while, though.

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Organic Food Stores

All stores that sell organic food and organically produced products are not created equal. There are a couple of things that you need to know before your first shopping trip to a store that advertised organic food and other “green” products.

First, the term “organic” does not mean exactly what you would think that it means. A product that is labeled “organic” may not mean that it is totally organic. Learn to recognize these terms:

*  “Certified Organic”: The “certified organic” label means that the product has been produced adhering to the organic standards mandated by the government of the United States.

*  “Organic”: The label “organic” means that the product contains at least 95% organic materials. Foods that are imported from abroad, for example, may be labeled “organic” if they meet the organic standards of their country of origin. But that doesn’t mean that those standards are as stringent as the standards of the United States. There is a big variation between organic standards from country to country.

*  “100% Organic”: This is a label that is sometimes put on single-ingredient products like apples or oranges. It simply means that the fruit or vegetable was grown without the use of chemicals.

*  “Made with organic ingredients”: This term means that 70% of the ingredients are organic. The claim can appear on the front of package but must name the specific ingredients.

*  “Contains organic ingredients”: This term means that the product contains less than 70% organic ingredients.

Labels can be deceiving. You have to understand the language and the labeling so that you know exactly what you are buying. There are fines and penalties for mislabeling products as organic when they are in fact not organic.

Organic School Lunches

Lots and lots of kids eat their midday meal in the school cafeteria. Mostly because of public outcry, school lunches have gotten better over the years as far as nutrition goes, but just nutrition doesn’t go far enough. Serving apples rather than candy bars for dessert might be a slight improvement, but if the apples are covered with chemical residue, it’s kind of hard to see a whole lot of advantage.

The meat on the lunch might now be leaner, but if it’s loaded with antibiotics and growth hormones even at “acceptable” government standards, how is that a real improvement? The milk served today is lower in fat, but it still contains all sorts of drugs that were given to the cows to make them give more milk.

Public outcry helped to improve school lunches to the point they are today, and they are an improvement over the lunches that were once served, but they still aren’t good enough. Only public outcry will force the government to force the schools to use organically produced meats and vegetables in school lunches. Only government regulation will force schools to stop using prepackaged foods that are treated with flavor enhancers and preservatives with names that even the teachers can’t pronounce.

While we wait for the government and the school cafeterias to catch on to the fact that the food being given to kids in the cafeterias is loaded with toxins and drugs, about the only thing that we can do is to prepare school lunches at home for our kids.

Yes, organically raised food (vegetable and mineral) is more expensive that conventionally produced food. There is no doubt about it, but it’s more expensive because it’s worth it. There are lots of really cheap poisons, but we wouldn’t eat them because they are cheap. The same is true of choosing between an apple that was grown using conventional methods (chemical fertilizer and toxic pesticides) that has chemical residue on it, and an apple that was raised organically that doesn’t have chemical residue on it.

Truly Yours,

Fort Lauderdale Wedding Professional

Organic Fish and Seafood

Fish and seafood is an area of organic food where the water is muddy (pun intended). You can’t really say that fish that are caught in the wild are more organically raised than those that are raised on fish farms.

Today more and more people are demanding that the food that they eat be raised using organic standards. They don’t want to eat fruits and vegetables that have been raised using chemical fertilizers or toxic pesticides. They want their chicken to be “free range” (not raised in crowded pens or fed anything other than organic food) and they want their beef to come from cows that have not been given antibiotics or growth hormones. People are getting more selective, and that’s a good thing; but the truth is determining which fish and/or seafood is organic and which is not organic is not an exact science.

The oceans of the world are polluted. There is no denying the fact. Raw sewage is dumped directly into the ocean in many parts of the world. Fish caught in these waters would certainly not be considered organic by any standards, even if they are caught in the wild.

On the other hand, runoff water is a major pollutant of our lakes and rivers. So freshwater fish that are caught in the wild are not necessarily unexposed to toxins of all kinds.

Fish that are raised on fish farms might be fed an organic diet, but the water in which they live may provide far from what would be considered ecofriendly.

You will see fish and seafood advertised as “organic,” but the label at this point really doesn’t mean much. As of this writing, the eco-label of the Marine Stewardship Council for wild-caught species has the largest reach and meets the UN standards for eco-labeling. There are various certifications for farm-raised fish, but none of these labels tell the whole story.

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The Benefits of Eating Organic

How would you like to be healthier tomorrow than you are today and do nothing more dramatic than change where and from whom you purchase the food you eat? The obvious answer is, “tell me how.”

Changing eating habits, whether the objective is to lose weight or for other health advantages, is usually a painful process. You must “give up” something that you like in order to achieve whatever results you are seeking. The fact is, though, that it really is possible to gain a great many health benefits by doing nothing more than changing where and from whom you purchase you groceries.

It is absolutely true that foods produced using organic methods cost more than foods produced using conventional methods. There’s no doubt about it, and I’m not arguing that fact. But wouldn’t you rather pay a little more for the food that you eat than pay the doctor to treat you because the food you ate was loaded with toxic substances? The old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” applies here.

Organically grown produce has much more trace minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants in it than conventionally grown produce. That fact is not in dispute by anybody. Not only is organically grown produce better for you, but it doesn’t pose the dangers posed by conventionally grown produce, either. There are no toxic chemicals in or on organic produce — NONE! On conventionally raised produce, however, there are lots of chemicals that Mother Nature never meant for human consumption. Oh, the government sets “guidelines.” The levels of these toxins must be at or below a specific level that somebody somewhere deemed safe.

Do you know what’s in that beef you’re eating? I mean besides beef. There are antibiotics and growth hormones in it if it was raised using conventional ranching methods. There are none of those unhealthy substances in beef that was raised using organic methods, and that goes for chicken and all of the products that come from animals — cheese, cream, eggs, etc.

Yes indeed! There are many, many benefits from eating organic!

Nutritional Value of Organic Food

According to the statistics issued by the government of the United States, the levels of trace MINERALS in fruits and vegetables started falling in 1940 and have declined steadily since. There is also evidence that there are more of these trace minerals in organically grown produce than in produce grown with the “aid” of toxic pesticides and fertilizers.

During a systematic review by the Soil Association in the UK, the statistics gathered comparing the vitamin and mineral content of organic to conventionally grown food indicated that the organic food contained higher levels of vitamin C and essential minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, and chromium, than the conventionally grown food.

An independent review of the evidence found during the Soil Association study concurred that organic crops had much higher levels of all 21 nutrients that were analyzed compared with conventional produce. There was an independent review of the evidence that found that organic crops had much higher levels of all 21 nutrients that were analyzed compared with conventional produce. There was 29% more vitamin C, 29% more magnesium, 21% more iron, and 14% more phosphorous. Organically grown spinach, lettuce, cabbage, and potatoes showed the highest degree of mineral contrast.

Danish researchers have found that organic crops contain 10% to 50% more antioxidants than crops grown using conventional methods. It is a well-established fact that eating foods that are high in antioxidants help the body to ward off heart disease and even some cancers. There are substances in vegetables that are called phenolics that act as the structural backbone of most antioxidants in plants. Plants produce phonolics as a defense mechanism when they are attacked by insects. Basically, this means if the plants are NOT attacked by insects, they don’t produce any (or much less) phonolics.

The nutritional value of organic food far exceeds that of conventionally grown food. There’s no doubt about it.

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 A Alexander Event and Catering

Wedding Fort Lauderdale

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