Organic Food: The Way to Health and Vitality

The key to staying healthy is directly tied into what we eat. Everything that we put into our bodies makes a difference as far as our health. Junk food is named that for a reason. We require nutrients and vitamins to thrive and junk food is not high on either of these. In fact, junk food is extremely low and in its place is flavoring and coloring. Two things our bodies don't require or necessarily process very well. We have a minimum requirement of nutrients to keep our bodies running at top efficiency, without this minimum our bodies will begin to breakdown and we will eventually become ill.

Organic foods are produced according to specific production standards, meaning they are grown without the use of conventional pesticides, artificial fertilizers, human waste, or sewage sludge, and that they were processed without ionizing radiation or food additives. Livestock are reared without the routine use of antibiotics and without the use of growth hormones. In most countries, organic produce must not be genetically modified. Organic food production is legally regulated. Currently, the European Union, the United States, Japan and many other countries require producers to obtain organic certification in order to market food as organic.

Studies have shown that organic foods are superior to processed foods in terms of providing nutrients and vitamins to your body. Also the organic food is higher in fiber content, which is beneficial to your health overall. The human body is unable to digest fiber, but this is a good thing. Fiber than acts like a broom, sweeping inside the colon and taking toxins and free radicals as it leaves. Fiber also causes the intestine into wavelike contractions that keep food moving. Also the higher fiber foods cause the walls of the colon to enlarge, making the passage of waste much easier.

When purchasing your fruits and vegetables and meat at your local grocery or fruit market you are getting all of the residuals of the pesticides and hormones and antibiotics that were used to mass-produce these items. Proper cleaning and cooking hasn't proven to totally remove these detrimental ingredients. If you start without the chemicals as you do with organic food than it is obvious that you are better off.

Organic foods have shown that they have higher nutrient levels compared to mass production food. Organic foods are closely related to the foods that our grandparents and great grandparents were raised on. The vitamin levels are similar to what they were 40 years ago, which is not true of artificially processed foods. They also maintain these higher nutrient levels through the cooking process which then you body can receive.

The food contained in canned goods is the worst offender of all of the artificially processed foods. They have the most artificial flavorings and colorings and worst of all, preservatives. Preservatives are what they sound like, they are chemicals that delay the spoilage of foods. If they do that for the food, imagine what it does for you. I have read that our bodies now do not start to decompose after we die for up to 3 days because of all of the preservatives we have eaten in our lifetime.

Last but not least, eating organically foods actually saves the environment. Since no pesticides are used they don't drain off into the water table of the community and therefore don't poison the water that we drink. Currently this is a major issue all across the United States. The same goes for the other chemicals used to enhance the growing process. The methods we are using to mass produce our foods are affecting other sectors of our world. This can not be good for the environment and therefore us. So eating organic foods keeps you healthy in more ways than one and should be considered an excellent alternative.