Why Should You Buy Organic Food and Clothing?

So, what is this organic hype all about, anyway? You hear about it in the news, you see it on labels in the grocery store. Many people think they know what organic means and are wrong. Others are not quite sure. In the past, there was no law governing what food could be labeled organic and what could not. In 2003, however, a new law was passed that required specific labeling of all organic foods in the US.

Organic does not mean that the food is tasteless "health food." Organic is a term that means that the fruits, vegetables, and grains grown to make the food were grown without pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, genetic engineering, or chemical vitamins and fertilizers. Organic meat and dairy products are from animals that were not given antibiotics, hormones, chemical vitamins, and were not genetically engineered. Organic meats and dairy also come from animals that are fed only organic food and are free-range (cage-free). Organic food is processed without anything artificial. This includes colors, flavors, preservatives, or chemical meat tenderizers.

So why is it important to eat only organic food? Think about this: billions of pounds of pesticides are dumped onto crops each year. These pesticides do not just go away. The majority of it goes down into the soil where it poisons groundwater which ultimately ends up as our drinking water. The amount of pesticides in the soil increases every year.

What stays in the soil is taken into the plants by their roots. You may think you are doing okay by washing the pesticides off of the outside of your food, but you don't realize that it has completely saturated the inside of the plant as well. You are literally eating poison with every single bite of food you take. It is not just fruit and veggies. Everything is grown with chemical pesticides. Every glass of milk, hamburger, cookie, raisin, pudding pop, and bowl of oatmeal you eat is loaded with the stuff and scientists are beginning to realize that it is having extreme effects on our bodies, not to mention the problems it is causing for developing children.

Chemicals and antibiotics used in meat production can be dangerous as well. Everyone has heard of mad cow disease. This disease is a direct result of using chemical hormones in beef. It is not a bacteria or a virus. You cannot give a cow a shot for it and it does not matter how much you cook your meat. You cannot get rid of the disease if it is already there. There are no preventative measures to keep from getting anything from your meat. Dairy cows are also given large injections of hormones to keep them producing milk. These hormones are let off into the milk and we drink it every day. These artificial cow hormones have an effect on our bodies as well.

Organic food tastes better - WAY better. Don't believe me? Try eating an organic tomato. Then take a bite out of a regular tomato. See what I mean? So why does organic food taste so much better? To understand this, we will need to research farming methods. Long ago, farmers learned that they could not grow the same crop in the same field two years in a row. The reason for this is that the plants suck all of the nutrients out of the soil. When there are no nutrients left, there is nothing to make the plants grow the next year. Today, we have chemical fertilizers. These do not provide any nutrients for the plant, they are just nitrogen, which makes plants grow big quickly.

Farmers grow the same plants in the same field year after year after year. The nitrogen makes them grow, but there are no nutrients in the plants at all because the soil has been stripped. This nitrogen is in itself bad. It leeches into groundwater where it is taken to streams and lakes. The nitrogen causes algae in the water to grow like never before. The algae uses up all the oxygen in the water and all aquatic life dies. This is called an "algae bloom." Scientists have found that many ecosystems have been completely destroyed because of farming and people fertilizing their lawns.

Organic farming, however, adds nutrients back to the soil through compost. Compost is decayed plant matter. This rich soil adds vital nutrients to the soil which goes back into our food, making it highly nutritious and tasty. Putting compost on the soil also keeps the plant matter out of our dumps, so it is good for the earth. So, all in all, organic farming is good for everyone. It's better for you, the food that you eat, and the ecosystem around you.