Organic Food
With our most important local department store, Walmart, building an entirely new extension to their building just for organic products-organics is a very hot topic in our town. Besides Walmart we have a grocery store which devotes a lot of shelf space to organics, and even a specialty food store which claims organic for most of their produce. With organic costing up to and beyond 50 percent more, is it really worth our money?
My personal answer to that question is no. “Organically” grown food is a market growing in popularity, and gaining lots of attention. While some of the specialty producers may not make such claims, most people believe that organics are safer, healthier, are pesticide-free, and even taste better than products which are grown in the standard way. It appears that it's not just our town which has bought into the trend, seeing as how the industry has been growing 15 to 20 percent annually for about the last 10 years which is quite a bit!
To start off, not all organic food is really pesticide free. Even the Canadian Food Inspection Agency agrees with that statement when they say “The term organic is not synonymous with pesticide-free.” If you think about it, the containers that are used to transport organic food usually don't transport organic food alone, but have carried other products that do use pesticides. There would be residual pesticide in the transport container that would be transferred to the organic products en route. There is also the uncontrollable environment which may blow pesticides from another farm/field to one which is trying to grow organically.
Growing food organically is hard to do without the use of pesticide. I once helped a farming friend of mine plant organic tomato plants-his whole crop failed due to a bug disease. Other farmers don't want to take the risk of losing an entire crop, and do use pesticide. Did you know that organic farmers are allowed to use quite a few different kinds of pesticides? While they aren't synthetic pesticides, and are usually natural pesticides, this doesn't mean they can't be hazardous. “the natural poisons pose the same theoretical, but remote, dangers as the synthetic” says Alex Avery, director or research and education at the Centre for Global Food Issues. All this means is that the natural pesticides use in place of synthetic ones can be potentially just as or more harmful.
Consider some other facts. 70 to 99 percent of all synthetic pesticide is removed in just one wash. This means that whatever pesticides are on normally grown foods-they get washed off and cause no damage! Another fact is that E. coli is found more in organic food than in conventional. E. coli was found to have levels six times higher in the organic produce tested in a Californian farm than regular farm food. The problem with E. coli is that washing does not get rid of it.
Finally, the supposed link between pesticides and cancer. The National Cancer Institute of Canada concluded that they believed increased ingestion of pesticides via produce did not pose a higher risk of cancer. Many people are confused when they hear of people who have gotten sick from pesticide. The problem is that they are getting confused with which people got sick. People do die from pesticides, but it's people who take in huge amounts through applying pesticides, not consuming the minuscule amounts found on produce.
My personal conclusion is that hard to grow organic food is not worth my hard-earned money. Organics pose just as much if not greater risks because of E. coli than do regular produce because of their pesticides. Should our local stores really be spending extra money on a whole wing devoted to a line of products which preys upon consumer ignorance? Think twice before purchasing and over-priced “pesticide-free” banana at Walmart's new aisle.
Bibliography:
“Does Organic Mean Healthier?”-Michael Downey, Readers Digest Issue #09952-March 2007
http://canadagazette.gc.ca/partII/2006/20061221-x6/html/extra-e.html
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/orgbio/queste.shtml
Copyright:
This is for the Virtual Learning Centre. If the document I have submitted for PPZ30 2007 comes up as being plagarised from this site: Please notice that I, Aaron Best, am the creator of the document and have republished my document on my personal blog. I did not plagarize myself!
My personal answer to that question is no. “Organically” grown food is a market growing in popularity, and gaining lots of attention. While some of the specialty producers may not make such claims, most people believe that organics are safer, healthier, are pesticide-free, and even taste better than products which are grown in the standard way. It appears that it's not just our town which has bought into the trend, seeing as how the industry has been growing 15 to 20 percent annually for about the last 10 years which is quite a bit!
To start off, not all organic food is really pesticide free. Even the Canadian Food Inspection Agency agrees with that statement when they say “The term organic is not synonymous with pesticide-free.” If you think about it, the containers that are used to transport organic food usually don't transport organic food alone, but have carried other products that do use pesticides. There would be residual pesticide in the transport container that would be transferred to the organic products en route. There is also the uncontrollable environment which may blow pesticides from another farm/field to one which is trying to grow organically.
Growing food organically is hard to do without the use of pesticide. I once helped a farming friend of mine plant organic tomato plants-his whole crop failed due to a bug disease. Other farmers don't want to take the risk of losing an entire crop, and do use pesticide. Did you know that organic farmers are allowed to use quite a few different kinds of pesticides? While they aren't synthetic pesticides, and are usually natural pesticides, this doesn't mean they can't be hazardous. “the natural poisons pose the same theoretical, but remote, dangers as the synthetic” says Alex Avery, director or research and education at the Centre for Global Food Issues. All this means is that the natural pesticides use in place of synthetic ones can be potentially just as or more harmful.
Consider some other facts. 70 to 99 percent of all synthetic pesticide is removed in just one wash. This means that whatever pesticides are on normally grown foods-they get washed off and cause no damage! Another fact is that E. coli is found more in organic food than in conventional. E. coli was found to have levels six times higher in the organic produce tested in a Californian farm than regular farm food. The problem with E. coli is that washing does not get rid of it.
Finally, the supposed link between pesticides and cancer. The National Cancer Institute of Canada concluded that they believed increased ingestion of pesticides via produce did not pose a higher risk of cancer. Many people are confused when they hear of people who have gotten sick from pesticide. The problem is that they are getting confused with which people got sick. People do die from pesticides, but it's people who take in huge amounts through applying pesticides, not consuming the minuscule amounts found on produce.
My personal conclusion is that hard to grow organic food is not worth my hard-earned money. Organics pose just as much if not greater risks because of E. coli than do regular produce because of their pesticides. Should our local stores really be spending extra money on a whole wing devoted to a line of products which preys upon consumer ignorance? Think twice before purchasing and over-priced “pesticide-free” banana at Walmart's new aisle.
Bibliography:
“Does Organic Mean Healthier?”-Michael Downey, Readers Digest Issue #09952-March 2007
http://canadagazette.gc.ca/partII/2006/20061221-x6/html/extra-e.html
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/orgbio/queste.shtml
Copyright:
This is for the Virtual Learning Centre. If the document I have submitted for PPZ30 2007 comes up as being plagarised from this site: Please notice that I, Aaron Best, am the creator of the document and have republished my document on my personal blog. I did not plagarize myself!
Interesting.
Posted by
Mel |
6:38 PM
Hey Aaron,
There is a difference between "Organic" and "Certified organic" when it comes to foods.... The latter can be claimed with certainty to be pesticide-free from soil to seed to harvest to packaging and shipping. Third party Inspections are made every step of the way.
(OCIA..)
Even for those foods that are not 100% uncontaminated, a little poison is sure a lot better than a lot! Not to mention the superior nutrition -there is no difference in macro nutrients (i.e, the amount of carbs, protein and fat in a pesticide raised carrot and an organic carrot), there's a vast difference in the amount of micro nutrients - which are in fact the health giving ones!)
Hmm, how could you wash off chemicals that have become an intregal part of the carrot as its grown??
There's much more I could correct... but I'll spare you :)
But please do check it out better before you make such statements :)
Posted by
Marguerite |
3:42 PM