Organically Speaking

The argument for choosing to buy organic produce is two fold – it helps to protect and minimise the impact of growing food on our planet, and secondly it’s better for us.

While I am all in favour of protecting the earth from excessive chemical use, my primary goal is to feed my family and myself as healthily as possible, and with the use of as few synthetic chemicals as possible.  Thus, for me, earth saving is a happy by-product of choosing organic.

 Intensive farming, pressure to lower food cost and high demand in and out of season mean that farmers try to protect their growing produce by treating it with chemicals and also to promote growth of these plants again with chemicals, yielding higher financial returns.   It’s not a natural way for plants to grow and while washing vegetables may remove some of the surface residue of the chemical sprays and treatments, inevitably some is consumed.  

So by choosing organic, we reduce the chemicals that our bodies have to process and (hopefully) remove.  This is a great reason on its own to pick an organic variant where it’s available, but a recent study by the University of Newcastle has found that the nutrient and anti oxidant content of fruits and vegetables is higher in organic items vs their non organic counterparts.   Have a look at their report and studies here.

The clever people at Huffington Post UK have published a list of the Dirty Dozen (most contaminated foods when non organic) ones to avoid.  I have listed them below, but the full article is here. 

Spinach

Apples

Peaches

 Potatoes

 Large sweet peppers

Strawberries

Nectarines

Chillis

Celery

Grapes

Cucumber

Cherry tomatoes