Benefits of Organic Food to Your Health - Part 3

31 billion tonnes of approximately 350-450 different varieties of chemical pesticides are sprayed onto crops in the UK annually. Research has proven that this, along with chemical fertilizers, negatively affects the health of humans, animals and the environment.

Intensive farming, introduced after WW2 in order to produce an abundance of food very quickly, uses pesticides to protect crops from organisms that may eat or damage them. This might make sense if it wasn't for the fact that nature provides its own pesticides, as long as the local environment or ecology is not interfered with.

However, nature's system is too slow for conventional, intensive farming advocates. They say that chemical pesticides must be used in order to produce the volume of food needed to meet demand.

The price we pay is a high one. We may find that it is a lot higher than we think, as future research brings new findings to light. So far, we do know that the use of pesticides causes disease in people as well as livestock and wildlife.

In Part 1 of this organic food discussion, Benefits of Eating Organic Foods - pesticide free, we look into the dangers of pesticides, and in particular at agriculture in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica is relevant here as a high proportion of UK and US imported fruit comes from there.

We know that synthetic, chemical pesticides damage land and water. Research has found that soil is eroded in terms of natural nutrients and minerals. Life forms within it are destroyed. This upsets the ecological balance within and around the soil, eventually rendering it infertile.

Of course, the damage isn't confined within the borders of a field. Those toxic chemicals are transported by air to surrounding areas, and leech into rivers. To learn about the destructive side-effects of using synthetic chemical pesticides visit Environmental Health Hazards: Intensive Livestock Farming.

We need to recognize the impact of pesticides; it has a more immediate effect on human life through the food that we consume.

The good news comes when ...

Contrary to a fairly widespread belief, there have been many research programmes carried out, comparing the effects on human health of conventional and organic systems of food production. The organic food advantages outweigh the costs; there are significant organic health benefits for life on earth.

In Part 2 of this discussion on the Benefits of Organic Foods, we take a look at some of that research. The benefits of organic food to human health are considerable and long lasting. The preliminary results of a four-year, Europe-wide, EU-funded investigation are particularly significant. In terms of the nutritional value of food, organic food has been proven superior to food conventionally produced.

If you eat organic food, you are also aware of another one of the benefits of organic food – taste. The flavour in a meal consisting of only organic ingredients is amazing; and absolutely more different than the flavour of chemically grown foods.

Unfortunately many children and adults brought up in industrial countries have never experienced that flavour or taste; but now, as the benefits of organic food and organic food advantages become better accepted and known, access to this food is easier.

Organic food is grown with quality rather than quantity and appearance in mind.

This can mean that organic produce does not look so uniformly perfect as conventional produce, but it certainly tastes better.

This is due to several elements in organic agriculture; less water used which results in less dilution of natural taste, absence of synthetical chemicals, and freshness. This is all explained in Organic Food is Healthier

Before learning about the specifics, review this overview of the benefits of organic food. Visit Advantages of Organic Food to discover more about organic health benefits and environmental benefits.

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