Organic chicken, organic ketchup, organic cakes … “organic” products have invaded supermarkets, to the point of wondering if it might not be becoming a mere marketing argument … While health professionals praise the merits of organic, clarification seems essential. So why should we eat organic? What are the benefits of organic food? Here is a small overview of the benefits that we can draw from this mode of consumption.
Eating organic allows us to eat more healthier
Eating organic means eating food with more vitamins and minerals than many products from traditional agriculture. According to the book Eating organic is better!:
- Organic peppers contain more antioxidants (vitamin C, carotene, flavonoids) than peppers that are not organic.
- Organic products (wheat, lentils, honey, eggs) contain more iron but less zinc and copper than conventional products.
- Meat (e.g. lamb) is of better quality in organic products: more unsaturated fatty acids and omega.
Less pesticides are used
Reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have shown that organic products contain lower levels of nitrates and pesticide residues than non-organic products. On average, consumers are therefore 18 times more likely to find a pesticide residue in food from intensive agriculture than in food from organic farming.
We eat tastier food
It is very difficult to prove scientifically that a food tastes better and, let’s be honest, this is not striking for all products. But it is true for fruits and vegetables. Indeed, fruits and vegetables from organic vegetable crops are harvested more ripe than their conventional counterparts and therefore have time to concentrate on flavors, resulting in a tastier taste.
In addition, foods grown in the field grow with the sun, morning dew, and draw their nutrients and water from the soil unlike intensively grown foods that are increasingly grown off the land or grown on “dead” soil due to the use of pesticides. As a result, they end up with less water, more vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.
It’s good for the environment
Organic farming protects the soil and limits erosion. The massive use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers kills the soil and all biodiversity. The result is compact and lifeless soils, creating erosion at the first rainfall. Organic farming, on the other hand, uses animal or plant organic matter. In the same way, the farmer does not use chemical fertilizers and alternates crops on the same plot of land.
Organic agriculture also preserves water. By choosing varieties adapted to local conditions, or less water-intensive, organic farming requires less irrigation and therefore less water. This is in contrast to conventional agriculture, which, by irrigating intensive monocultures such as corn or soybean, discharges water polluted by synthetic chemicals and nitrates into the soil.
It is not necessarily more expensive!
Organic agriculture certainly requires more time, more labor and lower yields than those obtained by traditional agriculture. No surprise then, the prices of organic products are therefore higher than those of non-organic products (we note a reduction in the gap in recent years with the development of organic).
We protect the planet
We often favour “small” farmers when we buy organic and we especially favour those who care about QUALITY! Quality for the environment and biodiversity, quality for Man and his health, this word has become a big word these days, and should be put back in the center of the plate.
Eating organic is certified
The one and only way to verify this certification is the presence of the AB (Organic Agriculture) label on the packaging. Issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, it certifies that 95% of their ingredients are of organic origin. Each farmer with this certification will be checked once a year.
We eat less GMOs
There is no need to explain what GMOs are, these wonderful tools that once you have killed the soil you can create plants that grow against all odds. Note that a label indicating the presence of GMOs is mandatory for products with a composition higher than 0.9%.
We learn about the existence of many food products.
Organic has been democratized in the last 10 years and today you can find organic everywhere. We still prefer to buy our products on organic markets or from producers who prefer short circuits for people living in the countryside.
There are dozens of foods that we do not even suspect the existence of, flours or other vegetables unknown to the common man used to ready-made meals. In short, enter an organic store and enjoy learning!
Eating organic means being committed (for our health and for our planet!)
Eating organic is a vision of seeing the world. Eating organic means understanding that today we kill our soils on a daily basis, that we reduce biodiversity to a mere pittance, that we put aside the health of individuals and that we give our money to unscrupulous people whose watchword is growth, a continuous growth that accentuates the first mentioned elements.
Eating organic is not just a question of the composition of the plate, but it is a commitment, at a time when public health scandals are only just beginning, a social and human commitment to develop “positive” jobs made up of men and women who fight daily for quality and respect, an environmental commitment to the planet on which we live, because after all, protecting the planet is nothing more than protecting ourselves.