Muna wa Wanjiru asked:

This is why the benefits of organic food can have a far reaching effect on you, more so than you might have thought.

Why do I say this? Because even though you might try to become healthy and change your way of living, it is extremely difficult to do so in many circumstances. With the advent of more and more organic foods onto the scene however, it becomes easier to hold to your desire to live a healthier lifestyle. Why? For the simple reason that your healthy eating habits become even healthier when they come in the guise of organic foods.

As you can see, the benefits of organic foods are many and you need only to scratch the surface to start finding them. As you dig deeper you will find there are more and more benefits of organic foods, some of which you might not even have thought about.

So what are the benefits of organic foods? Well, to begin with, organic foods are produced in such a way that there are no chemicals in the growing process or in the case of animals, the rearing process.

No chemicals are introduced into the mix and only natural fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides are used. In the case of farm animals, only organic feed is given to them, so you can be assured that when you get organic meats or milks and things that the animals too are reared according to organic standards.

There are also other benefits to organic food which includes the exclusion of genetically modified organisms (GMO). GMO’s to put it succinctly are foods which have had their genetic structure modified in some way or other.

While this might seem to yield many benefits in the field of agriculture by providing farmers with larger amounts of useable crops, no one still fully knows what the disadvantages are of modifying the genetic structure of living organisms. You need to look no further to find further such glaring deficits that science only found out about years after their regular and widespread usage, than to look at Lead and how bad we consider that to be.

To that extent, the benefits of organic food far outweigh the dubious goodness of non-organic foods, at least until the jury comes back in on that question. The only problem is the high cost of organic foods – the medical costs that you might incur upon seeing your monthly food bill after going organic might put you off the many benefits of organic food until such time as they become less expensive!

Brady

Muna wa Wanjiru asked:

Although not as proliferate as some people might wish, organic foods are more readily available in more places than they used to be. Apart from the physical brick and mortar stores that you can go to, to shop for organic food, you will also find that there are many online organic food stores available as well.

These stores tend to deliver quality organic food to its customers, and the trick here is to find an online organic food store that you can trust. This can be a difficult process for many people who enjoy the prospect of buying and choosing their own foods, but it can’t be denied that online organic food stores do tend to get the job done when you don’t have time to do it yourself.

That’s why it’s always best to scout around and find a reputed online organic food retailer with whom you can place a rushed order and not have to think twice about whether or not you will get the best organic food. You will also find that if the online organic food store you went to is in your vicinity, there’s a chance that you will get free delivery thrown in as well.

And if this isn’t reason enough to go to an online organic food retailer to get your organic foods – even when you’re in a pinch – then you might want to take on the fact that most of the online organic food stores will have a wider selection of organic foods than you might normally be privy to in a health food store, a supermarket, or even a specialist store.

This is because the online organic food store doesn’t need to confine its stores to a physical warehouse or a storeroom. They have the ability to deal directly with the people who produce the organic goods, and in most instances you will find that this also translates itself into lower prices for you as well.

So over and above not having to physically go out and battle the tides of vehicular and human traffic to do your weekly grocery shopping, you will find that your weekly grocery shopping bill might also be reduced more than what you might expect to find. This isn’t a guarantee of course, and you will need to look around a bit to find an online organic food store that will literally fit your bill, but once you do, it might turn out to be the best thing that you could have done.

Anthony

Tom Nuckels asked:

These days (every day) we hear so much about our food being grown and raised in modified ways. More and more of us are searching for labels to help us make more health-conscious choices. We find labels that say things like “free range”, “organically grown”, “antibiotic and hormone free”, or non-GMO”. These phrases were mostly unheard of 10 years ago. So, what do these terms have to do with “organic food”?

“Organic food” and “health food” are not interchangeable. Organic is very different. It must meet specific production standards which vary from what has become the normal process over the last thirty or so years. It’s not so much that the foods themselves are bad - it’s the modern technological preparation, processing and alteration that gets us into trouble.

Look for the USDA Organic Seal

Here in the United States, food must be certified organic through the National Organic Standard (NOS) Program, created to comply with the Organic Food Production Act of 1990. However , it was another 12 years (2002) before the U.S. Department of Agriculture produced the USDA Organic Seal to place on all foods that are at least 95% organic.

Organic vegetables, fruits, grains and other crops must be grown without using:

* conventional pesticides

* artificial fertilizer

* human waste or sewage sludge

* food additives

* “ionizing radiation” - energy particles that alter the number of electrons in the item’s molecules and atoms, which is done to change their size and appearance, or experiment with hybrids and taste. This can be harmful to the DNA of human and other animal cells.

Animals considered “organically raised”, must meet these conditions:

* they aren’t given routine antibiotics or growth hormones like steroids

* they continue to be fed their natural, unaltered, non-filler diet

Cows are mostly grain-feed for a time prior to slaughter rather than allowed to feed on their

natural diet of grass, plants and shrubs. They are also often given growth hormones. These two things are done to make them bigger and meatier. Antibiotics are administered to prevent them from getting sick on this grain diet which is foreign to their digestive systems. The animal is getting less nutrition from grain - meaning the consumer will get less nutrition too - and the antibiotics from the animal flesh can get trapped in our tissues, making us resistant to antibiotics that we may need later.

“Free range” or “cage free” - a term used most often for poultry and egg labels - is a general term meaning the chickens, hens, etc. are allowed outside time instead of being “cooped up”, so to speak. But this doesn’t always mean “organic”. They may still be given antibiotics and GMO-altered grain.

What is “genetically modified” (GMO) food?

GMO (genetically modified organism) is a term used to mean that genetic engineering techniques known as “recombinant DNA technology” have been used to combine DNA from different sources and inserted “in vitro” into one molecule of a plant or animal. This could mean that both the animal and its food have been genetically modified. Concerns are turning up about new allergens, increased toxicity and further decreased nutrition from the GMO process. In the U.S. and most other countries, organic foods are not allowed to be genetically modified.

David

Emily J asked:


So, I was wondering, ist here a way I can find some coupons for organic foods online that I can print off to use at my local grocery store? I shope at cub mostly. Any websites?

Muna wa Wanjiru asked:

Although you won’t find organic food stores on every street corner, it is a fact that they are not as scarce as they once used to be. In fact it is also a fact that consumption of organic products has also risen significantly over the last few years, and it looks set to continue rising for the foreseeable future.

This means that you needn’t be surprised to see organic food stores popping up more and more over the course of the next few years. It also means that you might find that your normal everyday mom and pop grocery stores of yesteryear are also starting to carry organic foods.

In time these will also probably become known to all and sundry as organic food stores and it will be the processed foods of today that are considered to be a novelty. And if that wasn’t a piece of wishful thinking then nothing is! This might be a dream yes, but it is something that will happen slowly over the course of time. Remember, good things come to those who wait and all the people who are going organic will almost definitely wait (although not with bated breath!).

The thing is that until this wonderful future for organic food stores comes into being, the people of the here and now still need to go about their mundane tasks of food shopping. And in the case of people who shop for organic foods, this means that they need to find good organic food stores which can supply them with the organic foods that they want.

In some places, especially more rural communities which find themselves cut off from the big city blitz, it might be difficult to find one organic food store much less two or three competitive organic food stores. This has a twofold affect on these places.

The first being that if there is a place from where organic foods can be obtained, the price will almost certainly not be competitive and might even in some cases be prohibitive.

The second affect would be that of choice. Without a larger selection of organic goods to choose from people would find themselves chowing down on the same fare every day. And this can definitely have a detrimental effect on your good intentions to go organic!

Of course this problem can be easily solved if you live near a farm that produces organic foods. But even in this case you might still find that you need to find one or two organic food stores to be able to cope with all your dietary needs. And this is where the online organic food stores come in handy.

With the marvel of modern technology you now have the option of getting all your organic needs from one or two organic food stores which are online, and which will almost certainly deliver to you. And best of all, you have a larger selection of organic foods to choose from – you won’t be stuck for choice!

Aiden