Is Eating Organic Better For Me?

The global marketplace of organic produce has increased rapidly over the last few decades and so has our demand. Annually, approximately £69 billion is spent globally on organic products.

Consumers are increasingly choosing organic over conventional food products for personal health and wellbeing, environmental concerns and animal welfare reasons.

What is organic food and what does organic mean?

Organic food is produced without the use of man-made pesticides, chemicals and fertilisers and with higher levels of animal welfare and routine use of antibiotics, thereby reducing the risk of antibiotic resistance. It works alongside nature to be more environmentally sustainable to the land and wildlife.

Is organic healthier?

Organic crops often contain higher antioxidant levels, in dairy products higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, and in organic meat products healthier (less inflammatory) fatty acid profiles.

However, in macro nutrition terms (protein, fat, carbohydrate and dietary fibre), there seems to be very little difference between organic and non-organic foods.

More importantly is what organic foods do not contain. Organic foods have lower levels of toxic heavy metals such as cadmium and synthetic chemicals. Long-term consumption of pesticides can cause disruption to hormones as well as other negative health impacts. In fact, a number of widely used pesticides have been banned due to health risks. From a regulatory perspective, as long as individual pesticide concentrations in foods are below the Maximum Residue Level (MRL), then dietary intake of pesticides is not considered a health risk.

Are there ways we can eat organic without breaking the bank?

 It’s often thought that eating organic costs more, but this isn’t always the case. Buying organic produce directly from farmers markets or through delivered fruit/vegetable and meat and dairy boxes can be a more economical way to buy organically and what’s in season. You could also bulk buy wholegrains, beans and pulses. Eating locally sourced food as well as less meat can be more economical.

Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen

If you are concerned about pesticides, prioritise buying the dirty dozen organically.

Check out the most up to date list of produce affected by chemicals:

https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php