The Health Benefits Of Consuming Organic Food

What are some of the health benefits of eating organic food? What healthy advantages do we accord our bodies when we make organic food choices?

This article, which I first wrote and published on another website in 2008, explores some of these health benefits.

Health Benefits of Organic Food

There are numerous health benefits of organic food which we can reap if we choose to start eating organic.

Higher nutrient content and concentration

Obtaining better nutrition is one of the main benefits of eating organic foods. Organically grown fruits and vegetables contain higher nutritional content than commercially farmed produce. Different studies have shown organic produce to have nutritional concentrations ranging from 30% more to 3 times as much as their commercially grown counterparts.

Organic produce have more nutrients because they are grown in good quality soil. Further, because the growth of conventional produce is usually artificially sped up using chemicals, they tend to contain more water and less actual solid food content.
Not only does organic produce have more vitamins, minerals and other important nutrients, it retains the nutrients for longer periods of time.

The truth is, many of today’s fruits and vegetables only have a fraction of the nutritional concentration they once had 50 or 100 years ago. This is due largely to the depletion in soil quality worldwide, caused mainly by modern conventional farming methods and other human activities.

Being more nutritious is one of the main health benefits of organic food, and by eating organically grown produce, we are at least maximizing our nutrient intake.

Free of harmful chemicals used in farming, or at least much less of it

Another of the significant health benefits of organic food consumption is the absence of harmful synthetic chemicals, in particular chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Extensive amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used in commercial farming. Hundreds of different kinds of synthetic pesticides, totaling hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds (possibly billions), are used annually. Chemicals are also used to make commercially grown vegetables grow faster and ripen quicker.

Studies have shown that the majority of commercially grown fruits and vegetables have detectable levels of pesticide residue on them. Even fish and cereal bars have pesticide residues too.

Even illegal or banned pesticides are showing up in our food and water. Some commercial farms may be breaking the rules, or the banned substances may be making their way back into the country via crops grown in countries where they are not banned. Ironic, isn’t it?

Pages: 1 2 3 4