Going Organic: Results

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Replies

  • amcook4
    amcook4 Posts: 561 Member
    I subscribe to a local CSA, organic vegetables are delivered to me throughout the summer. The rest of the year I eat conventional from the grocery store. Needless to say, the organic produce isn't any healthier than the conventional, I use the CSA I use because it is local and I only had organic options.

    So as someone who eats organic half the year, and conventional the other half, there are no added health benefits. I also have a degree in agriculture and can tell you that science has yet to prove any benefits.
  • kmbweber2014
    kmbweber2014 Posts: 680 Member
    As physicist Neil Degrasse Tyson once pointed out, everything is GMO. So if you use a strict definition of organic and GMO, then you would starve if you were to truly eat organic.

    What is sold as organic is a different story. It's expensive and not as readily available (especially in rural areas like where I live). If these barriers did not exist, then I would likely eat more organic foods. Not for any particular health reason, except I don't like the idea of eating foods that have been drenched with Roundup.

    It's the same reason I rarely eat hamburger with pink slime in it - I just frankly don't like the idea of my meat being sprayed with ammonia (the same ingredient in glass cleaner Windex) during processing. Is it unsafe? I don't know... it's probably safe enough... I just don't like the thought of eating it. So when I cook hamburger at home, I buy the stuff that doesn't have pink slime in it. But then again, I eat hamburger much less often than I eat fruits and vegetables. So the extra cost is not as big of a deal when I rarely buy the stuff.

    NDT for the win. I love that man. I eat meat from a local farm, it tastes better. Health wise I've eaten both organic and none organic and didn't notice anything different.
  • skinnymeenae
    skinnymeenae Posts: 16 Member
    Hi OP, I found this recently published meta-study which was funded by the EU.

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/11/organic-food-more-antioxidants-study

    ", concludes that there are "statistically significant, meaningful" differences, with a range of antioxidants being "substantially higher" – between 19% and 69% – in organic food"
  • bluworld
    bluworld Posts: 135 Member
    I try to be ecologically responsible. The first thing I look for is where it's produced. Organic but shipped in from Chile uses more reasouces than non-organic native foods.
    I try to avoid GMO because I want farmers, and not corporations, to own seeds.
    health wise, I don't know if there is any difference. Ethically and environmentally, I wonder if Canadians should be eating mango from SE Asia.
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  • sticky130
    sticky130 Posts: 101 Member
    The only thing we consciously eat that is organic is meat, but this is totally from a animal welfare point of view. For example the difference in the upbringing of an organic chicken compared to an intensively reared one is horrendous. It's bad enough we eat animals at least let them have a good life beforehand :smile: We consider ourselves omnivores so a vegetarian life doesn't really suit, but if I don't know the welfare of an animal then I'll just not eat it. As for veggies, quite a lot of what we eat is organic as we use a local company that operates a box scheme and it's not much more expensive than normal veggies, it's supports local farmers and saves the fuel for a 25 mile round trip to buy it from the shop! Some organic produce tastes better, some I couldn't tell the difference and I don't really feel that there are any huge health benefits. I do think there is an issue with the amount of antibiotics used in animals (not in organic) as it's preventing our bodies fighting bugs that would normally be able to kick on their own and enabling drug resistant bacteria.
  • Meganthedogmom
    Meganthedogmom Posts: 1,639 Member
    Haven't really noticed a difference health wise. I'm not eating all organic, but I prefer organic fruits, veggies and meat because the taste is absolutely amazing.