Click Image to Get EWG.org Guide to Produce Fruits and Vegetables - Which to Buy Organic to Avoid Heaviest Pesticide Usage
Almost all the produce – fruits and vegetables – on the shelves in your local supermarket are commercially grown.
While many debates about the merits of eating organic versus traditionally raised produce seem to focus almost exclusively on reducing pesticide exposure, there is something else that is even more important:
Nutritional Value
One of the best explanations I’ve seen about this comes from The Nutrition Advisor, a blog written by Certified Nutritionist Linda Wolschlager, C.N.C.. This information comes from Buying Organic Foods – Is it Worth It?
Studies have proven that the Vitamin C content and even Quercetin (in apples) is 30% higher in organically grown foods vs. non-organic.
Basic nutrient intake or core basic nutrients
found in just about every fruit and vegetable
grown organically tested was shown to have about 30% higher nutrient levels (vitamins)
and all other minerals 15% higher in value
compared to traditional grown counterparts.
The phytonutrient and phytosterol levels are higher
in veggies and fruits that are grown organically,
flavanoids in berries, etc. as well.
ORAC value greens, reds, purples foods, anti-aging carotenoids,
polyphenols content were also higher on organic foods.
These are the naturally occurring compounds that are nature’s cancer fighters.
“Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.” Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377 BCE)
This post on Garden Medicine has some excellent information on how to eat healthy and this one statement is the simplest, best advice I’ve seen on how to eat:
Never eat ANYTHING your Great-Great-Grandmother
would not recognize as food!
~ Paraphrasing Author and Speaker Michael Pollan‘s
(@michaelpollan) Unhappy Meals ~
I will add research, references, and additional supporting documentation as time allows and as new information comes to light.
Image Credit: friendsofthepeak.org.uk
What YOU Need to Know About the Fertilizers Used to Grow our Food:
I’ve been researching nutrition since I started breeding Thoroughbreds to race in 1978.
To excel as an athlete – horse or human – requires far higher levels of quality nutrition and health than a horse that is a pasture ornament or a person sitting behind a desk all day does.
Anyone who has raised cattle, or Thoroughbred racing prospects, or studied agriculture knows the importance of fertilizing pastures and providing free choice salt. I know from soil test results that most soil is deficient in magnesium, potassium and other macro and micro nutrients.
When I was breeding Thoroughbred to race, I moved to an area where pastures were lush because I realized you can not raise a truly healthy racing prospect without good grass (which is why so many top breeding farms are in Kentucky).
I moved to a county in Texas where most of the large feeder cattle operations are located (because of the grass). I had my soil tested. Calcium and phosphorous levels were VERY high, but because magnesium was within the normal range Texas A&M said nothing about it.
The experts SHOULD have recommended additional magnesium
because in proportion to calcium and phosphorous it was too low.
I phoned their expert and discussed this oversight with them. AFTER I pointed out that in proportion to the calcium and phosphorous levels, magnesium was low, he agreed that it would be a good idea to supplement magnesium.
Just about the ONLY fertilizer recommended by government agriculture programs, Ag colleges, and fertilizer sellers contains nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (NPK) – and that’s about it.
After looking for any decent site that offers a comprehensive explanation of why, I am finally giving up and sharing these links:
Illinois.edu: My First Garden Basics:What Are Nitrogen, Phosphorous & Potassium?
USDA fertilizer research
Nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium (NPK) soil test kig
When I called to order minerals to add to my pastures no one had them – and I called every single fertilizer company in three counties!
NOT ONE – not a single fertilizer company in a county
known for producing feeder cattle – knew where to obtain
the minerals that the soil test revealed were deficient because
commercial farmers DO NOT supplement
micro-nutrients or even all macro-nutrients.
I finally found one that could order what I wanted IF I would fertilize twice – because some were only available in liquid form and others only in dry powders. Worse yet, most fertilizers are not organic (natural substances) – they are chemicals – primarily petro-chemicals.
We are literally eating oil – and it doesn’t stop with the fertilizer or the food.
Consumer products contain so many petrochemicals that we have bodies full of petrochemicals.
That red cabbage at the grocery store is probably colored using dangerous petrochemical food coloring because humans are instinctively drawn to the bright colors of FRESH produce so sellers use coloring to make less healthy, older produce APPEAR TO BE healthy.
Commercial farming and what most farmers, ranchers and gardeners have been taught and are doing is destroying our health and our planet.
Using chemical fertilizers breaks the
natural cycle that replenishes the soil.
Organic farming RESTORES the nutrients healthy soil – AND OUR BODIES! – must have!
The primary reason to eat organically raised food is NOT to avoid pesticides – although that is certainly a good idea.
The main reason to eat organic is to obtain the nutrients that our bodies are deficient in.
Almost every one of us is nutritionally deprived We simply are not aware of it, although we should be given the sorry state our health is in!
This excerpt below is from Pete Lehner in the National Resources Defense Counsel Blog about a presentation by Maria Rodale, author of Organic Manifesto and CEO of publishing powerhouse Rodale Inc.
Organic farming is an effective way to protect soil health, and that healthy soils are critical to the long-term survivability of the planet. Under the microscope, healthy soils are teaming with life, with bacteria, nematodes, tiny arthropods and mycorrhizal fungi that cycle nutrients back to the plant. It’s a living city beneath our feet.
Soils doused in harmful chemicals, by contrast, are revealed under the scope to be lifeless and inert. I’ve done this myself and seen the difference; you don’t need to be a soil scientist to see the contrast between lifeless grains of minerals and squirming stuff.
Why should we care? It turns out that this microbiota is essential to the structure and fertility of soil. In the field, healthy “living” soils act like a sponge – the live material keeps it all together, whereas sterile “dead” soils act like a sieve.
Good soil retains water and nutrients, holds its structure, and sequesters carbon for hundreds of years—the missing link in the climate change battle. The latter, by contrast, leaches water and nutrients, erodes, and releases carbon back into the atmosphere where it traps heat and warms the planet.
The reason we – AND OUR PLANET – are so unhealthy is commercial farming. The reason they keep getting larger and larger – and family farms are failing – is corruption. They have bought off our government and are getting HUGE SUBSIDIES.
See the exceptional Environmental Working Group Farm Section for their exceptional research, data, and the truth about Government Paid Farm Subsidies and how they are destroying our family farms AND our health and environment.
