Just because a product says it's organic or has organic ingredients doesn't mean it's a healthier option. Some organic products may still be high in sugar, salt, fat, or calories. Wash and scrub fresh fruits and vegetables thoroughly with running water. Two decades after the start of federal organic certification in the United States, the brand is still a single-digit phenomenon.
Studies have shown that there are no appreciable differences in nutrition between organically or conventionally grown crops. Even in European countries such as Finland, Austria and Germany, governments have been busy implementing plans and policies that aim to dedicate 20 percent of the Earth's surface to organic agriculture. I also believe in the global scientific consensus that “GM foods are safe and, therefore, I don't need to buy organic products to avoid them. When concerned consumers learned that organic farming methods did not allow the use of any synthetic pesticides (although natural poisons could be used), they demanded more organic products, along with a credible national system for certifying and labeling those products in the market.
However, despite these obvious disadvantages, scientists are concerned that organic agriculture has much lower yields compared to conventional agriculture and therefore requires more land to meet demand. There's a huge drawback because of the additional land being used to grow organic crops, said Stefan Wirsenius, an associate professor at Chalmers. Others buy organic food because they assume it comes from smaller, more traditional and more diverse farms, but that's not a safe assumption either. My problems with institutional organic agriculture have nothing to do with its founding ideals or with organic farmers, but rather with the self-imposed limitations of organic agriculture and with the ethics of a subgroup of its promoters.
From an environmental perspective, the biggest problem for organic products is that they require significantly more land to achieve the same level of production. The price is a few cents (the difference between commercial and organic products), but the cost is the dangerous lasting and cumulative effects on much of life on this planet. The most popular organic product options today are carrots, lettuce and apples, but they only occupy 14, 12 and 5 percent of the total area of these crops. Processed and packaged foods can now also be organic, but less than 6 percent of total retail food purchases are organic products.
Considering the high costs of opting for 100 percent organic products, especially when it comes to buying fruits and vegetables, McDermid said that if you can afford to spend more, I would recommend buying them.
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