Organic food

Organic food, ecological food, or biological food are foods and drinks produced by methods complying with the standards of organic farming. Standards vary worldwide, but organic farming features practices that cycle resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Organizations regulating organic products may restrict the use of certain pesticides and fertilizers in the farming methods used to produce such products. Organic foods are typically not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or synthetic food additives.

Organic produce at Toronto's Karma co-op food store

Grown without chemicals or pesticides

Organic community supported agriculture farm near Rostock, Germany.

Walking through a recently planted wheat field on an Ohio organic farm.

Ducks on an organic farm

Quotes

(most recent first)

• When... a mother of two living in Oakland, California, signed up for a study evaluating whether an organic diet could make a difference in the amount of pesticides found in her body, she didn’t know what researchers would find. But her family, and the three others across the country that participated, would discover that they all had detectable levels of the pesticides being tracked. They would also discover that after only six days on an organic diet, every single person would see significant drops in those pesticides, including several linked to increased risk of autism, cancer, Parkinson’s, infertility, and other significant impacts on health.
• When you choose organically-grown products, you’re guaranteed they were not grown with chlorpyrifos or the roughly 900 synthetic pesticides allowed in non-organic agriculture. Many of these pesticides are now understood to cause cancer, affect the body’s hormonal systems, disrupt fertility, cause developmental delay for children or Parkinson’s, depression, or Alzheimer’s as we age. This study shows that eating organic can dramatically decrease the pesticides you’re exposed to.
  • The Guardian What the pesticides in our urine tell us about organic food, Kendra Klein and Anna Lappé (15 Feb 2019)

• Unfortunately, the vast majority of food produced in the U.S. is still grown using synthetic pesticides...with long-term costs to our health and the environment. Fortunately, organic agriculture offers a promising, healthier option.
• Organic agriculture offers... many health and environmental benefits... Keeps food free of harmful pesticide residues; Stops exposing farm workers and their communities to toxic chemicals; Builds healthy soil; Protects pollinators and promotes biodiversity;Saves antibiotics for humans;Reduces water contamination; Combats climate change and makes farms more resilient;Encourages creativity and innovation...
  • NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council): Organic Means Healthy People and Healthy Soils, Allison Johnson, (13 February 2019)

• Buying organic food is among the actions people can take to curb the global decline in insects, according to leading scientists. Urging political action to slash pesticide use on conventional farms is another, say environmentalists... The vanishing of insects threatens a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, the review concluded, because of their fundamental importance in the food chain, pollination and soil health.
  • The Guardian Buy organic food to help curb global insect collapse, say scientists, Damian Carrington (13 Feb 2019)

• A new peer-reviewed study shows that eating a completely organic diet—even for just one week—can dramatically reduce the presence of pesticide levels in people, a finding that was characterized as "groundbreaking" by critics of an industrial food system that relies heavily on synthetic toxins and chemicals to grow crops and raise livestock...the study... found that switching to an organic diet significantly reduced the levels of synthetic pesticides found in all participants.
• The study tested the urine of four diverse American families in Oakland, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Baltimore after eating their typical diet of conventional food for six days and then after a controlled diet of all organic food for six days.
  • Common Dreams: Study Shows Toxic Pesticide Levels in Families Dropped by 60% After One-Week Organic Diet, Jon Queally (12 February 2019)

• The keynote speaker['s] presentation... “Decades of Deceit: A Critical Eye on Pesticides, Science and Industry," discussed the agriculture company Monsanto’s practice of ghostwriting scientific research papers.. in order to convince consumers that the herbicide glyphosate, an ingredient in some of Monsanto’s products, was safe... the company’s scientists edited and drafted independent research papers. But other research, notably from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, indicated that glyphosate was a human carcinogen, and was the contributor to diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. The herbicide was also shown to decrease cognitive function and increase behavioral problems in children.
  • The Daily Targum: Conference at Rutgers promotes organic food production, agricultural collaborationCatherine Nguyen (28 January 2019)

• The bulk of U.S. farming subsidies go to only 4 percent of farms — overwhelmingly large and corporate operations... Instead of supporting factory farms and mono-crops, we could provide incentives for crop rotations, reduced usage of pesticides and herbicides, pasture-raised meat, and organic practices. Expanding the market for food farmed sustainably and ethically grown would benefit all consumers.
  • CounterPunchh We Subsidize the Wrong Kind of Agriculture, Brian Wakamo (22 June 2018)

Also see

• Exercise
• Immune system
• Nutrition
• Health
• Holism
• Sunbathing
• Social determinants of health
• Veganism
• Vegetarianism