Every year the market for organic products is growing and is gaining in popularity. Such food is found under different names: in the English-speaking environment – organic food, the Scandinavians and Germans prefer the prefix “bio”, and the French add the prefix “eco”.
What does “organic” mean when it comes to food raw materials? It means products made without “chemicals” and without harming the environment. Manufacturers use “grandfatherly” methods, so the food contains 10-50% more vitamins, has a positive effect on the immune system, is useful for children, pregnant and lactating women.
Organic food: why is it so expensive?
Globally, organic food costs 10-50% more than industrially produced food. Why? – More info: Kirill Yurovskiy.
Two factors influence the pricing: the production technology and the need for certification. The requirements for organic food are different in each country and are regulated by national law.
What “organic product” means by European standards: more than 95% of raw materials grown without chemical processing, indicating the composition and region of production on the package. Before it hits the shelves, the food must be certified in accordance with the provisions of applicable law.
Natural production (which includes expensive manual labor) and documentation are not cheap, and the cost of organic products includes these costs.
Organic production
The owners of organic farms do the same thing as the owners of vegetable gardens who do not recognize “chemicals”. They weed the beds, fertilize the soil with manure, and manually remove Colorado potato beetles from the shoots. Pest control on organic farms is carried out by birds, beneficial insects and traps.
Meat and dairy products come from animals that live in herds and eat natural forage: grazing in meadows, eating hay, vegetables, and root crops grown organically. Bio-food manufacturers do not use antibiotics to treat pets (phyto drugs only) and exclude stimulation of animal growth with hormones.
There are their own canons in fish catching. The inhabitants of natural bodies of water do not fall under the category of “organic” due to the fact that most rivers and lakes are polluted by industrial and domestic waste. Only fish grown in artificially created farms, the condition of which is closely monitored by specialists, gets on the store shelves with eco-products.
Not only raw materials, but also the processing is subjected to strict control. Organic products must not contain stabilizers, preservatives, flavor enhancers and chemical additives. Packaging requirements: natural materials that do not interact with the contents (glass, bioplastic, paper, tin).
Organic cooking – what does it mean?
Having organic food in your hands, it is important to prepare it in a way that preserves the nutritional properties of the product. The main emphasis should be placed on the method of processing. Organic food cannot be canned, sterilized, or ultrasonically treated. But you can salt, pickle, dry, boil, pasteurize, and cure it. Some products (a number of vegetables, fruit) are better eaten fresh, for example, in salads.
What is good about organic fruit and vegetables
A person is what he eats. Switching to organic fruits and vegetables (as long as other foods stay the same) improves health indicators by 20-40%. That’s the opinion of general practitioners.
And scientists joke on the subject: organic products should not be sold in stores, but in pharmacies with the signature “Elixir of Immortality.
Many of the chemicals that are used to treat ordinary fruits and vegetables are poisons and tend to accumulate in the body. Professor M. A. Evans (University of Chicago College of Medicine) estimates that 70-90% of human cancers are caused by environmental factors that include food components.
That is, by choosing to eat organic fruits and vegetables, a person prevents the development of dangerous diseases, helps his body to resist environmental factors.
Organic food for children – does everyone need it?
In the first years of life, a person is especially sensitive to allergens and toxins, which are often chemical additives in food. Increased incidence of disease in children, increased in recent decades, scientists attribute to changes in the quality of food, the increase in its harmful components, including pesticides.
Hence the conclusion: to provide the child with safe natural products, it means to contribute to his harmonious development. The growing body needs a lot of “building material”, and its quality affects not only the physical but also the psycho-emotional health. The level of intellectual development and the state of the nervous system is inextricably linked with the type of diet. With a lack of useful micronutrients and an excess of carcinogens, developmental indicators are reduced. Symptoms of this are rapid fatigue, poor academic performance, increased or decreased nervous excitability.
Organic diet helps to improve the child’s immunity, reduces the number of chronic diseases that develop at an early age, gives a boost of energy and good humor.
Is the high price of organic food justified? Absolutely. Food grown without chemical and hormonal processing has a higher nutritional value and has no detrimental effect on the human body.
