FoodSafetyAlert.com

The Organic Advantage: A Nutritional Edge

April 3, 2008 by: Stephanie Whited
Key concepts: food, pesticides, chickens

(FoodSafetyAlert) A recent UK government report found that chickens raised in the widespread, non-organic fashion, have a 23.4% chance of being contaminated with salmonella, a bacteria responsible for food poisoning. The chance of an organic flock having salmonella? Only 4.4%.

What's the difference between how the chickens are raised?

Organic chickens must have "access to outdoor ranges and pasture, with an emphasis on enabling the animals to express their natural behaviour." Sounds pretty reasonable.


The non-organic chickens are mostly housed in cages which allow each individual bird the space of a standard sheet of paper. Yes, the 8 1/2" X 11" kind. These birds are also given antibiotics, which not only help to create superbugs and weaken the birds' immune systems, but they potentially have the same effect on you when you eat the chicken or its eggs.

So, non-organic animals are likely to be raised under harsh conditions and administered antibiotics and hormones (the run-off of which create mutated fish), but what about non-organic fruits and vegetables?

Non-organic fruits and vegetables are grown with synthetic pesticides and fertilizer. So what? Well, studies are showing that more than 90% of children in the US "have detectable residues of at least one neurotoxic pesticide in their urine." Something is called neurotoxic when it is poisonous to your brain and nervous system.

Pesticides may also be changing our hormones and reproductive systems. They've been found to change the hormones of animals in tests and in the wild, and a lot of our systems are similar, so aren't they probably hurting us too? Visit Mindfully.org for more details.

How can we avoid them? According to a study outlined in a 2003 Environmental Health Perspectives article, children "eating organic fruits and vegetables had six times lower levels of pesticide byproducts in their blood versus children eating conventional produce."

Anytime that pesticide is found on organic produce, it is either because pesticides have drifted from a nearby non-organic farm or the produce has been contaminated by "long-ago banned pesticides that linger in the environment." So the effects of pesticide use are extremely long term!

Besides helping you to avoid dangerous pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones, choosing organics also supplies you with more nutrients. Those organically raised chickens we just discussed lay eggs which, according to a Mother Earth News, contain:

* 1/3 less cholesterol

* 1/4 less saturated fat

* 2/3 more vitamin A

* 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids

* 3 times more vitamin E

* 7 times more beta carotene

That's a huge difference! Mindfully.org compared over 30 different studies and found that on average, organic food does have more nutrients than inorganic food. Organic food was found to be far superior in three areas: higher Vitamin C content, a lower content of carcinogenic nitrates and better protein quality (http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Organ...) . These are key areas to a higher immunity, avoiding cancer, and cell health. Protein is in every cell of the body!

Truth about the benefits of organic food is spreading. If organics are not in your area, you can use this list, compiled by the Environmental Working Group, which shows how many pesticides are likely to be on a given fruit or vegetable, so you can choose those with the least contamination (http://www.ewg.org/sites/foodnews/f...) .

While it is better to eat fruits and vegetables with pesticides instead of processed foods, those who eat organically will have a healthy advantage. Ask your local stores to buy organic!

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