Healthy food is a necessity for a healthy lifestyle, there’s no way around it. One of the best foods you can have is organic fruits and vegetables. There are other organic foods you can eat and drink as well, of course. Those would include pasta, rice, fish, wines, and more. There’s even organic meat that you can buy! Some studies have shown that organic food has more nutrients. It also has fewer pesticides, is often fresher, could potentially be better for the environment, and is GMO-free.
Want to learn more? Keep reading the article!
Preparing seasonal vegetables and eating local and organic produce is more than a trend: it is a lifestyle. However, it should be done for good reasons. A far-reaching international study from 2014 proves that organic vegetables contain more antioxidants and less heavy metal residues and pesticides.
Why do you want to eat organic? If you just want to be trendy or are worried after watching a fear-mongering TV program, you are falling into the trap of the brusque changeover: this means wanting to buy everything organic from one day to the next, the same products in the same place as always, just in the organic version. However, fear is the most fruitless of all motivations and will not inspire you in the long run!
Hippocrates already said: “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine is thy food”. So if you want to do something for your health by eating healthier, reaching for organic fruits and vegetables in your daily shopping will soon be a habit. Above-ground crops (apples, strawberries, peppers…) are in high demand and are grown intensively. So one has to pay very careful attention to the labels that they are actually grown organically. In contrast, underground crops (onions, potatoes, garlic…) are less at risk of being attacked by insects and are therefore less pesticide-laden. Nothing beats personal contact with local farmers who practice organic farming and increasingly offer direct sales (“farm shop”). When you buy wine, the incentive is the same: Organic wines contain less sulfite and no pesticides. Wheat and other grains are also treated with many pesticides. But you can find organic rice and pasta at a comparable price to the usual products, especially if you buy them in bulk. More and more shops are offering loose produce. Like fruit and vegetables, there is also organic meat. Do you like to eat fish? Prefer organic farmed fish to wild fish, or check the origin for peace of mind about mercury levels. For freshwater fish, there is always the risk that they contain pesticides and non-organic farmed fish contain antibiotics.
Care for you and your family’s health is not the only impetus to rethink your way of consuming. If you want to take care of the planet, avoid palm oil. Did you know that traditional breeds and varieties are often preferred in organic production? The FIBL (Research Institute of Organic Agriculture) cites studies that show clear differences between the soils of conventional and organic farming: the latter contain twice as many pest-eating beetles, twice as many earthworms, which improve soil quality and aerate the earth; they also have 85% more plant species, 33% more bats and 5% more bird species…
