Is organic food worth the money?
Is organic food really better?
Is it less contaminated with pesticides?
Is it healthier?
A family experiment has now shown the difference between conventional and organic food.
ORGANIC PAYS OFF
Some people still believe that if pesticides kill insects, they cannot harm them in any way.
After all, if pesticides are harmful, they should not be used in food production.
What a mistake!
Recent publications state that glyphosate - one of the most widely used herbicides in the world - is carcinogenic.
In addition, pesticides have long been known to impair sperm quality, attack genetic makeup, harm babies, and are associated with many chronic diseases such as Parkinson's, asthma, Alzheimer's, diabetes, autism, ADHD, and many others.
Moreover, it's not even about the harmfulness of individual substances.
Rather, the problem is that usually multiple poisons are used at the same time and the resulting poison cocktails are far more dangerous than the single poison, as we explained here: Pesticides: Poison Cocktails in Food.
It is clear that nothing can protect against pesticides, fungicides and herbicides as well as organic food.
ORGANIC FOOD PROTECTS AGAINST PESTICIDES
In three articles already, we have shown how organic food can massively reduce the daily toxic load of pesticide residues.
In Protection from Pesticides by BIO, researchers from the School of Health Sciences at Boise University analyzed data from nearly 4,500 study participants to determine their exposure to pesticides.
Test subjects who ate conventionally grown fruits and vegetables had high amounts of pesticide residues (organophosphate type) in their urine, while organic food consumers had significantly lower levels.
In organic foods: There are more antioxidants and fewer toxins, organic foods were shown to not only contain up to 50% less cadmium, up to 30% less nitrates and up to 87% less nitrites, but also to provide 69% more health-promoting antioxidants.
And no, not a single organic apple was analyzed for this study. The findings, published in the British Journal of Nutrition on July 14, 2014, are from an international study conducted by Newcastle University in the United Kingdom.
The study, which includes 343 individual studies, is the most comprehensive comparison ever conducted of the nutrient content of organic and conventional foods.
In detoxified organic foods, you read about a 2014 study from Australia's RMIT University, where the researchers involved found that organic food reduced human exposure to pesticides by 90% after just seven days.
Now researchers at the Swedish Environmental Research Institute have conducted another bio-experiment.
THE BIO-EXPERIMENT WITH A FAMILY OF FIVE
The Swedish scientists wanted to know how a person's exposure to pollutants changes when they switch from a conventional to an organic diet.
A family of five volunteered to serve as guinea pigs.
The parents and their three children normally lived on cheap conventional foods.
In this experiment, the family was fed only organic food for two weeks.
Before and after the two weeks of organic, the scientists examined the urine of the five test subjects.
The difference was striking.
Before the test, insecticides, fungicides and agents used to promote plant growth were found in all samples.
But after two weeks of organic feeding, things looked quite different: Only traces of pesticides were found in the urine samples.
Unfortunately, it is not yet clear what long-term damage pesticide residues in food might cause.
However, it is known that the poison cocktails in question, which are composed of several different pesticides, are particularly dangerous. Organic food is therefore absolutely recommended!
THE ARGUMENTS OF BIO-SCEPTICS
Of course, one could also use this message for oneself and buy more organic food from now on.
Because organic food not only provides less toxins, but has many other benefits as well.
Instead, bio-skeptics desperately seek unconvincing arguments as to why it's better to stick with cheap, conventional products, just so they don't have to change their current lifestyle.
ARGUMENT 1: THE EXPERIENCE IS "DOUBTFUL AND AMATEUR
The experience is qualified as “dubious” and “amateur”, because, firstly, there were only five people involved in the test and, secondly, it was not known how much the family ate and in what form. .
We have presented above a selection of studies in which a much larger number of people were examined - with the same result.
In terms of quantity, the family will have consumed normal amounts and certainly will not have practiced all-in-one in the study.
Regarding exposure to pesticides, the form of preparation is also largely irrelevant.
ARGUMENT 2: POLLUTANTS ARE EXCRETED
Since urine is examined for pesticide contamination, a popular argument among bioskeptics is that it is wonderful.
Because if the pesticides were excreted, they would not be in the body and could not cause any harm there.
Yes, it is true that pesticides found in urine are clearly no longer present in humans.
However, the toxins first migrate through the body - until they eventually end up in the urine.
From the intestine to the liver, then to the blood, passing through the heart, body and kidneys.
On their way through the body, toxins can cause considerable damage.
The detoxification and filtering organs, which must prepare for the elimination of these toxins every day, are particularly affected.
When a liver disease is diagnosed at some point, the shame is great: “But I never drank alcohol! Exactly.
Because it's not just alcohol that damages the liver. Foods treated with pesticides are also harmful.
In addition, the body's ability to completely eliminate toxins depends on the amount of toxins absorbed.
Usually, it excretes only part of it. Water soluble toxins are better excreted.
Fat-soluble toxins, however, tend to be stored in fatty tissue, meaning that they appear to a lesser extent in urine.
ARGUMENT 3: BUT MAYBE THE ORGANIC LABEL IS NOT AT ALL RELIABLE?
It is also often suspected that in Sweden there may be organic products in those labeled as such.
But it is doubtful that this is also the case in Sweden.
So you play it safe and prefer to buy conventional foods immediately.
It's better to buy cheap and have a guarantee against poisons in your diet than to consider the possibility that not all organic farmers are cheaters.
ARGUMENT 4: CONVENTIONALLY PRODUCED FOODS ARE NOT AS TOXIC AS IN OTHER COUNTRIES
Since the experiment was carried out in Sweden, biosceptics suspect that conventional foods there are certainly much more contaminated with pesticides than in their own country.
A direct transfer of the Swedish results to the home country is therefore not possible.
However, studies have shown that products bought in Germany or France, for example, are significantly more contaminated with pesticides than food bought in Hungarian, Dutch and Italian supermarkets.
And for those who think Switzerland is particularly clean, the Swiss agrochemical group Syngenta has the largest global spray market share, at 23% (2011). Monsanto is a relatively small con artist with 7% - but that could change soon, as Monsanto wants to take over the Swiss giant for a paltry 40 billion Swiss francs.
The spray products no longer come only from a Swiss company, but are of course also used in Switzerland - and the usual pesticide residues are therefore also found in water and food.
ARGUMENT 5: BUT ORGANIC CANNOT FEED THE WORLD
Much of the bio-skeptics also believe that organic farming is unable to feed the world's population.
Therefore, if we were to return to organic farming alone, a large part of humanity would have to starve miserably.
We have explained here that organic farming can not only supply all of humanity very well, but it can do so even better and in the long term than conventional farming, which is about to lead us. to ecological collapse: Organic food is healthier (extract from “Organic saves poor countries”)
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