Good Foods Build a Great Body

Good Food Builds a Great Body

Labeling for products that meet the USDA-NOP standards (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A healthy diet requires much more than simply cutting out junk food and limiting your intake of sugar —it involves getting the most nutritional “punch” out of every bite you take. It takes good food to build a fit body. But did you know that your food choices also have an impact on the environment? If you’d like both a healthy body and a healthier environment, consider buying local and certified organic foods. Let me first start by defining “organic” as the term has become more loosely used in the last few years… A certified organic food is raised, grown, and processed without the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, antibiotics or hormones. Only farmers who produce food according to USDA organic standards and become certified by an independent third-party accredited agent can label their product as “certified organic” (with the exception of very small farms with sales under $5000 annually). The small farms are operations that are most commonly seen at farmers markets. If you browse the USDA website you will find an article on a food and nutrition project in 2001 from our friends at Harvard University. According to this 2001 study, today’s conventionally grown fruits and vegetables have about half the vitamin content of their 1963 counterparts. And as we progress, the nature of “conventional farming” is producing crops that have depreciating nutrient contents. Organically grown food, however, is more nutritious than food produced using synthetic chemicals. On average, organically farmed food is 63 percent higher in calcium, 73 percent higher in iron and 118 percent higher in magnesium, while being 29 percent lower in mercury. This information can also be found on the USDA website. Want to know for yourself? click this link for the results of that study: http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/organicstudy.cfm

There are numerous reasons to make the switch to organic. Besides potentially providing more nutrition per bite, organic foods may also help you fight off disease. You may have heard of flavonoids, which plants produce in response to environmental stresses, such as competing plants or insects. Flavonoids have high levels of antioxidants, which serve as the plant’s natural defense and help us fight disease as well. In conventional, also known as non-organic, farming the pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics severely limit and in some cases prevent the plant from yielding viable flavonoids. According to the 2005 State of Science Review, antioxidant levels are about 30 to 40 percent higher in organic food than chemically-grown foods produced under the same conditions. Most antioxidants are found in the peels of fruits and vegetables, but many people cut away the peel of conventionally grown produce to reduce their exposure to pesticides. Scientists now have a better understanding of how disease and environmental toxins are linked and have proven that exposure to chemical fertilizers and pesticides does impact our health. Some pesticides have been shown to disrupt the human endocrine system (which regulates our hormones), while others have been linked to breast cancer, uterine cancer and asthma. Since it is safe to eat the skin of an organic fruit or vegetable, you get the maximum amount of antioxidants from your produce when you buy organic, and you can rest assured that there are no harmful pesticides or chemicals. Earlier, I mentioned that eating organic is a great way to be confident about what you ingest, but it’s also a great way to ensure that our environment is protected for generations to come. In the 1950′s, as our population began to multiply quickly, farmers began using chemical fertilizers and pesticides in order to boost crop yields. Since that time, insects, weeds and plant diseases have developed resistance to these pesticides, which has prompted the development of stronger pesticides and the need for multiple applications during the growing cycle. Despite the tremendous increase in the use of pesticides since the 1950′s, the percentage of crop volume lost to pests has remained about the same. It really makes you think, was it worth it? The USDA estimates that about 40 percent of the world’s agricultural soil is seriously depleted due to erosion (a result of planting the same crop over and over again), nutrient depletion (due to the use of chemical fertilizers) and salinization (the build-up of salt in the soil due to excessive irrigation). The good news here is that this damage can be reversed over time. We can rebuild healthier soil with organic farming by rotating crops (the practice of planting different crops in the same area in order to regenerate nitrogen in the soil), using compost instead of chemical fertilizers, and being more aware of water usages on our crops. Soil structure and fertility are things that we should never take for granted. It is a real problem, and it is our responsibility to our offspring to provide fertile and healthy soil.

When it comes to your health—and the planet’s—here are the top eight reasons why you might want to purchase organic foods whenever possible:

1. Protect the health of children. Children are exposed to four times the level of pesticides in food than adults. Pesticides affect children more profoundly due to their higher metabolisms and smaller body mass.

3. Look after your own health. Several pesticides that are banned in the U.S. and Canada are used on foreign crops and shipped here for consumers to buy. Everyone in the world today has pesticide residues throughout their body. The FDA identifies illegal pesticides on 5.6% of the 42 commonly consumed crops, some crops are considerably more contaminated than others. 12 foods had contamination rates higher than 5.6% – These foods are commonly referred to as the “Dirty Dozen”.

4. Safeguard the health of farm workers. Studies have shown that conventional farmers have six times the cancer risk of non-farmers. Because fertilizers and chemicals are often distributed by air, farm workers can be exposed to large quantities of chemicals without protection.

5. Preserve the soil. Over three billion tons of topsoil are lost each year in the United States and Canada due to erosion caused by conventional farming methods.

6. Protect the water. Pesticides are known to contaminate groundwater, which affects the drinking water supply in most of the United States. If pesticide-contaminated water reaches lakes, rivers and other bodies of water, it allows the rapid growth of algae and suffocates the natural aquatic plants and animals.

7. Conserve resources. Conventional farming uses a vast amount of petroleum-based herbicides to kill weeds, while organic farming uses labor-intensive practices such as weeding by hand.

8. Fight global warming. Petroleum-based fertilizers give plants the nitrogen they need for rapid growth, but these nitrogen compounds can enter the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.

I hope you have found the article on eating organic both informative and motivating. Please do your research on the topic and become an informed “ingester” as it might just give you a few more years on this lovely planet. Personally, I enjoy the task of growing my own veggies in a back yard garden, but I understand that’s not for everyone… So I’m posting links below to my favorite farmers markets here in Greensboro.