What is the big fuss over organic? After learning about all of the chemicals sprayed on crops and how foods are genetically modified while I was in university; I made the choice to eat foods better for the environment and my health over a decade ago. Organic foods are not laden with petroleum pesticides, herbicides, insecticides or fertilizers. Essentially, the food industry has changed more over the last 70 years than in the last 10,000 years of our human history.
After World War II, chemical fertilizers and pesticides were made available for farmers to use to increase their crop yields and decrease crop loses. Unfortunately, environmental and health costs have not been factored into the agri-business farm model. Rachel Carson wrote, Silent Spring, the first environmental activism book in the 1960’s warning North Americans about the dangers of spraying petroleum based chemicals on the foods we eat. When chemicals are sprayed the soil is contaminated, water sheds are altered and fragile ecosystems are forever changed.
Sure organic fruits and vegetables aren’t as pretty as their sprayed and genetically modified counterparts. However, you know you are not bioaccumulating a variety of chemicals when you eat organic foods. I suggest going back to the way our ancestors did business, by eating more local foods that have not been sprayed with deadly chemicals to make the trip into your kitchen from all over the world. Watch the documentary, Food Inc., for more information on new agribusiness practices and research where your food is grown, how it was produced and what the environmental costs are, ignorance is not bliss. I live my life with David Suzuki’s teaching in mind, “what we do the earth, we do to ourselves.”
(Tyson Anderson Photography)