Nutrition 101 - Eat Organic Foods When You Can

You can find organic foods in almost every grocery store now, and eating organic food is becoming more mainstream every day. Interestingly, eating organic food is the way people have eaten since the beginning of time. It wasn't until the 20th century that synthetic pesticides and hormones became part of our food production.1 Many experts now agree that many of these chemicals are carcinogenic and are disease causing.

Organic foods, by law, cannot contain many of the 500 harsh pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides that are used for conventionally grown foods.1,2 In addition, organic foods cannot contain any genetically modified ingredients (GMOs), those ingredients that create the crop's own internal pesticides.2 In the case of animal foods, the term organic cannot be used if antibiotics or growth hormones have been used.1

Organic foods have been found to be more nutritious containing higher amounts of vitamins A and C, calcium, magnesium, chromium, selenium, and iron. In addition, they are free of harmful additives that are "suspected of contributing to heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, migraines, ADHD, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's."2

Higher cost is often expressed as a concern related to buying organic foods, but trading out many of the processed and "junk" foods that people eat for organic foods is cost neutral and may actually yield a cost savings.2

Following is a partial list of foods that numerous experts believe to be the most problematic and ones they recommend to be consumed as organic products:

Apples
Bell Peppers
Celery
Cherries
Coffee
Eggs
Imported grapes
Milk
Nectarines
Peaches
Pears
Potatoes
Raspberries
Seafood
Spinach (and all leafy greens)
Strawberries
Wheat3,4

In her book, What to Eat, Luise Light says that health and safety are encouraging people to turn back to organic food. She also shares that experts predict the majority of Americans will be eating organic foods by the year 2020.2

1Wikipedia. (July 2009). Organic Food. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_food
2Light, L. (2006). What to eat: the ten things you really need to know to eat well and be healthy! McGraw-Hill: New York.
3Haas, E. (2007). Staying healthy with nutrition: the complete guide to diet an nutritional medicine. Celestial Arts: Berkeley.
4Hilton Johnson Productions. (February 2010). Health tip of the day: getting fit one step at a time. Retrieved from http://www.healthcoachtraining.com/.