Are organic foods healthier?

Eat Green

On average, a person consumes about 30 tons of food and 50 tons of beverages in a lifetime. With this, we probably also ingest many pounds of harmful substances. Many of the toxins that we can detect in our body tissues originate from our food. Here we can very successfully intervene: it has been extensively proven that organically cultivated food contains significantly fewer toxins than conventional nutrition.

The reason: organic cultivation prohibits the use of artificial chemicals such as insecticides (kills insects), fungicides (kills fungus), herbicides (kills weeds), phosphate fertilizer (contains extremely toxic uranium) and artificial nitrogen fertilizer (contains poisonous cadmium). Gene manipulated vegetable foods (GMO) that are of very high risk to the health are also banned in organic farming. The  quality of the  soil  is  also  significantly higher  due  to  the  amount of the  humus  producing earthworms and microorganisms that live within the earth. Organic farming also ensures that our drinking water is less polluted by residues of phosphate fertilizer and pesticides.

Next to their relatively low level of pollution, organic foods also present with an increased amount of health-promoting micronutrients. This is because the plants have to defend themselves against insects and pathogens (such as plant fungi) due to the absence of pesticides. They have to defend themselves  as  the  chemicals  aren’t doing it for  them. And  these  vegetable  antibodies  that are predominantly formed in organic foods are very beneficial to our health. As an example, you can take a large group of polyphenols that activate our “longevity genes” (sirtuin-genes) and in animal testing proved to increase the healthy lifespan by up to 150 %. The cancer-destroying salvestrols are also found in organic foods in higher amounts. The positive effects of real organic nutrition are only surpassed by products of permaculture and wild harvesting. It should be noted, however, that food that is given the organic certification of the European Union does not have the same high quality as those of renowned organic farming associations such as Naturland, Bioland or Demeter.

People often argue that the  world population cannot be  fed by organic food alone. A study published by the University of Michigan under the co-direction of Catherine Badgely in 2007 showed that after a worldwide switch to organic farming, the organically produced foods would have about 75 % more calories. The result would be an amount of food that could theoretically feed a world population of 12 billion people.

Does “organic” always mean healthy?

One thing needs to be clear: eating organic foods does not automatically mean that you will be healthier than “normal eaters”, because even if you buy organic and wild products but process them unwisely, then a high amount of harmful substances can be formed. For example, when you heat vegetable oil, highly toxic trans-fatty acids are formed (no matter if the oil is organic or not). Trans- fatty acids are structurally altered unsaturated fatty acids that you can’t really find in nature. They are said to be extremely hazardous to health, destroy blood vessels, make you tired and cause cancer. Trans-fatty acids are contained in most of the processed food we consume today.

Trans-fatty acids  are  predominantly contained  in conventional  refined  liquid  vegetable  oils, especially in those containing a high amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids (thistle oil, sunflower oil, soy oil, rape oil, corn germ oil, heated flaxseed oil) but also in the crust of whole-grain bread, linseed bread, whole-grain cookies, food pickled in sunflower oil (e.g. sardines, olives) or sunflower oil containing spreads. Trans-fatty acids are also found in margarine but also in roasted seeds or nuts (sesame, pumpkin seeds, sunflower, hemp, walnuts, almonds, macadamia, flaxseed). They are also found in some fish oils, fish conserves and in roasted fish.

Another poison produced in your kitchen is acrylamide. It is formed when you bake, roast or fry carbohydrates and is hence especially contained in the crust of whole-grain breads but also in potatoes, pies, chips, peanut doodles, rice cakes etc.

About 90 to 95 % of all processed foods that you can buy in stores are pretty much unhealthy – unfortunately even in organic and health-food shops. Not only conventional finished products but also those finished foods that are offered in organic supermarkets can contain a large amount of potentially harmful substances or may have been composed in an unhealthy manner. The aforementioned trans- fatty acids are also often detected in organic vegetarian spreads and pesto. They are also contained in most whole-grain breads, wheat germs or cookies as well as nut or nougat spreads. Furthermore they contain acrylamide that – as mentioned before – is predominantly in the crust of breads, cookies, chips, popcorn, rice cakes, corn bread and other baked goods, in roasted cereals and other similar products.

Some people believe that when eating organic food, they will have done something beneficial to their health. However, foods such as superfine flour and products thereof (such as spaghetti), or several types of sugar, are extremely harmful – no matter if produced conventionally or organically. Civilization diseases are just as much and as surely caused by organic sugar, pretzels, candy, dried fruits, ready cereal or cookies as by the respective conventional products. The blood sugar levels are also increased by these products in an equally strong manner. The unnatural blood sugar concentrations then result in the production of the harmful acrylamide by the body.

Source: Eat Green!: The Health Revolution On Your Plate Kindle Edition by Joachim Mutter (Author)