Dans le Jus / Nutrition

3 great reasons Rejuice uses organic produce, and why you should too!

The number one reason people tend to avoid organic produce is price. These consumers are not convinced that the benefits outweigh the cost. Our hope is that after reading the following, you may find that there is a much dearer cost to your health, your families, and the planets, in opting for conventionally farmed produce.

Before we begin, note that when we say organic, we mean farming practices that rely on crop rotation, compost, biological pest control and that excludes synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, plant growth regulators or hormones, livestock antibiotics, food additives, and genetically modified organisms. As opposed to conventional farming practices that not only utilize all the above practices but that are heavily dependent on pesticides. The sad reality is that even the inactive ingredients in herbicide and pesticide brands have been found to be just as toxic, if not more so, than the active ingredients, and these ingredients aren’t tested for human health impacts before being released.

There are many reasons we can give you why organic is better, but we are counting down our top 3 reasons:

3. Organic Food Contains More Nutrients! The facts: According to a recent study by the Globe and Mail and CTV Newsof the nutrient quality of fruit and vegetables, compared to 50years ago, today’s regular fruit and vegetables contain dramatically less vitamins and minerals. The average potato has lost 100% of its vitamin A, 57% of its vitamin C and iron, 28% of its calcium, 50% of its riboflavin, and 18% of its thiamin. Similar results applied to 24 other fruits and vegetables. For broccoli, all seven nutrients fell, including a 63% decrease in calcium and a 34% decrease in iron. In April 2001, a US study examined 41 comparisons of the nutrient levels in organic and regular foods. In every case, the organic crops had higher nutrient levels - 27% more vitamin C, 29% more iron, 14% more phosphorus. At the June 2001 meeting  of the American Chemical Society, a chemistry professor reported that organic oranges contained up to 30% more vitamin C than regular oranges, even though they are half the size. (Conventional orange trees are fed nitrogen fertilizer, causing the fruit to absorb more water, which makes them bigger.) In a French study, a cancer specialist studying the nutrient qualities of food grown in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France showed that for the twelve foods where his study is complete, the organic foods showed increased quantities of vitamins A, C, E, and the B group, increased elements such as zinc, increased minerals such as calcium, and increased fibre.

2. Organic Farming Protects the Climate and Wildlife! The facts: Organic soil is full of living creatures, which carry carbon. In soil experiments across the globe, organically managed plots stored muchmore carbon than the conventional plots. In the Broadbalkexperiment, soil fertility increased by 120% in the manured plots, versus 20% in the chemical plots. The same results occurred in the Swiss experiment. A study in California’s Central Valley showed that as well as producing similar yields and suffering similar pest damage, organically managed fields produced 28% more organic carbon. By storing more carbon in the soil, organic farmers help to stop global climate change. A report by Britain’s Soil Association shows that wildlife is substantially richer and more varied on organic than on conventional farms. A typical organic field has five times as many wild plants, 57% more species, and 44% more birds in cultivated areas than a regular farm. Two 1996 studies show that organic farms have twice as many skylarks, and twice as many butterflies. Every time we eat an organic lettuce or tomato, we help restore wildlife.

And the #1 reason: 

Organic Food is Safer: The facts: Farmers in Canada, Kansas and Nebraska who use the pesticide 2,4-D suffer a higher rate of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (a cancer). The same applies to dogs that play on lawns that have been sprayed. In Sweden, exposure to phenoxy herbicides has been shown to increase the risk of contracting lymphomas six-fold. In the US, the death rates from myeloma (a cancer) are highest in rural farming areas18. And so it goes on. Migrant farmworkers suffer an abnormally high rate of multiple myeloma, stomach, prostate and testicular cancer. Organic farming carries none of these risks. There is a strong association between breast cancer and exposure to chemical pesticides. Atrazine, a common ingredient in pesticides, causes breast cancer in rats, chromosomal breakdown in the ovaries of hamsters, and hind-limb deformities in frogs. A Finnish study showed that women whose breasts stored the highest levels of a lindane-like residue were ten times more likely to have breast cancer than women with lower levels. (Lindane is a pesticide). 

We can end all this by shifting to organic food. We can be healthier. Our children can be healthier. Our farmers and farm workers can be healthier. Frogs, worms, butterflies, skylarks and the soil itself can be healthier. All that it takes is to turn away from chemically grown food, and embrace organic food. 

                                                                                                                       Guy Dauncey

#behappybehealthy

The information above all comes from Ten Reasons why Organic Food is better by Guy Dauncey. You can read the original article here: http://www.earthfuture.com/earth/cg-tenreasonsorganic.asp Guy Dauncey is the author of Earthfuture: Stories from a Sustainable World (ecotopian short stories, summer reading!) and Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change, winner of a Nautilus Award at the New York Book Expo (New Society Publishers). He lives in Victoria. www.earthfuture.com. First published in Common Ground Magazine, August 2002

Other sources: Rhodes, Nick Organic Farming for Wildlife on Kansas Farms Published: Spring/Summer Issue – My Wildlife Magazine