In the last few years, we have been hearing more and more about the importance of eating healthy, and to a lot of people, this means eating more organically grown foods, including organic meats. Organic foods have grown in popularity, and you may have noticed your local grocery store is carrying more organic foods of late. Some grocery stores have whole sections devoted to natural foods, and there are even whole stores that only sell organic foods. The trend is definitely growing, and it doesn’t show signs of slowing down any time soon!
What exactly is the difference between organic and non organic anyway? Some people know the answer to that question, but there are surprising number of people who only now that the organic stuff is more expensive, so they buy the regular foods instead. There are a few differences between the 2 types of foods, and let’s take a look at them and see if the organic foods are worth the extra money:
- Pesticides: These are sprayed on plants to keep bugs from destroying them (farmers have to use them all the time because it seems like every plant has its own bug!) Pesticides haven’t been in use long enough for scientists to really see what effects they will have on us humans, but these sprays are made of some strong chemicals, and that’s all the information some people need to change over to organically grown foods. Pesticides do make things a lot easier on the farmers however, and if they didn’t have something to protect their plants from insects, half of the food in the grocery stores wouldn’t ever make it there!
- Growth hormones: A lot of farmers today are actually injecting their dairy and meat cows with growth hormones to make them grow bigger faster or produce more milk. Again, this hasn’t been going on long enough to see what the long term effect on us will be, but there are reports of kids, both male and female, entering into puberty at ages as young as 6 and 7 years old! There are still some farmers who don’t use growth hormones in their meat, but the others are in it for the money, and a lot of them would feed their cows rocks if they would eat them!
- Peace of mind: A lot of people like to buy organic meats because they feel good knowing where their meat is coming from. We keep hearing how all kinds of different foods are coming from China, meat included, and since the recent lead scares, more and more people are trying to buy local. A lot of organic meat farmers build a relationship with their buyers and many have the same customers year after year.
All things considered, I think organic foods came out on top today! Some studies have shown that organically grown foods don’t have more nutrients or vitamins than conventional foods, but I think its safe to say that people aren’t concerned with the vitamins as much as the chemicals.
