1. Pesticides

Pesticides are intense chemicals  sprayed on fruits and vegetables in order to bugs, rodents, weeds, and fungus. They are usually highly toxic, especially when they target insects.

Pesticides are linked to increased risk of cancer, neurological defects, birth defects, and impaired fertility.

In fact, on average, about 3 million farm hands in modernized economies experience severe poisoning effects each year.

Mmmm…doesn’t that make you hungry?

2. GMO’s

The Manipulation of crops, known as GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms), is a sort of strange Frankenstein method of crossing genes together in order to provide a plant with certain qualities it wouldn’t have otherwise.

This includes resistance to certain diseases, insects, faster ripening, more vitamins, and most common- the ability to resist the pesticides that are poured on them. Without this change, many of the plants would die from the harsh chemicals.

The bacteria in your gut directly creates it’s DNA from the food you eat…so do you really feel comfortable eating something generated in a laboratory?

Organic food may be crossbred, but this is a far more natural process than a laboratory setting.

3. Sustainability

Organic farming is actually sustainable.

Why? Because organic food doesn’t destroy bio diversity and put our crops at risk. When we use current “modern” methods of making food, we destroy our ability to replicate that process in the future.

The use of pesticides, and nature’s reaction to them, requires that we make increasingly powerful concoctions to harm other things that eat our food, because they adapt.

This rampant use of increasingly powerful toxins has killed massive colonies of honey bees, endangering the ability of plants to reproduce via pollen.

Furthermore, genetic manipulation (GMO) has created forms of crops that literally cannot reproduce without artificial stimulation; this means that farmers become dependent on biotech companies, making it impossible for farmers to save seeds and replant crops.

4. We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know

What exactly does all this do to our environment, health, animals, and plants?

The truth is, we don’t really know. We have some basic ideas…but we don’t really know for sure. That, just in it’s simplicity, is a powerful argument for going as organic as possible.

Sure, organic is more expensive…but it’s a trade off: eat something that has largely come about from traditional/natural means such as crossbreeding and evolution, or something layered in chemicals and crossed with random genes.

Conclusion

Remember that Europe has an extremely tight control over GM techniques and pesticides; so not everyone agrees with all of these practices, and you’re not crazy for wanting to stay away from them.

I try and eat organic as much as possible. What about you? How do you feel about organic foods?