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market-farming - 'Why Organic Food is Better for you' article

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Ava Devenport" <essenheal AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: 'Why Organic Food is Better for you' article
  • Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 17:24:28 GMT


Well, here it is folks, it looks okay on this end with the copy and paste, hope it gets there in the same condition!

Blessings,
Ava

Making A Healthy Choice: Organic Foods

Major changes in farming methods have occurred since World War II. In order to sustain the U.S. growing population and produce food for the foreign market, farmers began growing several crops per year on the same soil. This exhausted the soil of it's nutrients. The topsoil of most of the nations farmland is no longer fertile; the soil lacks the vitamins and minerals absorbed by plants as they grow. Therefore, foods today do not contain the nutrients they did 75 years ago. According to a U.S. Senate report, "foods now being grown on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain minerals are starving us no matter how much of them we eat. No man today can eat enough fruit and vegetables to supply his system with the minerals he requires for perfect health because his stomach isn't big enough to hold them."

As well as depleting our foods, these unhealthy farming methods weakened crops, leaving them fragile and prone to disease and infestation. This created the need to "protect" them with even more chemicals. Commercial produce you see in the grocery store has been treated with chemical and soil treatments, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides,
herbicides, gases and waxes. Besides bad tasting residues left by chemicals used by commercial growers, commercial produce is picked before it is ready. It's not ripe. The flavors have not had a chance to develop. So produce has to be gassed to appear ripe. The gassing retards mold and fungus growth, giving a longer shelf life. So tomatoes appear ripe, but do not taste ripe. These practices kill our soil and damage the ecology.

Likewise, in order to meet the domestic and foreign demand for dairy products and meats, farmers have been using chemicals to enhance production. Meat and dairy farmers use synthetic paraciticides, antibiotics, hormones and growth regulators to help chickens and cattle grow more quickly and for chickens and cows to produce more eggs and milk
than they would naturally.

Did You Know?


· More than 2.6 billion pounds of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides are applied to US agricultural products each year, and 496 pesticides that may leave residues.
· Many pesticides now in use were granted in before safety tests were required to determine whether the pesticide causes cancer, birth defects, genetic damage, or reproductive disorders.
· Sixty-four percent of pesticides now in use have not been minimally tested for their toxic effects.
· Modern farming methods have depleted the soil of its natural nutrients.
· Artificial fertilizers replace only 4-8 of the 70 natural vitamins and minerals in fertile soil.



Did You Know?



· Organically grown vegetables are grown and raised without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, artificial ripening processes, growth stimulators or regulators, antibiotics or other drugs.
· Organically grown vegetables are processed, packaged, transported, and stored without the use of chemicals and food irradiation.
· Organic growers maintain a program of sustainable agriculture, including reintroducing organic matter back into the soil and rotating crops.

Take a big step toward health. You are what you eat, eat certified organic foods.



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