Are The Organic Foods On Your Platter Serving Your Needs?

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Why is organic food more expensive?
Organic foods are usually 10-40% more expensive than conventional produce. The reason is organic crops are grown without the use of harmful chemicals and pesticides with the result the yield is less, livestock grown devoid of hormones and antibiotics lowers the bulk. E.g. An organic chicken is 1/3 the size and weight than a conventional grown chicken. Organic farming aims to keeps the soil healthy with crop rotation, hence crops are not grown all time. The way to deal to with pest outbreaks or diseases is not as successful as with pesticide applications. Moreover, the organic certification is an expensive affair.

What about flavor and taste of foods?
Organic fruits and vegetables have better color, firmness, crispness, flavor and taste due to higher levels of antioxidants, nutrients and plant metabolites that give food its distinctive flavor. Conventional farming increases the yield of produce per acre and dilutes the natural taste and flavor of foods. Additionally, the high sugar content of organic foods prevents early deterioration.

How can we judge the authenticity of organic foods?
"Know your farmer, know your food" used to be the motto, and proponents of organic foods used to buy foods directly from the farmer. But this is not always possible. Recent evidence indicates that substantial cheating occurs in the organic food market. It is not easy to identify the genuine organic food from those labeled natural, non- genetically modified or organic. Every food product on the market shelf should be accredited and possess one of the following labels. To be certified organic, products must be grown and manufactured in a manner that adheres to standards set by the country they are sold in.

In India Organic foods are certified by National Programme for Organic Production.

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User Comments

17 August, 2010 | Rajani | Reply

I feel if we buy veggies and fruits from the local market, clean and store them properly and use them before they are stale should be fine. Eating a clean and nutritious dense meal should be given more importance than organic foods.

17 August, 2010 | Kanika Jain | Reply

Dear Rajani,
Cleaning and storing veggies and fruits properly and using them before they get stale are definitely good steps that one can ensure at home level.But one cannot be sure of what kind of chemicals these are being exposed to before they make way to our homes.For instance,few weeks back there was article in one the leading newspapers on how oxytocin is being used indiscriminately by farmers.Blindly using such chemicals on veggies or fruits by them will surely affect our health in some way or the other in the long run.

Thanks and regards,
Kanika Jain
Dietitian
NutritionVista

17 August, 2010 | Poonam Vaswani | Reply

Hello Rajani,
You are absolutely right about buying clean, fresh vegetables and preventing them from going stale. These steps will ensure that your food is free of micro organisms, thus hygienic. Fresh fruits and vegetables will retain their nutrients too, but, here the concern is of harmful chemicals which are added to crops and the health implications of consuming these chemicals over a long period of time.

16 August, 2010 | Vijayalakshmi | Reply

Hello Usha
Yes there are /maybe people who will pay money for falsification of information, but there are many honest producers.So it takes some effort to identify them, to sift the wheat from the chaff to to say.On another note recent reports on the amount of pesticides added to vegetables and fruit produce is absolutely shocking. People are in a quandary to eat or not to eat fresh produce. Either which way it could harm you.To that extent, even if a farmer is not 100% honest about organic produce we can be sure it will be way way lower than those in the commercial market and health wise people will benefit.

16 August, 2010 | Usha Antony | Reply

Honestly how organic is organic? I heard a lot of farmers pay money to get that certification in India and charge people more for the same fruit & vegetable produce which would cost less in the local market.Is that true?

14 August, 2010 | Sujani | Reply

Where are organic vegetables available in bangalore? Greens esp. - Namdhari's says they don't use pesticides but I doubt.

16 August, 2010 | Geetanjali Kelkar | Reply

Namdhari has a few products that are organic. But there are many other brands available in Bangalore like Navadardhanam that sell a range of products other than vegetables. Check out HAL market that sells produce from farmers.

16 August, 2010 | Sujatha | Reply

If they claim not to be using pesticides then it should be true. A brand like Namdhari's cannot and should not make false claims.

Lookout for farmer's market. Usually they grow produce like tomato, carrot and greens and sell on daily basis.

14 August, 2010 | Poonam | Reply

It certainly is a good idea to eat organic foods if you can afford them. I have carried out food safety testing on a variety of food products and almost every single food product that was tested contained some amount of organochlorine pesticides like DDT, BHC etc (even though they are banned for use in foods). The residue was higher in high fat foods. They get absorbed by the fat molecules in food and then get stored in fat cells in the body and can cause serious diseases over a period of time. The increase in the incidence of cancer can also be attributed to a large extent to the use of such pesticides.

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