7 Smart Reasons to Eat More Organic Food Today

You want to eat more organic food. But sometimes it’s harder to find. And you’re not quite sure if it’s really worth the price.

Have you been swayed by studies that questioned the nutritional benefits of organics? It’s important to know many researchers and studies countered those findings. This includes government data that pointed out a full 94 percent reduction in health risks for people who eat organic food.

Here are seven nourishing reasons to buy organic food today:
1. It’s the pesticides, stupid: The Stanford study defined “healthy” as having more nutrients, and concluded that while organic food does contain more nutrients, the somewhat higher levels don’t warrant the higher prices.

That’s not the reason most people buy organics. People buy organic food for what it does not contain: toxins, pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics, growth hormones, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

2. Avoid a chemical “body-burden”: We may be able to excrete small doses of occasional toxins, but the accumulated build-up of pesticide exposure over many years leads to a chemical “body burden” which can weaken our immune systems, or cause cancers and birth defects.

3. Don’t bathe innocent unborn babies in chemicals: Cord blood in newborns now shows up to 200 or more chemicals! These chemicals never were tested on fetuses, because no parent ever would allow it. Yet our unborn babies are our guinea pigs. Fetuses are most vulnerable to pesticide exposure because their immune systems are not yet developed, and their bodies and brains are growing rapidly. Pregnant women pass the pesticides they eat to the child in the womb, and to their babies through breast milk.

4. Save your kids from the “better living thru chemistry” experiment: The food you feed your children affects their growth and development. Pesticides are poisons designed to kill organisms on plants, but they also harm the people who eat them. No one knows all the long-term consequences, but the toxic chemicals in our food and environment have been linked to everything from learning disabilities to cancers. As Dr. Oz said on his show, “Don’t let your kids be part of this experiment.”

5. If you eat meat, eat healthy animals. Animals from organic farms do not receive growth hormones or antibiotics, which contribute to creating antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria impacts our health because when we get sick we may not respond to antibiotic treatment.

6. Dine on fresher, tastier food. Organic food delights your taste buds because it doesn’t contain preservatives that make it last longer. In our grandparents’ day, everything was organic, and simple food tasted the way nature made it. Now you can taste the difference when you bite into an organic strawberry or peach. It delivers a burst of sweet flavor. Compare that with its chemically grown cousin that sports a waxy shine but little taste. It’s all show, no substance.

7. Consume more nutrients. Organically grown food is more nourishing because it comes from soil rich with nutrients. Modern soil is sterilized with pesticides and herbicides, reducing the health-giving nutrients which used to benefit us. Organic farmers use nutrient-rich compost. There’s an old organic maxim, “Healthy soil makes healthy plants, which makes healthy people.”