Marks 1

Mckinzi Marks

Lyndsay Knowles

English 111

1 February 2018

Making Organic Foods the Norm

Have you ever thought about what contaminates you put in your body while eating food?

In recent years the buying and producing of organic foods have been on the rise. While organic

foods are not necessarily healthier, they are safer and cleaner. All food should go through the

processing and regulations that organic food does and still be affordable.

The biggest reason that food is labeled as organic or considered to be organic is the way

it is produced and processed. Regulations are in place because they make organic foods safer and

cleaner. D.I. Givens states

Organic food is largely indistinguishable from other foods in many respects.

Certification is therefore not of the product, but of the whole production system from soil,

via plant and animal, to the consumer. The existence of production and processing

standards, certification procedures and, in many countries, a legislative basis gives a clear

dividing line between organic and other farming systems, primarily to provide market

integrity for the products (p.1).

In other words, Givens is making the point that what makes organic food different from regular

food is how it’s processed. There are several regulations, however, that farmers must abide by

when it comes to the process. For the first three years, the soil at any organic farm must be

handled without any materials that are prohibited. After that the land must be certified and
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overseen by the USDA’s national organic program. Any method used by a farmer has to be

verified and needs to protect natural resources. Farmers can’t use any pesticides on the crops

because of the regulations. Using pesticides is like putting poison on foods we intend on

ingesting. Theodore Roosevelt’s Pure Food and Drug Act restricted the manufacturing and

selling of poisonous foods. If you think about it, the use of pesticides is violating that act. The

biggest thing that stuck out to me when looking at the organic regulations was also the fact that

the foods are produced without genetic engineering and the foods don’t come into contact with

sewage and radiation. Those are three really big things that are mixing with our food way too

much. Genetically modified foods are increasing at a very shocking rate. Just about all the food

we consume has some type of GMO in it that we're unaware of. Most of these are said to cause

damage to our organs and increased illnesses. By genetically modifying foods it’s almost like

were contaminating our foods because we’re putting it in labs and changing the makeup of the

organism. Once you contaminate our foods you can’t completely decontaminate it.

Being that organic food is cleaner, there are also a number of benefits and reasons to go

organic. According to Aakanksha Dasgupta, “Organic food items are a healthier alternative to

food items that are produced inorganically. They are rich in minerals and they do not contain any

harmful chemicals.” (p.2). In a way Aakanksha Dasgupta point is that soils are managed in a way

that nourishes them and because of that there are more minerals, enzymes, and vitamins in the

soil. Organic production leads to the protection of soil and water while also helping the reduction

of pollution. Another big reason to go organic is our animals and how there raised. A lot of farms

just see animals as meat and income. For example, farmers will pump their livestock with

hormones, drugs and antibodies to get them to grow faster so they can be sold for their meat. In

some cases, farmers won’t let feed them a natural diet and they won’t let most of their animals
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run free. By choosing to go organic animals are treated better, with better foods and room to

roam around.

The effects of sticking with conventional foods is to some extent appalling. Misra And

Singh illustrate this point when they say “The growing demand of food and the modern

agriculture practices encourages the use of fertilizers rich in chemicals that leads to increased

crop production. The constant use of chemical fertilizers creates threat to environment and

human health. Continuous use of chemical fertilizers hardens the soil, makes it infertile and also

leads to water pollution.” (p.2). In other words, they both believe that by farming regular foods

that are filled with GMO’s we are destroying the environment one fruit at a time. Not only are

foods causing pollution in the environment but there also polluting our bodies. For instance,

conventional foods are said to have hydronated fats in them. These fats have been linked to heart

disease. Taking into consideration the amount of people that get sick with heart disease, cancers,

and other types of diseases, it makes sense that it could have a lot to do with the foods we eat.

Some people would disagree and feel that organic food isn’t healthier but when you look at that

aspect of it you should be able to see that organic food is healthier. Some think that it’s much

more expensive for organic foods but isn’t it much more expensive long term when your fighting

cancer or heart disease?

Farmers and consumers alike may not want to pay the expenses it takes to get the food

from the farm to the dinner table. Packaging, land, and organic foods are expensive. What they

should really think about is it may seem expensive up front but after a while they can become

more affordable. When you think about all the harmful things like pesticides that are on your

food and how it affects your health after eating it for so many years you might consider the

alternative to be less expensive than what you first thought it to be.

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Works cited

AakankshaDasgupta@timesgroupcom Inputs, from D. "Amdavadis Go Organic in their

Gastronomic Choices BENEFITS OF ORGANIC FOOD Ahmedabad Times]." The

Times of India (Online), Jan 21, 2018. ProQuest, http://nclive.org/cgi-

bin/nclsm?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1989303590?accountid=14197.

Givens, D. I., et al. Health Benefits of Organic Food : Effects of the Environment, CABI, 2008.

ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/swccd-

ebooks/detail.action?docID=361216.

Misra, Richa, and Deepak Singh. "An Analysis of Factors Affecting Growth of Organic

Food." British Food Journal, vol. 118, no. 9, 2016, pp. 2308-2325. ProQuest,

http://nclive.org/cgi-

bin/nclsm?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1826442830?accountid=14197.

“USDA: Organic Regulations.” USDA, https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/organic

Accessed 19 April 2018