Why Organic is Better for You And The Planet
Ooohhhh baby, I could write all day about this!
Entire books have been written on the importance of organic produce and how it's much better for us - I don't need to write yet another… so let me (try) keep it brief and stick to the main points.
Organic means no synthetic chemicals have been applied to the land or crops: no fertilisers that aren't natural, no fungicides, pesticides or compounds to keep the produce fresher on the supermarket shelves… all in all, organic means straight from the ground, as is, where is.
It means that when you consume organic produce, you're not ingesting micro amounts of potentially harmful chemicals (I mean, if they obliterate insects and fungi, imagine what that might do to our gut biome).
No matter how much you wash your conventionally-grown veggies, they will have absorbed small amounts of chemicals.
Maybe you're not bothered about how pesticides, herbicides and fungicides could affect your long-term health (let's be honest, you probably wouldn't have read this far if that's the case!), but there are strong links between the gut microbiome and our mental and physical health - the better we look after our internal flora, the better off we will be.
Feeding them the right foods is a huge step!
Growing organically doesn't just produce food that's beneficial for your health, it's also helping to protect and preserve our natural resources.
I cannot begin to describe how important the soil is. That's a whole other book in itself.
But, to put it in broad strokes, let's think of the soil like the gut biome of the plants: a healthy soil (one that isn't inundated with synthetic invertebrate-killers) means a greater diversity of healthy plants with symbiotic communities of microbes around their roots.
These microbes consume organic material produced by the plant, converting it into soil organic carbon - meaning atmospheric carbon, as CO² is taken in and held in a stable form in the soil. Take from that what you will.
No pesticides and herbicides means more insects around and about (yep, including those pesky ones!) and greater plant diversity: more bees, more food for said bees (I think we're all aware of the bee plight) amongst a host of other important insects.
Given that insects represent 70% of animal life on Earth, they're pretty important, and we should probably do all we can to protect them (even the mosquitoes, I suppose).
That leads me to the most important and holistic point: everything on this planet exists in a delicate balance.
By using chemicals to force crops to grow bigger and faster; killing off fungi, bacteria and insects, as well as annihilating weed species, conventional agriculture is doing a good job of misaligning that tenuous balance.
Have you ever recklessly hopped on a see-saw with a child?
If so, you'll know about the importance of equilibrium, and how things (and children) can come crashing down if we're not careful.
I think what I'm trying to say, after all of that, is that conventional agriculture is a short term solution: things grow well for a (relatively) small time frame, and then the wheels begin to fall off the wagon.
Organic agriculture is a long term way of farming and living with the land, keeping it productive for the generations to come.
Therefore, if you buy our produce, you're helping sustain this goal - so thank you, well done, and enjoy those carrots!