It is not uncommon to hear claims concerning organic food health benefits. Are these claims valid? Is there any scientific ground for making such claims?

There are two main ways to look at this:

1. The presence of toxic chemicals in the food.

2. The nutritional value of the food.

It is a well known fact that all our food these days contains a cocktail of chemicals. These chemicals come from pest control in the crops, from residues in the mineral fertilizers and from additives in the food used during industrial food preparation. There exists some knowledge of the effects of these chemicals on the human biology, but only for one chemical at a time. There have been no studies made on the synergetic effects; as a matter of fact this kind of study is somewhat hard to perform since there are such a vast number of chemicals around.

Accordingly, no one really knows what happens to our bodies when they are exposed to this cocktail of chemicals. Cancer? Neuropsychiatric functional limitation? Low capacity immune system?

When you grow organic food you do not use chemicals for pest control, nor do you use mineral fertilizers. There are some additives allowed when processing organic foods, but most of these are natural substances such as citric acid. Studies have shown lower levels of chemicals in the urine of people eating organic food than in the urine of people eating conventionally grown and handled food. To me this is the most important of the organic food health benefits.

As for nutrition, there are several studies showing a higher nutritional value of organically grown food. This means that if you eat the same amount of vegetables and fruit but switch to organic ones, you will get more of the nutrients your body needs to function properly.

This article was a brief overview of all the health benefits of organic food. Nevertheless, I these reasons should leave in no doubt whether it is a good choice or not to choose organic food.

A great way to get fresh, tasty organic food is to grow it in your very own organic food garden! You don’t need a big fancy garden to do that, any tiny backyard gives you the opportunity to do that. And you will have so much fun!

But make sure you gather all the info you need to succeed. It is not difficult, but as with everithing else, you need to know how to do it!