The term “Organic” is just thrown around these days and is definitely one of the buzz words of the last 5 years. However how many of you have ever stopped to actually think what constitutes and allows certain produce and packaged foods to be considered as Organic?
The basic idea behind Organic food is that it has been produced in a natural way using only natural pesticides, fed with only natural feed and has had no genetic (or nano in some cases) modification. Meat is also produced absolutely hormone free.
That’s the idea situation but you may be interested to know that like everything it’s not that cut and dry. Even though the USA and many countries require you to gain a special certification to market your produce or products as “Organic” you may be sad to learn that in many cases due to certain legislation and regulations some non-organic elements can be included!
In the USA there are 3 federal legislated classes for Organic Foods.
The first category allows food to be labelled “100% Organic”. In order for this to be used the food in question must contain 100% certified organic ingredients which generally means that no unnatural pesticides, hormones or anything nasty has been included. In some cases a small amount of non organic pesticides may have been used but it’s likely to be extremely minimal.
Secondly you are able to label your food “Organic” if it consists of 95% of organic certified ingredients. This means that “Organic” ready meals and frozen packaged products are really just mostly organic.
Lastly there is a 3rd category that allows food to say “Contains Organic Ingredients” if they contain at least 70% organic certified ingredients.
Some organic is better than none but it’s food for thought when you set out to make your diet an organic diet.
