If you are interested in organic food or eating better, but have not found an organic food definition that is clear or satisfactory, this may be able to help. The approximate definition of organic foods is foods that have been grown and prepared without the use of pesticides, added hormones, antibiotics, or other artificial chemicals. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has its own specific legal organic foods definition, but over the past several years, it has been expanded to include foods that would not have met the traditional definition of organic foods. Because of this, foods labeled “USDA Organic” may not actually be up to the organic standard that you are looking for.
Organic food has become popular over the past ten years or so because of the rise of diseases and other problems associated with over treated, mass produced food. Pesticides pollute land and waterways and have been linked with different kinds of cancers. Vegetables grown with them produce a higher yield because of their resistance to insects, but still have pesticide residue on them when they reach the grocery store for human consumption. Other treatments, like added hormones, have other potential negative effects on the human body. Antibiotic treatments allow animals to be grown in large numbers in close proximity to each other with a lower chance of serious infections or illnesses, but these mass antibiotic treatments also contribute to the global rise of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. Because of all these problems, many people are starting to rethink how our country produces food and how they eat. Farming methods that make a country’s population less healthy while seriously contaminating its basic natural resources like water needs to be rethought. Organic food is one way individuals can help to correct these problems while watching out for both the environment’s and their own healths.