What is "organic" food?

What is "organic" food?

Susan Silberstein & Marilyn Joyce (Health and Nutrition Educator & Heath Counselor) gives expert video advice on: Are organic foods a healthier alternative to other foods?; How do I know if a food is organic? and more...

Organic food is basically unadulterated food. We have an informal definition of organic food, which is kind of "natural", and we have a legal definition of organic food, certified organic. What's important in organic food is that there are no added hormones, like bovine growth hormones, which can contribute to disease, and that we don't use synthetic and chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and any other types of additives that are not natural in organic food. That's one concept. What is left out of the food that is called "organic". What's also important is what is left in organic food, because organically-grown produce is grown with composted soil, so the trace minerals are ploughed into the soil—and thereby get into the organic food supply. We often use crop rotation techniques in organic farming, so that organic farmers are seeing to it that the same plant isn't depleting the same nutrient from the same soil year after year. And research studies have shown that the vitamin C content, the mineral content, and other nutritional factors is much higher in the organic produce than in the non-organic plants and crops. And that's because plants take up about 67 different nutrients from their soil. Synthetic fertilizers only replace a few.