Bellamy’s Organic. What makes organic food better nutrition?

The primary goal of organic agriculture is to optimise the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil life, plants, animals and people. And ultimately to provide better nutrition.

Organic food is a recognized and respected concept – the UN and WHO both recognize organic agriculture as a way of supporting the environment and have developed a set of standards that countries can use for designing their rules for organic certification.

There are many differing research reports that has been conducted over the years, primarily in countries where organic has been widely available for a long period of time.  Many of these focus on the outcomes of organic farming practices within a particular product for example, dairy production.

There is no conclusive, undisputed research that shows categorically that organic is better than conventionally farmed goods.  But in independent studies across broad categories they have been shown to provide positive benefits to our health, our environments health, improved farming practices in specific and non-specific areas.

Whilst we cannot all own our own farms, and we cannot know what goes into making the food we buy from our stores or supermarkets, we can know that organic food has been made with three key sustainabilities in mind:

Ecological

Economical

Social

It’s true that we cannot eliminate all pollution from our diets, but take the example of the organic apple vs the conventional apple.

The Conventional Apple orchardist will by the time the season harvest is done, have sprayed approximately 2000L of spray mix (pesticides, fungicides, insecticides) on the plants.  Some of these would have leached into the soil and some are known not to break down for many years. None of these things are wrong as the farmer has abided by the best farming practices used by all the major players for a long time.

The farmer’s workers have been using these chemicals at least every 10 days for the entire season. The orchard is based in a developing country and there has not been any safety equipment used to ensure the worker is not exposed to the chemicals.  The worker is paid barely enough to survive on and his children work at the orchard also to make ends meet.

The orchard sits on the top of a hill so when it rains the chemicals on the trees run off into the local water source and affect the fish.  Sheep graze in the paddocks around the trees in winter, and the sheep are later used for meat for the local community.

When the product is brought into Australia it is fumigated for various other pests that may have been collected along the way.

The apple goes into the supermarket after it has been waxed to a brilliant shine and, you pluck it from the fruit bowl at home, give it a quick rinse under the tap, and pop it into your toddlers hands as a quick, healthy nutritious afternoon snack.  You hope.

If you’d like to know more about Bellamy’s Organic baby formula and our other certified organic baby and toddler products, including organic apple snacks, click on this link. It will take you straight to our on-line store http://www.bellamysorganic.com.au/catalogue

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