First Organics FoodsLiving A Healthy Life With Organic Foods

You can grow organic vegetables in container pots.  This is a easy method.  It also allows you to avoid soil grown diseases.

To get started look for organic soil from your local store.  Then fill your pots with the soil.  Start with vegetables like carrots, lettuce, and tomatos.  You can also grow a number of fruit or herbs as well.  This will let you get into the swing of things before you more on to more complicated vegetables.

The best way to do this is to grow what you really enjoy eating the most.  Start with that and you will reap the most benefit from it.

Our healthy living food recipe series keeps off with a delicious Green Herb Hummus recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tablespoons tahini
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves
• 6 fresh basil leaves
• 1 medium scallion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• Options for dipping: carrot sticks, sliced cucumber and whole-wheat pita chips

Directions

Place ingredients in a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until smooth.

Serve with dippers.

In the 6 1/2  years since the federal government began certifying food as “organic,” Americans have taken to the idea with considerable enthusiasm. Sales have at least doubled, and three-quarters of the nation’s grocery stores now carry at least some organic foods. A Harris poll in October 2007 found that about 30 percent of Americans buy organic food at least on occasion, and most think it is safer, better for the environment and healthier.

But eating “organic” offers no guarantee of any of that. And the truth is that most Americans eat so badly — we get 7 percent of our carolies from soft drinks, more than we do from vegetables; the top food group by caloric intake is “sweets”; and one-third of nation’s adults are now obese — that the organic question is a secondary one. It’s not unimportant, but it’s not the primary issue in the way Americans eat.

To eat well, means avoiding edible food like substances and sticking to real ingredients.  There is plenty of evidence that both a person’s health will improve with a simple shift in their eating habits away from animal products and highly processed foods to plant products.

People don’t understand that, nor do they realize “organic” doesn’t mean “local”.  It doesn’t matter if it’s from down the road or from Chile.  It just needs to met the standards set up by the Agriculture Department.  So you can have Salmon flown in from Chile or frozen vegetables grown and sold in the US.  Organic doesn’t necessarily mean that it was made down the street or locally.

Today, most farmers who practice truly sustainable farming, or what you might call “organic in spirit,” operate on small scale, some so small they can’t afford the requirements to be certified organic by the government. Others say that certification isn’t meaningful enough to bother. These farmers argue that, “When you buy organic you don’t just buy a product, you buy a way of life that is committed to not exploiting the planet,” says Ed Maltby, executive director of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance.

But the organic food business is now big business, and getting bigger. Some estimates that major corporations now are responsible for at least 25 percent of all organic manufacturing and marketing (40 percent if you count only processed organic foods). Much of the nation’s organic food is as much a part of industrial food production as midwinter grapes, and becoming more so. In 2006, sales of organic foods and beverages totaled about $16.7 billion, according to the most recent figures from Organic Trade Association.

Still, those sales amounted to slightly less than 3 percent of overall food and beverage sales. For all the hoo-ha, organic food is not making much of an impact on the way Americans eat.   “There are generic benefits from doing organics. It protects the land from the ravages of conventional agriculture,” and safeguards farm workers from being exposed to pesticides.

But the questions remain over how we eat in general. It may feel better to eat an organic Oreo than a conventional Oreo, but, Organic junk food is still junk food.

Last week, the first lady of the United States began digging up a patch of the South Lawn of the White House to plant an organic vegetable garden to provide food for the first family and, more important, to educate children about healthy, locally grown fruits and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become national concerns.

But Mrs. Obama also emphasized that there were many changes Americans can make if they don’t have the time or space for an organic garden.

“You can begin in your own cupboard,” she said, “by eliminating processed food, trying to cook a meal a little more often, trying to incorporate more fruits and vegetables.”

Popularizing such choices may not be as marketable as creating a logo that says “organic.” But when Americans have had their fill of “value-added” and overprocessed food, perhaps they can begin producing and consuming more food that treats animals and the land as if they mattered. Some of that food will be organic, and hooray for that. Meanwhile, they should remember that the word itself is not synonymous with “safe,” “healthy,” “fair” or even necessarily “good.”

The organic food trend that began making headlines in 2000 now appears to be a mainstream lifestyle for some — which translates into big business. So where do organic foods and fibers come from, and what makes them organic?

Organic farming is based on holistic, ecologically balanced agricultural principles involving soil fertility, crop rotation and natural pest control. It may sound like an elusive concept, but the basis for organic farming is actually very simple: Allow nature to do what nature does best.

Many everyday products can be produced on organic farms, including vegetables, grains, meat, dairy, eggs and fibers such as cotton. What makes these things organic is how close to their natural state they stay. When growing organic goods, farmers do not use synthetic pesticides or fertilizers on crops, and they reject the use of synthetic hormones, antibiotics or other medications in their livestock. Animals are provided with organic feed and allowed access to the outdoors.

The USDA recently proposed grazing guidelines for certified organic dairy farms that clarify the requirements for pasture grazing.  Organic livestock must be raised without hormones, antibiotics or feed treated with pesticides. Producers were also required to provide the animals with “access to pasture” so they can get out, roam around and graze a bit.
Under the new standards, the term “access to pasture” it means thirty percent of organic livestock’s feed must come from grazing in pasture, as opposed to only eating organically produced food in a feedlot or indoor facility. Organic farms now need to allow animals to graze in pasture at least 120 days a year.

It doesn’t seem like this is a major issue the USDA should be concerned about, right? Not exactly. Consumers and organic advocacy organizations voiced their concerns to the USDA about dairy farms that provide our stores with organic milk but were not providing very much “access to pasture.” This allowed some farms to gain an advantage over other farms by lowering their production costs.

The USDA believes addressing the role of pasture in organic farming will clarify its meaning and allow it to be easier for farms to be in compliance. Many farmers hope these guidelines will not only help ensure adequate and appropriate organic standards are met, but also protect the integrity of organic farming and the products we eat.

Processed organic food usually contains only organic ingredients. If non-organic ingredients are present, at least 95 percentage of the food’s total plant and animal ingredients must be organic. Foods claiming to be organic must be free of artificial food additives, and are often processed with fewer artificial methods, materials and conditions, such as chemical ripening, food irradiation, and genetically modified ingredients.

They may also be required to be produced using energy-saving technologies and packaged using recyclable or biodegradable materials when possible.

Early consumers interested in organic food should look for non-chemically treated, fresh or minimally processed food. You mostly have to buy directly from growers: “Know your farmer, know your food” was the motto. Personal definitions of what constituted “organic” were developed through firsthand experience: by talking to farmers, seeing farm conditions, and farming activities. Small farms grew vegetables (and raised livestock) using organic farming practices, with or without certification, and the individual consumer monitored. As demand for organic foods continued to increase, high volume sales through mass outlets such as supermarkets rapidly replaced the direct farmer connection. However, for supermarket consumers, food production is not easily observable, and product labeling, like “certified organic”, is relied on. Government regulations and third-party inspectors are looked to for assurance. A “certified organic” label is usually the only way for consumers to know that a processed product is “organic”.

Organic foods are made according to certain standards.  The use of non-organic pesticides, insecticides and herbicides are greatly restricted.  Currently, the European Union, the United States, Canada, Japan and many other countries require producers to obtain special certification in order to market food as “organic” within their borders.  Most certification allow some chemcials and pesticides to be used, so consumers should be aware of the standards that qualify as “organic” in their area.