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  • Essay / The Benefits of Buying Organic Foods vs. Conventional Foods

    This article includes many reasons why you might want to buy organic foods as well as many reasons why conventional foods are better. He explains the ins and outs of this controversial topic to people who don't understand why they pay more. From this article, I hope I can convince you not to trust the organic market because it is not doing the right thing. Conventional food is better for you and the environment and is cheaper, so it's not the thing to love. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Okay, so you go to the grocery store to buy some cucumbers. In one section are regular cucumbers for a dollar grown by Bismak. In another aisle they have organic cucumbers, but these cucumbers cost two dollars. “Organically grown and raised by Bismak. » written on the side of the bag. So when you pay the extra dollar for cucumbers, you expect cucumbers to be 100% of what you want. But what the industry doesn't tell you about organic is that a certain number of crops must be grown without pesticides for it to be organic. So you might pay more, but it's actually the same as dollar cucumbers. This is a problem I have with the industry. The industry makes organic foods look good because they're more expensive, but that's not entirely true. There are a lot of problems with the industry and price is just one problem. They charge you extra. But for what? This is what I will explain. Why should you buy conventional foods over their organic counterparts because the benefits of organic products are minimal or could actually harm you. Let's talk about the benefits of buying conventional products. A major factor between buying organic versus conventional foods is cost effectiveness, meaning what you get from those cucumbers for the extra dollar. This is how the industry can get people to buy, because people think that if it's more expensive, it will be better for you. But on the other hand, when looking for cheaper products, you will always buy conventional foods because they are the easiest to prepare and therefore the cheapest. These conventional foods are in turn the most pesticidal foods there are. But are they on average worth an extra 50% increase for organic foods? based on this graph. (Pillsbury, n.d.). It shows that most of these conventional to organic crops have a 50% price increase simply due to the difficulty of growing organic food. Organic food is grown without the use of pesticides, which is considered a bad thing by society. Without pesticides, these crops are more vulnerable to the environment, causing many plant loss problems. They could be eaten or rotten without these preservatives. Another problem is that if pesticides are added to a crop field upwind, those pesticides can become contaminated and make those crops even non-organic in the first place, so you'll end up paying more money for the same thing. Another issue is how much value these price increases have for the consumer. During the discussions it was discussed how these foods can be mislabeled as organic when processed withpesticides. With organic foods, these prices are not worth the products in the long run, according to a US News article. These organic foods are often considered more nutritious. This is often why they are purchased because of this misconception. With these organic foods, this is not possible. “Organic does not mean nutritious, and it never has. Spinach can be grown conventionally rather than organically, but it will still have the nutritional profile of spinach, which is of course exceptional” (Katz, 2012). How can conventional spinach be less nutritious than organic spinach without additives? How can some people actually believe this? They have the same nutritional value because they are the same plant. If it were either way, it would make more sense. I think conventional spinach would have more nutrients if the pesticides had any nutritional value. These organic foods are not more nutritious and this has been tested repeatedly. They don't have enough evidence to prove it nor enough to disprove it. If they can't prove it immediately, that means the value is negligible. Organic produce is considered better for you, but what does that mean for people? Nutritionally better? Fake. A better price? Fake. The article above also mentions the fact that there are different lines of organic products. “A label that says “organic” is notable because it doesn’t say “100% organic.” Ninety-five percent of the ingredients in such a product must be organic, but the rest can be…otherwise. In products “based on organic ingredients,” up to 30 percent of the content need not be organic. » (Katz, 2012). The industry doesn't lie to you. The industry simply isn't telling the whole truth. For the extra money you pay for these organic products, you should get 100% organic products. But they don't. How can you trust any of these companies with these labels? Do you ever get 100%? That's the problem. For example, they can trick you into paying extra for your products by labeling them as natural. These natural labels suggest that they are grown naturally without the use of pesticides when in reality this is not the case. Due to these common misconceptions in society, people waste their hard-earned money on “more nutritious”, “better for you” organic products. Some people may argue that these organic products are better because they are better for the environment. Based on research, I have seen many articles about the impact of pesticides on the environment and it is not a good thing. “Some people buy organic food for environmental reasons. Organic farming practices are designed to benefit the environment by reducing pollution and maintaining water and soil quality. (“Organic Foods: Are They,” 2014). This statement is a very valid argument if you want to protect our environment, if you want to help the world, producing organic is one way. these pesticides used in crops are placed outside the product. When it rains, some of the pesticides can be washed away and these pesticides can flow into the ground and make the ground unsafe. If the soil eroded and formed a large water source, it could render that water source useless. It could also be dangerous for fish that have suffered side effects from pesticide consumption. When animals eat pesticides,these are transmitted to the animal that eats them. These are serious environmental damages that conventional products cause to the environment. In addition to rain causing runoff, wind can carry pesticides to other crop fields, which can make organic crops no longer organic. Many studies have been carried out on genetically modified organisms. These organizations are generally not accepted by society because it seems “illegal” to most people. These GMOs are ways that companies growing crops modify the “bad” genes in crops. They can make these crops healthier for people, bigger, and produce more seeds to plant. “Most developed countries do not consider GMOs to be safe. In more than 60 countries around the world, including Australia, Japan and all countries of the European Union, there are significant restrictions, or even outright bans, on the production and sale of GMOs. In the United States, the government approved GMOs based on studies conducted by the same companies that created them and profit from their sale. Increasingly, Americans are taking matters into their own hands and choosing to opt out of the GMO experiment. » (“Non-GMO Project”, nd). These GMOs have been tested and demonstrated to be dangerous in many countries around the world. GMOs are not added to organic crops. This is another good reason why if you are concerned about how these GMOs will affect you, you can choose not to purchase them by purchasing organic products. GMOs and pesticide runoff are very valid points that you may have thought about before reading this. But are they worth this price? Are they so dangerous? These organic crops are better for us in other ways. These organic crops are grown without the use of pesticides which accumulate in our bodies. These pesticides come from the products we eat as well as animals that eat pesticide products. Pesticides are transmitted through consumption, so they usually stop with humans. These pesticides have not been shown to be harmful or dangerous to humans, but they have not been shown to be useful to humans either. I guess a lot of whatever is stored in your fat isn't a good thing, but who am I? These pesticides are stored in our fatty tissues. They've done a lot of testing but they just can't figure out if it's good or bad, which scares people. These tests encourage some people to buy organic foods because they don't want to take risks. Besides pesticides, organic produce has been shown to provide health benefits. Organic products in one study were shown to contain higher levels of antioxidants. Antioxidants are very good for your health and are necessary for the system to function more efficiently. “Overall, organic crops contained 17% more antioxidants than conventional crops, according to the new study. For some classes of antioxidants, the difference was greater. A group of compounds called flavonoids, for example, was 69 percent higher in organic produce. » (Chang, 2014). This means that there is a significant increase in antioxidants in these organic products. They are not higher in nutrients, they are higher in antioxidants. These organic benefits are real benefits that organic people live hard for. These are very important benefits of buying organic, but I'll stick with it anyway. Organic food also has disadvantages. With the.