Organic Vs Conventional: Food Processing and Production

Ever heard the popular phrase you are what you eat. Is this really true or just some catch phrase with no real value? If you eat too much chicken will you eventually turn into a chicken? It's safe to say that you wont turn into a chicken and start laying eggs but while you are sitting at your dinner table to feast on your chicken meal, you may also want to consider what the chicken ate for dinner? In other words, what's really in the chicken that you're eating. This question doesn't just apply to chicken but anything that you eat and the answer may vary depending if the food is conventionally produced or organically produced.

So what is the difference between organic vs conventional food?? 


Foods that are conventionally produced such as meat, dairy products, fruits, vegetables and grains involves the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, hormones and antibiotics. The use of these products are to kill weeds, make plants grow faster, prevent diseases and in the case of meats make the animal grow and fatten up quicker. Due to this faster production time conventional foods are usually cheaper because it requires less time for growth, therefore you can have more abundance in a short period.

Organic food however requires more time to grow, therefore more labor, more people to hire to do the labor and lesser abundance. For example a mass production slaughter house may be able to produce 10,000 chickens in a month while an organic chicken farmer may only be able to produce 5,000 chickens in a month. Due to the longer processing time of organic food and the fact that more manual labor is involved, such as pulling up weeds instead of using herbicides and using worms to ward of pest rather than using pesticides the cost is usually higher.

So you have a decision to make, do you purchase conventional foods that's often cheaper but likely more unhealthy because of the chemicals and hormones used or do you purchase organic foods that may be a few extra dollars but likely more healthy because no chemicals or hormones are used. Here is another catch phrase for you, better safe than sorry. The best medicine is preventive medicine. Healthy eating today will lead to a healthier you tomorrow.