Eating vibrant, organic foods (like these gorgeous heirloom tomatoes) goes a long way to enhancing vibrant, healthy beauty!
Hi everyone! The other day, someone mentioned to me they had decided, based on recent summer headlines, that they weren't buying organic food because it has now been "proven" that it is not any more nutritious than conventional. Regular readers know I believe eating as organically (and locally) as possible goes a long way to supporting long-term health and beauty. So...I was dismayed to hear these words. Not because I don't respect other people's choices on how they spend their hard-earned food-dollars (eating organic is definitely more expensive than eating conventional!). But rather, because so many of these sensationalized news stories focused on attention-grabbing sound-bites rather than complete information. No wonder the stories generated confusion and doubt about the benefits of eating organically!
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine conducted the study that garnered so much attention. Researchers looked at previously published papers to compare nutrients between organic crops and livestock foods to conventionally produced foods, and concluded that organic foods were not more nutritious than conventional. There were some obvious flaws with this study, including comparing incompatible research papers, and failing to compare some important nutrient categories (such as critical phytonutrients which provide foods with their antioxidant power!), etc.
In fact, there have been studies that have shown much higher levels of nutrients and antioxidants when comparing organic and conventional produce. BUT -- possibly even more important than this is the fact that eating organically makes a significant difference in avoiding dangerous, health-and-beauty-stealing pesticides and other toxic contaminants. The pesticide issue was, oddly, not even mentioned in so many of these news reports, even though the researchers stated that they "did not address differences in contaminant contents...or the possible environmental consequences of organic and conventional agriculture practices..."
Such contaminants found in conventionally produced food include: antibiotics; growth hormones related to everything from lower sperm count to breast cancers; irradiation which reduces nutrients and critical enzyme activity, and forms byproducts like formaldehyde; genetically modified organisms (GMOs) which have created antibiotic-resistant genes... the list goes on. These toxins, consumed over time, lead to toxic-buildup in the body, and can result in digestive problems, poor metabolism, and other issues that compromise health and beauty.
For those of you who point out the inherent problems within the relatively new organic industry (regulating what is, and what is not, truly organic, for example), I completely agree that we have a long way to go. And there are still relatively few comprehensive studies on organic foods. But again, the studies that have been done show that contaminants like pesticides are significantly less than what you'll find in conventional foods -- and for all of us, what it comes down to is reducing our toxic-chemical load as much as possible.
And one thing you don't need ANY study to tell you, is just how much better organic food tastes! It's all about life quality. When you compare a beautiful red, juicy, organically grown heirloom tomato, for example, to a sterile, pale, tasteless conventional tomato, there is simply no denying that organic foods can have a vibrancy to them that conventional foods lack. This "life force" quality (more on this in future posts) gets translated at a cellular level in our bodies, where beauty begins.
Whew, well, those are just some reasons to consider eating organically. As far as I can see, there's only one reason not to, and that is, as I mentioned above, expense. (And, of course, availability. Also, I recognize it's a huge privilege to have access to fresh, non-contaminated food...I wish it were a "right" for all, which is, a much deeper issue...) What I do, and a suggestion that might work for you, is to allocate more of my overall beauty budget to better-quality foods. I believe eating as fresh, locally and organically as possible has a much deeper, long-lasting effect than, say, purchasing the latest pricey skin cream. (I know someone else who cut out her weekly manicures and daily lattes to put those dollars towards higher-quality foods).
Also, as I've mentioned before, focus on the foods that make a real difference. If you eat dairy and/or meat, that is definitely the place to begin, as pesticides collect in animal fat. And remember the dirty dozen and the "cleaner dozen" lists. I don't eat all-organic -- it's not a matter of all-or-nothing. Small changes can make a difference -- and can add up to real differences for our personal health and beauty, our family's, our earth.