Why eat organic?

1. Protect Future Generations: 60% of all herbicides, 90% of all fungicides and 30% of all insecticides are carcinogenic. Each day, our bodies are exposed to countless chemicals through the food chain, through industrial cleaning agents and products in the home, or even in the air we breathe. We can minimize exposure to ourselves and our children by buying and consuming food products that have NO preservatives, colourants, or other chemical based additives.

2. Prevent Soil Deterioration: Soil provides the key source of nutrition and minerals in organic farming. Conventional farming methods deplete the natural nutritional source of the soil.

3. Protect Water Quality: Cancer causing pesticides are used in conventional agriculture. These chemicals can leach through the soil and contaminate the groundwater and streams. In rural communities, ground water is the primary source of drinking water. Organic farming helps to protect our water quality through the use of natural pest control methods.

4. Prevent hazardous work conditions: A National Cancer Institute study found that farmers exposed to herbicides had a 6 times greater risk than non-farmers of contracting cancer. Field farm workers in the conventional agricultural industry suffer high rates of occupational illness.

5. Protect Humane Animal Husbandry: Under a system of organic production, animals are provided with living conditions and stocking rates that are more appropriate to their innate behavioural requirements, a high-quality diet of organically-produced feed, and ethical animal husbandry that facilitates low stress, promotes good health and minimizes disease.

6. Provides more nutrients to breast milk:  A new study, published in 2007 in the British Journal of Nutrition, reports that obtaining at least 90 per cent of dairy and meat products from organic sources increases levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). Lead author Lukas Rist from Paracelsus Hospital Richterswil in Switzerland noted "that the levels of both rumenic acid and trans-vaccenic acid (TVA) in human breast milk were higher in the case of mothers following a diet that contained organic dairy and meat products, in comparison with mothers consuming a conventional diet."  Source: British Journal of Nutrition.  April 2007, Volume 97, Issue 4, Pages 735-743