The Benefits of Buying Organic Food and Conventional Food

This paper includes many reasons why you could buy organic food along with many reasons why conventional food is better. It explains the ins and outs of this controversial topic to the people that don't understand what they are paying more for. From this paper i hope i can sway you to the side of not trusting the organic market because they are not doing the right thing. Conventional food is better for you and the environment and is cheaper so what is not to like.

Okay so you go to the grocery store to buy cucumbers. In one section there are regular cucumbers for one dollar grown by Bismak. In another aisle they have organic cucumbers but these cucumbers are two dollars. “Grown and raised by Bismak Organically .” written on the side of the bag. So when you pay the extra dollar for the cucumbers you would expect for the cucumbers to be 100% of what you want. But what the industry doesn't tell you about organics is that a certain number of crops have to be grown without pesticides for it to be organic so you could be paying more but it's actually the same as the one dollar cucumbers. This is a problem I have with the industry. The industry makes organic food look so good because it is more expensive but this is not very true. There are plenty of problems with the industry and the price is just one problem. They make you pay extra. But for what? That's what i will explain. Why you should buy conventional food over their organic counterparts because the advantages of organic produce is miniscule or could actually hurt you. Let's talk about the advantages of buying conventional produce.

One major factor between buying organic food and conventional food is cost efficiency, what you are getting out of those cucumbers for the extra dollar. This is the a way the industry can attract people to buy because people think if it is more expensive it will be better for you. But on the other hand when you are looking for the cheaper produce you are always going to buy conventional food because they are easiest to make and therefor the cheapest. These conventional foods are in return the most pesticidal foods out there. But are they worth an average of 50% more increase for organic food? based on this graph. (Pillsbury, n.d.). It shows that most of these conventional crops to organic crops have a 50% increase in price just because of how hard it is to grow organic food. Organic food is grown without the use of pesticides which to society are seen as a bad thing. Without the pesticides these crops are more vulnerable to the environment causing many problems with losing plants. They could be eaten or rot away without these preservatives. Another problem is if pesticides are added to a crop field upwind these pesticides can be contaminated down to make these crops not even organic in the first place so you would end up paying the extra money for the same thing.

Another problem is how worth these price increases are towards the consumer. In talking it's been discussed how these foods can be mislabeled organic when treated with pesticides. With organic food these prices are not worth the produce in the long run according to a US News article. These organic foods are often construed as more nutritious to eat. That is often why they are bought because of this misconception. With these organic foods that is not possible. “Organic does not mean "nutritious," and never did. Spinach may be grown conventionally, rather than organically, but will still have the nutritional profile of spinach, which is, of course, outstanding” (Katz, 2012). How can conventional spinach be less nutritious than organic spinach with no additives? How can some people actually believe that? They have the same nutritional value because they are the same plant. If it were anyway sided it would make more logical sense that the conventional spinach would have more nutrients if the pesticides had any sort of nutritional value. These organic foods are not more nutrient nutritious and it has been tested many times. They don't have enough evidence to prove it nor do they have enough to disprove it. If they can't prove it right away that means the value is negligible. Organic produce is seen as better for you, but what does better mean to people? Nutritionally better? Wrong. Priced better? Wrong.

Also included in that article listed above is the fact that there are different ranges of organic produce. “A label that says "organic" is noteworthy for not saying "100 percent organic." Ninety-five percent of the ingredients in such a product must be organic, but the rest can be ... otherwise. In products "made with organic ingredients" up to 30 percent of the content need not be.” (Katz, 2012). The industry is not lying to you. The industry is just not telling the whole truth. For that extra money you pay for these organic produce you should get 100% organic produce. But they don't do that. How can you trust any of these companies for these labels? Are you ever getting 100%? This is the problem.Some ways they can trick you into paying extra for your produce is to label them as natural. These natural labels make you think that they are grown naturally without the use of pesticides when they really are not. Because of these common misconceptions in society people are wasting their hard earned money on “More nutritious” “Better for you” Organic produce.

Some people may argue that these organic produces are better because they are better for the environment. Based on research i have seen many articles about how impactful pesticides are on the environment and this 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 conserving water and soil quality.” ("Organic Foods: Are They," 2014). This statement is a very valid point if you want to protect our environment, if you want to help the world organic produce is a way. these pesticides used in crops are put on the outside of the produce. When it rains it can wash off some of the pesticides and these pesticides can runoff into the soil and cause the soil to be dangerous. If the soil were to erode into a large water source it could render that water source useless. Or it could be dangerous to the fish which have had side effects from consuming pesticides. When animals eat pesticides the pesticides are passed through the animal that eats them. These are bad environmental damages that conventional produce have on the environment. Along with the rain causing runoff wind can take pesticides to other crop fields these can make organic crops not organic anymore. There have been many studies on Genetically Modified Organisms. These organisms are regularly not accepted by society because it seems “unlawful” to most people.These GMO’s are ways companies that grow crops change the “bad” genes out of the crops. They can make these crops healthier for people, bigger in size and produce more seeds to plant. “Most developed nations do not consider GMOs to be safe. In more than 60 countries around the world, including Australia, Japan, and all of the countries in the European Union, there are significant restrictions or outright bans on the production and sale of GMOs. In the U.S., the government has approved GMOs based on studies conducted by the same corporations 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," n.d.). These Gmos have been tested and shown they are dangerous in many countries around the world. GMO’s are not added to organic crops. Which is another great reason that if you are concerned with how these GMO’s will affect you you can opt out of buying them through buying organic produce. GMO’s and runoff from the pesticides are very valid points that you may have thought about before you read this. But are they worth what the price? Are they that dangerous?

These Organic crops are better for us in other ways. These organic crops are made without the use of pesticides that build up in our body. these pesticides come from the produce we eat along with the animals that eat any pesticidal produce. Pesticides are passed through consumption so it usually stops with people. These pesticides have not been proven harmful or dangerous to humans but they have also not been proven helpful either to humans. I would imagine that a large amount of anything stored inside your fat is not a good thing but who am I. These pesticides are stored in our fat tissue. They have done many tests but they just can't figure if these are good or bad and that is scaring people. These tests are reasons some may buy organic food because they don't want to take the risks. Along with pesticides it has been shown that organic produce has health benefits. Organic produce in a study, showed that there where higher levels antioxidants in them. Antioxidants are very good for health and are needed by the system to work more efficiently. “Over all, organic crops contained 17 percent more antioxidants than conventionally grown crops, the new study found. For some classes of antioxidants, the difference was larger. A group of compounds known as flavonoids, for example, were 69 percent higher in the organic produce.”(Chang, 2014). That means there is a significant increase in antioxidants in those organic produce. They are not more nutrient rich they are more antioxidant rich. These organic benefits are real benefits that organic people live hard by.

Those are very significant benefits to buying organic but i am still going to stick to my side. Organic food also has disadvantages to it. With organic food the most common type of fertilizer is manure fertilizer. this fertilizer is bad for us and the environment. Manure fertilizer is made out of excrement and this excrement can have bad diseases in it like e coli which is a very deadly virus to people. “safety concern that has been raised about organic food is the issue of manure fertilizers. Some critics fear that using manure to fertilize organic crops might increase the risk of contamination by dangerous microbes like E. coli. "The organic farmers talk about the soil being more alive on organic farms than conventional farms. That life isn't just insects and worms; it's loaded with bacteria," says Klurfeld.” ("Is Organic Food Better," n.d.). These manure farms are loaded with bacteria that can cause damage to us and the plants. Along with e coli in the manure these plants can hurt us and the environment in another way. Plants that don't have a way to protect themselves create their own version of a defense system. They make toxins on their outer layer to protect them from being eaten. These toxins are very bad for human consumption and therefore worse than pesticides. “Because organic production steers clear of synthetic insecticides and herbicides, organic crops usually contend with more pests and weeds than conventional crops. This means the organic plants may produce more natural toxins. "Plants can't get up and walk away. If they're being attacked, they've got to sit there and take it. So they may resort to their own chemical warfare," “("Is Organic Food Better," n.d.). These are the plants way of defending themselves from being eaten. Because they have been proven to damage people these are much worse than regular pesticides. These environmental problems are not an easy thing to handle and when you have to decide which is better pesticide runoff or E coli, all the other factors should be taken into effect.

There are many common misconceptions in this world and a big one is that more expensive is higher quality, this is not true in the slightest. You can pay extra for labeled “organic” produce but i could not be organic or not fully organic. These are big problems. Organic produce produces toxins to fight off attackers from eating them. These toxins are proven to hurt humans unlike pesticides. When growing organic food manure fertilizer is used and this fertilizer contains high amounts of bacteria like e coli that can damage humans and animals. But organic food is good for the environment in the ways that the pesticides added on conventional crops will not ruin water supplies because they are organically grown. but that is if they are truly 100% organic which is very rare. Organic food is grown without the use of GMO’s which alter the produce and are seen as frown upon by most people. These are major topic that i talked about to help you decide which is better. I think it was a one sided battle. Conventional crops are more worth the value then the organic crops counterparts. I mean unless you want those antioxidants.