More and more people are realizing that eating food consisting only of the cheapest vegetable oils, preservatives and dyes is not good for health and are switching to so-called bio or organic food.
Bio products are being promoted as the opposite of bulk products, full of trans fats and other life-shortening substances. Organic food is tasty, healthy and nutritious, but is it really so?
Pesticides are substances or mixtures of substances designed to destroy pests. Perhaps the biggest lie of the organic food industry is the “pesticide-free agriculture” stickers. In reality, without the use of pesticides, any crop will quickly die from weeds, insects and other pests.
By Western standards, a product can only be considered organic if it has been grown using organic pesticides derived from plants, for example. This doesn’t sound so bad, but the fact is that organic pesticides are less effective and require higher doses than synthetic ones. They penetrate the soil and affect the environment even more strongly than synthetics.
This is another myth that manufacturers are trying to promote. It seems that you can eat organic muesli and eat as if it were a kilo of meat. But in reality, the label “organic” or “bio” has nothing to do with nutritional value.
Genetically modified seeds, which are bred through selection and genome editing, are used to grow most products of this type and almost all non-organic products. There is nothing wrong with this, on the contrary, GMOs have succeeded in increasing yields, nutritional value and food safety. The difference between “organic” and “non-organic” is only that in the former case there is less risk of encountering synthetic pesticide residues in granola or antibiotics in milk.
The exact opposite is true. Of course not if you buy potatoes from a gentleman at the market who dug them in his field. But the fact is that organic farming and animal husbandry require more labor, fields and time to develop. This raises costs that small farms cannot afford. Therefore, much of the production labeled “organic” or “bio” is done by large farms. Small ones, on the other hand, try to increase yields by any means possible, using inexpensive and effective synthetic pesticides, antibiotics and the like.
In fact, most “bio” or “eco” labels are a marketing ploy. This is known as greenwashing, when a brand promotes itself as organic, while in reality little of this is true. In fact, we can talk about BIO products when they have the appropriate certification confirmed by a special mark. The green leaf on the package does not necessarily prove anything and is usually used to confuse the customer.
BIO does not always mean the most beneficial products for health and the environment. When shopping, keep a few rules in mind so you don’t fall victim to greenwashing and overpay for a seemingly organic product. First of all, always carefully read the information on labels – carefully analyze the composition and pay attention to whether the labels on the packaging are actually recognized certifications. At home, wash vegetables, fruits and meat thoroughly, even if they are BIO.
main photo: unsplash.com/Benjamin Brunner
