Organic food really is better
Athens’s Agriculture University yesterday provided further evidence that organically grown food products are actually more nutritious as well as being safer for one’s health and the environment. Studies carried out in the USA show that organically grown crops, including strawberries and corn, have more antacid properties, mainly flavonoids and phenolic compounds than those conventionally grown. Apples, potatoes, pears, wheat and corn grown organically were found to contain up to 390 percent higher concentrations of the trace elements which are so valuable to our health that conventionally grown food is often enriched with them, although in lesser concentrations than those found in organic products. The results of the studies, presented at a conference on the value of pesticides by Christos Apostolopoulos, general director of the Unified Food Inspection Agency (EFET), also showed that organically grown vegetables contained six times more salicylic acid, which reduces people’s susceptibility to cardiovascular disease and cancer. According to a report in the magazine New Scientist, this substance helps plants cope with stress, so crops grown with the use of pesticides do not develop it. Apostolopoulos said that research has not supported the view held by some that organically grown food contains more bacteria. According to a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, organic livestock practices, which include a ban on the use of veterinary drugs, lead to a reduction in the microbe content of food.
