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What Is Organic Food?
By Jeremy Pickles
"Organic" has some quite specific legal definitions in
most developed countries.
In the U.S, all farms or products claiming to be "certified
organic" must be guaranteed by a USDA-approved independent
agency to be meeting the following guidelines:
* Sound records kept of all operations
* No use of antibiotics or hormones in livestock
* No use of genetically modified organisms
* No irradiation
* Use sound soil conservation and crop rotation practice
* And most importantly, that there has been no useage of
prohibited materials within 3 years prior to certification, or
at any time during certification.
The USDA defines 'prohibited materials' as synthetic
fertilizers, pesticides and sewage sludge. It is also a
requirement that there is no cross-contamination during
processing, which means organic wheat for example cannot be
ground in a flour factory that also handles non-organic
material.
Produce grown organically certainly tastes better than the usual
supermarket stock. It also contains higher levels of nutrients
and far lower residual pesticides. You can read all the latest
Organic Food articles and research at http://www.ge-free.com/
In general food grown free of pesticides, herbicides and
genetically modified organisms (GMO) is organic to some extent.
Certified organic food is that which meets the strict criteria
of the USDA as described above. Most countries have their own
version of regulation.
Organic food can be classified into two groups, fresh and
processed.
There are many additional requirements for certification of
processed organic food:
* contains a minimum percentage of organic ingredients.
* has no added artificial ingredients like preservatives etc.
* is processed free of artificial methods like chemical ripening
or irradiation.
Most processed organic food is now available in supermarkets.
There are also organic only stores in most large cities now, and
there will be many more similar stores as the production of
certified organic food increases.
About the Author: Jeremy is the owner of http://www.ge-free.com/
and publisher of Organic News. His site reports on all the
latest news and research articles to do with Organic Food.
Source: www.isnare.com
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