Producing Food Organically:

Growing and producing food organically isn't hard and isn't done by hippies for vegetarians. All food should be grown organically and one of the reasons it isn't is because of the powerful chemical companies who since WW2 have used their money to promote their products so people have grown up thinking they can't do without these chemicals.....Well you can !

Organic Food Production:

This means without the use of toxic chemicals and when producing food from animals, it means that the animals aren't kept and treated or killed cruelly, so there are regulations in force for you to adhere too when producing food to be sold as organic.

The regulations aren't as high as you could go, they are a minimum which has to be kept to but you can produce food to a higher specification if you want especially in producing food from animals.

Besides cruelty the main part of organic food production is to not use insecticides (poison) and herbicides (weed killer). People forget these toxic chemicals are designed to kill insects and plants but they certainly wont do you any good, and you ingest small quantities each time you eat something that has been sprayed or treated with them. So i suppose it's a bit like smoking, one by one little by little they all add up until one day some of us get ill from the cocktail of different chemicals that are absorbed by our food when growing and when being processed for sale.

It is pointless listing masses of info on organic food here so what you see below is the products which are available and used in organic food production INSTEAD of the dangerous, restricted or "just" chemicals which are available. So i am giving you an organic alternative product so you don't have to fill yourself with chemicals when you grow your own food.

Organic Regulations from Certified Irish Organic Organisations:

Organic Trust.

IOFGRA.

At present these two organisations charge you just for receiving their details on how to be qualified for their organic symbol, which is a bit strange. Then when you start to be an organic producer you will have to pay these people hundreds of euro just for the privilege of having an organic symbol so you can classify your products as "Organic" in Ireland. Problem is the premium that people were prepared to pay for organic produce has all but disappeared due to the recession and one of the ways around this is to grow your produce to an organic standard and supply customers who know how you produce your products and trust you. Also the fact that it is "locally grown produce" is a very good selling point. Of course your produce can never be classed as organic when sold to or from retail outlets.

If you are growing just for yourself then there is no need to bother with all their regulations and you can actually produce your own food to a much higher standard of organic than these organisations and produce a much better product just for yourself and friends.

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Benefits Of Growing And Eating Organically produced Food:

The food you eat isn't covered or contains insecticides, herbicides, antibiotics, growth promoters, genetically modified food, man made fertilisers. But certain approved chemicals to control problems of growing vegetables can be used with permission by organic symbol organisations so maybe it is best to eat only your own home grown/produced food where you know what has been used if anything during it's production, or from a grower where you know what has been used, but it is doubtful that any organic symbol holder would be allowed to use any chemical that would be considered dangerous in Ireland and the UK anyway.

The soil is kept healthy and contains a healthy natural balance of all the minerals and organisms that make up a healthy soil. The soil is alive and full of natural nutrients.

The local wildlife is usually ecological sound and assisting in the growing of your food.

The nearby water ways and ground water are clean and usable instead of being polluted with un natural chemicals and minerals that have to be expensively filtered out before we can use it.

Expensive fossil fuels are kept to the minimum in the foods production, processing and distribution so being better for the environment and your pocket.

Animals reared for products or their meat live a more natural life, eat more natural food and are treated in a more humane way.

All this can be done by you for your family and it actually costs a lot less but is sometimes more labour intensive.

Organic food is nothing new it is actually how food was produced up to about 70 years ago before chemicals were used which are made from or with the uses of oil and fossil fuels.

Any chemical that is designed to or will kill something be it an insect or plant certainly wont do you any good if you eat or drink it, which you do many times if you consume non - organic food. So grow and eat organically!

Food & Your Health What Could Be In It & Why You Should Choose Organic:

Common every day foods that you consume can have may unexpected extras that may have been added to extend it's life, assist in it's production or simply things that it has absorbed during it's growth. Here are a few food items that may include those extra's.

Salmon:

We have all heard the health scares regarding farmed salmon and so called chemicals which could be dangerous that were supposingly added to their food or to protect them while they were being farmed. But did you also know that fish absorb dangerous substances from the sea?

PCB's and Dioxin's are dangerous cancer causing chemicals which is the result from industrial processes and salmon absorb these chemicals from the sea and their food. These chemicals seem to be building in up in oily fish, the very fish which is supposed to be healthy. Which means that the more of this healthy food you are eating, the more of these dangerous cancer causing chemicals you are also ingesting. Reports say they are in higher levels in farmed fish than wild fish probably because farmed fish is mainly restricted to inland sea areas where pollution from industrial processes is higher and concentrated. Therefore if you buy salmon, buy either Irish caught wild salmon and farmed salmon or any farmed fish (preferably organic) from the west of Ireland where there is hardly any industry and the seas will no doubt contain less dangerous industrial chemicals.

Prawns:

Prawns used to be a luxury and quite expensive until recent times, but now they are farmed en-mass and exported to our countries because we think it is great to eat bland tasting huge king prawns. Truth is you may be eating a prawn that has grown in seas/water which may not be clean or free from chemicals. All this because we seem to be enticed by size instead of taste.

At the same time our humble little Atlantic prawn which is wild and caught out in the sea is overlooked but tastes so much better and is now quite competitive on price. You can buy Atlantic prawns caught of the west of Ireland in our cleaner seas, but most people do not know they are even caught there. Our smaller prawn is a wild product from cleaner seas and without all the additives given to some of those farmed larger prawns, so will possibly be healthier.........and they taste so much better!

Food Additives:

When you look at the ingredients on the packaging of your purchased food, you will see a whole list of unpronounceable items which have been added to the actual item you wanted to eat. Why? Well one things for certain it aint for your benefit. Nearly all of these additives have been added for these reasons. The food has .... no or little taste .... not an acceptable colour ... to preserve the contents during sale .... to add bulk so the purchaser actually ends up buying cheaper contents like water or oil.

So what you may say. Well these additives will most probably be man made so completely un-natural. They may be toxic in various quantities which some tests are regularly carried out with many regularly banned or restricted. But more importantly you will along with other food additives be consuming a cocktail. A cocktail is a complicated mixture which can never be efficiently tested because the amount of ingredients vary so much. So basically your cocktail of food additives could possibly react with each other and your body and produce a range of conditions or diseases.

All of this so the food manufacturers can make money from you. So buy organic produce with no additives or better still "grow your own". You can do it, believe it or not your grandparents and theirs before them for thousands of years did it, without expensive equipment or any money and they were quite successful at it........That's how you happen to be here!

Food Colourings:

Avoid anything with food colouring as they will most likely be man made and so may be potentially dangerous in various quantities or mixed with other substances. They are only added to sell the product, to make it look appealing to you and relieve you of your money and are of no benefit to you the person who eats it.

Flavour Enhancers:

Obvious really. The food you just purchased has very little if any taste so these chemicals are added to make it taste something like the product it is supposed to be.

Antioxidants:

Added to food to stop anything nasty happening to the food while it is in storage (while waiting for you to purchase it). These are added by the manufacturer so they can sell the product to you other than selling you a fresh product. Various antioxidants are tested or being tested for causing a whole range of health problems. Simply by fresh or frozen produce only.

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