Increase in Organic Food Sales

People are starting to buy more natural and organic foods rather than normal foods that are sold in the markets. The reasons are simple, normal foods contain hormones and preservatives and other chemicals, an example is chicken, which is injected with hormones so that it will develop faster and grow fatter, then the chickens can be sold faster and when they are sold they look fatter and bigger and more “delicious”, but the big amount of hormones that the chicken has in it can have serious consequences to little kids that eat it. One of the consequences is early puberty in girls which accounts for a higher chance in breast cancer. But in many occasions no one has been able to conclude whether meat with high levels of hormones cause young puberty, breast cancer, or a higher breast development on kids. That is why people have started to trust more organic products rather than normal dairy products. People believe that organic foods are healthier, safer, tastier, and more environmental friendly than normal products.

Some people might not know but there is a difference between organic and natural foods. Food can only be labeled as “natural” if it follows certain requirements; those are:

“(1) The product does not contain any artificial flavor or flavoring, coloring ingredient, or chemical preservative (as defined in 21 CFR 101.22), or any other artificial or synthetic ingredient; and

(2) The product and its ingredients are not more than minimally processed. Minimal processing may include:

(a) Those traditional processes used to make food edible or to preserve it or to make it safe for human consumption, e.g., smoking, roasting, freezing, drying, and fermenting, or

(b) Those physical processes which do not fundamentally alter the raw product and/or which only separate a whole, intact food into component parts, e.g., grinding meat, separating eggs into albumen and yolk, and pressing fruits to produce juices.”¹

Organic food refers to food produced by a farmer that uses environmental friendly farming techniques, such as the “conservation of soil and water, the use of renewable resources and use of natural fertilizers and conventional pesticides. The food will come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones.”¹

In other words natural and organic foods are “fresh” and less or not altered at all compared to the normal products that undergo many chemical processes before going into the market. That is why every year more and more people are buying organic and natural foods.

Sources:

1) http://www.wikinvest.com/concept/Natural_%26_Organic_Foods_Consumption\

2) http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/factsheet/diet/fs37.hormones.cfm