If you’re like most people, when you hear the phrase ‘organic foods,’ it brings to mind wholesome goodness. No chemicals, no genetic modifications, just food, straight from nature. It’s a fair assumption. The problem is, sometimes it’s not correct. In fact, a recent study done by scientists at Stanford University found that organic food is not necessarily more nutritious, however it does reduce your overall exposure to pesticides.
“The study did look at one study which found that children who switched to an organic diet for five days had lower levels of pesticides in their urine, but whether the levels have a direct impact on human health is “unclear.””
Read for yourself
Mike Adams, AKA “The Health Ranger,” owns and operates the website, Natural News. He has built his own lab, follows strict EPA testing protocols, modified for food testing, and tests supposedly safe foods. In many cases, he’s found exactly what you’d expect to find in organic foods. Nothing. In some cases, however, he has found high levels of toxic heavy metals contaminating our organic food supply.
Recently, he appeared on the Dr. Oz show to sound the alarm. He took his lab results to the companies found to have toxic levels of heavy metal contaminants, and asked them to make changes. Many did. Some did not, refusing to make any changes at all. That’s dangerous for you, because you may unwittingly go to the store to buy some of this supposedly wholesome organic produce, not realizing that it contains toxic metals, and feed it to your family. You could endanger your health by doing the very thing you thought was going to improve your health, so the question is, what to do about it? How can you know if the food you’re feeding your kids is actually safe?
A two pronged assault on the problem is the best, most effective option available to you.
First, head over to Natural News. The government isn’t reporting on, or even doing anything about this problem, but Mike Adams is, and you can get a list of the companies who failed the test, and are refusing to do anything about it. That’s the all important first step, simply because it enables you to avoid doing business with people who have been presented with irrefutable evidence that they’re poisoning you, then continue to do it anyway.
Grow your own food
The second step is to grow at least some of your own food, and no, you don’t have to quit your day job and trade in your trendy clothes for a straw hat and a pair of overalls. There are a number of hugely effective ultra high yield micro-farming techniques that don’t take a lot of your time, and produce an amazing amount of food on very small plots of land. Some of these, you can even make use of if you live in an apartment or condo and have no yard space at all. If you do have some yard space, you can grow a significant percentage of your family’s vegetables in a single 10-foot by 20-foot greenhouse.
By combining the two approaches, looking at the hard data Mike Adams has been able to put together to allow you to steer clear of companies selling toxic products, and taking at least a measure of control over your own food supply, you put yourself in a really strong position to ensure not only your own personal health, but the long term health of your family. Not to mention the fact that it is immensely satisfying to go into your own garden and grab something wholesome and delicious to eat.
Action Steps – Things you can do to help keep your family and your food supply safe:
- Subscribe
- Read about Whole Foods and their ongoing efforts to pretend no problem exists.
- Check back often for updates
- Grow your own, using Bartholomew’s Square Foot Method
- Grow your own, using Jeovan’s Biointensive Method
- For apartment dwellers, check out grow towers
- Here’s a cheap greenhouse of the size mentioned above
Featured photo credit: Organic Foods via flickr.com
