What the shopping cart price does not include

2023-10-19 13:26:29

In recent months, some information has appeared in the press suggesting that the organic foods are very expensiveas if trying to discredit environmentally friendly production.

They cite, among others, a study of the Organization of consumers and users (OCU) that says that the purchase “organic” it is 62% more expensive than a classic purchase. Well, the first thing to explain is that conventional food is NOT the same as organic food.

Organic foods have more nutrients than conventional foods; more proteins in both vegetables and animals; fruits and vegetables have more vitamins; more minerals in vegetables, grains and legumes; and greater amounts of antioxidants in fruits and vegetables and in olive oil, for example.

All this makes them different foods, top. And it’s not that we say so. Science says it. For example, the works of Mª Dolores Raigón. She has a PhD in Agricultural Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, professor of agricultural chemistry.

Raigón has spent years researching different foods and has documented that organic food is better So I say: It offers more and better nutrients (and many other things).

The studies carried out have focused on the bromatological analysis of “organic” foods. That is, its qualitative and quantitative composition, the hygienic and toxicological meaning of the alterations and contaminations.

Fresh foods (fruits and vegetables) produced under a comparative design have been studied in organic and conventional production techniquesevaluating the content of dry matter, mineral, vitamins, proteins and antioxidant substances.

Furthermore, in some vegetables the concentration of antinutrientesLike the dangerous for health nitrates. With the same objective, we have also studied the composition linked to the quality of foods of animal origin, such as eggs and rabbit meat.

From these works it can be seen that organic foods have a higher concentration of proteins (both in foods of animal and vegetable origin), a higher vitamin content (in fruits and vegetables), a higher mineral content (in fruits, vegetables, and grain foods, such as legumes and cereals) and higher level of antioxidant substances (in fruits, vegetables and olive oil).

On the other hand, organic foods contain a higher concentration of dry matter, which influences both the higher nutritional concentration, as in the best post-harvest skills. That is, in an “organic” apple there are more apples than in a conventional one, which has more water.

I also recommend reading a book: Eat well today, live better tomorrow (Planet, 2017). It is written by a French doctor, Henri Joyeux, nutritional oncologist. In it, he provides a novel study that compares organic food with their conventional peers.

And it also concludes that foods from organic farming are better, from a qualitative point of view, than those of conventional agriculture. The differences can be seen in several areas that you can read in this post of mine: Novel study documents that organic or organic foods are better than the rest.

Of course, a food that is better in quantity and quality is logically more expensive. In addition, the production costs of “organic” are higher.

Not to mention the enormous environmental impact of normal agriculture and livestock.

The truth is that in many cases the prices of conventional foods are excessively cheap and the producer sells at a loss or barely receives anything for his work.

And finally there is the public health problem generated by the current diet. If we eat crap denaturalizedwithout quality, without really knowing what they contain, what are we putting in our mouths?

We get sick from a lot of ailments that we usually blame other factors but according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 80% of the diseases of the “modern” world are related to a contaminated diet. The price for treating these diseases is not included in the shopping cart.

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