Is Organic Food Worth the Expense or a Waste of Your Hard Earned Dollars?
It seems everywhere you look more and more products in the grocery stores are touting a label that identifies them as “Organic.” Sometimes it can be hard to know whether eating foods labeled as organic really provides any additional health benefit. Often foods carrying the organic label are sitting right next to “conventional” foods that are not organic. They look the same, smell the same and taste the same, but the organic foods generally cost a little more. Is there any reason for the penny pinching consumer to opt for the more expensive organic foods? Yes! Organic foods offer higher levels of disease fighting nutrients and are thereby a far superior option for promoting good health.
One significant health factor relating to the consideration of organic foods is the interaction between free radicals and antioxidants. These two types of molecules are playing a constant tug-of-war inside your body. Free radicals are “highly reactive and thereby destructive” compounds (Flora SJ). The process of these free radicals reacting with tissue cells creates an effect labeled “oxidative stress.” According to a recent study of normal physiological functions and human disease, oxidative stress is “a deleterious process that can be an important mediator of damage to cell structures, including lipids and membranes, proteins, and DNA” (Valko M., et al.). What many may find amazing is the long list of health conditions that are directly attributable to oxidative stress. The dreadful names of diseases that appear on this roll-call are such killers as “cancer, cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, hypertension, ischemia/reperfusion injury, diabetes mellitus, neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease), rheumatoid arthritis, and ageing.” (Valko M., et al.) At first glance such class-mates as cancer and Alzheimer’s may well appear to outshine the rest, but last in the list is the valedictorian of this faction of pupils. The very process of aging is caused by oxidative stress! Free radicals are renegades running amok throughout your system destroying precious DNA and injuring every cell inside your body causing it to age and become ill.
What then can be done to fight this damage? If free radicals are the wild hooligans then antioxidants are the subjugators of these lawless vandals. Antioxidants are the only substances that can safely interact with free radicals and prevent oxidative stress before any molecular damage can be done (Flora SJ). Antioxidants fight aging and disease.
You may be wondering how all of this relates to the subject of organic foods. A recent article in The Sunday Times quoted a four-year £12m study conducted on a farm at Newcastle University. The study found that organic vegetables contained 40% more antioxidants than conventional vegetables. The researchers also found that organic herds produced milk with 90% more antioxidants than conventional herds (Ungoed-Thomas). An unrelated study of the effects of extracts from organic and conventional strawberries on the proliferation of colon cancer cells HT29 and breast cancer cells MCF-7 found that the “organically grown strawberries had a higher antiproliferative activity for both cell types” and were able to inhibit colon cancer cells by 53% and breast cancer cells by 43% (Olsson ME, et al).
From these studies we can see quite clearly that antioxidants are very beneficial to every system in our body. Antioxidants are a major player in staying healthy and organic foods have a much higher concentration of them than conventionally raised foods. The fact that free radicals are responsible for so many of the common ailments that plague our friends and family should stir you to increase your intake of organic foods whenever possible. Even with the minimal added expense, organic food is well worth every extra penny.
Flora, SJ., “Role of free radicals and antioxidants in health and disease.” 15 Apr. 2007 Defense Research and Development Establishment Division of Pharmacology and Toxicology. 23 Nov. 2007
Olsson, ME., CS. Andersson, S. Oredsson, RH. Berglund, KE. Gustavsson. “Antioxidant levels and inhibition of cancer cell proliferation in vitro by extracts from organically and conventionally cultivated strawberries.” 22 Feb. 2006 Department of Crop Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. PubMed. 23 Nov. 2007
Ungoed-Thomas, Jon. “Official: organic really is better.” Times Online 28 Oct. 2007. 23 Nov. 2007
Valko, M., D. Leibfritz, J. Moncol, MT. Cronin, M. Mazur, J. Telser. “Free radicals and antioxidants in normal physiological functions and human disease.” 4 Aug. 2006 Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, Slovak Technical University. PubMed. 23 Nov. 2007