What is the Organic Food Nutrition Value?


Defined Tag: Organic Food Nutrition.

The thing that is usually on most people’s minds when they eat organic food, nutrition, is what drives many to venture away from the common foods that they usually eat in order to try something organically grown. Many people find themselves completely abandoning the fruits and vegetables they used to eat in order to start consuming only organic foods, as they believe them to be better for their bodies. But are organic foods really all they are cracked up to be from a nutritional standpoint?

For a food to be organically labeled, it must fall under certain criteria. First off, any organic food cannot be grown with heavy amounts of pesticides nor can it make use of any genetically modified organisms to spur along its growth. Furthermore, there should be minimal, if any, additives or food coloring to the products labeled as organic. Also, most organic foods have an increased amount of vitamins and minerals as well as antioxidants, although this is not necessarily a firm requirement for an organic product. This final criterion however is where most people get the idea that organic foods are more nutritious than their non-organic counterparts.

So, is there more of a nutritional value to organic foods than non-organic foods? The answer unfortunately is twofold. On one hand, as long as you buy products that are labeled as organic and mention how many vitamins and minerals they contain, than you will probably be getting an organic product that is superior from a nutrition standpoint than other products. On the other hand though, because organic foods cannot be grown with any additives or genetic modifications, some organic items may actually contain less vitamins and minerals than non-organic foods because they simply could not be added later due to the rules governing organic foods. That being said, the organic food nutrition value of nutrients like vitamin C, iron, and calcium are almost always higher in any organic food than their non-organic competitors.