From near obscurity to actually being sold in places outside of health food stores is no small feat, especially when you take in the opposition it has to face in the guise of processed foods, and the more readily available non-organic foods. If you’re looking for a ready source of organic foods however, your best bet is to turn to suppliers of organic foods online.

These organics foods suppliers come with more than a few benefits, one of which is the fact that your foods will more often than not, be delivered straight to your door. This saves you the hassle of fighting your way through rush hour traffic to get to your grocers, and also saves you the trouble of having your toes run over by errant shopping carts.

That’s just one benefit of course that you gain by getting your organic foods online. Another great benefit is that you have a ready supply of organic foods at the touch of a button. You also have a larger supply of organic foods to choose from, both the natural organic food variety as well as the processed organic food variety.

This means that you have necessarily a larger choice than you would otherwise have had in a normal grocery store selling organic foods. You will also find that this applies to the online version of your favorite supermarket. Their selection of organic foods online will be greater than what you might find in their stores, and these also include the maybe-not-so-readily available organic meats.

It’s easier to find organic produce and organic processed foods than it is to find organic meats, but by using the internet to facilitate your weekly shopping you will find just about all your organic foods online.

And if you’re still not convinced, you also have an added benefit in the form of lowered monthly food bills. You might have gone organic, but that doesn’t mean that you need to pay through your nose for it. If you get your organic foods in-store, be it a supermarket or a health food store, you will find that your weekly expenditure is more.

By getting your organic foods online you will find that your costs come down a significant amount. Of course to get this last benefit you will need to do a little bit of research and find an online store which will give you lower prices with the same great quality that you look for, but in the end it will be worth the effort.

The purpose of organic food information is to give you an understanding of what is going into your food. You will see that there are many benefits to organic food that you didn’t know before. The basis behind knowing about organic food information is the fact that farmers are resorting to using a lethal cocktail of artificial fertilizers and pesticides to control disease and insect attack in order to produce more crops to satisfy growing demand. These artificial additives leave a toxic chemical residue in and on the fruit and vegetables we consume which in turn is absorbed and stored by our bodies .

Even the quality of food has gone down in recent years. Today’s fruits has nowhere near the Vitamin C levels they did at one time. However, with organic food information you learn that organic food has fifty percent more nutrients, minerals and vitamins than any other form of produce that has been grown under intensive farming. If you aren’t eating non organic produce you will have to eat more fruit in order to make up for this deficiency. But then the dangerous cycle continues since you will be eating more chemicals that are worse for your health than they are good for you.

Animals and Hormones

Another aspect of organic food information is the production of meats and poultry, most only consider produce when it comes to organic food information disregarding the antibiotics and hormones that are given to both cattle and poultry that are being force fed. Ask yourself what happens to all these antibiotics and hormones when the animal is s;slaughtered, the residue of these antibiotics and growth hormones reside in the meat which are then consumed ,digested and stored in human bodies. There is no way that an animal that isn’t kept in healthy conditions can produce healthy food for humans to eat.

You have nothing to lose by trying organic product, not only will it be healthy for you but you will also be able to eat produce and meat the way they are supposed to be. You will likely be so impressed with the taste of organic fruit that you will never return to the mass produced fruit again. While cost and availability can be a big issue for some, you can do a bit of research online and find a local store that stocks organic produce for a reasonable price.

Have a look around and I am sure you can find an organic farm near your home this will allow you to go direct to the farmer who produces organic produce.

With the increase in organic food information many farmers are turning to organic methods so you should have no problem finding one in your area. In addition, you can often get cheaper prices when you purchase from the farmer and not getting your produce from the store.

Are you sick and tired of having to waste this precious time, when you could be spending it with your family, chilling out or doing something of your choice? If so, then you need to start looking into deliver services in your area. Delivery services are becoming more and more popular as the growth of the internet means that nearly everybody has access to a computer and can save time by ordering online. You can even save money as its not as easy to get tempted into impulse buying when you cant see the packaging in front of you. Just think, no more dragging young children around the supermarket and watching in dismay as they try to pull everything off the shelves!

At the moment nearly every region in the UK has a delivery service that is easy to find online, GuideMeGreen has loads of local and national organic, fair-trade and special diet delivery services with an increasing range of food and non-food products. You often have to sign up or register with these sites and then you can begin your shopping right away, They are easy and fun and so convenient that you will find yourself with almost too much time on your hands!

Obviously, different companies offer different foods for delivery but you can often buy most if not all of your favourite groceries and more from these companies. You can find a vast selection of fruits and vegetables, both organic, locally grown and sometimes imported. You will find exotic fruits and vegetables as well as the old staples like potatoes and carrots. No matter what you need you can get it from these great food services.

You will also find a huge selection of organic dried and canned goods that you can have delivered right to your door any day of the week. Canned soup and dried pasta are just a few of the great items you can have delivered to you each week. Most of these services even have goodies like organic cookies and even some organic cakes! Many companies have non food lines such as eco friendly washing and laundry products.

You will get a choice of delivery. You may choose to have your food delivered after work or while you are at work. Many people choose to have their shopping dropped off while they are at work so that they are there when they get home. You can even ask that the goods be left in the back garden or with a neighbour so that they do not get stolen.

Organic food delivery services are flexible and convenient and they are something that every one can benefit from. The increasing number of people using these services is testament to that. The choice comes when you decide which ones to use – should it be supermarkets where you can buy anything and everything in one go or should you support the smaller companies where you may not be able to buy everything that you are used to….ill let you decide.

The fact is that consumers, me included, have become aware and wary at the same time of what’s in our products. Manufacturers throw stuff in all the time to preserve products, color them, perfume them, with little to no regard for the side affects of such actions. They do it to keep the products cheap, making people want to continue to buy from them. But, the fact is, these chemicals may be costing much more in the long run, in terms of our health and that of our children, pets or the wildlife we enjoy around our homes.

So what is about Miessence that gets people excited? They’re certified organic. But that seems contradictory, right? How can face cream be certified or shampoo? When people think of something being certified organic by the USDA their minds generally turn to food and in fact the USDA has no standards set for products other than food. So Miessence certified their face creams and toothpastes, etc. for the food grade standards, making them the first certified organic products on the planet that isn’t a food. And heck we used to make our soaps and stuff from plants little more than a hundred years ago. The industrial age introduced us to the world of chemicals and we are just now seeing the havoc those chemicals have done to our bodies and environment.

Yet there are a few catches in the overall purpose that Miessence is attempting to attain. Some of their products use ingredients that can not be certified by any ruling board. Why not? Because some of them aren’t even organic.

Let’s start with cosmetics. This would include Miessence’s line as well as manufacturers like Bare Minerals or other cosmetics companies attempting to make cosmetics safer for women. Mineral make-up does in fact use minerals, but not from mining, due to high levels of contamination. Miessence attains theirs from refined and purified man-made minerals. Zinc-oxide is one mineral in particular. It is used as the white powder base for cosmetics and gives them superior sun protection qualities. It is soft and heavy and recognized by the TGA for it’s soothing and healing properties. Actually, zinc oxide has been used for thousands of years as a whitening agent, back when woman preferred a pasty, white complexion. It was obviously a far safer alternative to the lead that many used.

Other common minerals used in mineral cosmetics are iron oxide and mica. Iron oxide is used to give color. The darker the skin or the pinker the blush the more iron oxides are added. Mica reflects light from the face giving it a smoother appearance. Neither have been shown to cause any harm when used correctly, though all of these minerals are claimed to be harmful to the immune system, respiratory system and reproductive system if they are ingested. Now come on, how many of you are going to eat your makeup, considering minerals are basically crushed rock. I personally preferred a baked potato to eating a rock.

Concerns over the harm caused by nanoparticles has arisen in recent years and the way in which superfine mineral powders in mineral cosmetics may affect the body and whether or not it can penetrate the skin. But perspective buyers can be comforted by Miessence’s response to such concerns, “The average particle size of our iron oxides is 1.3 microns, which is much too large to be considered a nanoparticle. Nanoparticles are less than 100 nanometres…. very very small!”

So that takes care of minerals. What other ingredients can not be certified by the governing bodies? Well, there is one chemical in the shampoos that stops this Miessence product from being certified: coco-polyglucose, a “non-ionic surfactant” synthesised from coconut and glucose from corn.

So why does Miessence use this chemical? It’s rather silly actually, but what can you do? You see, of all of the available plant extracts not a one of them will foam up or become sudsy, leaving you with a product that works beautifully without being soapy, but people refuse to use it. Why? Because in our brainwashed society being sudsy equates to a cleaning products. If don’t soap up it don’t clean. So what do you do? Well, the founder of ONE group, Narelle Chenery went in search of the safest surfactant she could find to put the minds of those poor people to rest that yes in fact the shampoo will clean them.

Here is what Miessence had to say about polyglucose :
“Polyglucose has excellent dermatological compatibility. It is very mild on the skin. Based on the Duhring Chamber Test it has the lowest irritation score of all common surfactants tested. It is free from ethylene oxide, which can cause nitrosamine contamination, and free from preservatives. It also has a very low environmental impact due to:

1) High bio-degradability – It breaks down readily.
2) High eco-toxicological compatibility – It doesn’t harm the environment if released.
3)It is manufactured from completely renewable vegetable raw materials.

It is very good, however it is still not certified organic. ONE Group will do better. They are working on replacing it with a certified organic “foaming agent” of similar functionality, but it takes time. Rest assured that as soon as they have a certified organic replacement that works, they will introduce it.”

Other non-organic ingredients include the clays used in masks for cleaning, obviously another earth mineral and once again should not be ingested. The toothpastes have sea salt, again not organic, but natural and clean of contaminants. There are several other un certifiable ingredients in the Miessence products but they all serve a purpose to enhance the products they are used in and of course ONE group goes the extra step to be sure that all ingredients are clean of contaminants and easy on the environment.

Why would you want to do this first of all? For the simple reason that if you have a ready source where you can find your daily organic food needs, you will be that much eager and able to keep to your resolution. And if you can’t find an organic food store near where you live, find one that’s on the way to work, or barring that find one that’s on the way to your favorite shopping mall.

These all give you reasons to swing by the organic food store, whereas if you have to go too out of your way to get to your organic food store you will find yourself wavering and putting it off one too many times. This is when things start to go belly up and you find yourself once more enjoying the find dining of such establishments that serve greasy hamburgers, fries, bacon and sludge like coffee.

And if you can’t find an organic food store in any of these easy to reach places, don’t trouble yourself by looking further away. Go straight back home and head to your nearest online organic food store. This is an easy option for you to take and one that will make it easier for you to stay true to your goal of staying organic.

The next thing that you will want to do after finding your organic food store is to decide on a new goal. Make your original target of staying organic your main target, and switch to some new short term goals that will help you to accomplish what you need.

For instance you can very easily set weekly, even daily goals for you to reach. By doing this you are keeping yourself motivated and willing to stay organic. And the real reason for reaching these goals on the days when staying organic is definitely too much trouble to contemplate? The suitable reward you give yourself.

As long as the reward isn’t in the form of a day off of eating organic foods, the just about anything else that will help you will be alright. Yes, even eating that greasy-spoon hamburger on the way back from work. The key thing here is to stay focused on your long term goal and let the smaller occurrences of falling off the organic food wagon, go by unnoticed.

We have been privy to witness a revolution, a significant change in our history that ultimately comes down to whether we care about what we put in our bodies or not. Almost with the turn of the new millennium, more and more people started joining this revolution, and it wasn’t long before we could see organic foods coming out of their specialty and health food stores and moving to the normal everyday grocery and convenience stores.

And it definitely wasn’t long before new parents started making the transition for their babies as well. After all, if they were trying to eat organic, why not go the same route for their baby? The problem that many parents encountered in the beginnings years of the organic baby food revolution was the utter lack of premade organic baby food.

This meant that they either had to either make their own homemade organic baby food, or they had to give up on the idea, and allow their young babies to happily eat away at second hand toxins, pesticides, antibiotics, and genetically modified foods. Naturally enough this didn’t sit well with too many parents, but it is sad to say that this isn’t what turned the tide favorably in the organic baby food revolution.

No, this took some time, and more research still before mass production of organic baby food hit the markets in any significant numbers. Worse still, the price of getting organic baby food was just as bad as getting organic foods for yourself, and for your normal everyday family this was simply not an affordable alternative.

Although there is a growing trend towards buying organic baby food the problem still exists in that it is still not as readily available as it could be, and it still costs an arm and a leg to keep your baby in organic baby food.

Luckily with the tides turning more and more towards organic grassroots, there has also been a resurgence (a very small one for the moment) of making your own organic baby food. It’s not very difficult and in the long run, a few minutes spent in preparing your baby’s food in a healthy manner with organic foods can only be of benefit to your baby in the future.

What is unique about organic food as opposed to the garden-variety supermarket wares?

Essentially the differences on your plate take place in two spheres: additives and preservatives. The former can mean anything that changes the quality of the food in color, consistency, taste and characteristics. The latter is anything that keeps food fresh for longer amounts of time and is typically some sort of sodium product.

Many additives, particularly food dyes, have been attacked as toxins. A handful of dyes have been made illegal on the American market due to reasons of human health. As the American diet is already dangerously high in sodium, there is no need for the consumption of further salts as preservatives.

On the farm level, the differences become even more dramatic. Organic food contains no genetically modified organisms, has no trace of poisonous pesticides and in grown in environmentally safe soil free of chemicals.

And what about organic baby food? Is it significantly different or superior?

Organic baby food boasts all the same advantages as regular organic food listed above. Since baby’s body is much more sensitive to toxins than is an adult’s, the benefits of avoiding additives increase substantially. The elimination of additives and preservatives in organic baby food also quite simply means that there are fewer ingredients to which baby may develop allergies and that digestion of organic baby food is easier.

Organic baby food is quick-cooked so that fewer nutrients will be lost, an unfortunate by-product of cooking food in general. Most organic baby food is salt- and sugar-free, and what baby needs more of either?

There have been recently claims that organic baby food is lacking in iron at a 20 percent clip. This can be reduced, however, by making your own or feeding baby more iron-rich food.

What are the benefits?

Well, this is the selling point of organic product. Less salt means smaller chance of kidney, liver or blood pressure problems. Fewer toxins in your diet mean avoidance of certain industrial maladies. Preservatives have been shown to be dangerous (even potentially lethal) to your health, but only after occupying space in products for decades. Organic ingredients make it possible for the average consumer to understand exactly what they are eating. And, once you’ve experienced this phenomenon, you are unlikely to look at non-organic food labels the same way again.

Can I trust the labels?

This one is tricky. Just as there are zillions of lobbyists and concerned citizen action groups, there are zillions of corporate employees and attorneys finding ways around existing law. Simple research helps a lot to cut through the claims and counterclaims. Some information may surprise you.

For example, if a baby food label is marked “chicken,” this means that chicken must comprise as little as forty percent of the ingredients’ total mass. If two ingredients are listed, the first need only make up ten percent and in the second less is allowable. It can get depressing.

The way I figure it, check the website. If it’s loaded with flash, slippery promotional promises and a dearth of solid information, become suspicious. In general, small is better. With babies of six to nine months, a few vegetables and simple grain products a week suffices in tandem with breast milk or formula – a very small amount of organic product to find. Plus, a large supply is made up in little time at home.

Does organic food taste better?

Yes.

The first thing to understand about organic food definition only covers the tip of the iceberg as the saying goes. Well the basics of organic food is quite simply food that is grown without any sort of man made substances being poured over it, around it and even inserted under it. The condition for the growing of the organic matter has to be composed of 100% natural environment.

Now that we have covered the organic food definition is short we should take a closer look at this subject. For any food to be classified as being an organic food it needs to be free from all genetically modified internal cell structures. The plant must be like the ones that you see growing in the wild – but ones that we can eat without getting poisoned – and their inner cell structure should not have been tampered with.

Next the land that you are choosing to plant these 100% organic plants should be absolutely free from all traces of chemicals. To allow the land time to recover from the abuse of these harmful products like chemicals and pesticides you should uproot any chemically treated plants. Then you will need to leave the land alone for about 2 to 4 years.

This time period will allow the land to recover from the various chemicals which were heaped on it. Once you are sure that the land is ready for planting begin by fertilizing the land with organic fertilizers. These fertilizers will help prepare the land for plants. The first phase of organic food definition includes the preparation of the land where the food is to be grown.

Now you can plant your organic plant into the soil. Using only techniques which are healthy for your garden or land you should make sure that friendly bugs and plants are used to protect your garden’s harvest from plant hungry insects.

The entire combination package of chemical free land, organically produced plants and environmentally safe pesticides – read spiders and ladybugs here – along with protective, sweet smelling (to us that is) plants is what is ultimately meant by the organic food definition.

It wasn’t that long ago that “eating organic” was something only a relatively small number of people did. Back in the 1960’s, life was changing. Women were beginning to work outside the home and the trend then was convenience. Processed foods meant a good meal could be delivered to the table in a fraction of the time. The market for frozen and processed foods literally took off.

Organic food was definitely not something that most people gave much attention to especially since there no longer was enough time to visit the butcher, the produce vendor and the dairy farm. A quick trip to the supermarket could now provide a family with enough food for several days. And that’s how life continued, fueled by the need for speed and convenience.

Organic Foods Go Mainstream

Lately, people’s feelings towards the foods they eat are changing once again. This time, the change is being fueled by the feeling that people no longer know what they’re putting into their bodies. The news today is filled with stories of E. coli outbreaks, genetic food engineering, the potential dangers of eating foods that are shot up with growth hormones to make them bigger and better, and other frightening information. Tired of feeling out of control, eating organic has become chic and has definitely become the latest trend in eating among people from all levels of society.

True organic food is more expensive than non-organic food, but the trade-offs are well worth the additional cost. Not only is organic food better for those who consume it, the people who eat organic foods claim these foods actually taste better than those grown and raised without this strict definition. In fact, eating organic is the best way and really is the only way to feel 100% confident about the foods that are consumed.

Meeting the New Demand

Today, organic food is big business and an ever-growing segment of the food industry. Farmers are changing the way they grow their foods to take advantage of this increased demand. Unfortunately for produce growers, it can take up to 2 full years for the land to cleanse itself of the synthetic pesticides and fertilizers that have been applied during all the years prior to growing organic. But the wait is a worthwhile trade-off as well.

Organic foods are so popular that it’s no longer necessary to shop for them at specialty stores. In fact, large grocery store chains are constantly devoting more shelf space to meet the ever-growing needs of organic food devotees.

Using the label “organic” to distinguish one tomato from another is a big stretch from the word’s original meaning, for until the middle of the twentieth century it simply meant something living or derived from living matter. In that sense, the idea of an “inorganic tomato” is a contradiction in terms, unless it is, say, a tomato-shaped glass ornament. With very few exceptions — salt is one — all our food is “organic” no matter how it is produced.

The specific sense of “organic” we use when we speak of “organic food” today traces back to 1942, when J. I. Rodale launched a magazine called Organic Gardening. Nowadays Rodale is hailed as a pioneer, but then he was often derided as a crank and a throwback to obsolete ways of farming. He advocated maintaining soil fertility and stability by putting organic matter — animal manure or compost — back into the soil rather than relying on the “inorganic,” or synthetic, fertilizers that were then widely seen as the modern way to go. So in Rodale’s usage, it was the fertilizers, and from them, the farming methods, rather than the food, that were organic, and the concern was primarily with the soil, not with issues like biodiversity or animal welfare. But the meaning of “organic farming” soon parted company from Rodale’s original narrow distinction between fertilizers. Varying definitions spun out of control as different associations of “organic farmers” tried to set standards in accordance with their own values. Some wanted to stick with a narrow definition in terms of what you could and could not put on the soil, the crops, or the animals. Others wanted to include an entire way of life, including healthy living, an equitable form of distribution, concern for wildlife, and so on. Among organizations of organic farmers around the world, the broader view prevailed. The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements settled on this definition:

Organic agriculture is an agricultural system that promotes environmentally, socially, and economically sound production of food, fiber, timber, etc. In this system, soil fertility is seen as the key to successful production. Working with the natural properties of plants, animals, and the landscape, organic farmers aim to optimize quality in all aspects of agriculture and the environment.

Such a definition does not, however, lend itself to being reduced to a label that can be put on products to show that they were produced organically. Without specific standards that could be encapsulated in a label, consumers were often unsure what the various “organic” labels used by different associations and producers really meant.

In 1990, the U.S. Congress decided to clear up the confusion by authorizing the Department of Agriculture to establish legally enforceable “USDA Organic” standards and a certification scheme so that consumers could be confident that their food really had been produced in accordance with the standards. That led, in 2002, to a set of standards that most people in organic farming considered a reasonable compromise among the various views of what organic farming is all about. Crops must be grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers, and most synthetic pesticides and all herbicides are also banned, although biological and botanical methods of control can be used. Soil fertility is to be maintained by the use of animal and plant waste (but not sewage sludge, which can contain toxic heavy metals), crop rotation, and growing “cover crops” like clover between other crops. (Cover crops are plowed into the soil to restore nitrogen and organic matter.) Animals used for meat, eggs, or milk must eat organic grains or other organic food and must not be given growth hormones or antibiotics. (Sick or injured animals may be treated with antibiotics, but then their meat, milk, or eggs cannot be sold as organic.) Organically raised animals must have access to the outdoors, including access to pasture for ruminants. Neither plants nor animals can be the product of genetic engineering, and organic food cannot be irradiated.

Reprinted from: The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter by Peter Singer and Jim Mason © 2006 Peter Singer and Jim Mason. (May 2006; $25.95US/$34.95CAN; 1-57954-889-X) Permission granted by Rodale, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098. Available wherever books are sold or directly from the publisher by calling (800) 848-4735 or visit their website at www.rodalestore.com.

Author
Peter Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values. He first became well known internationally after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

Jim Mason is the coauthor of Animal Factories (with Peter Singer) and the author of An Unnatural Order: Why We Are Destroying the Planet and Each Other, which John Robbins, author of the best-selling Diet for a New America, calls “a wonderful and important book.” He is also an attorney and the fifth generation of a Missouri farming family.