Is Organic Food Healthier than Non-Organic Food?
Over the past decade, organic foods have become quite prevalent within Australian supermarkets. What was once a highly niche market is almost a necessity for all large supermarket chains. You’d be hard pressed to find a Woolworths, Coles or Aldi without some organic food offerings.
There does however seem to be a bit of confusion as to what “organic” foods are and why they may be healthier than other foods.
Organic foods, by definition, are those that are produced free from inorganic chemical pesticides. Australia has quite stringent laws to ensure that anything labelled “organic” is grown in a highly “natural” environment. This ensures that any man-made chemicals are not consumed when ingesting the product.
There seems to be a very common misconception with organic food, being that it is healthier in regards to it’s fat content, or cooking process. For example, Aldi sell “organic chips”. Whilst it may be easy to assume that these organic chips are low in fat and therefore healthier, this is a completely incorrect assumption to make. Upon investigating the nutritional composition of this snack, they were 20.2% fat. In comparison to a package of Arnott’s Shapes at 14.5% fat, these organic chips were therefore 39% higher in fat than an alternative non-organic snack.
As you can see, organic does not refer to the macronutrient (fats, carbohydrates, proteins) contained within a food. Organic only refers to the elimination of inorganic chemicals used.
Whether or not organic food is healthier than non-organic food is a raging debate among nutritionists. Although it makes sense to eliminate all unnatural chemicals from our diet, there is no consensus among professionals either way due to the lack of evidence in this field. It really comes down to personal choice; do you wish to consume inorganic substances in your diet? If you do not, you also need to consider that organic foods cost more to produce, therefore this may weigh heavily on your budget.
