Organic Foods and Unhealthy Expectation about the Expense - Term Paper Example

Organic foods and unhealthy expectation that food should be inexpensive Introduction Food is an essential requirement for all the living things. Earlier people had worries about the availability and production of foods. But now most of the countries have enough food supplies and not much worry about the quantity of the food. But the quality of the food is in question when the quantity increased. In order to increase the quantity of the food production farmers used immense amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides which destroyed the quality of the foods. Earlier foods were used for sustaining the health. But now most of the foods available in the market are destroying the health of the public because of the toxic ingredients involved in it. The concept of organic foods came as a substitute for all such worries expressed above. The foods that are cultivated without using any chemical fertilizers and pesticides, processed without adding any of the artificial ingredients and packaged using natural means can be referred as organic foods (Organic Food Facts). Because of the avoidance of dangerous fertilizers and chemicals at the time of cultivation, organic food yield may be less compared to other type of food production. Thus the organic foods would be expensive compared to other foods in the market. Some critics have suggested that Americans have an unhealthy expectation that food should be inexpensive. But it is a fact that inexpensive products always produced in bulk and may lack quality because of lack of supervision at the time of production and over usage of dangerous artificial means to increase the production. So in my opinion, at least in the topic of food, Americans need to change their attitude of going after cheaper things to protect heir health. Organic Foods Facts: Article summary This article argues that most of the people are still unaware of the advantages of using organic foods over other foods. Organic foods are accepted by the public not because of their taste, but because of their quality. The major advantage of organic food is that it can protect us from dangerous diseases like cancer. Organic food growers take immense care while selecting the seeds, fertilizers etc. They will never use any chemical fertilizers or pesticides to double their yield. They use compost like bio fertilizers for maximizing food production and natural means to protect their crops from insects. Because of the avoidance of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the expenses for growing organic food growers may suffer 20% more cost compared to other food growers which make the organic food expensive. The major features about organic foods are; it is grown under the tight supervision of the officials who certifies it, less environmental problems, more nutritious and safer compared to other foods, protection of the soil from erosion because of the special way of cultivation etc (Organic Food Facts) Unhealthy expectation that food should be inexpensive One of the major advantages of organic foods is its ability to deal with the environment in a friendly manner. Organic farming methods are specifically designed to protect the natural structure and the nutrient content of the soil and preserve its worth over time (Organic Foods for Everyone). But compared to other farming methods organic farming methods are expensive because of the special care taken during the period of farming to protect the soil and the crops. Moreover, at each stages of the farming the farmers need to convince the certifying authorities that they are strictly obeying the norms prescribed for organic farming. Other farmers normally may not have such worries. They may not concentrate much on protecting the soil or the environment. They will use modern machineries and farming methods to reduce the farming expenses and to increase the yield. They will use stimulators, chemical fertilizers, pesticides etc to maximize the yield. Thus organic farming is a difficult task compared to other farming and the yields also might be less compared to other farming methods. Less yields and increased supervision made organic foods expensive compared to other foods. At the same time organic foods can guarantee health safety. An average apple even after washing may contain over 30 pesticides (The Advantages of Organic Food). In America, many people believe that organic foods are expensive and it is not wise to spend big amounts on foods especially at a recession time like this. In my opinion, the above argument seems to be meaningless. Most of the conventional foods available in the market are produced with the help of harmful ingredients. For example, broiler chickens are accepted as a tasty food all over the world. But the poultry farmers inject oestrogen like female hormones to the chickens in order to gain weight more rapidly. While males use such chicken based foods, these female hormones enter in to their body and it can reduce their reproduce capabilities. Such males may need treatments in future to re-establish their reproduce abilities. Thus they may be forced to spend thousands of dollars as part of the treatment which could have been avoided if they used organic foods at a slightly higher rate earlier. Thus at the time of consumption organic foods might be slightly expensive, but it brings lot of reduction of healthcare expenses in the long run. The over use of pesticides while farming to increase the yields, may result in increased amount of pesticides in conventional foods. Pesticides in food can cause diseases like Cancer Obesity, Alzheimers, Birth defects etc (The Advantages of Organic Food). Food industry is a big business which brings great revenue to the governments. In order to attract consumers, food manufacturers add so many harmful ingredients to the food items they supply in hotels and restaurants. All these ingredients satisfy the taste needs of the consumers; but the consumers are unaware of the dangers involved in such foods. All these artificial foods may lead to severe health problems in future and huge amount of money needed to treat such problems. As per the recent statistics, around 31,000 tonnes of pesticides are used in UK agricultural sector and more than 25% of food may have the residues of these chemicals (Discover the advantages of organic foods). Whatever the advanced processing methods we used for processing conventional foods, it is difficult for us to remove the pesticides or dangerous chemicals from it completely. In my opinion, governments are also aware of this. But for them, the immediate gains are more important. They often overlook the long term problems. So they have not imposed many restrictions upon on the use of pesticides and chemicals in the agricultural sector. They know that if they encourage organic food production alone, it will result in deficit in food production and subsequent poverties to the public. Conclusions It is an established fact that conventional foods are dangerous to health because of the over usage of fertilizers, chemicals and pesticides while farming such foods. On the other hand, organic foods are safer to the health; but are expensive because of the less yields and expensive farming methods. In my opinion, Americans are going behind the conventional foods simply because of the taste and cheap prices. But these are myths as these foods will definitely increase the hospital charges and thereby increase the expenses. In short, in my opinion, even if the organic foods are expensive, it can bring immense benefits in the long run by reducing the hospital expenses by keeping a person’s health intact. Cheaper things will always have cheap quality whereas expensive things may have good quality and at least in the food habits Americans, need to change their attitudes of going after cheaper foods. Works Cited 1. “Discover the Advantages of Organic Foods”. 27 February 2010. 2. “The Advantages of Organic Food”. 27 February 2010. 3. “Organic Foods for Everyone”. 2010. 27 February 2010. 4. “Organic Food Facts”. 27 February 2010. Read More