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These days, everyone seems to say how much healthier you'd be if your apples, cereal, eggs, milk-even candy and corn chips - were 100 percent organic.
The news is full of claims (sometimes vague, always scary) of how conventional farming harms knh our bodies and the environment. And what was once the focus of small tanners and environmental idealists is now a major torce in big business, with retail giants like Wal-Mart getting in on the action. All signs seem to say everything you eat should be organic. But is that really necessary? Or practical? Are organic products worth the extra legwork and. more importantly, the added cost at the checkout?
The conventional food conundrum
Widespread use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, growth hormones and amibioiics in conventional hirming means that with every nonorganic food you eat. there's a risk of your body s absorbing these potentially dangerous compounds. Although more research is needed to confirm the dangers of consuming foods with traces of fertilizers, hormones and antibiotics, past studies have linked continuous exposure to pesticides to both cancer and diminished brain function in farm workers. In January 2000, researchers from Harvard, the university of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the Centers tor Disease Control and Prevention published a study that found that men with higher levels of the pesticide chlorpyriros in their systems produced lower levels of testosterone, the sex hormone that plays a role in fertility and immune function. The leaders of the study noted that the subjects tested had no specific contact-such as working on a farm-with the pesticide, leading them to believe it may have entered their systems through other means, possibly food.
Pediatricians have long been proponents of organic options, mainly because children are especially susceptible to the health impact of nonorganic foods. Their small frames, fast metabolisms and high intake of grains, fruits and vegetables mean their systems absorb compounds fasters and their body functions are aflected more quickly and dramatically than those of adults. (Just think of how hyper kids get when they eat a sugary treat!)
Simply switching to organic products for juice, produce and grain products can lower and even eliminate pesticide chemicals found in kids' systems in just five days, aacording to a study at...