by Rhui Chatar

Created on: April 20, 2009

In most cases certified organic foods grown meeting approved USDA Organic criteria would probably be better than regular chemically treated foods, but may not always be the best nutritional choice.

Since USDA Organic' is now a government standard restricting the use of non-approved pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, large growers must comply to this standard to be certified. That doesn't mean they are going to use best growing practices for putting nutrient value into their product. It means they are going to meet the minimum USDA criteria of keeping restricted pesticides and synthetic fertilizers out of their product. What they use to replace these restricted substances could be anything not on that restricted list, and the consumer has no way of knowing what was used, or how.

Does this mean that regularly' grown food, not adhering to USDA Organic standards might not be just as good for you? Not if you can identify where that food came from, who grew it, and how they grew it. With current labeling requirements only specifying country of origin, finding out where your food comes from can be a daunting task for the average consumer. For most it's just easier to by Organic Certified, and avoid the known nasty stuff. But that doesn't have to be the only solution of getting food that's better for us.

Although there's some comfort to be taken when purchasing organically certified food, unless we make the effort to understand what criteria needs to be met to obtain that organic certification, choosing locally grown, regular foods may actually be the better choice, both for our own health and that of the environment.

Regularly grown foods can be grown using methods that may require application of synthetic based chemicals, but that doesn't mean they are always applied. Depending on the grower, crop or local growing conditions, the food could be organic compliant, but hasn't been certified due to the growers choice to exceed the USDA's Organic standard. Again it comes down to knowing where your food comes from.

More and more, it's apparent that smaller growers, using traditional small farming methods, can produce a better quality product than the larger corporate organic growers, who rely on quantity of product to maintain required profit margins. Quantity production, even when certified organic, does not always produce the best product and often does not utilized the best practices of sustaining the quality of the land it's grown on.

In seeking out foods that will be better for us, the best practice is to have a relationship with the grower of the food. Current marketing practices make this all but impossible for the consumer, but there is a growing trend in local community or subscriber farms. This practice provides that relationship with the grower that is currently missing. This is nothing new. Rural communities have always known who grew the best asparagus, the biggest pumpkins and the sweetest corn and the growers are more than willing to share how they grew them.

Well, maybe not in the case of the biggest pumpkin, but you can ask anyway.

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