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More and more products are flooding the supermarket shelves in which we can read in large letters and striking adjectives such as "organic" or "ecological". This suggests that we are dealing with a healthy product that is respectful with the environment. However, the reality is that, many times, you can buy this type of food without really knowing what makes it so special or, simply, more expensive in the supermarket.
On the other hand, if there are organic foods, does that mean that the rest of the foods that are sold are "inorganic" even though they are made of "organic matter"? If you want to go deeper into what it means for a food to be organic or inorganic, as well as the advantages and disadvantages that its purchase and consumption may have, continue reading Green Ecologist, because in this article we will tell you what are organic and inorganic foods, with examples.
Definition of organic and inorganic
If we look at the definition given by the RAE dictionary of the words "organic" and "inorganic"We find that something organic is that which is composed of a "substance that has carbon as a component and is part of living beings". That is, it is composed of biological matter (regardless of whether he is still alive or not). In this way, an orange would be organic, because it is composed of material suitable for life, while a liter of water, despite being a food, would be inorganic, since it would not be made of living matter.
However, this definition has nothing to do with what it means for a food to be organic or inorganic when we refer to the products that we can find in a grocery store, which can be misleading and makes it important to qualify it for not make mistakes. In this way, beyond the general meaning of organic and inorganic, when we talk about organic foods, what we are referring to is your form of production, which must meet a series of requirements to receive such cataloging and not another.
What are organic and inorganic foods: definition and examples
A food will be organic (or organic or organic food, since depending on the country it may be called one way or another even though they are the same thing) in the case of a food product that has been produced maintaining at all times the procedures known as "ecological". This, broadly speaking, means that it will be a product that from the beginning of its production until it reaches the final consumer will not have been in contact with any type of chemical or artificial product. What comes to mean that it is a product that is the same as what we could find in the traditional agriculture and in nature.
This means that, if we have an organic orange, to produce that orange, from the orange tree that has been planted, to the water with which it has been watered, through the fertilizers and insecticides that have been used, everything will be natural and biodegradable. In this way, we will be facing a completely natural orange tree (that is, it will not be a transgenic plant), it will have been watered with water that has not been treated with chemical products, in case of being fertilized it will have been done using natural compost and, in case If it has been treated with some type of insecticide, it will also have been natural.
In the same way, if we have a food product that does not meet any or none of the conditions described above, we will be talking about a inorganic food, without this having anything to do with the nature of "biological matter" of the food in question.
How to know that a food is organic
The easiest way to check is by the labeling. In fact, the current regulation requires that, in the case of putting some type of denomination that links the product with the organic foods (ecological, biological, etc.), this product has passed the corresponding inspection of the food authorities so that it has been certified that, indeed, it is a food product produced following the defined standards so that it can be considered as such.
Currently, both countries such as Japan and Canada, as well as all the countries of the European Union, have laws in this regard that ensure consumer safety. This means that, for a product to be sold by advertising under the label of “organic food”, or any of its variants, it must have received the approval of the food authorities. In this way, if you want to consume organic food, the easiest way to do it is by looking at the label, where all the information about it should appear.
On the other hand, it is true that there may be organic foods in which the labeling does not say so. However, this is due to the fact that the production in question will not have passed the relevant inspections and paid the corresponding fees so that it can expressly indicate it. This tends to happen in some rural settings where production is very small and, from an economic perspective, it is not worth doing the processing. In these cases, the only way to know if the food is organic or not will be to trust the seller's word.
Despite this, it is important to bear in mind that, if we want to be completely sure that it is an organic food, the only way to be sure will be through the labeling, which must expressly say so and include the official seal certified and issued by the food authority.
In this way, we have organic food examples that can go from organic fruits and vegetables, to foods of animal origin in which the animals have been fed with organic feed or, even, packaged products that, despite their presentation, have been developed from organic foods throughout the process.
Advantages and disadvantages of organic food
Between the advantages of organic food we emphasize that they are a type of completely natural product and free of any type of chemical or toxic product that, once ingested, would pass into our body in the same way that they were present in the body from food.
There are different types of toxins present in chemicals used in food that, when passed into the human body, have negative effects on health. Among the most common effects, these toxins act as endocrine disruptors, destroy the bacterial flora of the intestine and affect the nervous system and the immune system, among others. When taking organic food, we avoid the consumption of toxins and chemicals, which contributes to our health.
Regarding the drawbacks of organic food, two main ones should be mentioned. On the one hand, since they are foods that do not include artificial processes of any kind, they constitute foods more expensive, since they take longer to produce and production is carried out on a smaller scale, which ultimately results in a higher price when they reach the final consumer.
On the other hand, since they are foods that cannot be mass-produced, they are foods that would not allow meeting current demand of food for the world population. In this way, despite being healthier, they could not become popular on a large scale due to the limitations of their production process.
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