Natural and Organic Food

Here are some rather shocking facts about pesticides that Natural and Organic Food blog has unearthed:

UK Government tests have suggested that one in every four items of food that you buy contains traces of pesticides. No less than one hundred and fifty of the most commonly used pesticides are potentially cancer causing. Some pesticides cannot be washed off with water, as has been previously believed.

Around 31,000 tonnes of chemicals are used annually by farmers in the UK to kill weeds, insects and other pests that attack crops. In 2004, around 40% of the fruit, vegetable and bread samples tested in the UK contained measurable amounts of pesticides.

There is very little control over the way these potentially dangerous chemicals are used and in what quantities or combinations in the non-organic farming sector.

The Food Standards Agency now recognises that the vast majority of people do not want pesticides in their food.

Modern pesticides have a devastating effect on the environment. Added to that are the very real uncertainties about the actual effectiveness of official safety regulation of pesticides. Yet unbelievably their use is allowed to continue unabated despite the fact that some of the enormous risks to human health are virtually unknown.

By way of a comparison with modern, intensive farming methods, where a cocktail of pesticides are used on arable land and the crops that we commonly eat, organic farmers with the Soil Association are allowed to use (and then only as a last resort) a mere four of the 350 pesticides that are in use. Although two of these chemicals are strictly controlled, the Soil Association wants to take this further and are actually phasing out one of these completely.

All the more reason for everybody to stand up and say a resounding “NO MORE” to non-organic produce and force governments and the farming industry into changing the way they operate completely, before it’s too late.

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food

Natural and Organic Food has been given some Google love in the form of a PR2, which came as a bit of a surprise as I haven’t been promoting this site as much as some of my others, but a nice surprise nevertheless.

I’m sure it has a lot to do with the amount of good quality content in here and less to do with the eternal scrabble to obtain back-links from other sites that most marketing bloggers seem to be hell-bent on. Ah well, sometimes it’s good to take things at an easy pace and let things like this happen when they happen!

As for this site in general, I’ve not gone overboard in trying to turn it into a money making machine as it’s not really that sort of site. True, there are a few affiliate books and other bits and bobs here and there that I’ve put up to earn a few dollars from it so it can pay its way and justify my time in looking after it. But in the end, there are my other higher profile sites that can do that much more effectively. That leaves this place to run at a nice, sedate pace - which fits in nicely with an organic lifestyle!

So don’t despair if you notice the odd advertising banner appear here and there - it’s not a sign that tons more will follow, just me trying to make an honest buck from my writing and blogging.

Lastly, hows this for a neat organic tip:

If you’re worried about burning wood in a stove because of the CO2 emissions, don’t. If left to rot naturally in the wild, that lump of wood will give off exactly the same amount of CO2 as it decomposes naturally as it would if your burned it, so in actual fact you are not doing the environment any more damage by burning it and actually saving on other non-renewable sources of fuel like oil.

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food