Organic Food and Locally Grown Food: Are They the Same?

Organic meals mela

Image by Hari Prasad Nadig
Organic meals mela that happened at Lalbagh last month.

Organic Meals and Locally Grown Meals: Are They the Identical?

In the U.K., shoppers are gobbling up organic food by the bushel. In reality, according to the Organic Centre Wales, “Direct sales of organic food by means of box schemes, farmers’ markets and farm shops grew by much more than a third to L144 million for the duration of 2004.” And those numbers have continued to rise as customers grow to be increasingly concerned about the lengthy-term effects of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides utilized on crops grown by non-organic farms. While most folks agree that organic food is preferable over non-organic, a debate has begun about the source of organic foods. For example, is imported organic food as desirable as UK organic food?

Making the Case for Nearby Organic Meals

Those on one particular side of the debate insist it doesn’t matter where organic food is grown rather, the crucial element is that the food meets stringent standards to ensure that it is actually organic. These on the other side of the debate are equally vehement that locally grown organic food is preferable to imported organic food, each since the fossil fuels utilised to transport imported organic meals add to global warming and because UK organic meals supports nearby farmers.

Advocates say that you can find UK organic meals at an organic farm shop, or even arrange for organic meals delivery appropriate to your door. You can even uncover organic fish, such as organic trout from an organic fish farm. There, the organic trout could reside in 400-year-old spring water and eat organic shrimp that comes from organic watercress beds.

Those who favor importing organic food point out that an organic farm shop will only have seasonal foods, which severely limit the choices consumers have when preparing meals. Imported organic food, they say, retains its superior nutritional top quality although delivering a bountiful range of fruits and vegetables.

Some people, of course, take the middle ground, and opt to choose their foods from an organic farm shop when what they want is in season and shop for imported organic food the remainder of the year.

The Bottom Line

Men and women may possibly differ in their opinions about whether or not to limit one’s consumption of organic food to that grown locally, but practically absolutely everyone agrees that organic fruits, organic vegetables, organic fish, and organic meats are preferable to these that are grown with chemical fertilizers, insecticides, and fungicides.

At the moment, non-organic growers are authorized to use over 1,000 chemical substances on crops. This translates into almost everything from soil erosion due to over-farming to unsafe toxic runoff into our drinking water. Growing food organically is a way to reverse this trend. With more than 700,000 hectares dedicated to UK organic food, farmers are trying to meet consumer demand. Still, some markets import nearly half of the organic food they sell. As for who will win the debate more than locally grown organic meals vs. imported organic meals, only time will tell.

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