So every once in a while I wander into subjects that I think are important, that I really know nothing

about. This week, this is one of those. I want to talk about a subject and not really give you opinion, but

just tell you some facts and let you draw your own conclusions. I think it is important to talk about it,

and like old men at the barber shop, we will talk about it, but probably don’t completely understand

everything there is to know. Organic gardening.

Organic gardening and non-organic gardening and general vegetable growing. Here is what I know…(this

will be short).

1. Our fruits and vegetables contain less nutrients than they did 20 years ago. There are studies on

this. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/. They mainly

attribute this to soil depletion, and crafting the vegetables to be perfect (size, growth rate, and

use of pesticides and herbicides.)

2. Organically grown produce is not significantly more dense in nutrients than their conventional

counterparts

3. Herbicides kill plants (weeds) and pesticides kill insects (animals).

4. Both organic farmers and conventional farmers are allowed to use both pesticides and

herbicides.

5. Organic farmers are NOT allowed to use synthetic pesticides.

6. There are exceptions to every rule and some synthetic chemicals are approved for organic

gardening.

7. There are organic pesticides that are way more potent and harmful than their synthetic

counterpart. 

8. Fruits and vegetables are full of good things. (despite being less rich then they were 20 years

ago.)

9. The amount of pesticides on a conventional strawberry is 8,180 times less of the chemical per

day than the EPA’s daily limit.

10. Thiabendazole is the most common pesticide used on apples. The amount you find on a serving

of apples is 787 times less than the EP’s recommended exposure limit. Think about it like this,

you would have to have 878 servings of apples a day to reach the EPA’s limit of pesticides for

the day.

What does all this mean? I am not a scientist or a doctor. But my take away from this is that organic

farming is good. I think it definitely has it’s place. But if you have to choose between conventional

produce and no produce, I choose non-organic. That is me. I think the benefits of eating fruits and

vegetables FAR outweigh the risks. Once again, this is my opinion. I recommend that you research

and come to your own determination.

Here is another great article for research.