Organics: More Than Meets the Eye
The next time you’re at the grocery, pick up a conventionally grown apple and an organically grown apple. Smell them. While the organic apple will be more fragrant, there won’t be much difference in the way they look.
But what you can’t see can hurt you.
Pesticides – in “conventionally grown” fruits and veggies – are powerful endocrine disruptors. They affect your delicate hormonal system – which, in turn, affects everything from your weight and mood to your risk of cancer and infertility. And most Americans eat over a gallon of these health-harming chemicals each year.
Pesticides (and other endocrine disruptors) are measured in nanometers (nM). Professor Michael Mackay helps put the miniscule size of these compounds into perspective by using a Post-It note.
Hold a 3 x 3 inch Post-It note out in front of you – at arm’s length. Now imagine how small that Post-It would look if it were halfway around the world from the spot where you are standing. Pretty small, huh? That is 3 nM – the size of one molecule of a pesticide.
In times of economic uncertainty, it’s smart to jettison unnecessary expenditures. But paying a little more for healthy food is not an unnecessary expense. Choose only organic produce, wild fish, and organic pastured meats to stay healthy, strong, and mentally balanced – no matter what the economy does.
Kelley Herring
Kelley Herring is the Founder & CEO of Healing Gourmet – a multimedia company that educates on how foods promote health and protect against disease. As a young adult, Kelley battled a debilitating health condition that went misdiagnosed by multiple doctors for more than a year. Finding no help from “modern medicine”, she turned to her own knowledge of biochemistry and her passion for health research. She soon learned that her symptoms were related to nutrition and within weeks, she charted a course back to health with nothing more than simple lifestyle changes and the power of the plate. The lessons she learned spawned the creation of Healing Gourmet. Kelley is a firm believer in vigorous exercise, moderate sun exposure and delicious, healthy, home-cooked meals. She is also the creator of Healing Gourmet’s Personalized Nutrition Software and Editor-in-Chief of the Healing Gourmet book series published by McGraw-Hill including Eat to Fight Cancer, Eat to Beat Diabetes, Eat to Lower Cholesterol and Eat to Boost Fertility.