Organic does not mean unaffordable

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: HENCY THACKER
Organic food may sound like a fancy way to spend all your money, but it's not as expensive as you think and with a farmer's market on campus every Thursday, organic food is even easy to access.

Healthy eating is key to a happy heart. However, no matter how careful we are, it’s hard to stay healthy when we don’t know how our food is grown. Today, with the increase in global warming, we are fighting pollution, acid rain and more that as a consumer are out of our control.

Besides the pollution and global warming, most food grown today is sprayed with pesticides and other chemical fertilizers to prevent the crop from bugs and to increase growth speed to meet the growing market demand for fresh, out-ofseason products.

The food grown under such circumstances might not show immediate effects but in the long run, it does contribute to the weakening of the body’s immune system according to the World Resources Institute.

In North America, the growth of organic food is made possible with the use of greenhouses. They provide the food with a closed environment which protects it from pollution and other chemical substances. The growing of organic food has become so regulated that even if a bee or another bug has flown to a conventional farm and cross-pollinates the organic food, the food is no longer considered organic.

“We use the water that people use to drink to grow these food items and in order to avoid using the chemical substances, we use a fluorescent-scented tape to attract the bugs and catch them there. The temperature is being controlled to 74.5 to 80 degrees in the summer time which is the best time to harvest these crops,” said George Mravik, an organic farmer in London.

Since so much effort is involved in organic growing, organic foods tend to be more expensive. If you are a student who has to pay for tuition, student loans and other countless expenses, it becomes difficult to go organic.

However, it is better to pay a bit more to eat food that is healthier than to settle for food that is cheaper but potentially harmful to your body.

“It is not the food that we can cook at home that is too expensive. Ingredients, even if they are more expensive than the normal food, are not as expensive as [eating out],” said Kaylah Felker, an organic eater and a filmmaking student at Fanshawe.

Just like in many European countries, people can grow their own vegetables organically on their balconies in pots to prevent them from pollution.

In addition to growing your own garden, Walmart Canada has introduced a line of organic food at an affordable rate.

“The seasonal foods are cheaper than the other products. Hence, we can always buy them in bulk and store it for future use,” Felker said.

One can buy non-perishable food in bulk online. London has places like the Farmer’s Market where people can buy organic food at an affordable price as well.

To know for sure which crops are organic and which are not, a customer has a right to ask the seller to provide them with a certificate approved by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Either way, if one can budget carefully, it is not difficult to eat organic and stay healthy. And at the day end, nothing is more important than health your health, and investing in organic food is an easy way to do so.