00:00There's a growing number of people who are making the switch to organic food, but what
00:11is organic and is it healthier?
00:14Organic food is, it's a range of whether it's fresh or ambient products that are certified
00:19organic so it means that from the growing process, whether that's an animal or a carrot,
00:24everything within that process has been certified organic.
00:28Organic food is a way of life, it is the way we should be eating, it's the way food was
00:34grown originally before we added all the shortcuts to produce food the way we want it to be produced
00:40not the way it should be grown.
00:41So if you have organic food you will have less additive, less coloring, less chemicals,
00:51added chemicals let's say, to your body and that's why organic food, yes it's much better
00:58to health in general.
01:00Organic basically means that you grow as close to nature as possible and the produce that
01:05you grow absorbs natural nutrients that you would find in the wild.
01:10These nutrients are absorbed by the roots of the plants and go directly into the crop.
01:16So if you want genuine produce that is full of nutrients you have to go and buy them from
01:23a farm that grows slowly and from natural nutrients that are produced by animal manures
01:30that are turned into compost and crop left over.
01:33So there's a lot of labor involved into creating the right atmosphere in which you can grow
01:39genuine organic produce.
01:41We have set up a business that grows their own vegetable on our very own farm which is
01:45located in Jaja just off the Kalba road and we harvest freshly all our products each morning
01:52and sell them in our own shop to individual clients and to other businesses.
01:57I met a very good engineer who is now my business partner along the way and together we developed
02:02techniques and growing methods to adjust knowledge that we both had to the desert location and
02:11you have to completely rethink everything that you know because it's a completely different
02:16setting.
02:17So you have to create soil, you have to create your own seeds in a way.
02:22So we grow heirloom produce, we collect our own seeds, we adjust them slowly to the local
02:28growing conditions which is a very important part of our work.
02:32We choose the types of vegetables that we grow very carefully.
02:36So for instance to grow beetroot in the desert is very difficult.
02:40So we tried more than 20 different types of beetroot to find the varieties that do really
02:45well here.
02:46The organic industry has certain musts that have to be met before a product can carry
02:49an organic label.
02:50However, there is a wide range of organic labels and their practices vary from standard
02:55to standard.
02:56You could have for example the US under one standard.
03:00So that's when the US came up with their standard, USDA.
03:02The Europeans collectively came up with the EU standard.
03:05So what happened there was you had many different standards.
03:09Now to get it all under one hat you generally tend to have to go for the lowest common denominator.
03:14So obviously you don't want to have some things that are not acceptable so you knock
03:17those out.
03:18But you end up having the original standards which were quite high and then some other
03:22ones which were a little bit lower and then you tend to have the common standard which
03:27tends to be a step below because it has to cover such a big range of countries or states
03:35or producers.
03:36It doesn't necessarily mean that it won't have been given some form of pesticides or
03:42otherwise.
03:43They would all be allowed under the certification body and each country has their own certification
03:48body.
03:49So whether the soil association in the UK or the FDA in the US and of course locally
03:55there's also a certification body here.
03:57If I wanted to I could put berries farmed in 12 hours flight from here, fertilized by
04:08fish meal which is a limited resource, sprayed with sulfur and copper oxide chloride, picked
04:14by immigrant workers, packed in plastic punnets, flown halfway around the world, grown purely
04:20for money and I would get the organic standard.
04:24If you're using that as your insurance to something that is a very healthy product or
04:28a more naturally grown product because obviously within organic you'll also get whether it's
04:33chocolates or cereals, it just means that the ingredients are organic, it doesn't mean
04:40that you're going to lose weight on them so that's one thing that people have to remember
04:43just because it's organic doesn't necessarily mean it's diet.
04:47It has the same amount of sugar, it has the same amount of carbs so read whatever you
04:53want to buy because at the end organic food can lead to obesity if you didn't know how
04:58much you're having.
04:59When I shop I always try to read the label as much as I can, yes absolutely, and obviously
05:03also looking at the origin of the countries as well, that also impacts on my choice.
05:08I feel that I'll pay too much money for, maybe I'm wrong, but for nothing.
05:13Would you buy organic if it was the same price?
05:17Yeah, sure, if the same price, sure.
05:19I mean I try to buy as much organic like fruit and produce as I can just because you keep
05:27reading things about the chemicals and I have an autoimmune disease and how everything
05:32affects your body so I try within limits if it's not too expensive.
05:38It costs more to grow it and therefore it's a much slower process, if you can imagine
05:44if you're growing organically, the land itself must be organic so when they start there's
05:48a huge investment, it's transition so you may have up to two to five years to change
05:54a conventional farm over to organic.
05:56It also tastes better, at the end of the day it's down to a more natural product, if there's
06:02less put into the product then obviously it's natural goodness shines through so it's worth
06:07the money.
06:08It's healthier than the conventional, definitely, by miles.
06:12You haven't had the agrochemicals and you haven't had the processing chemicals so with
06:15those chemicals gone, of course it's a lot healthier.
06:18Then you've got the flip side of it and then say, okay but what about the actual nutrition
06:21that's in it, not what's added.
06:23So the nutrition that's in it, then I would pick Demeter every day.
06:26So Demeter then we're talking in harmony with nature, with great soil, with compost, there
06:32you're getting premium quality and high amounts of nutrition, so high nutrition density.
06:37So if you go for the minimum organic standard you take out the bad, if you go for the highest
06:42organic standard you've taken out the bad and you're adding the good.
06:45Although organic food is healthier, the message from the experts is consumers should still
06:49read the labels and really look into where their food is coming from.
06:53I'm Sara Vigarampaya, Golf News.
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