Shop Healthy: Conventional, Organic and Biodynamic Foods Explained

What are the differences between conventional, organic and biodynamic foods? We see these labels so often in grocery stores, they seem to blend together and it is often less than clear what each label really means.

You know the importance of good nutrition and want to feed yourself and your family the best food possible. To make it easier, we clearly outline the differences below buying conventionally grown products from any old farm, versus organics versus biodynamics in this easy guide:

1. Conventional: foods grown with modern farming methods that include using toxic chemicals, poisonous fertilizers and even genetically engineered frankenfoods.
   Conventionally grown foods can and do make people sick. Further, they are contained within processed foods, which aren’t really foods as far as our bodies are concerned because they are cooked, overcooked, fortified with artificial vitamins and made to sit on a shelf without rotting.
2. Organic: foods that are grown without toxic pesticides or fertilizers.
   Not too long ago, perhaps 15 years in the past, organic foods were grown by people who cared about the environment. They wanted a clean, pure and nontoxic way of eating not only to improve and nourish the health of people and animals, but also the earth.  

   Now the organics industry is heavily tainted. Once the big conventional food companies discovered that millions were buying organics they wanted in on the action, so they started buying up small organics companies such as Celestial Seasonings, Horizon, Cascadian Farms and so forth. But big companies have small minds, so they cannot really understand and appreciate the importance of keeping chemicals out of people, animals and the environment. Bottom line: they cheat. They have bought most of the big organics companies and have ever since been working to bend the rules, change laws, change the meanings of labels and even lie. Can you trust organics any more? Not unless you do your homework.

3. Biodynamics: this is your best bet when it comes to wholesome, clean food.
   According to Organic Consumers Organization (which, at this writing, is an excellent, caring group that promotes biodynamics and trustworthy organics), “We gain our physical strength from the process of breaking down the food we eat. The more vital our food, the more it stimulates our own activity. Thus, Biodynamic farmers and gardeners aim for quality, and not only quantity.”

Read more about the Biodynamic farming process on Wikipedia.

A few more statements from the Organic Consumers Association:

“Chemical agriculture has developed short-cuts to quantity by adding soluble minerals to the soil. The plants take these up via water, thus by-passing their natural ability to seek from the soil what is needed for health, vitality and growth. The result is a deadened soil and artificially stimulated growth. Naturally occurring plant and animal materials are combined in specific recipes in certain seasons of the year and then placed in compost piles. These preparations bear concentrated forces within them and are used to organize the chaotic elements within the compost piles. When the process is complete, the resulting preparations are medicines for the Earth which draw new life forces from the cosmos…Two of the preparations are used directly in the field, one on the earth before planting, to stimulate soil life, and one on the leaves of growing plants to enhance their capacity to receive the light. Effects of the preparations have been verified scientifically.”1

“In his Agriculture course, Rudolf Steiner [father of biodynamic farming] posed the ideal of the self-contained farm – that there should be just the right number of animals to provide manure for fertility, and these animals should, in turn, be fed from the farm.

“We can seek the essential gesture of such a farm also under other circumstances. It has to do with the preservation and recycling of the life-forces with which we are working. Vegetable waste, manure, leaves, food scraps, all contain precious vitality which can be held and put to use for building up the soil if they are handled wisely. Thus, composting is a key activity in Biodynamic work.

“The farm is also a teacher, and provides the educational opportunity to imitate natures wise self-sufficiency within a limited area. Some have also successfully created farms through the association of several parcels of non-contiguous land.”1

Sources:

1. Biodynamic Food & Farming, What is Biodynamics? Organic Consumers Association, 2008