Recently I read an alarming statistic in the Rough Guide to Food regarding organic products. It wasn’t anything to do with environment, or cruelty to animals or anything else to shock us into action. But it was so shocking in its simplicity that I had to act on it because of this: organic food contains 40 percent more nutrients and antioxidants than commercially produced food.
When you think about the implications of that a whole new world of consumption opens up. If it’s more nutritious does that mean you need less of it? Would it help you to lose weight? How much more energy would you have with all those extra vitamins floating around your body? And how would it affect your mood?
With all these tantalising questions hanging in the air there was nothing for it but to test the theory. There’s an organic supermarket two blocks from where I live (Veritas) and an organic fruit and veg store just down the road. There’s also an organic vegetable box delivery service in the barrio if it gets too hot to make it outside. I know this because a friend of mine recently signed up for it fearful of what he was putting in his now solid-eating baby. We’ll do it for our kids it seems, but not for ourselves.
And so I embark on my organic journey, initially for a month, to see what happens. I’ll probably have some restrictions in terms of what I eat at home (I abandoned a plan to apply this to dinners out on the basis that I could only think of three or four places that fit the remit), but maybe, just maybe, it will change my life.
If anyone wants to join me, I’d love to hear what you have to say too.