Balanced Meals

Fridges make our lives simple. More often than not, you find yourself freezing and refrigerating all kinds of food, sometimes for days on end. But when it comes to organic food, you should give cold storage a second thought if you want your food to retain flavor and freshness.

This week, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released an update to their annual Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 lists. These lists reveal produce with both the highest and lowest levels of pesticide residue, according to their methodology. The report looks more or less the same as last years guide, with strawberries claiming the unfortunate number one spot, edging out spinach and nectarines.

Consumers all over the world are becoming increasingly health conscious and are more than ever concerned about the quality of their food supply. Food is also crucial economically: Forbes magazine estimates that food is the worlds biggest industry, citing 2006 World Bank statistics that indicated that food represented about 10% of global gross domestic product, roughly $4.8 trillion dollars.

Some countries are known for consuming more organic food than others. Among the countries which had the highest organic per capita in 2016 were; Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, the United States, and Germany. The others included France, Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom, and China. Many of these countries have ready markets for organic groceries thus there is a need to increase supply to cope with the high demand.

The production of organic groceries has been on the rise over recent years. The processes used in organic food production prohibit the use of chemicals such as herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, antibiotics, and hormones, among others. Instead, organic production purely involves the use of natural resources which conserve biodiversity and protect the environment. Many countries are now using various organic methods to boost food production. However, the consumption of organic food varies from one country to another.