Organic foods from GoodnessDirect

We stock over 2,000 certified organic products and the range is growing fast! By choosing organic, you can be assured that the food on your plate has not contributed to poisoning wildlife or damaging the environment with chemical residues. Organic food has been shown to be more nutritious than conventionally grown food, and it tastes better too.

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Why Organic?

For a total approach to healthy, natural and nutritious eating, organically grown foods are definitely the answer.

Organic foods are free from harmful contaminants and are grown without recourse to artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides. Organic farming is concerned with building up a thriving, living soil in which a dynamic balance between harmful and beneficial organisms emerges. This lends itself to strong and nutritious crops as well as avoiding the steady destruction of our farmlands which results from intensive agricultural farming methods.

Organic Farming
The main points which distinguish organic farming are:

No artificial fertilizers are used.

No synthetic sprays are used.

Livestock is kept in as natural conditions as possible (e.g. "free range" hens) with no additives such as growth hormones in feed.

Treatment of crops is by natural means - compost, animal manure, clovers and deep-rooting herbs are used.

Crop rotation is practiced to discourage disease and to avoid the starving of farmlands which occurs when the same crop is grown every year.

Why not Chemical Fertilizers?
If we dose our crops with artificial fertilizers, we are systematically reducing the life in the soil. Farming is extractive and soil organic matters are falling.

Many of the chemical fertilizers applied to crops ultimately find their way into watercourses where they encourage abundant weed growth; choking other aquatic organisms. Much of our drinking water supplies are now so contaminated by nitrate pollution that the EC and World Health Organisations standards say it is unfit to drink.

Why not Insecticides and Fungicides?
In 1950 there were only 15 insecticides and fungicides in common use in agriculture. By 1975 this had mushroomed to 800 chemical formulations. In 1986 there were 1000 commercial applications cleared for use in the UK under the Pesticides Safety Precaution Scheme.

You would assume that at least insect damage would be decreasing. In fact, this is not so; the problem is increasing each year! In brief, this is due to the fact that in killing a particular pest insect with pesticide, the insects which are their predators also begin to die off. The resistant individuals of the original breed who have survived the insecticides will now proliferate unchecked, so increasing the overall insect population.

What is the effect on our Foods?
Food produced with the aid of chemicals can contain up to 20% more water than organically produced foods due to the fact that fertilizers promote a lusher growth with a higher moisture content. This explains the tastelessness of much of our non-organic food.

The higher water content also means that moulds will grow more readily on foods produced by intensive farming methods. Also, organic produce is less likely to shrivel when stored and will therefore retain its quality more effectively.

Schupan discovered that nutritionally valuable substances were generally higher in organic products; protein by about 18%, Vitamin C by 28%, total sugars 19%, methionine 23%, potassium 18%, calcium 10% and phosphate 13%.

So Organics Win?
Yes! Organic Farming enables a maintenance of the natural environment and soil composition. Insect population and wildlife retain their natural balance and life-cycles, whilst food products will be free from artificial and chemical contaminants. Organic foods are generally higher in nutritional value, tastier and more enjoyable.