A cookie is a cookie regardless if it is organic, natural, gluten-free, local, etc.  There are so many popular words and phrases used in conjunction with our food that it is easy to be fooled into thinking our food is something that it’s not.

A recent article talked about a new study which shows that “organic” labels often skew people’s perception about the food in ways that might lead to overconsumption and weight gain.  The article goes on to say that people often associate “organic” with healthiness, which may cause people to eat a larger quantity of organic foods (regardless of what the food is) because it is thought to be healthy.

The problem with this is that there are a lot of  junk foods labeled “organic”, which may be misunderstood as health foods.  For example, an organic cookie may be thought of as healthy since it is organic.  In reality a cookie is still a cookie made up of calories, fat and little nutritional value.  While I do think that eating an organic cookie is a better option than a non-organic cookie by no means is an organic cookie a healthy food to overindulge in.

Here is an example of two different brands of a similar cookie:

Organic Cookie: 140 Calories, 7 g total fat, 1 g fiber, 11 g sugar

Regular Cookie: 107 Calories, 5 g total fat, 0 g fiber, 9 g sugar

In this situation the regular cookie is actually lower in calories than the organic cookie.  This is not always the case but just beware that the label “organic” does not always mean healthier.

Organic simply means that the food is not treated with synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, and animals raised organically are not given hormones or drugs to promote more rapid growth.  Personally, I think organic means the food is more like how it is meant to be – from the earth into our mouths – without a whole bunch of interference.

Bottom Line: Eating organic is a healthy habit but “organic” on the label does not miraculously make that food healthy.  There is no substitution for a diet mostly filled with fruits, vegetables, and whole grains – organic or not!

Love,

Renee

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 4:39 am and is filed under Blog, Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.