Introduction
Living in a modern industrialized world requires having healthy eating habits. One of the sustainable options is to rely on organic food. Organic food is food that is environmentally friendly without using synthetic materials, pesticides, and genetically modified organisms (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2022). In addition, an essential characteristic of organic food is that sustainable farming practices should protect the environment and prevent soil degradation and desertification. This essay will explore organic products using an academic peer-reviewed article. Such an overview will help us understand how organic products differ from traditional food created using artificial processing.
Summary of Literature
The article under discussion presents the literature review on the impact of organic products on human health. The article’s main argument is that the studies on the role of organic food in human health are limited (Mie et al., 2017). Natural food consumers prefer to combine it with other valuable activities such as regular exercise and healthy sleep. At the same time, experimental methods cannot provide coherent results due to the impossibility of analyzing long-term influences.
Nevertheless, the literature shows that “organic food consumption may reduce the risk of allergic disease and of overweight and obesity” (Mie et al., 2017, p. 15). In addition, epidemiological studies report minor adverse effects of certain popular pesticides on children’s cognitive development. It seems that it is an indisputable fact that organic food is better than conventional food, although it is often hard to measure the extent.
Impact on the Healthcare Field
The impact of academic research on organic products in healthcare significantly influences this field in several ways. Firstly, research allows physicians to create a database of the impact of food quality on the health of various populations. As a result, such knowledge contributes to better, evidence-based dietary recommendations given to clients. Secondly, scholars may formulate the standards of what can be called an “organic product.”
As described in the article by Mayo Clinic Staff (2022), the US Department of Agriculture sets strict regulations that require satisfactory food quality and sustainable farming practices. These certified labels to products make it easier for healthcare professionals to prescribe organic products. Finally, studies that use traditional agricultural food consumers as control groups in experiments often reveal potential health risks associated with certain foods. Therefore, organic products may be used as a substitution for traditional products.
Personal Remarks on the Topic
Reading the literature on organic foods has generated a lot of thought about the costs and benefits of eating organic foods. The controversial aspect is that a narrow healthcare approach may be misleading in the broader view. On the one hand, it is impossible to deny that organically grown products will always be better than traditional ones.
At the same time, contemporary research rarely shows the extent of this influence in the larger picture of contemporary consumption. For example, organic food is often more expensive than traditional food (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2022). The question arises of the advisability of increasing the budget for the purchase of products by reducing spending on healthcare and education. Therefore, there is a problem with the lack of such broad perspectives in the sociological analysis of incomes in various population groups. There may be a situation where the benefits of organic products are so negligible that it would be better to save money on products and spend more on other areas.
Conclusion
To conclude, organic food is a popular topic in healthcare research. This topic is related to many other scientific areas, such as theories of sustainable development, government regulation, and agricultural production. Overall, academic research shows that organic food positively impacts physique, health, and cognitive development during childhood. Detailed knowledge of such studies is helpful for medical professionals. However, a broader analysis of the consumption of organic products in everyday life is needed.
References
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2022). Organic foods: Are they safer? More nutritious? Mayo Clinic. Web.
Mie, A., Andersen, H. R., Gunnarsson, S., Kahl, J., Kesse-Guyot, E., Rembiałkowska, E.,… & Grandjean, P. (2017). Human health implications of organic food and organic agriculture: a comprehensive review. Environmental Health, 16(1), 1-22. Web.