by Louisa Grasso, Founder and MD of Healthy & Delicious
Vegan on Female First
The word organic, as we know it today, was to me while growing up simply a way of life; one that both my maternal and paternal grandparents and the generations before them had lived by.
I grew up in England but would return to Italy each year to spend the long hot summer holidays of my childhood on the family farm.
One of the same farms we use today at Healthy and Delicious for our own grown products, which we produce using the same old traditions.
It was during these long summers that I learnt to understand and appreciate the way of life my parents had grown up with. Fruit and vegetables were always seasonal and planted, grown and harvested. I watched each crop from the moment of plantation to the second it reached my plate. The fruits and vegetables were preserved in jars and at Healthy & Delicious we use this same method to preserve our tomato sauce.
As a child I would watch the entire production process on the farm. The land was ploughed and fertilised with the manure from the cows and the pigs reared later became prosciutto. Flour was made from the grain harvested all year, which was also eaten by the chickens that ran wild and laid eggs. I was forced to drink one of these eggs every morning; salmonella was not a word that passed my grandmother or grandfather's lips! It was a far cry from the scares and worries of food consumption today.
This organic way of life wasn't exclusive to Italy. I remember the arrival of May and the days spent raspberry picking in England. It's hard to imagine such a day with ever increasing pesticide concerns.
There was this interconnectedness between the food and the person eating it, which one rarely gets today. There are however, organizations such as the soil association who are working towards this end. My memories may seem romantic, but they are accurate representations of farming life forty years ago. Today Healthy & Delicious, like other companies, use traditional farming methods and we work with local Italian farms to support communities and businesses that fall outside the mainstream. Like many like-minded organizations and individuals who want organic to be a way of life, we choose quality and value over profit.
Aside from this, there are a few other reasons why you should go organic….
Firstly, it prevents health risks from industrial chemicals. There are over 3,800 brands of insecticide, herbicide and fungicide approved for use in the UK. Some fruit and vegetables are sprayed as many as ten times before reaching supermarket shelves. At Healthy & Delicious, we grow all our crops on a farm in a protected national park in Basilicata, Southern Italy. We go to extreme lengths to ensure our vegetables never meet a chemical.
Organic vegetables boost your mineral and vitamins intake. Our tomatoes are grown in the perfect conditions, facing towards the East and are planted in extremely rich and fertile land. We, therefore, lock in all their natural goodness so when they reach the customer they're still packed with vitamins and minerals.
With an increased reliance on pesticides, farms have been able to grow in size but have cut back on labour. This is slowly destroying rural economies, so by going organic you can help save them.
Organic food tastes better. Your taste buds can tell if something is organically farmed. As a result of our organic farming methods, our vegetables have more flavour-enhancing nutrients and a lower concentration of sugars and water.
Conventional farming methods mean that anything that threatens the maximum yield of crop being produced is killed. Organic farming promotes diversity in the environment. We use traditional farming methods to grow Healthy & Delicious crops, as a result we contribute to biodiversity.
Organic is the only alternative. It's hard to ignore everything you hear in the press whether it be genetic mutation, water pollution, unacceptable suffering of farm animals and so organic is the answer.
Tagged in Organic