organic meat and dairyAnd is Organic Livestock Important?

It is easy to see how eating organic produce and keeping those nasty pesticides and herbicides out of our kitchens and bodies is important. However, it can be easy to overlook how it is equally important to look for organic meat and dairy products. Animal products and by-products like eggs, milk, and yogurt are exposed to the same toxins as our produce and sometimes even more!

You Are What You Eat

You digest everything you eat, and every tiny molecule is analyzed, processed, and organized. Our bodies are amazing at knowing what to do with every part of the food we eat. The body is like a finely tuned machine and like a finely tuned machine; you have to take care of it. You would never pour pudding into your vehicle’s gas tank! Since your body breaks down every part of your food, you need every part of your food to be as clean as possible. Each cell of your body needs the fuel that food provides to function properly. If your food is laced with toxins or foreign substances, your body has to work very hard to ‘clean’ itself of these toxins or risk sickness.

What an Organic Seal Means for Meat & Dairy

Organic means the animals that the meat and dairy came from are raised organically. This means they are free from the chemicals that conventionally kept livestock are raised with such as:

  • Antibiotics
  • Bovine Growth Hormone (rbGH)
  • No genetically modified foods or food products
  • No products labeled as organic can have genes spliced
  • No test tube animals
  • Herbivores are not fed animal products or forced into cannibalism (a cause of Mad Cow Disease)
  • Clean housing and fresh pastures
  • Varied, natural diet

There is so much that goes into raising organic livestock; it goes so much further than simply being free from antibiotics. The rules to carry the Certified Organic seal for livestock are very strict, and the animals must be raised with freedom of movement and with green pasture among many other regulations. While it is better to raise an animal yourself to be certain what you are putting into your body and how that animal has been cared for, it’s not always practical or affordable. Whenever possible you want to buy locally and support your local organic farmer. This also makes it possible to check the farm out yourself. If it is not possible, then make sure the meat and dairy products you buy have an official organic seal and not only a sustainable farming seal. Sustainable farming (while admirable) and organic farming is not the same thing.

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