THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIC FOOD ON INDIVIDUAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Abstract

In the time we live in, we face the problems of preserving the environment, pollution, and global warming daily, which considerably affects the quality of an individual’s life and nutrition. Industrialization, the automation of agricultural production, as well as the usage of mineral fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, additives, etc. in the production of food and nutritive products have greatly contributed to all these problems. Raising the community’s and individual end user’s awareness of the manifold negative ecological, economic, health-related and social consequences leads to greater popularization and consumption of organically produced food. This paper aims at researching the influence of organic production and organic food to people’s lives, environment, and society, as well as at establishing the degree to which the pesticides and antibiotics that are used in food production are detrimental to human health. Using the analysis of costs and benefits of producing organic and conventional food, we determine the difference between the food produced in these two ways, as well as the advantages and disadvantages thereof. This paper also explores the so called “hidden expenses” that societies and states need to bear when providing medical care, conducting researches, and treating the diseases caused by exposure of a modern man to the negative characteristics of conventional food production.