Wednesday 17 August 2016

Digna Love - Two Things to Pay Attention to when Buying Organic Foods

Digna Love studies alternative health at Everglades University. She is very health-conscious, and does her best to buy organic food whenever she can.

There are two important things you want to pay attention to when you start buying organic foods.

The first one is the name of the farm that your food is coming from. This is important because different farms may have different soils, and different farmers will have different techniques, which will make even the same foods taste differently.

Digna Love


The second one is the names of the varieties of produce that you buy. For example, there are multiple varieties of nectarines and apples. You want to keep track of what you buy and make notes about the varieties that you like most.

Today, even big chains like Whole Foods are specifying the variety of the crops and name of the farm that a crop is coming from. If you are shopping at a farmers’ market and the description tag doesn’t mention the variety, ask the seller about it. Most small farmers come to farmers’ markets themselves, and striking a conversation is a great way to meet the person that is growing your food, and learn more about the food and the farm that grows it.

Not all varieties of foods grow in all parts of the United States. You can also talk to your local farmers about the varieties that they grow, and their reasons for choosing those varieties. While conventional, non-organic farmers mostly care about yields and size of the crop, organic farmers are much more likely to choose foods that have distinct flavors, and a great nutritional value. This is why Digna Love does her research before buying the food for herself and her family.

Thursday 4 August 2016

Digna Love - On Why Organic Foods Taste Differently

Digna Love grew up in St. Lucia, and as a kid had a piece of land behind her home, where she and her brothers farmed corn and coffee.

One of the things that you need to understand about organic foods is that even the same varieties of organic foods will taste differently. Organic farming isn’t about standardization of everything and anything. Organic farming is focused on strengthening natural ecological properties of the land. Different soils have different features and peculiarities about them. Organic farmers do not use any chemicals, and foods from different farmers grown on different kinds of soils will taste differently. Also, the fertility of the soils of organic farms is usually improved by adding decaying organic matter to it, such as manure and compost.

Returning manure and plant waste into the soil is also a natural thing to do. By doing so, organic farmers complete the cycle of natural biological recycling, and the soil gets more nutrients, passing more of them to plants and livestock.

The differences in flavors of organic foods also occur because of different farming practices used by different farmers. For example, one tomato grower may choose to keep the side shoots that arise in the stems, while another may be removing them on a regular basis.

This is why you want to know who grows your food and how they do it. No matter what the advertising from the big corporations is trying to convey, you and only you should be the sole judge of what tastes good to you, and what foods you choose to eat. The real tastemakers and trendsetters have always been the people who didn’t care much about what the majority was telling them to do. This is why Digna Love chooses healthy, organic foods, and doesn’t pay much attention to advertising from big corporations.