Eating Healthy Diets - Why it is so Important
Did you know that eating fresh, organic fruits and vegetables high in potassium and
other trace minerals is perhaps the best way to stay healthy, maintain
high immune levels, and keep your family out of the doctor's office? If you want to know the easiest way to stay out of the doctor's office, be sure to watch the video trailer and/or order a full length copy of the movie Food Matters at the bottom of this page.
Studies
have shown that eating healthy diets is becoming increasingly difficult in this country because our soils have become so nutrient depleted.
For over sixty years the industrial agriculture or "agri-business"
industry has simply dumped more synthetic nitrogen, phosphorous and
potassium on our soils to keep yields high. This practice along with
the use of pesticides, herbicides and over-tilling has left our soils
lacking many of the 24 micro-nutrients our bodies require for regular
day-to-day processes and basic human functions. Being deficient in just
a handful can lead to all sorts of problems - unfortunately most
Americans are now deficient in many. Our hunter-gatherer and agrarian
ancestors were most often not.
Other problems associated with our current food production & delivery model include:
- Lengthy
transport & storage times - 1,500 miles on average and close to ten
days since harvest (studies show that over 50% of the nutritional value
of food is lost during this time)
- An incredible
environmental cost to our planet due to all the inputs required - learn
more about the current carbon footprint of food and how having your own
garden can help.
- Vulnerability due
to it's dependency on fossil fuels for making synthetic fertilizers and the transportation and storage of our food.
- Excess
nitrogen and water used for growing mass produced crops leads to food
high in water content and low in nutrients and flavor. This even
applies to many large organic vegetable growers.
The best
way for us to begin eating healthy diets and to replenish our nutrient
deficiencies is to obtain our food from the closest source possible, and
make sure it is grown in the most nutrient-rich soil we can find.
Backyard Farmers makes both these objectives a reality by offering
homeowners the ability to grow their own food in a specially blended,
nutrient-rich soil.
When it
comes to children and healthy eating, nothing is more important for
their overall health than eating healthy diets rich in nutrient-dense
fruits and vegetables. Having these in your own garden and having your
children involved in the process makes them much more likely to develop
healthy eating habits from a young age by sampling the produce they help
grow.
Even
teenagers with attitude can bond with a garden - it gives them a place
to experiment and try new things. It opens their eyes to the importance
of growing their own food and being responsible for themselves and our
environment at the same time. It also instills a great work ethic and
gets them away from the computer and television and helps them absorb
the all important mood-enhancing and bone strengthening nutrient -
vitamin D. Exposing our children to fresh fruits and vegetables high in
potassium and other vitamins is perhaps the easiest step we can all
take. To learn more about the importance of potassium in the diet, see this article
According
to the experts, less than 6% of medical doctors in the U.S. spend any
time studying nutrition. They are instead trained to react to problems
with medicines instead of treating the body holistically with proper
diet (commonly practiced in Europe and many other parts of the world).
Yet we all know the best way to stay healthy is to eat right.
The recently produced and critically acclaimed movie, Food Matters offers
many compelling reasons why we should be eating more organically grown fresh fruits and vegetables - it's compelling: