As a health professional, I have to spend a couple of hours a day reading material related to health and fitness and the other day, I received an email from a colleague pertaining to the feeding of animals in some of our farms and in particular the fact that some of our industrialized food system consider chicken manure an acceptable source of protein in cattle feed. Now call me crazy, but the thought of eating a steak produced from an animal that has been fed in that way is not particularly attractive and needless to say, my first reaction was never to eat meat again, period! In spite of how advanced we think our society is with regards to consumption, hygiene and health, we seemingly have a long way to go!

In Europe and various other parts of the world for example, the mad cow disease phenomena has resulted in the toughening of laws pertaining to the rearing of animals and cattle. A much more informed consumer base has been more and more vocal in its demands for dairy and meat products from cattle that are hormone free and fed with biotech-free grain. As a result, animals cannot be reared with the use of antibiotics and growth hormones.

This trend has slowly paved the way for Organic Food, Organic Meat which is now becoming more and more popular in the list of grocery items in families.

Organic foods have to be produced according to various producing standards which for example prohibit the use of pesticides, human waste, artificial fertilizers and sewage sludge. In addition, the processing of organic food had to be accomplished without food addictives or ionizing radiation. Finally organic produce could not be genetically modified.

Now that this trend is becoming more established in our own supermarkets, we are also starting to see the introduction of a new line of nutritional supplements called organic vitamins, or organic multivitamins.

Organic multivitamins are manufactured with the highest quality control and are usually certified by Organic Certifiers in accordance with the USA-NOP National Organic Standards.

As health professional, I would recommend the use of such nutritional supplements over vitamins, minerals and herbs produced using conventional pre organic methods.