Which is better: Organic or pesticide-free?

When you purchase foods or supplements, lots of you look for the organic label, mostly because you want foods that are not grown with pesticides or other chemical substances. But, are you getting what you are paying for?

It depends… What you are about to read may surprise you.

Organic foods are certified by several different organizations with various levels of strictness, and organic certification means different things in different countries. Europe for example has much more comprehensive standards for organic certification than we have here in the US.

Here is what you need to know: from a practical standpoint, there is no universal standard for what organic really means. in fact, in many cases, the organic label is unfortunately little more than a marketing tool. It can mean very little.

On the other hand, the claim that a product is pesticide-free is another matter entirely. While it does not sound as impressive as organic, it actually is a qualifiably better claim. Let us explain.

While the organic label is just a certification, claiming something is pesticide-free means that someone has examined it in a lab and eliminated the possibility of pesticides.

In other words, while claiming a product is organic just means a farm has passed a test, claiming a product is pesticide-free is a scientific determination.

Let’s say that the organic farm sits by a farm that is not organic and uses crop dusting. The produce from that farm may be certified organic but it is absolutely not pesticide-free. The same would be true if an organic farm is downstream from a water source that has pesticides in it.

While this nuance is important when considering food, it is also important in the realm of health supplements. We bring this up because pesticide testing is one of many tests that Nature’s Sunshine does on all applicable ingredients. This allows you to know for sure that you are not consuming pesticides.

We like science more than marketing spin at Caring Sunshine. That is why we prefer the pesticide-free claim over any organic claim.

And that is a big difference between Nature’s Sunshine and other brands. Depending on an organic certification is common; actually putting a product under a microscope is going the extra mile.