The Collegian

Issue date: 3/13/08 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Liz Essley

Media Credit: Liz Essley

Media Credit: Liz Essley

Media Credit: Liz Essley

Media Credit: Liz Essley

Media Credit: Liz Essley

Eating organic foods provides a healthier and tastier diet that's hard to beat - at least, that's what Hillsdale students would say.

People begin eating organic foods for a variety of reasons. Junior Anna Johnson's family moved to organic foods when she attended high school because it helped with the family's diabetes. It was an easier route for Johnson and her mother because they both have diabetes, she said.

"Organic foods help you to control your blood sugar because of the lack of hormones," Johnson said.

Over time, it also became an issue of principle for Johnson. Buying organic food helps local farmers and does not put as much strain on the soil, she said.

"It's the concept of good stewardship," she said.

Junior Rebekah Wilhelm's family prefers to buy locally as well, because they like knowing where their food comes from.

"We know the people who own the stand where we buy our corn," Wilhelm said.
At school, Wilhelm said she continues to find local produce. She regularly buys eggs from Aide to the Director of Voluntarism Marsha Boemke.

"They're so yellow, they're practically orange," she said.

For Beth Flowers-Mapes, an employee at Hillsdale Natural Grocery, organic foods constitute a part of medicine.

Flowers-Mapes said she had cancer at one point and the doctors told her they could not help her. Instead, she looked for an alternative and found it at Back to Basics, a naturopathic medicine center outside of Hillsdale. The center practices a holistic and natural approach to medicine, including a healthy diet.

After several months working with the naturopathic doctor, Flowers-Mapes said she was healed. Now Flowers-Mapes has apprenticed with the center and hopes to hold her own naturopathic business.

"I really felt that I stumbled onto my path," Flowers-Mapes said.

The value of organic foods comes from its nutrients, Flowers-Mapes said.

"Our body was designed to absorb nutrients from plants and animals," she said.
"Processing can really take away from the nutrients that are in the foods."

Not only are there fewer nutrients in wholesale foods, but they also containn unhealthy pesticides, Wilhelm said.

"People have been eating food not treated with artificial pesticides for a really long time," Wilhelm said.

But after all the moral and health reasons for people to eat organic, its finer taste can be the deciding factor. Wilhelm said she got interested in cooking at age 14 once her family moved to natural foods.

Johnson agreed that it tastes better. Buying locally adds nuances to the taste of meats and milk depending on what the local cows have been fed, Johnson said.

"It's just the depth of flavor," she said. "There's more personality to it."

Organic foods also offer variety to cooking. Flowers-Mapes said people often come to the natural grocery store to find rare spices not sold in the supermarket.

But the benefits of organic foods come with a cost. Though the organic foods industry is valued at $40 billion, it is still not mainstream enough to make eating organic cheap.

This cost makes it difficult to eat natural foods regularly, Wilhelm said. During school, eating organic becomes untenable, she said.

But Wilhelm said it's not easy going back to non-organic foods.

"It's so hard to go back to other food once you've had real food," she said.

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