Organic has become more of a buzzword than a way of life. In a campaign with InCampagna Malta and Virtu Ferries, The Sunday Times of Malta will be running a series of articles about eating food from the earth produced entirely by natural means.

Organic is a straightforward term which should really leave no room for interpretation. Yet, if you had to ask a random sample of people what organic food is all about, you are likely to get a few surprising answers which would make farmers going through the effort of growing crops naturally – without chemical or artificial intervention – raise their arms in despair.

Dispelling myth number one, organic is not just about buying fresh and local fruit and vegetables which have just been harvested, even if they are still dripping with dew. If that produce has been grown using conventional farming – which allows the use of artificial fertilisers in the soil and spraying of pesticides on the crop – it is certainly not organic.

The purpose of these articles is not a scientific one, going into how much pesticides can be applied on crops so as not to threaten consumers’ health or whether checks are being carried out to ensure that farmers do not go over permitted levels. It must be pointed out, however, that some of the increase in allergies, food intolerances and illnesses, sometimes even life threatening, can be attributed to the extent to which our food is being tampered with and modified.

How we got here is not very difficult to trace. To avoid hunger or food deprivation, food had to become affordable to all and the supply constant. Part of this entails making sure insects and other creatures don’t reach crops before they are ready to be harvested for the consumer.

Consumers have now become spoilt, and with the world increasingly becoming a global village, we now expect to be able to  eat anything from anywhere at any time of the year, in the name of variety.

No wonder the developed world has an obesity epidemic. Food has become plentiful and cheap enough to consume without limit, with no curiosity about what kind of practices have been used in its production and without even looking at the label on the package.

The blame can’t be laid simply on big companies for feeding us rubbish. It is also to do with the demand we create: with the signals we send to farmers, producers and food and drink companies by the food choices we make.

The bottom line is that most of the food we consume should be fresh, natural and unprocessed, having reached us with the minimum of artificial intervention. The first step for consumers to take is to read the labels and certifications, to take the time to learn where products come from, which are good and bad for us and what needs to be consumed in moderation.

Another step is to go with nature’s four seasons. Mediterranean people never died from being deprived of bananas and pineapples when they did not have the means to transport them from different continents. Neither did they need elaborate food which has been refined and processed who knows how many times over.

Numerous studies and the most influential healthcare professionals continue to tell us that the true Mediterranean diet is one of the best for health and longevity. This diet is a very basic one. Much of the food is eaten as nature intended it – raw.

The emphasis is on fresh fruit and vegetables – preferably organic – with the consumption of meat and fish restricted to amounts that should not require animals and fish to be fed hormones and antibiotics that make them grow big and fast.

The wisdom linked to food is to know where it comes from: the producers and their practices.

InCampagna Malta is an online platform (incampagna.com.mt) and importer of certified, organic, fresh fruit and vegetables and other artisan food which is guaranteed to be chemical free. It is now collaborating with Maltese farmers to create synergies with their Sicilian counterparts in order to ex-change knowledge and practices between the two islands, which share the same climatic challenges.

To help consumers get to know their producers personally, in collaboration with The Sunday Times of Malta, InCampagna Malta is organising regular tours of Maltese farms certified as organic or which are  registered with the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority to be in conversion, as well as to organic farms in Sicily. The aim is for consumers to learn more about what is really organic and meet the producers on their own land.

For more information visit incampagna.com.mt, the Facebook page InCampagna Malta or send an email to info@incampagna.com.mt.

Organic food is seasonal for the region and completely chemical free. To verify this, every seller should be able to provide the consumer with a certification of the product, specifying details of its origin and traceability.

Franco Battaglia is the local representative of InCampagna Malta.

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