Health and Environmental Benefits of Sustainable Food and Coffee
The world is becoming more aware of the ways that growing food, packaging products, and producing energy is causing harm to people and the environment. Fortunately, companies are becoming mindful of these facts and are taking strides to make a difference. Creating products using green energy, recycled products, and even delivering them to communities in an eco-friendly way is becoming more common. This is why people are more likely to purchase organic foods, drive electric cars, and recycle their plastics and paper products.
While being green may seem like only a trendy thing to do, it also has many healthy and environmental benefits. One of the products that people all over the world consume is coffee. Because of the high demand, many growers started to use harmful chemicals to grow more of them. They cut corners, and just like the rest of the food industry, are growing foods that are less nutritious and can be harmful to some people. Wholesale coffee, fruits, and vegetables grown with sustainable practices are much better for consumption than their conventional counterparts.
Less Exposure to Toxic Chemicals
Sustainable foods are great for many different reasons and one of them is that they expose people to fewer toxic chemicals. Commercial insecticides and fertilizers are filled with toxins that can cause neurological disorders, stomach illnesses, and even autoimmune diseases. In fact, so are the plastics most of these consumables are packaged in, even the microplastic lining of most coffee cups. Initiatives with cardboard, silicon, or coffee shops ditching single-use cups are helping cut down waster overall. By growing and raising sustainable food, you can use natural substances to remove pests and promote growth instead of dumping products formed in a lab.
Better Soil Quality
Plants grown in sustainable ways have better soils quality. Instead of stripping away all the nutrients and destroying the natural microbiome of the soil, natural methods add nutrients back in and create healthier soil. While constantly growing food on the same soil will eventually ruin the soil, when using sustainable practices, you can nourish the land and let it rest when needed. Better soil means better food and that means better health for people.
More Diverse Ecosystems
Did you know that plants and animals were designed to share the same land? Sustainable farming practices often include allowing cows or other ruminants to graze the grass and then you can use that soil that they grazed on to grow food in a following season. By rotating plants and animals through the same fields you can maximize the nutritional content of fruits and vegetables and the meat your farm produces. These diverse ecosystems mean that there are more birds because the insect population is healthy and no one creature is taking over the farms. It also impacts the health of nearby ecosystems because health in one area encourages health in another.
Nutritious
Sustainable food is more nutritious because the soil it’s grown in contains more nutrients and healthy probiotics in the soil. Those nutrients are passed naturally into the fruits and vegetables that grow and are then consumed by people. Selling produce farm to table means that the foods are prepared and eaten as close to the day it was picked as possible. Instead of eating food that’s been in cold storage for months, sustainable food is often eaten within days. The same applies for sustainable coffee. Growers of sustainable coffee work hard to ensure as many nutrients as possible make it into their beans before they are harvested.
Reduced Risk of Chronic Disease
Did you know that farmers and farm workers are at greater risk of cancer and other health conditions? Sustainable farming helps reduce and eliminate their exposure to many of the chemicals that increase their risk of disease. Eating sustainable food also eliminates your risk of chronic disease because it means that you are getting more antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. Many chronic illnesses are a result of poor nutrition.
Cleaner Water Supply
Since growing sustainable coffee and food means that there are less harmful chemicals being poured on the ground, it would make sense that it also means the water supply is cleaner. This direct impact not only affects people, but it also means that there is less risk of things like algae blooms forming in water and causing fish die offs and other issues. Organisms like algae thrive in the toxic soup that many farms produce. When they grow too much, they take over whole ecosystems in the water. The water itself becomes toxic. But with sustainable food and coffee being grown, there is less risk of water contamination which helps people, plants, animals, and all the tiny creatures in the ground and water.