What is Organic?

There is a lot of companies these days claiming to be natural or organic. Now what do these claims really mean? Depending on who you ask, you will get very different definitions for these words.

If you ever studied chemistry at school you may recall that an ‘organic’ compound is one that has carbon atoms. Now that includes a wide range of ingredients that could be found in an ‘organic’ product, including many toxic substances.

The other meaning of organic is to do with ecological farming principles. It is a farming practices that promotes biodiversity and sustainability without using genetic engineering or chemical fertilizers and herbicides. To ensure that a farm is actually adhering to organic principles there is now independent and government regulated bodies that issue organic certifications.

The International Foundation for Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) is the main international organisation for the global organic movement. It brings together 750 members in over 100 countries that together certify tens of millions hectares of farming land. A certification by an IFOAM member certifier is the only guarantee that the product is actually organic. Anything else is meaningless.

Organic certification originally began for foods destined for human consumption and has grown to a [$60 billion|sixty billion dollar] a year market and growing at 20% annually. The industry is also growing beyond food products.

The personal care and cosmetic industry is also getting onto the organic movement. However this industry has the most deceptive marketing tactics around the term ‘organic’. In most cases an ‘organic’ product has a token percentage of organic ingredients, but most of the product is made of synthetic chemicals.

ONE Group is the very first company to have certified at a food level a range of organic skin care products, and have since grown to a range of certifed hair, body, oral, baby, cosmetic and household products.

There has been a big growth of certified organic products in this area as there is minimal safety testing around the chemicals that go into cleaning, cosmetic and personal care products. The reason is quite simple, if you wouldn’t eat something, why would you put it on your skin and let it absorb in?

A lot of scientific research has been coming out that shows the harmful effects of the chemicals we have been exposed to from the chemical products in our bathrooms. The movement towards food level certified organic household products has just begun.

Just remember when you’re shopping for organic to look for the certification logo.