By Martin Jennings

 Many people are worked up into a frenzy over everything organic. But do people really know what organic means?

So, let’s take a little journey through the definition of organic and what this means for organic coffee and other organic products.

1) No synthetic fertilizers or pesticides may be used to raise certified organic crops.

2) Organic certified products can’t use Frankenstein genetically engineered crops or animals.

3) Products labeled 100% organic may only contain certified organic ingredients and processing aids, except for water and salt.

4) Products labeled organic must contain at least 95% organic certified ingredients and the remaining 5% must be items otherwise not available in an organic counterpart.

5) Products that are 100% Organic or Organic (95% organic) can display the USDA organic logo.

6 Agricultural products labeled organic, such as organic coffee, can’t be treated with sewage sludge (yes conventional crops are), or ionizing radiation. Agricultural products labeled 100 percent organic and organic cannot be produced using excluded methods, sewage sludge, or ionizing radiation.

I’m not trying to bore you with mindless organic labeling facts, but you need to know what you’re getting into with “organic” products. I know you’re probably wondering when we’re going to get to the organic coffee, we’ll here we go. Remembering back to the meaning of certified organic, organic coffee must be at least 95% organically grown beans. Since we are dealing with coffee, you can be fairly sure that 100% of the beans are organic in an organically grown coffee.

Do you want to know why you should care if your coffee was grown organically?

1) You certainly don’t want to drink something that was treated with sewage sludge do you?

2) There’s the whole Frankenstein gene thing. I don’t want my cup of joe to have pig genes spliced in just so the beans can have less acidity.

3) For you decaf. drinkers organic coffee is your best friend. Carcinogenic chemicals such as ethyl acetate and methylene chloride are used in processing conventional decaffeinated coffees. Organic decaffeinated coffees are processed with hot water and not chemicals. Recent studies suggest that drinking decaffeinated coffee leads to rheumatoid arthritis. More studies need to be done to compare conventional (chemical decaf.) and water processed decaf.

4) Chemicals are bad for the farmers. A lot of coffee farmers in developing countries can not read adequately, which may lead to improper mixing of chemicals and inadequate protective clothing.

I have only listed a few points about the benefits of organic coffee. It goes much deeper than the coffee itself. A lot of toxins are released in the making of non-organic chemicals.

As a closing thought, farmers that grown their crops organically are paying special attention to the natural needs or their crop, so the result is pampered coffee that tastes great! It’s never too late to switch to organic coffee. So give it a try, you may be surprised!.

Hannah Jennings is the Co-Owner of Nectar of Life Organic Coffee Company. If you want to taste how great the Nectar of Life is please visit them at www.nectaroflife.com.

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