What Do Organic Vegetables Mean? Here's How to Tell the Real from the Fake

Vegetables are one of the essential foods in people's daily diet, referring to a category of plants or fungi that can be cooked and prepared into food, including cabbage, eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, loofah, bitter melon, cowpea and so on. So, what do organic vegetables mean? How do you tell the real from the fake?

I. What do organic vegetables mean?

1. Organic vegetables refer to vegetable products that, during the vegetable production process, strictly follow organic production regulations, prohibit the use of any chemically synthesized pesticides, chemical fertilizers, growth regulators and other chemical substances, as well as genetically engineered organisms and their products, and instead follow natural laws and ecological principles, adopt a series of sustainable agricultural techniques, coordinate planting balance, maintain the sustained stability of the agricultural ecosystem, and have been appraised and certified by an organic food certification body with an organic food certificate issued.

2. The production of organic vegetables must be carried out in accordance with the environmental quality requirements and production technical specifications for organic food, so they have the characteristics of being free of pesticides, free of chemical fertilizers, free of hormones, non-GMO, free of pollution, nutrient-rich and high quality. They are safe, nutritious and healthy to eat, but the drawbacks are few production sites, few products and high prices.

3. As people's requirements for food safety get higher and higher, organic vegetables are favored by more and more citizens, and since they have no chemical residues, taste good, and are more nutritious than ordinary vegetables, the demand for them is growing day by day. However, their selling price is on average 4-5 times higher than common vegetables, so they still cannot generally make it onto the masses' dining tables.

II. How do you tell real organic vegetables from fake ones?

Method 1. Look at the appearance: vegetables of similar length, uniform size, straight and pretty, with excellent looks, are mostly ones that used preservatives, exceeded fertilizer limits, or used insecticides and fungicides, and are fake organic vegetables; vegetables of varying lengths, different sizes, some crooked and some straight, uneven in color, with wormholes, yellow spots and yellow leaf edges, are truly organic vegetables.

Method 2. Feel by hand: when you touch leafy vegetables by hand, those that feel rather hard are fake organic vegetables, and those that feel soft and supple are real organic vegetables; when washed in water, if there is a small amount of foam or they feel slippery, or the water shows a light green color, they are fake organic vegetables.

Method 3. Smell the odor: put the vegetables in a bag or bring them directly to your nose and sniff. Those with a pesticide smell or no smell are fake organic vegetables, and those with a fresh fragrant scent are real organic vegetables.

Method 4. Taste the flavor: when cooked, if they release no water or only a small amount of water, taste good when eaten, and the corresponding food has its inherent rich flavor, they are real organic vegetables; when cooked, if a large amount of water comes out, they taste bland when eaten, and the corresponding food's inherent flavor is very weak, they are fake organic vegetables.

Method 5. Look at the packaging: see whether there is an organic food certification mark. If there is, they are real organic vegetables; if there is not, they are fake organic vegetables; see whether the packaging has clear information about the producer and the verification unit, which you can use to check on the relevant websites.

Method 6. Know the store: you can buy at organic food stores or regular supermarkets, or you can personally visit an organic farm to inspect and pick them.

Method 7. Look at the storage time: fake organic vegetables will develop some small brown spots after being stored for 1-2 days after purchase, and after another 1-2 days will rot and deteriorate; real organic vegetables can be stored more than twice as long, and will only wilt, not deteriorate in a short time.

The above is an explanation of organic vegetables and an introduction to methods for telling the real from the fake. We hope it is useful to everyone.