There has always been a demand for better, safer, and more effective products. But the process to develop them has historically been the biggest stumbling block. For centuries, it was trial and error; people believed tomatoes were poisonous until someone gave it a trial and found out that it wasn’t, well, an error to eat it.
Of course, going consumer by consumer like that is very inefficient. How long did it take the rest of Europe to find out that tomatoes were safe? In the development of modern products, speed is key, and the appropriate speeds can only be reached with effective systems for replicating and verifying data.
For some reason, there is a persistent belief that organic and natural products aren’t developed through this process. Consumers believe that most such items are derived from proven home remedies or from the ideas of antiquity, and that there is no need to examine them in any scientific ways.
Of course, that belief is incorrect. Research for organic products is at least as rigorous as for non-organic. Both methods utilize scientific research in labs, and those labs all operate under strict standards. There are even complex protocols guiding lab moving services that offer biological transport.
The stringent requirements that must be met fall under three main categories:
Product Safety
The first thing a product or food must be is safe. That’s what a risk-taking European was trying when he or she tried a tomato centuries ago. Products must not cause health problems, exacerbate common medical issues, or trigger allergies.
These benchmarks can’t be assumed, even if the product hasn’t been treated with pesticides or commercial fertilizers. After all, an organically-grown peanut can cause the same anaphylactic reaction that any other peanut can cause, so product development must follow rigorous protocols regardless of the product type.
Product Efficacy
Now that we know our product is safe, we have to know if it even works. Natural products once again get a bad reputation here, as if they pass the safety test and then get sold like snake oil. Challengers suggest that consumers of organic products look at nothing other than the labeling and don’t concern themselves with product performance.
The fact is that when a quality organic product hits the market, it has been examined extensively in the lab to ensure that it can perform what it claims it can do. If it can’t, it’s thrown by the wayside just like any other product would be.
Consistency Of Outcome
The final step is ensuring that the product will always work. It does you no good to get good results from one use when you get no results from another use, after all, so product development must ensure that each batch of product and each individual use of it gives the same outcome.
Because so many organic products are based very closely on plant products, this can be challenging. Products developed from fruits, for example, must utilize fruits at the same stage of ripeness and maturity in order to have the same concentration of relevant ingredients. Because of the long distances that fruit may be transported before processing, this can be very challenging.
There will always be a backlash against the organic products industry. Companies and consumers that are more concerned with money than health and the environment will stop at nothing to undermine the credibility of challengers. No matter what propaganda may emerge from this machine, the fact is that organic products are just as rigorously tested as anything else on the market, and the consumer can put their faith in them.
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