I  got an email this week from Daali Earth Foods (an organic food store) that was an eye-opener “Now at Daali Earth Foods in Mini-Market, Lahore Grain-fed, free-range desi eggs - no hormones, no antibiotics, no steroids, no chemical feed, no animal derived feed”.

Yes, this is what goes into all those poultry farmed chickens we've been eating here in Pakistan for years. No wonder that little girls are getting facial hair as soon as they hit puberty (hence all these mushrooming laser clinics!) and an increasing number of young women are suffering from medical problems like endometriosis (which can cause infertility) and ectopic pregnancies in Pakistan. All those hormones and steroids in our chickens and eggs (and meat and milk) are messing with our bodies.

I can't repeat it enough - if you are reading this column, you should seriously be thinking of going organic when it comes to grocery shopping. Organic farming relies on the Earth's own natural resources to grow and process food. It is not a new concept; before the use of agro-chemicals became popular this is how our forefathers grew their own food, the natural way without the use of chemicals like steroids and pesticides.

The “Green Revolution” of the 1960s and 70s certainly led to increased food production. However, the new high yield varieties required the intensive use of fertilisers and pesticides, and while they led to a dramatic increase in agricultural production, their fall out is only now being exposed.

There is no doubt today that the use of high yield varieties has caused profound threats to the environment, biodiversity and human health. Experts who are currently doing research on the over-use of pesticides in Pakistan are trying to prove a link with the increased spread of diseases like diabetes, heart problems and the most scariest of all, cancer.

In the last few years, the organic farming industry has seen a boom as more people have started shopping around for organic food items. In organic farming, vegetables and fruit (and wheat, rice, chickens, cows, etc.) are grown without the use of synthetic chemicals. The aim of organic farming is defined as follows “To sustain and enhance the health of ecosystems and organisms from the smallest in the soil to human beings”.

Samiya Mumtaz of Daali Earth Foods has been growing organic wheat and cereals for several years now. Her products, including brown rice, whole wheat flour, porridge, mustard oil, rock salt and ground pepper (and other spices) and whole fruit jams and marmalades are available at her outlets in Lahore and Karachi. I particularly like her organic wild bee honey, which not only tastes delicious but contains anti allergic properties, essential vitamins and minerals. It is a great tonic to have first thing in the morning.

Her 14 acres farm in Bedian (outside Lahore) was left fallow for a few years (so the pesticides and fertilisers in the land could drain away) before she started to plant desi varieties of wheat, rice and pulses. Her label claims, “Nothing added! Nothing removed!” The philosophy behind this is that grains, fruit, and vegetables as well as dairy and poultry products exist in optimal nutritional balance in nature. The more they are processed and refined, the further they get away from their original state and lose essential nutritional value. Daali Foods use only indigenous seeds and steer clear of imported plants and seeds.

Others are following Mumtaz's example - there are now several organic farms cropping up across the country and there is definitely a burgeoning organic food movement in Pakistan today.

My friend Christine Dawood's herbal teas and organic vegetables, now grown in her new farm in Raiwind outside Lahore, are also being sold in Lahore under her label of Imhotep. She supplies her herbs and lettuce to all the big restaurants in Lahore and large stores like Metro and Makro. Her mixed green salad boxes are so much in demand that they are sold out as soon as they arrive at the stores in Lahore. Her herbal teas - chamomile, lemon balm - are good for bloating, headaches, etc.

The Roshni Organic Bakery in Lahore, which employs a staff of special people, makes various kinds of German bread (linseed, rye flake, plain, toast) from natural ingredients grown by organic farmers. Roshni's ingredients are provided by carefully selected farmers, whose farming practices exclude the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers. The Roshni Association for the Welfare of Special Persons is actually an NGO set up by Shahida Parveen Hannesen and her German husband, Hamid Helmut Hannesen in 2001.

Up in Pakistan's Northern Areas, where pesticides are rarely used and hormones and steroids mostly unheard of, people are eating pure food (hence their longevity and healthy complexions!). The dry fruit from this area is also organic and several companies now export the walnuts, dried apricots, chilghozas, almonds etc. to markets in the Middle-East and Europe. In the West, there is a high demand for these products. It is time that we in Pakistan started valuing organic food and creating a demand for natural products, grown the natural way.