During the last few years, new words have entered the food world, creating trends and a new kind of awareness. Food packaging started showing the ‘bio’, ‘organic’ and ‘eco’ label, and little by little new specialized stores started popping up everywhere.

But do you know the actual difference between all of these definitions?

Eco (ecologic)

If you find  the ‘eco’ label on a product, it means it was made according to the European regulation for it (in Europe). This means that no pesticides, transgenic or chemical fertilizers were used during its production. It’s the most complete category of the three analyzed in this article.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that ecologic products are never made in greenhouses. There are actually many ecologic greenhouse productions everywhere in the world.

We also need to specify that the ‘eco’ label only applies when, as we previously said, products passed the required controls, but also when someone paid to have those same controls realized on the products.

Moving on, now you would think that ‘bio’ and ‘organic’ are synonymous of ‘eco’, right? Well, not exactly.

Bio

On its hand, the term ‘bio’ indicates products that have not been genetically modified. This means that a bio product is not necessarily ecologic, as the ‘eco’ label has more strict controls. On the other side, if a product is ‘eco’ it also means that it wasn’t genetically modified.

Organic

The last label is ‘organic’. It refers to a production process in which there were no kind of pesticides or chemical fertilizers involved. This means that it doesn’t exclude that they might have been genetically modified.

Basically, the two last categories, bio and organic, can’t receive the ‘eco’ label because they don’t meet all the requirements.

Knowing the differences between these categories can help you make a more aware choice and avoid being fooled by advertising.

Source: https://safe365.com/