In 2014 America, we have more choices than ever in our history. Cars, clothes, whether we want Chinese or Mexican for dinner tonight. We can even decide how we want our produce, meat and dairy grown. But, why choose organic food over commercially grown food, when organic food is so much more expensive? Does it taste better? Is it healthier? Isn’t it just another marketing scheme to charge even more for our groceries? What good reason is there to pay so much? Let me give you a few.
Not so long ago – maybe 10 years ago - organic groceries were really hard to find. The only place you could find them was at small, privately owned, very expensive health food stores. To find fresh, organic produce, you had to travel out into the countryside to find farmers’ markets or grow it yourself. Whole grocery stores of organic products just did not exist.
Ironically, 100 years ago, ‘organic’ wasn’t a word. Why? Because no one was growing their food with chemicals! It was ALL organic! It was only in the 1940s, when food production became a factory-like process, that chemicals were introduced into the food supply to grow more, faster, bigger crops of vegetables and fruits, both for us and for livestock to consume. At first, no one was really paying attention to whether the chemicals would get back to us consumers or what they would do to us if we ate them.
Consumers started learning about chemical pesticides and herbicides, genetically modified crops, and livestock pumped full of hormones and antibiotics (to say nothing of how they are treated). Scientists are now studying how the human body responds to all the chemicals, modified genes, hormones and antibiotics. Is there a link between the state of our food supply and the rate of cancer, autism, food allergies? That remains to be seen, but some would say yes, without a doubt. Meanwhile, consumers became empowered and demanded healthier food.
Before long, health food stores gave way to organic grocery stores, and then even mainstream chains started to carry organic. Nowadays, everywhere you go, organic products are available. Even Walmart, has their own line of organic products.
If the promise that your food hasn’t been contaminated by pesticides or hormones isn’t enough of a reason to switch, let’s talk about taste. Tomatoes are deep red, juicy, and sweet vs. their pink, mealy, and cardboard-flavored hydroponically grown cousins. Organic milk, is incredible. 2% is as thick as commercial whole milk and tastes as sweet and creamy as half and half. Grass-fed, pasture-raised beef is lean, dark red, and needs very little additional seasoning to deliver amazing flavor. Egg yolks from chickens that graze in actual fields aren’t faint yellow and watery but are almost orange and very thick.
It would be easy to blow off the ‘organic movement’ as another gimmick or marketing scheme but a lot goes into becoming a certified organic grower. A farmer must undergo inspection to prove that they are following the requirements that no human sewage, synthetic chemicals, genetically modified organisms, or irradiation be used on the land for a number of years. Converting a farm from traditional to organic, including creating a buffer between farms, is very expensive.
If you are ready to make the change, but aren’t sure where to start, a good rule of thumb is the more water it contains, the more contaminated it is likely to be, (ie. Celery, cucumber, strawberries, melons, apples). There are also websites out there that keep an updated list of the most and least contaminated fruits and vegetables.
I understand that times are tough and we are all looking for ways to cut back on our budgets. But, aren’t you worth eating better food? Isn’t your family worth it? The safety of your children? Don’t you want to be confident of what you’re sending them off to school with in their lunch boxes? Take control of your food source back and feed yourself right.
Where do you spend your organic dollars. What's in you shopping list that MUST be organic? Share your thoughts with me on Facebook!
XO, Hayley