Organic on a Budget

I want to preface this by stating that more than 80,000 chemicals are approved for use commerce in the United States, many of which did not exist 50 years ago. Our parents’ generation did not face the rampant use of sewage sludge and chemical toxins in food production that we face today. Because of their rate of growth and their higher pound for pound consumption, children are more susceptible to the effects of these toxins than adults. Therefore, I feel it’s important to purchase organic and minimally processed foods that my children eat every day and I believe that everyone can “Go Organic” on a budget.

Organic foods tend to be more expensive because they are usually produced on smaller farms and the crop yields tend to be smaller than traditional farms. It’s also more labor intensive to produce organically because much of the work has to be done by hand such as weeding since they don’t rely on herbicides to maintain the crops. Limits on pesticides, for instance, mean farmers run a higher risk of losing all or part of a year’s crop. Some of the things organic farmers can’t use that conventional farmers can: Sewage sludge (human waste!), which is cheap to buy, and artificial chemical fertilizers, which are both cheap to buy and cheap to transport. Instead, organic farmers fertilize their land with compost and animal manure, which is bulkier and more expensive to ship. While conventional farmers can use every acre to grow the crops that fetch the highest prices, organic farmers use crop rotation to keep their soil healthy. Instead of planting a cash crop on every acre every year, they rotate fields and plant “cover crops” that are plowed to improve the soil’s nutrients for the long term. Wikipedia has a more comprehensive explanation for more information on organic food.

In order to go organic on a budget, my advice is to start slowly. Below are some tips for going organic on a budget:

• Start with foods that you and your children eat on a daily basis, such as dairy and meats to avoid the added antibiotics and growth hormones.
• Consider switching your produce to organically grown which tend to retain more of the chemical pesticides and herbicides used in conventional farming methods, than other foods such as grains, which go through processing methods that reduce the amount of these chemical residues.
• Buy organic fruits and vegetables that don’t have a hard peel such as strawberries which are also one of the more heavily sprayed crops
• Shop at a local farmer’s market. While these foods may not be certified organic, many of the local farmers utilize pesticide-free farming methods and will provide the most seasonal fruits and vegetables.

Top 12 Foods to Buy Organic  – Provided by Environmental Working Group

1. Peaches
2. Apples
3. Sweet Bell Peppers
4. Celery
5. Nectarines
6. Strawberries
7. Cherries
8. Lettuce
9. Grapes – imported
10. Pears
11. Spinach
12. Potatoes

Okay to Buy Non-Organic: Onions, Avocados, Corn, Mangoes, Pineapples, Kiwi, Peas, Broccoli, Papaya, Bananas, Cabbage

On a final note, for those of you who feel that organic is just a new trend and there is no reason to make the switch, I implore you to do your research. There is tons of information out there that says otherwise. Even a monkey knows best…if you give a monkey a organic banana and a conventional banana, the monkey will choose the organic banana 100% of the time. A monkey eats the whole banana including the peel and can smell the pesticides on the conventional banana!