Nutrition
Buying Organic Food
Foods Worth Buying Organic?
Think organic food is just for hippies? We'll help clear up the controversy...
Organic foods can be an expensive addition to your shopping trolley – and are not always available. Further, we are still studying the impact that broad-based organic farming has on our environment. Is it really better for our soils than conventional farming? Is it a sustainable way to feed the six billion inhabitants of this planet? With these questions in mind, here is a list of the foods that we think you should buy organic (or not).
Fruits and Vegetables
The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a research organisation based in the US, has developed a list called the Dirty Dozen. These are the fruits and vegetables that tend to be doused with pesticides that are hard to wash off, or are not typically peeled to discard pesticide-laden skins. So, if you’re going to spend on organic products, try to buy the following produce: apples, peppers, celery, cherries, imported grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach, and strawberries. Always wash produce thoroughly in warm water.
Dairy
Fishback recommends that you eat organic dairy foods. Non-organic dairy cows are often treated with growth hormones to produce more-than-natural quantities of milk. This can make the cows sick, so they have to be given large doses of antibiotics. As a result, the consumption of conventional milk has been associated with antibacterial resistance in humans. At the very least, purchase milk labelled “without artificial growth hormones” or “no rBGH.” Other benefits of organic milk include longer shelf life (it’ll also last longer in the fridge) and a richer taste because of the natural feed that organic cattle are fed on. It's the best way to go.
Meat and Fish
As with dairy, you minimise your exposure to growth hormones and antibiotics by choosing organic meats and poultry. However, don’t waste your money buying organic seafood. As for organic seafood, technically it doesn’t exist.
Baby Food
Since baby food is often made up of condensed fruits and vegetables, it's a potential source of concentrated pesticide residues. This means that buying organic baby food would be a very wise decision as babies’ developing systems are especially vulnerable to toxins from pesticides, as well as to hormones and antibiotics.
Packaged Food
There's no reason to buy organic cereals and snack foods unless you like the product. In fact, these foods are often not fortified with vitamins and minerals the way conventional foods are. The result: You may not get as much iron or folate, for example, from an organic cereal as you would from a non-organic equivalent.
Last updated: Fri, 2010-02-05 09:48
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Its all fine and well to promote organic - but I'm not totally sure how rganic South Africa is. Take red meat for instance - where is it available? I think articles should find organic retailers and add them into articles to make the possibility of going organic that much easier. JHB is particularly bad at organic - expecially on the meat and fish front.
Perhaps this will help clarify the meat situation for ms Parker. Organic meat is always going to be an issue in South Africa as there are very few organically certified producers. Unfortunately, we do not have any South African organic standards (although draft ones have been produced but they are not yet law) so SA organic certification agencies use European or USA ones. The problem with this is that these standards do not allow the use of urea in animal feed - which is fine for EU and the US as the animals graze on nutrient rich grass. The veld grass in SA is often tough and nutrient poor, most farmers who graze cattle on their land supplement the animals diet with urea as this enables them to digest the tougher SA grasses. That said, Badgerleur Game Farm (near Heidelberg) has developed a silage process that supplies all of the nutrients to the game animals and cattle and therefore do not need to supplement the animals diets with urea. Free range, grass fed meat produced on small farms where the animals can roam and graze freely is then the best alternative - there are a number of places that Johannesburg shoppers can find such meat - Kalahari grass fed beef can be bought at some butchers and the meat from the Badgerleur Farm is available here at the market. There are no local organic standards for fish. I recently bought some from Woolworths and see that they are now including a tag that indicates whether a particular fish species plentiful or endangered. While this is not a solution to the over-fishing of the oceans, at least costumers can be aware of the impact that their choices make.
Hi, ever heard about the "Dirty Dozen report"?
The Environmental Protection Agency compiles a yearly report of the foods with highest level of pesticide residues.
If you buy any of these foods you should really consider buying the organic version. Most people will not buy ALL their food organic, but make sure you know which foods contains less toxins. And shop wisely. It's your health after all.
http://sprigsnsprogs.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/191/
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