to buy Organic?

[hollowhallows]

I am doing the weekly shop online and recently started to look into Organic food. Ever since having my DD I have become very aware of our family diet. One thing I started doing was washing fruit and veg with soap to remove pesticide residue and other chemical nasties from the surface. I have recently started using vinegar instead. I have also become more aware of food intolerance's and after much investigation have found what foods suit the family and each member best etc...

I am now wondering if washing chemicals off the surface of fruit and veg is enough and whether it is worth buying Organic from now on for all the food groups. I have found it all really confusing and would appreciate some input from those more knowledgeable on the subject. I know the basic differences Organic and In-organic, but does it really make enough of a difference to justify the cost?

I ve bought organic in the past. I still do buy organic fruit and veg.

I ve never washed fruit and veg before eating it, unless it was a full iceberg lettuce.

I havent quite worked out whether organic was any different to a non organic product.

I also dont think you can buy everything organic.

If you spent £70 on shopping on non organic stuff, and then bought all organic, im guessing the bill would be £100 ish?

Also forgot to add, if it makes you feel better buying organic, and you feel healthier for it, then in my opinion it is worth spending the extra money providing you can afford it

Suga I just finished my shop but haven't paid yet. the difference in price is around £40 more!

I really don't mind the diet I have now but I'm willing to pay more if Organic really does make a difference to health and well being.

I have been reading different articles online and apparently research shows minimal difference yet it seems opinion is quite divided.

So confuuuusssseeeeedddd

You are not going to find unequivocal evidence that organic is better, as you can't prove it in a controlled trial (i.e. have one group eat organic for 40 years, other not). However, there are good reasons to be concerned about the amount of pesticides and even just bleach on lettuce that remains when they are in the shops. I think washing/peeling though must remove most of this.

I once saw a table which estimated which products were best organic and which it really didn't matter- they were either naturally mostly organic or just didn't absorb nasties so greatly. I can't remember where I saw it.

I don't buy organic, far too expensive.

hollow I'm in the US so wonder if maybe the cultural perception (of the benefits of organic food) is different, just b/c I've never heard anyone argue that organic food is not healthier. I just take it as a given; in my mind, there is no way that it is not better to keep pesticides etc. out of your food. Not to mention they are bad for the land and water as well. I am not an expert about any of this though, just thought it was interesting that you are debating as to whether it's better.

We can't afford to buy all organic which makes me irritable. I think the Dirty Dozen/Clean Fifteen lists are useful and I try to use them as a baseline.

Oops, here's the link for the 12/15 www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php

Mumsyblouse the dirty dozen and clean 15 is probably what you are thinking of:www.joyoushealth.ca/blog/2013/04/24/dirty-dozen-and-clean-15-for-2013/

I was going to say about the dirty dozen list too, I prefer to buy organic but can't always afford it, so I stick to that which makes me feel less guilty about eating things on the clean list.

This is a good printable version of the list:
speedendurance.com/2012/04/04/best-and-worst-foods-ranked-by-pesticide-loads/

you can't avoid chemicals, you are made of them.

remember it isn't organic if it has come halfway round the planet. Organic means seasonal or stuff that lasts naturally.

now see what's left.

That pesticide load information is very interesting, I like the dirty dozen, clean 15 tables!

Organic food does not simply stop at the chemicals we ingest but also the impact it has on the land and local wildlife. I find it very sad when organic food is packaged more than non organic food and at some point, air freighted, cold stored, over packaged organic food is probably not better than locally produced, farm sold non organic food.

Unfortunately it is impossible to quantify the benefit or lack thereof due to there being so many variables involved but personally, I choose organic over non organic.

Thank you everyone. I haven't disappeared but am currently dealing with a food issue of another kind so currently too busy to post full reply. My lovely DH thought pouring a dash of water into a pot of hot oil while frying chips helped them cook! now i am cleaning oil off the kitchen ceiling

Will be back to reply soon as i can.

Omg, yuck, sorry!

special not sure what you mean by stuff that lasts naturally? I was primarily thinking about vegetables and fruits before. You're talking about preservatives?

Technically even if it has come from far away, if it was grown organically, it is still organic. But I agree that the trucking-/flying-/shipping-in of produce creates huge sustainability problems, in general, whether the trucked-in food's organic or not. I feel like there's the issue of organic vs. not organic, and then there's the issue of sustainable (local) vs. not sustainable (not local), and they overlap, but they're not the same issue.

I'd put all root veg in the dirty dozen list.
I buy organic fruit and veg where possible.
If you can afford it it makes sense to protect your health.
Why ingest poisonous pesticides and artificial fertilizers if you don't need to.

I would rather pay the extra, but I don't ever go to coffee shops and rarely eat out.
Obviously you can't get into debt by buying organic!

Organic veg box scheme is answer! Thing with supermarkets (apart from food miles) is you don't know how long fruit & veg have been stored. Also think it's a rip off.

My veg box comes from Farm 5 miles away. Price has gone up £1 in 9 years. Tastes way better, no doubt at all.

I can recommend if you are Worcestershire based!

We get a weekly delivery, too, from a local co-op. It's all locally grown and organic. Unfortunately, as we live in Ohio and have pretty harsh winters, it's not possible to get some things fresh locally during the winter. Then I buy frozen organic fruits and vegetables. I'm always concerned that things I buy fresh that were grown in California or Florida and shipped to us over a period of days have lost a lot of their nutritional value, whereas frozen items are frozen within a day or two of picking.

We get milk in our box, too. Raw milk is illegal to sell here, unfortunately, but the milk we get is pretty good.

Ok let's start with the 12/15 list, that is American, their production standards are radically different those in the uk, their organic approval list is very different too.
Their chemical additive list at the grading and packing point is very long too ( that is where the apples make the top of the list, they are washed in detergent, dipped in bleach and then waxed with carnuba)

I work in the farming industry and in the last 10 years the changes in food production have been enormous.
Organic production does have a higher carbon footprint associated with it as our climate means a far more rigorous management regime and we have to import about 75% of the organic food on offer
Your best bet really is to subscribe to a box scheme (Riverford are the best ) who have a great procurement policy and forget carbon concerns

I find organic veg is almost exclusively local and thus nice and fresh - better flavour than supermarket by a long way. I think most pesticides accumulate in the skins so a wash and a peel should take off the worst nasties...and lots of the goodness too . Shipped food is acutally not so bad for the environment when you compare all the lorrying around food on mainland is subject to. But I'm sure those faraway places are less stringent when it comes to adhering to the rules. So, I buy organic often but not exclusively. If I didn't produce my own meat I would buy organic meat though. My main reason for buying organic is the environment rather than my health however. Farmers near me gear up with masks and all the gear when spraying their crops - when they grow their own veg, they never put these chemicals on (but then buy cheap crap from the supermarket so...).

I didn't know about these organic veg boxes. Great info, thanks everyone. Will look into it.

keatsie - In the USA there are chemicals used in fruit and veg that are banned here. I would be keener to eat organic in the USA.

". Not to mention they are bad for the land and water as well"

That is the part that causes controversy.

Chemicals are carried in rain, by animals/insects, travel underground etc, so it is thought that how Organic something is is a sliding scale.

Some chemicals aren't good for us, but they can be in the packaging.

You need to be aware of production methods if you use anything processed.

I have gone from Vegetarian to Vegan and am concerned about the ethics behind what I eat, so have researched a lot.

I think you need to focus of what you are concerned about and see how it fits into your lifestyle and finances.

If you are feeding your children sweets etc regularly, it isn't worth leaving yourself short by buying organic, for example.

Grennie and Oddsocks that's really interesting, I didn't know there was that much difference in food production in the US vs. in the UK. Don't want to derail the thread though, sorry.

I live in a farming area and it depresses me that most of the farmers around here use conventional methods. I think it is much easier on them financially to do so, as it's very hard to keep a family farm going at all, let alone an organic farm. It's expensive to farm (organically or otherwise), it's expensive to buy organic, it's expensive to buy local ... just hard to prioritize all this, and yet important to do so. I'm vegetarian and also pretty health-conscious in general and the more I research the more I realize how thoroughly the food-production system is still stacked against these priorities. We're on a tight budget. When I do manage to prioritize these things I feel badly that others can't -- no one should have to stand in the supermarket debating about whether they can afford to buy food that is safe to eat.

Raw milk is illegal here too steff but I've been looking into vat-pasteurized milk which is apparently a bit better, don't know if that's an option where you are?

The farm I get my milk from uses vat pasteurization. I didn't realize that until I looked it up just now, though, so thanks for mentioning it.

There are ways to get around the raw milk ban here; you can "rent" part of a dairy cow from a farm, and then of course you can consume milk from your cow however you want. Indiana, one of our neighboring states, does not ban raw milk. The ban here in Ohio is fairly recent.

I've noticed a lot of countries also ban high-fructose corn syrup in foods, but it's permitted here in the US, and it is in so many things you wouldn't even think of. It's so hard to avoid it.

I always buy organic carrots as I discovered carrots soak up large amounts of whatever is in the soil. If things are only marginally more expensive, then I buy organic. If its astronomically more, then I leave it.

Interesting idea to rent part of a dairy cow! I'll have to look into that. We're in Iowa.

Yeah, HFCS is everywhere, needlessly, it's astonishing. I have a friend who moved to Russia for work and lost quite a bit of weight, and she said it was partly b/c she was able to walk everywhere, but partly b/c HFCS was not in everything.