To Buy or Not to Buy Organic

I loved this book and learned so much that I didn't know about food and how it is grown! The book goes into details about how foods are grown, what type of pesticides/chemicals are generally used and why organic foods are healthier. It also covers 12 foods to only buy if they are organic aka  The Dirty Dozen, because of the amount of pesticides used on their conventionally grown counterparts. What interested me the most was the fact that the author mentions "going beyond organic" by choose local and sustainable foods. This wasn't something that I had given much thought to previously. 

Now that big food corporations have caught on to the consumer demand for organically grown foods, they are entering into the game so to speak. But just because something is certified organic does not necessarily mean that it was grown in a sustainable or environmentally friendly way. True organic farming is about supporting small farms, the local economy and improving the environment. Big business can't do that. This is where buying local and sustainable comes into the pictures. Buying locally supports your own community and also gives you an opportunity to talk to the farmer you are buying from in order to discover his growing practices and even visit them in person. The author voices her opinion that the "USDA Organic" sticker is really just a substitute for trust. In a way, she is right.

I learned some interesting facts while reading this book. Strawberries are the worst! Since they grow low to the ground and have a thin skin they literally soak up the pesticides. Washing strawberries does little to nothing, because the pesticides seep through and reside inside the strawberry. Yuck! Note to self: always buy organic strawberries. I also learned that cotton is one of the most chemical intensive crops. When thinking about farming and chemicals I tend to think about food plants and cotton never crossed my mind. I have noticed an increase in organic cotton products, however. This is the best choice in order to reduce the amount of chemicals in our environment. So I started to think about my clothes too! 

Another interesting fact was about the way that the government regulates the use of pesticides and how it puts children at a higher risk. The following is taken from the chapter titled, "How Pesticides Exposure Impacts Your Health."

"The government only mandates, and chemical manufacturers conduct, high-dose studies designed to find obvious toxic effects. Contract labs are hired to feed pesticides to rats until the rats die, and then they record that amount of pesticide exposure as being toxic. The model used to quantify these results is a 154-pound male adult. (For example, 760 mg of a chemical fed o a rat weighing 500 grams is considered equal to approximately 0.2 pound of the same chemical ingested by a 154-pound person. If rats begin to show toxic effects from 760 mg of that chemical, then the allowable level for humans would be set below 0.2 lb for that same chemical.)"

I had no idea! Even as a 117-pound female these chemicals are having a more intense effect on me than they would on a 154-pound man, but imagine the difference in small children. It's definitely something to think about. In the same chapter the author also brings up the point that the use of pesticides is only creating stronger bugs and weaker humans. 

At the end of the book there is a "shopping guide" which is set up in table format and includes the type of food, whether or not to buy organic, not organic or local and a quick review of the way that food is farmed. This table contains the authors opinion, but it designed to assist you in making your own choice as to how you want to purchase your foods. This book is an excellent source of information and is definitely going to shape my grocery shopping trips from now on. I would recommend this book to anyone curious about the difference between organic and conventionally farming methods and also interested in the effect of pesticides/chemicals on the body.