The Death of Organic Food
August 1, 2008
The increasing pressure/push to buy organic foods by the media, grocery stores, and probably your friends is ever increasing. In the past 8 months the organic food section in my local grocery store has exploded to the point where I sometimes have TROUBLE finding the non-organic versions of certain fruits and vegetables. As much as I’d like to buy a heart of organic romaine lettuce for $5 – I’ll take the regular version at 6 for $5, Thank You.
As “organic” goes mainstream food companies are trying to convince consumers that if something is organic then it is also “healthy” or confers some added benefit. Here’s the deal (which I’m sure that YOU as part of Team Naked Nutrition know)…I don’t care if your cookies have organic cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup – sugar is sugar. All this accomplishes is that you pay 6 bucks for a box of cookies instead of $2.50 and your diet is still bad.
The take home message with this is that:
Organic ? Healthy
The next piece to the organic puzzle is that while there are certain production standards that a company must meet in order to be “certified organic”, I suspect that this is going to mean less and less as time goes on.
For example, Walmart is getting into the organic game. As a result they are lobbying to have certain “organic” standards lowered in order for them to more easily mass produce organic produce.
Mass produced organic produce??
Doesn’t there seem to be something wrong with that statement?
Thus begins the:
“Death of Organic Food”
What I am getting at?
I want you to use some more discretion when forking over your money for “organic” foods. While the letter of the law may be followed for your spinach to get the “certified organic” stamp is that what is important?
I would argue not.
Originally, the whole point behind organic food was that it was food that was, for lack of a better word, “pure”. Growing up in Northeastern Vermont, even though I never knew it, we lived off organic (not certified) foods every Summer/Fall with our massive family vegetable gardens.
Let me tell you, when I would pull a carrot out of the ground, dust off the dirt, and eat there on the spot – there was a freshness and nutrient composition that I have yet to find in any certified organic foods at Whole Foods or any other grocery store.
You want to find the best fruits and vegetables you can that are going to give you the greatest amount of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. These foods are going to improve your health and body.
If you heed my advice and don’t blindly turn to the “organic seal” anymore as the goto marker of top notch food what can you do?
Go Local.
Local is the “New” Organic
You would be hard pressed to find a town that doesn’t have a Farmers’ Market (or one nearby). These are the places to go. If you haven’t been lately (or ever) you will be amazed to see the spread of fresh local foods available to you (usually at great prices too).
Many times these foods won’t be certified organic but they will be very fresh and most likely NOT grow in overfarmed soils (overfarmed soils are depleted of nutrients which means the foods grown in them will also have less nutrients). This is what you want.
How to Easily FORCE Yourself to Eat More Vegetables
Your other option – which is something that Emily and I are doing this year – is a farm share. Basically how this works is that in the Spring you pay a farmer (or group of farmers) to grow vegetables for you and then as the food is harvested it is brought to you.
We bought into a farm share in April and then staring the first week in June, every Tuesday, we are delivered a box of vegetables for the week.
This is where the forcing comes into play; whether we eat the vegetables or not we are getting another box the following Tuesday. We have always eaten a lot of vegetables but now we are eating even more.
The other benefit to using a farm share is that we are also forced to eat a variety of foods. I am constantly encouraging you guys to eat a variety of foods (i.e. getting a different fruit or vegetable each week when you shop). The farm share also forces variety. We don’t get to pick what we get each week as we receive whatever is getting harvested at that time. This inflexibility in food selection may be seen as a negative by some but I have welcomed the change and variety – you should too.
So this weekend head over to you local farmers’ market and stock up on whatever is fresh in your area, don’t be lulled into the ‘need to buy organic’ trance, and (although not related to organic) make sure you do something his weekend to boost your metabolism.
Have a good one,
Mike
P.S. The whole “organic foods/products” debate is usually a passionate one so I’d love to hear what you think. Post a comment below.
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