Ever find yourself standing in the produce department of the grocery store deciding between the $.88 carton of conventionally grown strawberries and the $4.99 carton (the SAME SIZE!) of organically grown strawberries? How do you choose? Is it really worth the $4.00 difference to buy organic? For some fruits and vegetables, the answer is yes.

Eating organic isn't as easy for some as it is for others. The price factor alone is hard to get past, but since the "organic era" is a relatively new concept, a lot of people aren't aware of the health factors of eating organic. Let's start at the beginning and hopefully after you're finished reading, you'll have a better understanding of the benefits of eating organic foods vs. non-organic, conventionally grown foods.


What does “organic” mean?
Organic refers to how farmers grow and process food. Organic farming methods differ from conventional farming in several ways:

• Conventional farming uses chemical fertilizers to promote plant growth, while organic farming employs manure and compost to fertilize the soil.
• Conventional farming sprays pesticides to get rid of pests, while organic farmers turn to insects and birds, mating disruption, or traps.
• Conventional farming uses chemical herbicides to manage weeds, while organic farming rotates crops, hand weeds, or mulches.
• When raising animals, conventional farmers give animals antibiotics, growth hormones, and medications to spur growth and prevent disease. Organic farmers feed their animals organic feed and allow them to roam. They also will make sure the animals have a balanced diet and clean housing.

Why it costs more
The biggest criticism of organic food is its cost. There are several reasons it’s more expensive. Organic farmers pay more for organic animal feed, and the farming is more labor intensive, since farmers avoid chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Because farmers don’t use herbicides, for instance, they rely more on hand weeding. And since they avoid chemical fertilizers, they use compost and animal manure, which is bulkier and more expensive to ship. This also means their crop yield is usually lower. Conventional farming also uses every acre of farmland to grow crops, while organic farmers rotate their crops to keep soil healthy.

All of these production costs mean organic farming tends to be more expensive than conventional farming, and this is reflected in how much you pay at the grocery store. However, when you take into account the true “cost” of food production from conventional farming, including replacement of eroded soils, cleaning up polluted water, health care for farmers who get sick, and environmental costs of pesticide production and disposal, organic farming might actually be cheaper in the end.

In this economy, we would all like to save a few bucks on our groceries. Spend $4 extra on strawberries? No way, that money could be used towards the rent, or car payment, or filling up out gas tanks with these crazy prices! So how do you choose?  I like to approach every big change with baby steps. A change as big as your food type consumption can be very difficult considering you've known one way your whole life.  So your first baby step to leading a healthier, toxic free lifestyle is to eat as much organic as you can. I know it wasn't in my budget to add a few hundred a month (or week!) when we first started eating organic food.. With that, let me introduce you to the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15.

The Dirty Dozen is a list of fruits and vegetables with the highest percentage of pesticides. Most have a soft penetrable skin and flesh so that when chemicals are sprayed on them, they soak it up like sponges and it seeps deep into the meat of the fruit. Note: although not listed in the dirty dozen, ALL berries should be organic. Print this little cheat sheet off and take it with you to the store next time. If you ONLY buy these 12 items organic, you'll be significantly reducing your pesticide consumption.

On the other side of the chart you see the Clean 15. These are just the opposite of the Dirty Dozen: they have the lowest-zero percentage of pesticides. I read somewhere that onion plants are just not preferred by critters so farmers don't NEED to use chemicals on them. You'll notice that the Clean 15 items have a hard, thicker peel, pesticides can't penetrate down into the fruit so once you removed the peel, you have very little exposure. Lemons and limes are not listed but just note that if you'll be using the peel for zest, buy organic.

Probably the best way to acquire your weekly provisions is through a local farmer’s market. The food travels a shorter distance, which means less carbon emissions and food that hasn’t been shipped hundreds of miles or processed to keep it preserved during transport. The food comes from small farms where the farmers are usually conscious of their impact on the earth and care about the food they’re producing. By purchasing food from them, you also support the local food economy and know where your food is coming from. According to the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, food in the United States travels an average of 1,500 miles to make it to your refrigerator. Why take an apple off the truck when you’re a step away from plucking it off the tree?

Rock Star Boot Camp has teamed with Horny Toad Farms in providing a weekly CSA food bag pick up at the Road Runner Park farmer's market. The latest cycle is ending soon but another will be starting again mid-July. I'll make sure to send out more information on that as soon as it is available. The flier and information will also be posted in the Rock Star Boot Camp Fit & Healthy group on Facebook: a great resource of fitness, health, nutrition chit chat and community support and motivation. (JOIN NOW!)