06.26.10
It Is Easy Being Green
This week my daughter Carolyn (the original “greener” in our family) asked me to participate in the 20 dollar organic challenge. I should buy 20 dollars worth of organic groceries each week.
Dale and I try to use organic foods, but sometimes it is tricky to balance our tightwad tendencies with organic eating. Things got a lot easier when organic became more mainstream and after watching the documentary “Food Inc”.
Since the Olympia Farmers Market opened in April we have had another option for buying organic foods. The downside of that is the Farmers Market is an expensive option. Much better and open year round is the Olympia Food Coop.
We had some errands to run on Friday. I needed more steel cut oats, Dale needed yoghurt for his muesli (I need to write a post about muesli). We both wanted some sweet cherries to munch on. We went to Fred Meyers for those items, but noted the cherries that were on sale and marked as organic looked old and a bit wrinkled. We decided to go to the Farmers Market and the Coop.
At the Coop we discovered that their steel cut oats were cheaper than Freddys (both were organic). They also had apples that were reasonable at $1.35 a pound, organic of course. I also picked up some maple sugar for my oatmeal and we bought a very small amount of organic chocolate covered dried cherries and coconut. The coconut was heavenly tasting a lot like the best Mounds bar you have ever eaten. I am not sure, but I think all the food at the Coop is organic.
At the Farmer’s Market we noticed that all the cherries were organic, big, plump, red and juicy. We tried several samples and ended up buying a pound of Rainiers and a big bag of the deep dark red ones. Oh my. We also bought some apricots and asparagus. I love the Farmer’s Market. Buying from the farmer makes me happy.
What foods should you always buy organic? I have a list.
Grapes, cherries, apples, celery, potatoes, peach/nectarines, pears, bell peppers, spinach, raspberries and strawberries. These are known as the dirty dozen. We should always buy them organic because they harbor more pesticides than other produce.
Low pesticide foods are:
Eggplant, corn, peas, avocado, broccoli, bananas, tomato, pineapple, asparagus, papaya, onion, kiwi, mango, cabbage, watermelon and sweet potato.
We want to avoid pesticides because they damage the environment in ways we can’t fully understand or predict. Pesticides kill insects by targeting their nervous systems. We don’t want those same pesticides targeting our nervous systems as well. Some studies have shown there is a marked increase in ADHD in children who have a high level of pesticides in their bodies. Those are all good reasons for eating organic produce.
The 20 dollar challenge may be a small thing, but if everyone bought 20 dollars worth of produce that is organic that equates to fewer chemicals entering our biosphere and more people purging chemicals out of their systems.
I want to consume food that is organic and locally produced. I want it to be reasonably priced, I can’t expect cheap for food that is carefully grown. In our community that is something more easily done than in other places. I also want everyone to start being more thoughtful in what they chose to put in their mouths. Could the crisis of obesity have it’s roots in not only how much we eat, but how what we eat is produced?
Something to think about.