“I know eating organic is better, and what I would ideally do. But the store that is most convenient to me does not carry organic foods. I am too busy to drive out of the way to an organic store, plus, it’s a lot more expensive. Is it really that much better? Is it worth the extra hassle and expense?”
This is a question that I get almost every day, so if you happen to be someone who has thought this, you are in good company.
My response to someone who is asking this to me has two main points:
Eating organic is a bargain.
I know, I know, organic food costs more. On the surface, that is true – one pound of organic vegetables costs more than one pound of conventionally grown vegetables.
But….what are you paying for when you buy that one pound of vegetables? My philosophy on that is you are buying life-sustaining nutrients. It has been proven that organic food contains exponentially more nutrients than the same food grown conventionally. The reason for this is that produce grown with herbicides and pesticides lacks the inherent “strength” in its own plant to fight off natural predators, such as bugs and bacteria. They have adapted over time to their environment and have essentially gotten “lazy” and therefore, they don’t need to create the nutrients and phytochemicals that contain all the wonderful goodies that we want when we consume them. (see the Kirlian photo on my previous post that shows the energetic life force of food)
The result? Less nutrition per pound of food. Don’t quote me here (because I have seen different exact figures depending on the study) but we are talking in the ballpark of average of 15-25% more nutrients. Meaning, that an organic apple is approximately 15-25% more “nutritious” than a conventionally grown one. (The exact number means less than the point I’m trying to make.)
Therefore, you need to eat less of it. One of the reasons we as a society eat as much as we do is that much of the food we eat is lacking nutrition, and is therefore less satisfying, so we eat more. Therefore, you also buy more non-organic food which in the end, is a wash financially.
Another point – calorically, organic and non-organic is essentially the same. So you get more nutrients per calorie of food. In Clinical Nutrition terms, that concept is called nutrient density.
Have you noticed that conventionally grown strawberries lack the flavor of their organic counterpart?
The next time you think to yourself that organic costs too much, think of this paradigm shift. What ARE you buying food for? Nutrients.
Hence, the bargain.
What you don’t know CAN hurt you.
Many of us are busy and honestly do not make the time to make it a priority to learn more. After all, our health is pretty good and we don’t have any major complaints, so what we are doing must be working, right?
Wrong.
Disease conditions begin developing in your body anywhere from 5-10 years before they manifest in symptoms.
One way you can take some control of this is with what you put into your body. Hippocrates said “Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.”
Once you educate yourself about this topic, I have found that the choice is easy. I know it was for me. Even though I have always been health conscious, and thought I was eating “well,” I did not realize the extent to which I was not. Once I learned more, it became clear that what I thought were healthy eating habits, were actually violating several foundational tenets of obtaining optimal health.
I have had clients who have taken the time to learn more, and they have often commented on that idea as well. The sad thing is how many well-intentioned people don’t even have the information, and are unknowingly impacting their health, and their children’s health, in a negative way.
So rather than summarize the points made by educators in this arena, I simply suggest to my clients that they make the time to learn more. That way, they can at least understand the value of organic versus non-organic foods and decide what is best for them and their family. I can tell them what I believe is best, but until they make the decision themselves, they are unlikely to make any long standing changes.
There are countless resources available to those interested in starting this learning. Some resources to start: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, Food Politics, by Marion Nestle, and The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. For those of you who are more visually-oriented, Super Size Me, Food Inc. and The World According to Monsanto, (all documentaries) are another good starting point.
Leave a Reply