So the wife and I recently have started buying more organic foods when they go on special. Is there really a big difference in it? I mean I know a few Farmers at the market that don’t put pesticide on their crops, but they don’t sell as “organic”. Is there more to it than this?
What does organic really mean? What are it’s benefits? I don’t know if I can justify the cost of some of the stuff. Like $8 for a lb of chicken breAst!!!
What are your opinions on this? I would love to hear from some of you scientists and doctors on this matter!
So I have noticed a taste difference from organic meats vs non-organic. I have also noticed from certain vegetables. But not so much fruit and other stuff.
I try to buy organic whenever it is possible, but I won’t go through lengths to make sure everything is 100% organic. For me this is quite impossible anyway, as it already gets hard when grabbing some lunch in the office.
Apart from the obvious benefit (chemical treatment, pesticide) there is also the animal welfare point, which is important to me. I do understand that many folks do not consider this as relevant and often organic is simply a question of affordability, but I am happy to pay a small premium to get meat/fish from a source where the animals are kept/fed/slaughtered in a sustainable/humane manner.
In most cases, the taste will not differ at all. Pesticides and preservatives are made to have no impact on taste, but nevertheless they are chemicals that go into the food.
I will mention that I am fairly biased in this as my mother was a nutrition advisor and is sort of a “organic only!!” person.
The general theme since the industrial revolution has been the more humans fuck around with stuff, the more sick humans & the planet get.
Organic just makes sense. If you can’t get/afford organic, look at lists like ‘the clean fifteen’ and ‘dirty dozen’ at what has low chemical use & what has high chemical use.
Give organic a go for a few months & see how you feel physically & mentally when you eat something none organic.
You’ll be surprised how much inflammation you used to believe was ‘normal, just how it is’ when you notice the absence of that inflammation + when you reintroduce old chemical riddled shit you’ll be very surprised how bad you feel.
A BIG one I found was none organic instant coffee - every time I had that, 2 hours later I felt tons of inflammation in my shoulders, lower back & ankles, like horrible agitating levels of inflammation.
It’s also really weird now seeing none organic fruit - it’s HUGE haha! Like Frankenstein freaky huge. The apples in the in laws fruit bowl now look freakishly big. It’s kind of funny I ever believed something good could come of such a marked deviation from more naturally grown food.
There was an article on this site maybe 10 years ago about which organic foods made a difference and which didn’t. I can’t find it now, but my take away was to never eat non-organic potatoes as they had by far the highest levels of toxic sprays. Also never eat canned tomato. Glass jar is fine. (the tomatoes might have been from a different article). The article listed maybe the 5 worst non-organic foods, and perhaps 5 that didn’t matter at all.
By the way, I would only eat pasture raised eggs if possible.
My wife is a public health major, and specifically has researched organic and non gmo for a few years now. When we found out she was pregnant about 2.5 years ago, we went 100% organic and non gmo. Now I really have nothing to back this up, but compared to how many kids have allergies/developmental disorders/some sort of diagnosed issue these days, my son is 100% perfectly healthy, he’s 90% or above on his height/weight although not chubby at all for a 1.5 year old, he’s just big and tall, and being objective, he is well ahead of kids developmentally who are the same age. People constantly think he is 2 because of his size and development, however he’s just about 15 months. I agree with the more we screw with food the sicker everyone gets, and while I don’t have any proof I definitely believe that my son’s diet has contributed to his overall health and development.
