[articles.mercola.com]

thanks
patty

Great to know for budget reasons... but the #1 reason to buy organic is planet health. I'd like to see a ranking of those that tend to use more or less chemical inputs--I know for example, that potatoes (not raw, I just know this) are one where they really use tons of chemicals, and avoided conventional ones for that reason--environmental. It all ends up in the water we drink, so it's still health-related

plus i was wondering about nutrition level. organic soils are more nutrient dense than the soil conventional foods grow in right?
patty

thank you for this info. it's good to know for emergency food eating purposes, but i'm still going to continue to buy 100% organic produce.

I just bought some non-Organic Asparagus (from Peru) for my
Green Smoothie tonight. I got a large amount for only 2 Dollars
and Change......WY

Hi Friends,

Science is proving that organic foods are healthier for you and contain higher counts of vitamins, nutrients and antioxidants. Organic products typically cost 10 to 40% more than similar conventionally produced products. Processed organic foods vary in price when compared to their conventional counterparts. But it is possible to eat 100% organic if you systematically budget it.

You can find some great tips for budgeting organic food in the article linked below

[www.organicauthority.com]

asparagus in a green smoothie eh? verrry interesting. I have not gone there. I dunno if I am ready to go there.

anyways .better comment on the thread now.

pesticides kill the bees who polinate the flowers of the food we eat. no more bees..no more food.

zella Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> asparagus in a green smoothie eh? verrry
> interesting. I have not gone there. I dunno if I
> am ready to go there.
I've been using 4 Spears in every Green Smoothie.
It's not enough to alter the taste, and I'm not sure I'll
continue with the Asparagus when I finish this supply.
We are only Limited by our own Imaginations.....WY

I would still probably only buy organic, just for the health reasons. It's always fun to run into whole foods and see what variety they have that's new to organic. I'm always like.. "YES they have such and such organic today!" or whatever haha, and that sets my food plan for the next few days. I wish organic pineapple would start to get here dammit! I think it's an autumn fruit. Luckily there's loads of organic mango right now MMM

iLIVE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would still probably only buy organic, just for
> the health reasons.
I think you can still be Healthy living on
a little non-Organic. My Tomatoes (Campari) are not Organic.
I think it's more important to Live an overcoming Life. That
includes much more than just Diet....WY

I don't know about that guide.. I worked on a kiwifruit orchid where the owners dog strayed into the vines about 2 days or so after they had been sprayed and it either killed it or made it violently sick. Apparently they need longer than that to become safe, go figure.

I do agree with WY in that diet is only one aspect of health, but obviously the better you eat the better your health will be.

- i eat some organic and some conventional
- to use the Amount of pesticides found on produce is not a valid measure. tiny amounts of pesticides can be very toxic. so it's the types of pesticides used also.



this excerpt from link below

Perhaps most importantly, organic crops are less agressively watered prior to shipping because they are often varieties that have better diesase and pest resistance, rather then shippability characteristics. A water-logged crop is less able to defend itself and actually emits a pheremone that draws insects in from miles around. An ag professor of mine once called vegetables, “water in pretty wrappings,” as that’s what most conventional fruits are. Organic is more nutritionally dense because it’s less diluted. Bio-dynamic is actually even more dense than organic, though I’m sure the difference would be lessened if farms of the same size were compared, since organic superfarms are not all about the soil building. There’s only so much you can do within the mechanized paradigm of farms of over 50 hectares/110 acres.

While it is true that even mega-organic farmers do build the soil with important microbes found in compost that are better able to recycle nutrients and breakdown sub soils and parent materials for mineral nutrition, there is precious little difference for decades—much longer than the 2-5 year organic cert process for most farms. Vitamins, on the other hand, are more plentiful in short order.

Soils are complex and living systems that take thousands of years to build and VERY FEW to destroy. Hence, the problem w/ depleted soils Building a friable and well-textured soil does not a “healthy” soil make—it’s just a start.

The most mineral dense vegetables come when grown with fruit trees (as in bio-dynamics or permaculture) or using tree compost, as they are able to mine mineral nutrients from far deeper than the effective root zone (ERZ) of most crops (usually 7-45cm/3-18 inches). The exception to this is alfalfa, which has an ERZ of nearly 2m/6feet, so a mixed use system that incorporates grazing with soil building with alfalfa in a 5-7 year rotation is another alternative.

In short, not all organic is created equal. The mineral density (as opposed to the blanket term of nutrient density) is highly depended upon the techniques employed. I don’t believe in hoof and horn mixture, but I do believe in everything else the BD farmers use, and it has been proven in lab tests.

[goneraw.com]

another article

[www.nytimes.com]

Lightform and Fresh.....Your points are well-taken. I especially
liked the point about the pesticides used in other countries are
often illegal in the US.
I guess one just has to enter "The No-Compromise Zone", when it
comes to eating Organic, because you don't really know what you're
getting with Conventional......WY

Here is another interesting article that I received in my local raw food group's email distribution. I don't know if the original post was extrapalated from this, but there is a (safe) conventional produce list and also a (must be) organic produce list. Interesting note about GMO foods and the coding label system at the end which is probably of greater significance these days!

Good Article re: Benefits of Organic Produce / vs. Conventional vs.
Posted by: Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:19 am (PDT)

Organic or Conventional Food? Here are some guidelines.

The biggest study ever into organic food found that:

* Organic fruit and vegetables contain up to 40 percent more
antioxidants
* Organic produce had higher levels of beneficial minerals like
iron and zinc
* Milk from organic herds contained up to 90 percent more
antioxidants

Food grown in healthier soil, with natural fertilizers and no chemicals,
is more nutritious, although this knowledge is greatly suppressed in the
United States.

A 2003 study in the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry found that
organic foods are better for fighting cancer
<[articles]. mercola.com/ sites/articles/ archive/2003/ 04/26/organic- v\
egetables.aspx> . And in 2005, scientists found organically fed rats
experienced various health benefits, including:

* Improved immune system status
* Better sleeping habits
* Less weight and were slimmer than rats fed other diets
* Higher vitamin E content in their blood (for organically fed
rats)

Aside from the fact that organic food contains higher levels of vital
nutrients, organic foods are also lower in other residues and compounds
that are seriously detrimental to your health, such as herbicide and
pesticide residues.

Here is the list of foods you should buy organic, in order of
importance:

· Strawberries – very toxic

* Peaches
* Apples
* Sweet bell peppers
* Celery
* Nectarines
* Strawberries
* Cherries
* Lettuce
* Grapes (imported)
* Pears
* Spinach
* Potatoes

Locally-grown organics are best, and can local conventionally grown food
may be better than imported organic because organic farming standards
are questionable in many parts of the world.

On the flip side, the following 12 foods had the lowest pesticide load
when conventionally grown and are the safest conventionally grown foods:

* Broccoli
* Eggplant
* Cabbage
* Banana
* Kiwi
* Asparagus
* Sweet peas (frozen)
* Mango
* Pineapple
* Sweet corn (frozen)
* Avocado
* Onion

Now, we also have to watch out for GMO foods!

Much of our produce is now available in GMO varieties without being
labeled GMO. Even worse, many deliberate GMO field trials
<[biotech]. jrc.it/deliberat e/taxonomy. asp> are actually going on
all across the world.

In Hawaii, non-GMO papaya seed supplies are now seriously contaminated
by GMO seeds <[www.grain]. org/research/ contamination. cfm?id=165>
and at least 50 percent of organic seeds test positive for GMO! So
eating organic Hawaiian papaya gives you a greater than 50/50 chance of
eating GMO.

The U.S. does not require GMO food to be labeled. However, you can
determine if food is GMO by looking at its PLU code
<[www.plucodes] .com/docs/ IFPS-plu_ codes_users_ guide.pdf> . For
example:

* Conventional uses a 4-digit PLU code (Ex: banana: 4011)
* Organic uses a 5-digit code, starting with 9: (Ex: banana:
94011)
* Genetically engineered (GE or GMO) uses a 5-digit code,
starting with 8: (Ex: GE banana: 84011)

Here are other fruits LOW in pesticides, and OK to purchase as
conventionally- grown, IF you're not buying a GMO variety.

* Avocado – A new GMO avocado variety is scheduled to be
introduced this year that is immune to "stress" and pests,
per an Indian state report
<[209.85]. 165.104/search? q=cache:KBgzUcFx de4J:www2. ohchr.org/ englis\
h/bodies/cescr/ docs/info- ngos/GMOsIndia40 .doc+avocado+ gmo+patent& hl=en&c\
t=clnk&cd=7& gl=us> published in March, 2008.

* Bananas – The first GMO banana
<[www.gmofoodf] orthought. com/2008/ 02/healthier_ gm_bananas_ in_queens\
.html> with extra genes that increase its levels of pro-vitamin A and
iron is being grown in Australian field trials this year. At Cornell
University, researchers are also working to develop a banana
<[www.factmons] ter.com/spot/ frankenfoods1. html> that carries
the hepatitis B vaccine.
* Pineapple -- GMO pineapples
<[www.netlink]. de/gen/Zeitung/ 2000/000313a. html> , designed to
produce greater levels of proteins, vitamins and sugars may already
be on the market. Australia began this in 2002. The pineapple is
called "Smooth Cayenne," which has delayed flowering and
herbicide resistance. It also contains the tobacco acetolactate synthase
gene (suR from Nicotiana tabacum.
* Kiwi -- The transgenic variety of kiwi
<[www.springer] link.com/ content/t7x5m334 mr75254h/> fruit is the
Actinidia deliciosa from Italy
<[biotech]. jrc.it/deliberat e/dbplants. asp> .



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2008 03:06PM by rawangel.

Though non-organic foods are in my opinion harming the earth greatly, I am more afraid of GMO foods because no one really knows what they are capable of, so I just stick to organics and grow as much as I can myself.

I still prefer organic produce. The extra cost is worth it to me. Organic is more nutritious (coming from richer soil), it's less harmful to the producers and to the environment. Plus, even though it is more expensive a collective increase in demand will effect the supply. That will increase the number of sustainable farms in the world. Eating some non-organic things, like bananas for example, may not be as harmful to the consumer's health because the pesticides are unable to seep into the thick skin. Never-the-less the pesticides still leak into the water supplies of the people who live in the regions they are grown. The large companies in banana plantations are also known to spray chemicals right over the workers. This is correlated with high rates of cancer and infertility. Non-organic produce uses petroleum-based fertilizers that pollute the environment and harm rivers and oceans. I'll pay the extra so I can be assured of higher quality and environmental sustainability.

I prefer organic too, but at the moment I can't afford it most of the time. I'm glad I get some organic produce from my community garden, but most of what I buy locally is non-organic, because food prices are particularly high in my area.

Sharrhan:


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