Hi all,

When you eat raw foods, do you always buy organic foods?
What about the Sunset greenhouse produce sold in Costco (like bell pepper, eggplant..)

Also, Costco sells Acai organic original juice and is this juice OK?

Thank you.

no but its best to try and get as mush organic or find a local farmer that doesnt spray to keep as much residue out of your diet as possible

here is a common list of the *dirty dozen*

•Peaches
prayed with multiple varieties of pesticides. Plus, their delicate skin makes it easy for chemicals to penetrate the skin.

•Apples
Scrubbing and peeling can’t get all the pesticides off. The heavy waxing of apples also traps pesticides underneath.

•Strawberries
One EWG report found 36 types of pesticides on strawberries. Out-of-season, imported strawberries are the most risky.

•Grapes (especially imported varieties)
Another thin-skinned fruit, sprayed with 35 different pesticides.

•Cherries
Pesticides were found on 91% of the cherries tested in the EWG study.

•Nectarines
Pesticides were found on 97% of the nectarines tested.

•Pears
A pears delicate skin makes it difficult to scrub thoroughly and easy for chemicals to sink in.

•Red Raspberries
Their fuzzy exterior makes it difficult to wash off any of the 39 pesticides used.

•Sweet Bell Peppers
Thin skinned and heavily sprayed.

•Celery
The thin skin of this vegetable is sprayed with 29 varieties of pesticides.

•Spinach and Lettuces
Lettuces are frequently contaminated with what are considered the most potent pesticides used on food.

•Potatoes
In addition to pesticides, potatoes are contaminated with fungicides.

•Tomatoes
Their soft skin is easily penetrated by contaminants.

if course the more you can grow yourself the better

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2011 10:15PM by Jgunn.

What Jodi said, good post.

I try to buy organic as much as possible but wont fret if i cant find any decent produce. Alot of the organic produce in stores here is horrible and withering. The avocados i got recently looked perfect on the outside well within there date and when i cut open they were rotting, this has happened loads of times now.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

I buy about 70% organic.
My local farmer market doesnt sell organic, and due to the fantastic prices,I buy the other 30% there.

Organic is overrated, what is more important is eating living, cleansing foods, and regular fasting, and exercise.

RawPracticalist its articles like this that make me consider what I buy/dont buy organic

[www.treehugger.com]

34 pesticides on one batch of cilantro .. seriously? THIRTY-FOUR?!? that is alot of chemicals .. it certainly makes me think twice about organic .. not organic ...

of course i wouldnt starve in lieu of organic being available .. but i dont really agree that Organic is overrated

but really the best is grown your own ..as much as you can !

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Jgunn you got a point and think for the link. I grow indoor greens but still need to buy some more greens for juicing and organic is very expensive and not readily available

I try to always by organic... but today, I needed a red bell pepper for some kale chips, and the organic ones were a whopping $6.99/lb. I bought conventional for $2.39/lb. After reading what you wrote, Jodi, I wish I'd spent the extra money. You get what you pay for I guess. Darn... I have a huge batch of pesticide laden kale chips dehydrating right now

no problem cool you are growin yer greens indoors . Yes that is the problem with organic the price !

can you join a local community garden? or geurilla garden somewhere? there is a patch of land not far from me that i planted some fruit trees on that will be bearing fruit in a year or two ... unless it gets developed lol

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

I just get what I can. Right now organic greens, bananas, apples, carrots, celery, and cabbage are what I can count on to be good. All of those are pretty reasonably priced too. It's difficult to stay all organic in the winter. One way I deal with it is to eat less because I'm less active. In the winter I'm happy with a daily yoga-practice whereas in the summer I'm more active outdoors. I do a lot of organic herbs too. Those help me to only eat when I'm hungry.

I would say that if you can find good organic and afford it, get it because it's better. Otherwise, work around your limitations. Eat conventional if you have to. I just got a huge bag of conventional ruby red and pink grapefruit. They're delicious.

marsh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I try to always by organic... but today, I needed
> a red bell pepper for some kale chips, and the
> organic ones were a whopping $6.99/lb. I bought
> conventional for $2.39/lb. After reading what you
> wrote, Jodi, I wish I'd spent the extra money. You
> get what you pay for I guess. Darn... I have a
> huge batch of pesticide laden kale chips
> dehydrating right now


$6.99/lb for a bell pepper? I would go for the non organic one. Also it not sure it is really organic.

Marsh dont feel bad , at that price id probably would have bought the cheaper one too and just washed the heck out of it

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Sometimes I wonder if the organic produce at stores is really organic. At the farmer's market you can pretty much tell by looking at it, and you can usually even talk to the actual grower. I remember reading a post here years ago by someone who worked for Whole Foods. This guy said that we were all crazy for spending money on organic stuff because it's really no different than conventional. Who really knows. If I think about it too much, the food situation in our day and age is really depressing. Since I don't like being depressed, I don't think about it, and just do what I can. I do wonder sometimes, though....

My kale chips are almost done. I'm not going to think about the 34 pesticides on them oh god...

The organic produce here is often disgusting especially the greens.

Whats left on the shelf is almost always going brown or mouldy. Now and again you will see some decent organic broccoli or bell peppers, sometimes bananas too, all of which are lovely but still not worth forking out the extra money sometimes to find out its gone rotten.

A few times ive bought an organic avocado recently to find its mouldy inside at least 4 days away from expiration.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

I think I tend to agree with Raw Practicalist in general that organics are overrated. And in general, risks from pesticide residues to the general public are minimal. Cancer rates go down not up when people eat more fruits and vegetables in general. And those studies are done mostly on conventional produce, not organic. And organic produce may tend to produce more natural toxins than chemically treated produce. [onlinelibrary.wiley.com]

I think beyond that, the price differential between conventional and its organic counterpart can be excessive. Conventional kale grown in America at my local ethnic market sells for $ 0.79 per pound. It's organic equivalent at Whole Foods costs over $5.00 per pound, over 8 times as much as its conventional counterpart. That is excessive. I would never pay that given the data on organic health benefits I have seen or not seen as the case may be.

I sometimes buy an IPM (integrated pest management) kale from BJs (like a Costco) for around $2 per pound for a happy medium.

My rule of thumb is with all of the data I've looked at, I will never pay more than 2.5 x the price of conventional for an organic piece of produce under any circumstances. The tradeoff just isn't worth it.

If that isn't enough, the character of the organic food industry itself has changed as I wrote about here around a year ago [www.rawfoodsupport.com]. The original idea of small family farmer growing organic has largely given way to industrial organic as Professor Howard from Michigan State (my alma mater) has shown [www.msu.edu] [sidebar, the Spartans beat Indiana last night!!! yeah!!!! ] I think I would rather buy from a local farmer who can't certify organic but minimizes pesticides or chemical controls than buy from an corporate organic provider.

While I know this makes me look anti-organic, I'm not. I buy about 60 percent organic and 40 percent conventional by weight. By cost is more like 80 percent organic 20 percent conventional. I think buying organic in general is the right thing to do as long as the conventional alternative isn't better via cost, supporting local growers, or quality of produce (much of the organic stuff in the local coop should have been tossed).

Buying organic may protect workers from occupational exposures beyond what the general public is exposed to. Organic produce may be more nutritious to an extent than its conventional counterpart. In Becoming Raw, Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina present data that contradicts the data in the Winter and Davis (different Davis) report I presented above. I think organic probably is more nutritious overall. My question is at what cost?

And then there are special cases, such as systemics that are used in apples. Can't wash them off. Can't peel them off. The tree sucks them in and it's in the apple. I have a 9 year old son who is my heart and no compromises. And apples are on the dirty dozen, I think. Ok. So what to do?
Trader Joes, Giant, everyone has organic apples within my 2.5 limit. So, I buy them! Best.

Paul



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/29/2011 03:45PM by pborst.

I agree with paul. I have been drinking juices for more than 10 years and most of my juices are not from organic produce. I like organic and encourage it but I prefer to buy fresher non organic greens than pale old organic expensive produce.

I have to admit, I do grow a lot indoor greens including wheatgrass, sunflower, buckwheat that are organic so that help reduce the effects of non organic produce on my body. The key is to not overburden the body with food, you need cleansing foods, juices, regular fasting, and exercise. There are more steps more important than organic in maintaing good health, another one is deep breathing.

There are soooo many indoor greens that can be grown besides sunflower, buckwheat, alfalfa and clover. How about radish, mustard, kale, cress, beet, chard, etc micro-greens, and indoor parsley, cilantro, lettuce, spinach, claytonia, etc greens.

Good organic trumps good conventional every time in terms of purity and pleasure of taste. I'm pretty sure that I've eaten the perfect orange and the perfect tomato, both times they were organic. I also know that the better something tastes, the better I feel after eating it. I recently ate a plate full of tasteless conventional apples that had that sandy texture that apples sometimes get. When I was done I felt unsatisfied and sort of irritated. Maybe because my digestion was working for nothing? Yeah, I know, taste is a crude measure, but science is so corrupted these days by monetary interest that I can only rely on my instincts and observations of what certain things do to me in order to find my closest version of the truth. Texture and appearance are helpful too. It is a conundrum.

Better a Spartan than a Wolverine.

HeavenHands Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
.....
>
> Better a Spartan than a Wolverine.

Yeah unless you are both. I did my undergrad at Michigan State and my graduate at Michigan. When they play each other, I'm a Spartan all the way!!

Paul

I've mentioned before the $8.99/LB organic red pepper from Israel that I got at Whole Foods a few years ago, and how the cashier tried to stop me--"uh, this is 8.99 a pound, you know"--which made me shrug and go, "Eh, you only live once!" Best red pepper I had ever tasted, and have yet to taste anything like it since. Have I spent that kind of money on a red pepper since? Heck no! Conventional ones, or locally naturally grown ones, are good enough. I do try to buy organic almost exclusively, but am not a zealot. I buy local organic whenever possible though, because these days I care about the farm workers and the land as much as not putting organochloric pesticides in my mouth. I won't buy from local farms that used dangerous pesticides and don't protect their workers. I am lucky that I live in a farm state where there are a lot of natural and organic farms still. I think you must pick you battles more carefully if you don't, in this economy.

Tamukha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I do try to buy organic
> almost exclusively, but am not a zealot. I buy
> local organic whenever possible though, because
> these days I care about the farm workers and the
> land as much as not putting organochloric
> pesticides in my mouth. I won't buy from local
> farms that used dangerous pesticides and don't
> protect their workers.

How do you know?

I like organic but like Brian Clement says, the most important thing is if it's made with love. Living Foods for Optimal Health with Theresa Foy DiGeronimo.

Paul,

How do I know? I ask, or I ask other farmers not in direct competition. Occasionally, when I've gone to a farm and seen that they have Hispanics working in the fields, because I speak Spanish adequately, I've asked this or that worker, while hemming and hawing over pumpkins, say, "how things are going." Like most of us Midwesterners, our farmers are rather frank about their procedures. They know they have a buying demographic no matter what and that most people don't care about pesticides and what they do to the environment. It is always weird to see the Archer Daniels Midland signs in the farm fields. It's weird to think this is considered OK.

Id be happy to pay for organic produce pending it was actually good quality the few times recently when i have managed to pick up some organic bell peppers they smelled and tasted heavenly, it is then when you see how much flavour is lost with convential produce.

But 9/10 the organic produce here is already rotting or looks dead.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

John Kohler posted a video on this yesterday .. well .. growing your own vs. commercial organic

[www.youtube.com]



...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Organic all the way. I wont buy produce that has been sprayed. No way!
I know 2 organic farmers and seen their practices. Organic just makes sense...
environmentally alone should be the reason to only eat it. If i have someone been lied to about some of the farmers practices around the world, then thats a chance i'll take.
Terrible how much crap is being polluted on our food and earth.

I try to buy organic when I can afford to. Most of the produce I eat isn't organic.

Every time I buy Conventional I regret it the taste sucks and there is no vibrantcy,it's like eating something dead!

Can you tell by the taste that some produce you bought organic was not really organic? It is not always the case that what was claimed to be organic is

I wish.