Organic - hype or key to the castle?
read time: 3 minutes
Organic foods have gravitated from the “quaint” to the shelves of Wal-Mart. What’s the deal?
Back in the 1950’s “mono-culture” farming took hold. This is where instead of rotating crops, you plant the same crop over and over. The benefit was increased efficiency.
The problem… the soil gets depleted of nutrients.
When you rotate crops, different nutrients are used and different nutrients are added back in.
Plants need water and nutrients from the soil to grow. In turn, they nourish you when you eat them.
The amount of iron you got from one serving of spinach in 1948 (before mono-culture) now takes 60 servings… shiver me timbers, that’s a lot for even Popeye to gulp down.
True organic farming practices feed the soil and rotate crops. These veggies are more nutrient dense.
Of course organic crops also spare the pesticides.
So with organic, you get more of the good stuff and none or the bad stuff.
If you want to stretch your food dollars, focus on buying the organic grown version of the foods with the highest pesticide residue and the conventionally grown version of the foods with the lowest pesticide residue.
The Environmental Working Group did the research for you:
The Worse(most sprayed)
Peaches
Apples
Sweet Bell Peppers
Celery
Nectarine
Strawberries
Cherries
Pears
Grapes - Imported
Spinach
Lettuce
Potatoes
The Best (least sprayed)
Onions
Avocado
Sweet Corn
Pineapples
Mango
Asparagus
Sweet Peas
Kiwi
Banana
Cabbage
Broccoli
Papaya
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